Historical contexts on Sergei Eisenstein’s ‘Strike’: 19/20th Century Russian history
The Russian Revolution 1849- 1939
- Nicholas II – last emperor of Russia ruled from 1894-1917
- Huge Russian empire
- Late 19th century – rapid industrialisation
- Introduced communist ideas like Karl Marx theory- working class of Russia demanding greater representation
- Communism wanted to abolish social classes (e.g. no priests or kings) and believed the economy should be controlled by the central government
- Imperial Russian government was incompetent- agriculture was slow to industrialise and had numerous foreign policy failures which lead to conflict with the Japanese leading to the 1904 Russo-Japanese war. Russia didn’t want Japan to expand its influences on Russia
- Bloody Sunday- priest Father Gapon led a procession through Russia’s capital to present a petition to the emperor and the crowd was fired upon and killed- caused riots across Russia
- To end the riots, they made the reform to introduced political parties and elected assembly including a prime minster
- 1914- First world war- failure lead to war fatigue and food shortages which resulted in protests
- Vladimir Lenin- undermined the new provisional government and formed a rival one called the Petrograd Soviet and wanted to overthrow the existing government- promised food and the end to the war
- Lenin’s communist faction called the ‘Bolsheviks’ took to the streets and protested- the government open fired and arrested Bolshevik’s such as Leon Trotsky- forced Lenin to flee to Finland
- Lenin returned to Russia in order to overthrow the government and placed Trotsky in command of the revolution- the Bolshevik’s sized the Winter Palace (the seat of the Russian government)
- After the revolution Lenin announced ‘Three decrees’: Peace, Land, workers- he also brought in universal health care and education and increased the rights of women
- In 1917 Moscow as declared Russia’s new capital
- The treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave up territory to Germany in the Austro-Hungarian empire- although they would be forced to give this up in the treaty of Versailles
- After peace was declare the Czechoslovakian revolted along with the Bolsheviks- begun the Russian Civil war (1917-1922)
- Bolshevik’s were known as ‘the reds’ (Communists, socialists, anarchists) and those who opposed them ‘the whites’ (nationalists, liberals, conservatives, Allies)
- Britain, France, Japan and USA supported ‘the whites’ in order to reopen the eastern front against Germany- worried about the spread of communism
- The Bolshevik’s began ‘The red terror’- sending dissidents to work camps, shooting protestor, Trotsky holding families of general’s hostage
- It was clear that the Bolshevik’s were going to win so the Allies withdrew
- The collapse of the Russia and Austro-Hungarian empires meant that many people in eastern Europe were looking to establish their own nation boarders- wanted to expand their boarders and control and spread communism
- Lenin introduced the new economic policy
- 1922 Russian and its socialist republics (puppet states) formed the USSR
- Lenin died in 1924- Trotsky and Stalin took over
- Stalin ‘socialism in one country’ argued that socialism within the USSR should be strengthened
- 1929 Trotsky was excited from USSR and Stalin gained power
- Stalin introduced purges, assassinations censorship and a secret police force called the NKVD
- Stalin turned Russia from a struggling empire to a political and economic powerhouse
Emma Coe Film Studies 