Lenin in Power

Read the shared reading, "New Economic Policy" Answer questions 1 -4.

1. Read Source 20. What aspects of War Communism are the sailors most angry about? Would you expect peasants in Russia to feel the same?

The working classes hoped for freedom, but instead gained more slavery. They also said that "the glorious emblem of the workers' state -the hammer and sickle-has been replaced by the Communist authorities with the bayonet and barred window." The peasants in Russia probably would feel the same way as the sailors.

2. Does the evidence of Source 23 prove the NEP was a success? Explain your answer with reference to Sources 22, 24 and 25.

Source 23 does prove that the NEP was a success because the level of production under the Tsar in each category was moving downward, but once the New Economic Policy was made, the production for everything just shot up on the graph. In source 24, Bukharin says that "The NEP will transform the Russian economy and rebuild a broken nation. The future is endless and beautiful." Bukharin was pretty much right about the NEP transforming the Russian economy because everything got better after the NEP was made according to Source 23.

3. From all you have found about Lenin, do you agree with Source 26? Why or why not?

Yes because Lenin really did all he could to help the people and take out the government, but I think that he mostly did it because he was that determined to change the government into communism.

4. Write an explanation of how the Bolsheviks made their rule more secure.

The Bolsheviks made their rule more secure by the power of the Red Army because after taking the Provisional Government down, they gained military power and that had also gained the respect of the people because now they viewed the Bolsheviks as loyal heroes. The promise of a new society, for example their slogan "Peace, Bread, and Land", got the people of Russia's attention and got them on Lenin's side because that was all that they really wanted to hear and if he could really fix those problems for them then would become happy. Also the New Economic Policy helped secure their rule because when that was made, it increased the level of production in Russia.