Russian Revolution - Animal Farm Background Notes

1. Background notes
For
Animal Farm

2. Pre-Revolution

3.  Czar Nicholas II
 Tsar, Caesar, Kaiser
 Ruler with absolute power
 Took throne at age 26
 Alexander III died of kidney
disease at age 49
 Somewhat inept as ruler
 His father didn‟t want to teach him statecraft
until Nicholas was 30, but Alexander III died
before then

4. Czar Nicholas with his wife,
Alexandra; his four daughters,
Maria, Olga, Tatiana and
Anastasia; and his son Alexei

5.  Nicholas
was
married, 4 daughters,
1 son
 Alexei was sickly
(hemophilia)
 Inherited
 Rasputin
 Mystic who exerted
enormous influence over
the family, especially
Alexandra, because he
seemed to help lessen
effects of the disease

6.  Widespread drought  Anti-Semitic
& famine pogroms
 Refusal to agree to  Distrust of
Constitutional Rasputin‟s influence
Monarchy  Bloody Sunday
 Loss of war with  Bread Riots
Japan
 Defeat by a non-
Western power
brought down prestige
and authority of the
regime

7.  Peasants went to
Winter palace to
petition for help
 Starving
 Peaceful petition
 Were gunned down
 92 dead, several
hundred wounded
 Resulted in Revolt of
1905
 Revolt eventually put
down, but power of
monarchy was lessened

8.  Russian workers led by Trotsky
 Tsar‟s soldiers crushed the rebellion
 Trotsky was sent to Siberia for his role

9.  1917: WWI caused Tsar/Czar Nicholas II
to abdicate
 Causes:
 German triumphs, millions killed in WWI
 Nationwide poverty, injustices by czars (Bloody
Sunday), bread riots, other signs of popular
hostility
 Spontaneous revolt by workers in Feb., 1917
 Provisional Interim Govt. : Prince Lvov

10.  Riots:
 Lenin‟s speech: “The people need peace.
The people need bread. The people need
land. And they give you war, hunger, no
bread…we must fight for the social
revolution.”
 After the riots, Lvov banned the Bolsheviks (who
quadrupled in size), sent Lenin into hiding, and
arrested Trotsky (who was now allied with Lenin)
 Troops
refuse to fight: Bolsheviks take over
government buildings and the Winter Palace

11.  Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, overthrow the
provisional government
 Take over the Winter Palace as seat of new
government

13.  WW I caused  Later,
Nicholas &
massive deaths on family were
the front, and executed for
widespread treason
starvation at home  Firing squad and
 Revolution of 1917 bayonets
forced Nicholas II  Women survived
initial bullets
to abdicate the
 Diamonds and other
throne jewels sewn in dresses
 Imprisoned by the protected them
Later shot in the head
revolutionaries 
and stabbed with
bayonets

14. Later, two bodies were missing from the
basement where the Romanovs were
killed.
Rumors spread that the princess
Anastasia had escaped.
DNA evidence proves that to be untrue –
two additional Romanov bodies were
found in the nearby woods.

16.  Philosopher, Historian,
political theorist
 Socialism, not
capitalism or feudalism
 Wealth distributed
equally
 Capitalism only rewards a
few
 Lots of poor people
 “From each
according to
ability, to each
according to need”

17.  Groupof Russians: Meeting in Minsk in
March 1898, declaring themselves as a
party
 Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party:
Later became the Communist party
 Consisted of nine delegates representing four labor
unions, a workers‟ newspaper and the Jewish Social
Democratic Bund
 platform: overthrow of the Romanov rulers
 results of meeting: 8 of the delegates arrested upon
their return home
 Followed doctrines/teachings of : Karl Marx –
prophesied the collapse of capitalism and its
empires

18.  Lenin’s roots:
 expelled from
school for staging a
protest,
 while at home,
discovered the works
of Marx
 eventually got a law
degree
 Names: Vladimir
Ulyanov, also Meyer,
Richter, & Jordanov

19.  Travels:
 Switzerland to meet with
Marxist leaders
 Paris and Berlin to meet
with radicals
 arrested upon return home
and sent to Siberia until
1900 (there during meeting
in Minsk).
 Occupation:
 When he returned from
Siberia, he began a
newspaper organizing the
rebirth of the Social
Democrats beyond the
reach of the Czar‟s police.
 Caused a second meeting
of the party in Brussels in
1903

20. Bolsheviks Mensheviks
 After “Bolshoi” – big  Means minority
 Means majority
 Leader: Lenin  Leader: Trotsky
 Makeup: small, highly  Makeup: take any and
disciplined, secretive, & all supporters, find
vanguard of working partners, make
class coalitions
 Philosophy:  Philosophy:
Government run by Democratically run
small dictatorial group socialism
of professional
revolutionaries that
would tell the
proletariat (workers)
what to do

21.  After
the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin,
overthrow the provisional government
 Set up a dictatorship, with secret police
 Lenin is in charge
 Revised economic policy – prosperity for some
peasants (sold crops & paid taxes)
 Right-hand man: Leon Trotsky
 Military leader, led Stalin‟s Red Army in many
uprisings & revolutionary battles, including
the defeat of the “White” army (the nobility)
in the Civil War

22.  Premier/Foreign Minister: Lenin/Trotsky
 Cabinet: Lenin insisted on an all-Bolshevik
cabinet
 Constituent Assembly: Although Bolsheviks
won only 25% of the popular vote, and
moderate socialist groups won 62%, Lenin
disbanded the Assembly after one meeting and
banned all parties other than his own, which
he had renamed the Communist Party.
 Cheka: New police force, authorized to arrest
and shoot immediately all members of
counterrevolutionary organizations.

23.  Civil
war erupts
between
 Reds
 (Bolsheviks)
 Whites
 (anti-Bolsheviks)
 primarily displaced
nobility and foreign
interests
 War ends in 1918

24.  Military:
 peace with Germany, but forced separation of
Poland, Balkans and Ukraine from Russia;
 American, Japanese, British and French troops in
Russia, various anti-Bolshevik “white” armies
 Economy: in shambles –
 huge industrial production drops,
 runaway inflation,
 plummeting foreign trade,
 peasant crops requisitioned for the cities,
 widespread famine

25.  Deathof Lenin:
several strokes
from these
pressures

26.  Stalin  Trotsky
 Better political  Preferred by Lenin
maneuvering  Fought in Revolution

27. Stalin (meaning steel)
 political/military maneuvers:
 armed robberies to replenish Bolshevik
treasury,
 alliance with two of Lenin‟s top advisors, then
betrayed them,
 became basically the uncrowned Tsar of the
Russians (caused Trotsky to flee)

28.  Trotskywas exiled
and later
assassinated in
Mexico by Stalin‟s
agents
 Fate of Trotsky:
befriended by a
Soviet agent, then
hacked to death

29.  Drew up new constitution,
 Communist party the core of all
public and state organizations
 (only 10% of population in this elite
group).
 He held no party congresses and ran
things by himself

30.  Driveto become
industrialized
 economic policy:
forced
industrialization and
collective farming
causing millions of
deaths
 Series of Five-Year
plans to increase
economic growth

31.  Forced labor to cities
 Eliminated small farms to create large
“collectivized farms”
 Produce went to feed those building factories
and to sell for the financing of those factories
 Many farmers tried to revolt, severely punished –
killed or sent to Siberia
 Farm production drops, massive famine in Soviet
Union
 Decisions about farming made by bureaucrats
 Farmers were paid miserably – little incentive to work

32.  Arreststhroughout
the party and the
country
 Show trials to
eliminate any
opposition to Stalin
 Labor camps or
executions
 Forced confessions
 forced people to
confess to forms of
treason, corruption
and sabotage, all of
whom were put to
death

33.  The Cheka –
Stalin‟s secret
police (KGB)
 Coercion rather
than cooperation
 Propaganda

34.  Non-Aggression Pact
 Stalin allied himself with Hitler until Hitler
invaded Russia in 1941
 the Russians suffer heavy losses beating back the
Germans (20 million dead)
 Join the Allies
 fights against the Germans/Japanese
 at the end of the war, meets with Winston
Churchill & Franklin D. Roosevelt (Yalta
Conference) to forge a lasting peace treaty and
carve up Europe
 Note: Makes it hard for Orwell to sell Animal Farm

35.  February 4–11, 1945
 wartime meeting
 United States –
President Franklin D.
Roosevelt
 Great Britain – Prime
Minister Winston
Churchill
 Soviet Union – General
Secretary Josef Stalin
 Purpose -- discussing
Europe‟s postwar
reorganization.
 the re-establishment of
the nations of war-torn
Europe.

36. Russia Spain Italy Germany
Josef Stalin Francisco Franko Benito Mussolini Adolf Hitler
Totalitarianism: Government with strong central rule,
that controls individuals by coercion and repression

38.  Satire
 A literary genre that uses irony, wit, and
sometimes sarcasm to ridicule people, ideas, or
practices in an effort to improve society
 Allegory
 A story or tale that has two levels of meaning.
The first is a surface-level story, with a second,
and deeper level of meaning, which may be
moral, political, philosophical, or religious.
 Characters often bear names that indicate the
qualities or ideas the author wishes to represent.
 Personification
 Giving human characteristics to non-humans

39.  Utopia
 An ideal place that does not exist in reality
 Term comes from Greek words
 Outopia = “no place”
 Eutopia = “good place”
 Dystopia
 The opposite of utopia
 Horrific places, generally characterized by
oppressive societies
 Often shown as starting out as attempts to achieve
utopia

40.  Orwell replied that
though Animal Farm
was „primarily a
satire on the Russian
Revolution‟ it was
intended to have a
wider application.
That kind of
revolution, which he
defined as „violent
conspiratorial
revolution, led by
unconsciously power-
hungry people‟, could
only lead to a change
of masters.