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World History 2

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	After the Bolshevik seizure of the government and Russia’s hasty departure from World War I, Lenin moved to consolidate power in Russia. Civil war raged from 1918 to 1921 between the Red Army of the Bolsheviks and the White Army representing all the groups that opposed them, including the Russian upper classes, forces loyal to the monarchy, and Lenin’s enemies within the <OpenstaxTerm>Russian Social Democrats</OpenstaxTerm>, such as the <OpenstaxTerm>Menshevik</OpenstaxTerm> faction. Members of the <OpenstaxTerm>White Army</OpenstaxTerm> disagreed on whether they sought an anti-Bolshevik communist government or the return of a tsarist government. The <OpenstaxTerm>Red Army</OpenstaxTerm>, though smaller, had a focused goal and was better organized.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	British, French, Japanese, and U.S. troops all invaded Russia in support of the White Army and stayed until 1920, but they were unable to stop the Bolsheviks from seizing control. The civil war ended in 1921 with the Bolsheviks in control. Approximately 1.5 million soldiers had died in the fighting, but the civilian death toll was substantially higher—about eight million.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	During the civil war, Lenin and the Bolshevik leadership also sought to take over lands outside Russia that had been controlled by the now-deposed tsar. Lenin approached these regions with the goal of creating a federal state of republics governed by a <OpenstaxEm>soviet</OpenstaxEm>, an elected committee of workers’ representatives. Each republic in this new “Soviet Union” would represent an ethnicity and be nominally independent but ultimately under the central government’s control. Many of these areas fiercely resisted incorporation by the Bolsheviks.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	In 1919, for example, the Red Army invaded <OpenstaxTerm>Ukraine</OpenstaxTerm> and faced strong resistance, but by 1920, the Bolsheviks had taken control. <OpenstaxTerm>Belarus</OpenstaxTerm> was also established as a Soviet republic fairly easily. Both Ukraine and Belarus had some autonomy but had to rely on Lenin’s government to direct foreign policy. Other areas, like the <OpenstaxTerm>Caucasus</OpenstaxTerm>, proved more contentious. <OpenstaxTerm>Azerbaijan</OpenstaxTerm> and <OpenstaxTerm>Armenia</OpenstaxTerm> were incorporated by the Bolsheviks in 1920. The government in <OpenstaxTerm>Georgia</OpenstaxTerm> was heavily Menshevik and resisted Bolshevik rule, but in 1921 the Red Army took control of this region as well. In 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (<OpenstaxTerm>USSR</OpenstaxTerm>) was established. It incorporated the country of Russia and the regions Russia had absorbed as soviet republics under a new centralized national government quite different from what the revolutionaries had envisioned only a few years before (<a href="#fig-00012">Figure 12.8</a>).
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00012" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/da1b210fdf881854dfcd9dcff95a08029b8639d8" alt="This map is titled “Post-Soviet Union Independent States.” It shows the region of the former Soviet Union. The post Soviet Union states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan are shown." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1101" height="690" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1101">
	Figure 12.8 This map shows the region of the former Soviet Union with the post–Soviet Union states detailed. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The Bolsheviks had used the civil war to strengthen their control over the economy. This included wielding oversight of <OpenstaxTerm>industrialization</OpenstaxTerm> and taking steps toward the elimination of private property. The national government decided what could be produced and rationed goods throughout the country. Such control was held up as necessary to meet government and military needs, but the focus on top-down administration vied with the revolution’s slogans about workers having more power under communism.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	World War I and the civil war had created massive dislocations in the Russian economy. Industrial production had dropped significantly below prewar levels, as had agricultural production and particularly grain output. People were out of work, and prices had risen. The economy was essentially bankrupt. To combat these problems, Lenin abandoned the earlier economic approach, called <OpenstaxTerm>war communism</OpenstaxTerm>, and introduced the <OpenstaxTerm>New Economic Policy (NEP)</OpenstaxTerm> in 1921. The <OpenstaxTerm>NEP</OpenstaxTerm> kept the government in overall control of the economy, but it introduced some aspects of <OpenstaxTerm>capitalism</OpenstaxTerm>, such as giving peasants the ability to sell their produce on the market and allowing small businesses to operate through private not state ownership. This was not the pure socialist state Lenin had envisioned. Instead, it was an emergency response to significant hardships and growing discontent among the Russian people.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	By the end of the civil war, Russia’s <OpenstaxTerm>Communist Party</OpenstaxTerm> bureaucracy had grown quite large and intricate. There were multiple layers of leaders, from the local through the regional and national levels. One who began to exploit his understanding and control of this bureaucracy was Joseph <OpenstaxTerm>Stalin</OpenstaxTerm> (<a href="#fig-00013">Figure 12.9</a>). Stalin had grown up in poverty in the Russian Empire’s state of Georgia. He adopted the surname Stalin in adulthood because it meant “man of steel,” and he became a Bolshevik in the early 1900s. In 1922, Stalin became the Communist Party’s general secretary. This was not a high-level position, but Stalin realized he could use it to consolidate power behind the scenes. He controlled all appointments within the party and could ensure that only those who agreed with him achieved these positions.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00013" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/6d1f49275429beb72f5d6327cede42c220752d8d" alt="A man wears a military style uniform and waves with his right hand." mediaType="image/jpg" width="500" height="655" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="500">
	Figure 12.9 This 1941 photo shows Stalin in a style of military tunic that other Soviet officials adopted and that later came to be named after him. (credit: “Stalin in July 1941” by Nationaal Archief/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxTerm>Lenin</OpenstaxTerm>’s death in 1924 opened a power vacuum and a debate over the future of policy in the Soviet Union. There were two very different paths the country could follow. Favoring one path were leaders such as Leon <OpenstaxTerm>Trotsky</OpenstaxTerm>, the man responsible for making the <OpenstaxTerm>Red Army</OpenstaxTerm> a dependable fighting force during the civil war (<a href="#fig-00014">Figure 12.10</a>). Trotsky hoped to both increase industrialization and end the more capitalistic policies of the NEP. In particular, Trotsky hoped the Soviet Union could serve as an example to spur more revolutionary movements around the world. On the other side were those who wanted to continue the NEP and pursue a slower, less radical path to industrialization. Stalin, then in his forties, strove to keep out of these specific debates. He and Trotsky held opposing views on communist ideology and the future of the Soviet Union, but Stalin’s control over the Communist bureaucracy gave him leverage.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00014" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/ff84d2a1fcbd0c5c3b455ea1270506aa4229549e" alt="A man wears eyeglasses, a shirt, tie, and jacket. He stares directly into the camera." mediaType="image/jpg" width="500" height="630" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="500">
	Figure 12.10 This photo shows Trotsky in the 1930s, when he was in exile from Russia. (credit: “Leon Trotsky, 1930s” by Unknown/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	In 1927, Stalin expelled Trotsky from the Communist Party. In 1929, Trotsky was forced into exile. He was assassinated by a Soviet agent in Mexico in 1940. By the end of the 1920s, although the new Soviet government did seek to fulfill some of the promises Bolshevism had held out, the collective approach of the early years of the decade had devolved to one-man rule.
</OpenstaxParagraph>

12.2.1 The Birth of the Soviet Union and the Rise of Stalin

1 Understanding the Past

1.1 Developing a Global Perspective

1.1.1 World History as Preparation for Life After College

1.1.2 World History and Global Citizenship

1.1.3 Features of This Textbook

1.2 Primary Sources

1.2.1 Learning to Evaluate Documents and Images

1.2.2 Documentary Sources: Competing Narratives

1.2.3 Textual Sources: The Importance of Language

1.2.4 Hidden in History

1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History

1.3.1 Levels of Causation

1.3.2 Interpretation in History

2 Exchange in East Asia and the Indian Ocean

2.1 India and International Connections

2.1.1 The Mughal Empire

2.1.2 The Sultanate of Gujarat

2.1.3 The Rise of the Maratha Empire

2.1.4 European Colonialism

2.2 The Malacca Sultanate

2.2.1 The Rise of the Malacca Sultanate

2.2.2 European Malacca

2.3 Exchange in East Asia

2.3.1 Japan

2.3.2 China’s Dynastic Exchanges

2.3.3 Korea and Its Neighbors

3 Early Modern Africa and the Wider World

3.1 The Roots of African Trade

3.1.1 Saharan Trade Routes

3.1.2 The Spread of Islam

3.1.3 The Mali Empire

3.2 The Songhai Empire

3.2.1 The Rise of Imperial Songhai

3.2.2 The Reign of Askia the Great

3.2.3 The Decline of Songhai

3.3 The Swahili Coast

3.3.1 The Rise of the Swahili City-States

3.3.2 Slavery on the Swahili Coast

3.3.3 The Contest for the Swahili Coast

3.4 The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

3.4.1 The Role of Kanem-Bornu

3.4.2 The Arrival of Europeans

3.4.3 The Later Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

4 The Islamic World

4.1 A Connected Islamic World

4.1.1 Politics and Religion in the Ummah

4.1.2 Islamic Trade Networks

4.1.3 Technology in the Islamic World

4.2 The Ottoman Empire

4.2.1 Culture and Society

4.2.2 Expansion, Revolutions, and Reform

4.2.3 Science and Technology

4.3 The Safavid Empire

4.3.1 The Rise of the Safavid Empire

4.3.2 Establishing Shi‘ism as the State Religion

4.3.3 Safavid Government and Culture

5 Foundations of the Atlantic World

5.1 The Protestant Reformation

5.1.1 The Origins of the Protestant Reformation

5.1.2 Calvinists, Anabaptists, and Anglicans

5.1.3 The Catholic Reformation and the Wars of Religion

5.2 Crossing the Atlantic

5.2.1 The Rise of Maritime Nations

5.2.2 The Columbian Exchange

5.3 The Mercantilist Economy

5.3.1 The Rise of Mercantilism

5.3.2 Mercantilism and the Expansion of Empire

5.3.3 Mercantilism and Its Critics

5.4 The Atlantic Slave Trade

5.4.1 Slavery and the Triangular Trade

5.4.2 African and North American Slavery

5.4.3 The Economics of Slavery

6 Colonization and Economic Expansion

6.1 European Colonization in the Americas

6.1.1 Spain’s Encomienda System

6.1.2 English Settlements in North America

6.1.3 French and Dutch Settlements

6.2 The Rise of a Global Economy

6.2.1 The Seven Years’ War

6.2.2 British Influence in India

6.2.3 China’s Dominance in Trade

6.2.4 Colonial Resistance and Revolution

6.3 Capitalism and the First Industrial Revolution

6.3.1 From Mercantilism to Capitalism

6.3.2 Mechanization

6.3.3 Marxism

7 Revolutions in Europe and North America

7.1 The Enlightenment

7.1.1 The Authority of Reason

7.1.2 Natural Rights

7.1.3 Social Contract Theory

7.2 The Exchange of Ideas in the Public Sphere

7.2.1 Public Debate and Dissent

7.2.2 The Republic of Letters

7.2.3 Academies, Universities, and Intellectuals

7.3 Revolutions: America, France, and Haiti

7.3.1 The American Revolution

7.3.2 The French Revolution

7.3.3 The Haitian Revolution