UNIT NINE
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
Introduction-Background
At the outbreak of World War I, Russia was a backward nation. "Backward" means it was not where it was supposed to be in terms of its development as a modern nation. In four areas especially it was very backward. These areas were its industry and technology, its political system, its social structure and the educational status of its people. Let's study about each area in turn.
Technology and industry
Russia had hardly begun the Industrial Revolution when the war began. It had factories, but they made things in old-fashioned ways (had no mass production, no assembly lines; they still moved things around with ropes and pulleys) and the factories were filthy, dirty and unhealthful places to work. These factories would not be able to keep up with demand once the war began. Russia had trains, but she had nowhere near enough tracks laid, and trains don't do too well without tracks. During the war, Russia will be unable to move her armies fast enough; she will be unable to supply them, or provide them with food. The people in the cities starved because although there was plenty of food, there was no way to get it to the cities. At one point, the soldiers could use 3! bullets a day, that's all.
Political System
Russia had an absolute monarchy; the tsar had all power. A Russian tsar had more power than his counterpart in a Western country like Germany or Austria, for example. This was because he was the head of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as head of the state. This gave him religious as well as political authority.
Russia had no representative body with any kind of power. A representative body is an elected group of representatives, such as our Congress or the British Parliament. In Britain and the U.S., the representative body had an active part in making the laws; in other places, the representative body acted in an advisory capacity. But only in Russia did the tsar not have to pay any attention to it at all. This was, again, very backward.
Political parties were illegal in Russia before the revolution. However, this did not mean there was no political activity; it just went on in secret. There were three main political parties. The Christian Democrats, called Kadets for short, were moderates and wanted a government like the United States’ or britain’s. The Social Revolutionaries had Marxist leanings and were particularly concerned with the peasants and getting them some land of their own. The Social Democrats were the Marxists and by 1905, they had split into two groups, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. They wanted Russia to have a socialist society such as Marx described in his book.
In order to prevent meetings of the political parties and other dissidents, as well as catch "political enemies" of the tsar, and to create an atmosphere of general distrust (to discourage people from forming groups to dissent) the tsar had set up a secret police in Russia. It was called the Ohkrana. You never knew who might be an agent of the Ohkrana, so you had to be careful who you talked to and what you said. No other Western country had such a system.
Social Structure:
Russia still had a feudal society even though it was the 20th century and other countries had long since left this behind. A feudal society was a mainly agricultural society, in which an upper class of nobles owned most of the land and received all the benefits from it. A lower class of peasants does all the work on the land and in return they are allowed to live on the land. They paid ‘rent’ in goods (food they raised and things they made by hand) and services (by working on the land and also working on anything that the noble told the peasant to do). The peasants had to pay the noble fees. To get these, the poor peasants had to sell part of what the noble allowed him to keep of the crop. The peasant got little out of this deal. He got a small one roomed hut made of wattle and daub (sticks smeared with mud to hold them together); the hut had a straw roof with a hole in it. The hole was to let the smoke from the fire out; but it also let the rain in! Inside the hut had a dirt floor. It had a fire in the middle of the room. The fire was used for cooking and for heat. Any furniture the peasant had he made himself and was very simple. The peasants slept on bags of straw. The entire family, animals and all, lived inside the hut. Meantime, the noble lived very well! He had a big home, nice food, all the clothes he wanted; he had all the chances in life-to education, to travel, to fun. He got all the good jobs. He had a life style that cost increasing amounts of money. Where did he get this money from? He taxed the peasants! More and more all the time! If you use your imagination, you'll easily see that the Social Revolutionaries were right to try to make conditions better for the peasants.
Also, in the lower class, were the poor factory workers. As we have said, Russia had just begun the Industrial Revolution, and conditions in the factories were unhealthful and often downright dangerous. The pay was terrible, hours were long and there were no benefits. The Social Democrats moved among the workers and tried to recruit them to join the party by promising them a better life.
Russia had some middle class people. They also had a group of people called "intelligentsia"- these were intellectual types who enjoyed philosophy and learning and liked to discuss those things. By taking an interest in things like Marxism, they helped to spread the ideas.
However, other countries weren't set up like Russia. They had moved ahead of this kind of society. They had larger middle classes who made money and progress. They could pay taxes and keep their countries rich. Their nobles no longer had special privileges. In many countries, peasants could own land or, at least, rent it in the normal way, with money as we might rent a house today. Russia was at a disadvantage in dealing with them.
Educational Status:
In 1914, when the war began , most Russians were illiterate. They had little chance to get an education. They were too poor; they had to work; there was no time for school. This would present a big problem as the revolution proceeded, and these same illiterate Russians were asked to make responsible decisions about government. Other modern countries did not have quite the problem Russia did with illiteracy.
The Immediate Background and Revolution, 1914-1917
Getting involved in World War I was a big mistake for Russia. She could not sustain the war effort. Her factories could not produce the supplies needed for the war effort fast enough and the lack of transportation created more problems because what was produced could not be gotten to the front. All Russia had to offer was men to be killed. In spite of this , Russians greeted the war with patriotism. However, this quickly faded as the reality of war hit home. Food shortages developed in the cities because what trains there were were used to take food to the front. The government was not very efficient at dealing with these problems or in mobilizing Russia's resources to deal with the problems. By 1917, 15,000,000 Russians had been drafted into the army; nearly 4,000,000 men were killed in the first year of the war alone. There was a lot of criticism of the government over its inability to get munitions made and taken to the front. Nicholas then decided to dismiss the Duma (the Russian parliament) and take personal command of the armies in the field.
Nicholas then went to the front. However, the front moved on, and Nicky stayed put. At one point, there wasn't a front within 500 miles of Nicky. Nicky was dealing with things in his usual way: running away from reality. Meanwhile he had left his wife, Alix, in charge of the government in St. Petersburg. Alix kept a fake holy man-a starets- around because she thought he could keep her son from dying of hemophilia, a genetically carried blood disease in which your blood doesn't clot the way it should. Hemophiliacs are in more danger from internal bleeding than bleeding from cuts or scratches. Any little bruise could cause the hemophiliac to die. In those days, hemophilia could not be treated. Alix believed the starets, whose name was Grigori Rasputin, had stopped Alexis' bleeding a couple of times already. Therefore, she was convinced she had to have him with her all the time. Since the Russian public did not know of Alexis' disease, they assumed that Rasputin was having an affair with the tsarina. Rasputin, for his part, thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. He was an ambitious, grasping, greedy person who had the ability to manipulate people into doing what he wanted. Alix was a particularly easy mark for him because of the son, Alexis. Soon, Rasputin was running the government. The scandal was horrendous-men bought and sold offices, speculated in military supplies, and put in their own friends as ministers. In other words, Rasputin and friends ripped off the government royally. Finally, Rasputin was murdered by members of Nicky's family, who, no doubt, thought they was doing him a favor! Alix was distraught! She felt she could not live without him; she went into a state of depression and couldn't do anything, not even sign government decrees. Meantime, the country was falling apart.
The March Revolution
In February of 1917, a rumor went around St. Petersburg that there was only ten days' worth of flour left in the city. This was serious, because the main staple of a poor person's diet is bread. No flour, no bread! People panicked. Now, during war, most governments ration food. They do this so that each person gets a fair chance to get a share of whatever food there might be after the soldiers get theirs. Due to its incompetence, the Russian government had not rationed anything, so it was first come, first serve when it came to being able to get food. People hoard in a situation like this; they buy more than they need in case they can't get some next time. So, on this February day, as soon as they heard the rumor, people ran to the stores and lined up. Because of the hoarding, the stores ran out of bread. At the prospect that they might starve to death, those who got no bread rioted. They sacked the bakeries and were ready to cut into the sacks of grain that they found in the alleys of the city. Surprisingly, the police and the guards did not shoot them, but rather slit the bags of grain open for them and then joined the crowd of rioters. When Nicholas heard the news, he sent orders to stop the riots, and suspend the Duma, but no one paid any attention to him (he was still at the front). He then started back to St. Petersburg but it was too late. En route home, he was forced to abdicate (give up) the throne. The throne was then offered to Nicky's brother, Michael. Michael refused it.
The riots and revolution were a surprise to the revolutionaries. They weren't ready nor did they have leaders and a program ready to take over. Some of the revolutionaries were out of the country-Lenin, for example. On March 12, 1917, the Progressive Bloc of the Duma set up a provisional government to rule Russia until a constituent assembly could be gotten together. (A constituent assembly is a group of people that meets to write a constitution.) In the meantime, on the same day, March 12, leftists formed a "Soviet". A soviet is a council, supposedly made up of workers. It is a Marxist term you need to know and remember. The Soviet created a food supply commission, published newspapers, and created a 15-man executive committee of SR's and Mensheviks who became the policy makers of the revolution. The Soviet and the provisional government met in the same building and soon were in conflict. The people in the Soviet refused to be part of the provisional government. The two groups did not want the same things. The provisional government wanted to restore order, get people out of the street, and to carry on the war. The Soviet wanted to concentrate on the local issues of giving people food, letting the peasants have some land, and they definitely wanted to get out of the war! NOW! The things they wanted were more appealing to the average Russian at that time. Both groups agreed to grant civil liberties and to get together a constituent assembly. The provisional government was made up of Kadets and other moderates; it had one member of the Soviet in it, Alexander Kerensky, a SR.
The Provisional Government ( March, 1917-November, 1917 )
The provisional government was a complete failure. The people running it had too many things going against them. They wanted to set up a democracy like ours or Britain's but the sad fact was that they did not know how, nor was Russia ready for a democracy. Democracies cannot be created just anywhere-there seem to be certain conditions that have to be there for the democracy to succeed. Here are some of them:
First, the people in the country need experience in making political decisions by voting. Britain and the United States had hundreds of years of experience in making such decisions; in Britain, this experience went back to 1215 and the Magna Charta, and to Simon de Montfort's Parliament. In the United States, the experience went back to colonial days, when the English settlers set up the same type of government that they had at home; each colony had a little Parliament and the settlers participated in making the rules and laws for their colony. When we set up the government we have today, we based it on the British government; we changed some things (like how we elect our president. for example) but for the most part our government and Britain's are very similar. Children in both the Untied States and Britain grow up knowing they will vote one day, and our schools and organizations give children opportunities to learn to vote for people-to learn what sort of characteristics one might want to have in a student leader, for example. Russians had NEVER participated in their government! You right now have more experience with making choices by voting than an adult Russian in 1917! They had NO idea how to make political choices; they couldn't read a newspaper to find out about people or issues, so they naturally would make poor choices. People who have experience with voting can't be as easily manipulated as someone who hasn't; you would not be as easily bribed to vote a certain way, for example, as an ignorant Russian. Also, the country needs experience in running elections so that people don't cheat. You have to learn things, for example, you need to keep records of who has voted already so they can't come back and vote again! You have to be mature enough to live with the results of an election. You don't throw out the ballots of the people who didn't vote for you, for example, and then say you won!
Secondly, the people of the country need to be educated enough to make wise choices. Both Britain and the United States have and have had, a high degree of literacy-which means most of us can read and write. The Russians, as you have already learned, were mostly illiterate. They could not inform themselves about people and issues.
Thirdly, the country needs to have fairly stable conditions in it. War, depression, civil war-these type things-put a real damper on a democracy-especially a new one. People tend to need and want more leadership in such times. Russia was both fighting a war (and losing) and its economy was shot; there were so many poor and starving people.
Fourth, the people of the country need to respect each other as equals. You will not agree with everyone, but you can be willing to respect the other person's right to have his own ideas on a subject. If you believe, for social reasons, that a person is lower than you, it becomes very hard to respect that person's ideas. Russians, remember, had not yet come out of feudalism; feudalism is based on the idea of social inequality. Russians weren't ready to listen to another's ideas, especially if that person came from a lower class.
So, the provisional government had a lot stacked against it, and it did not succeed because it could not deal with the problems. Here are the reasons why the provisional government failed:
Two great issues faced the provisional government immediately. One was whether to continue the war. The other was the unhappy peasants, who were seizing land from the nobles now that revolution had begun. The provisional government did not want them to do this and tried to stop them. This made the peasants mad and they revolted, adding to the disorder in the countryside. The provisional government created a committee to study the problem and recommend agrarian legislation, but this didn't satisfy the peasant who wanted something to happen immediately! As to the war, the provisional government thought they should honor the tsar's commitments. They also unrealistically hoped they could win and get the goodies promised to them by the Allies. Also, there had been a hint from the Allies that might be some money in it for them if they stayed in the war. However, the Soviet, who wanted out of the war, subverted discipline in the army by issuing a "declaration of rights of soldiers" which virtually ended the authority of the officers over their men. The relationship had never been good, anyway-the officers were all nobles and the enlisted men were peasants; class hatred had prevented constructive cooperation on the war effort. Now, the soldiers felt they could defy the officers; they could disobey and run away if they wanted to. The Bolsheviks now demanded peace negotiations begin at once.
Lenin
In April of 1917, Lenin returned to Russia. It seemed to him that power "was just lying around in the street waiting to be picked up" and he did not intend to let that opportunity pass. He talked the Germans into helping him get back to Russia by telling them that if he, Lenin, got back to Russia, he'd stir up so much trouble that Russia would be too busy to fight, and that when he had established himself in office, he would immediately sue for peace. The Germans thought "why not?"; it was a particularly sneaky and cruel joke to play on the Allies, and it would pay off well for them if Russia did , indeed, have to drop out of the war. Therefore, they transported Lenin back to Russia in a sealed boxcar. Lenin was received joyfully by his Bolshevik comrades. The provisional government was in a difficult position; if they arrested Lenin as being a danger to the state, they would make hypocrites of themselves; they had promised people that they could have civil rights, one of which is that you can join a political party and assemble without being stopped or even harassed, as long as you don't do violent things. Lenin, of course, planned violence, but he hadn't done any yet, so the provisional government let Lenin go on with his work of organizing the Bolsheviks into a revolutionary fighting force and plotting against the provisional government.
Some background on Lenin fits in nicely here. Lenin was not the man's real name. He was born Vladymir Ilyich Ulianov in Simbirsk, a town on the Volga River, in the year 1870. He was the son of a provincial school inspector and was a member of a happy and close family. Lenin especially admired his older brother Alexander; Alexander got involved in revolutionary activity and was eventually executed. This affected Lenin deeply and was probably part of why he became a revolutionary. Lenin saw to it that he was well-educated; he was brilliant; he read incessantly, and he wrote a lot on many subjects. He moved to St. Petersburg in 1893, where he joined a law firm. He made a name for himself as a Marxist. By 1895, he'd gotten himself arrested and exiled. He returned to St. Petersburg from exile and started a newspaper called Iskra. This was supposed to be a unifying influence for the many secret Marxist organizations in Russia. The first number was published in December 1900. It was published abroad and then smuggled into Russia. It was very successful. Lenin was exiled again from Russia; he returned in 1905 for the revolution then, and then left the country again when it failed. In 1903, the Russian Social Democratic Party split into two groups the Bolsheviks(majority) and the Mensheviks (minority). Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks, the more militant and revolutionary of the two groups. (Lenin was an alias that meant "nobody"-he was always wanted, you know-pretty clever alias). Lenin considered the First World War to be a product of capitalistic imperialism, and either wanted it stopped, or better yet, turned into a class war. Once he heard about the revolution in Russia, he was anxious to get back there. That's when he talked the Germans into sending him back.
The revolution posed a problem for the Marxists. They did not know whom to support. Russia was not industrialized. Therefore, it had no proletariat. It didn't have a large middle class. It wasn't ready for the big class war. Lenin believed that Russia had not even gotten to stage 1! (the feudal stage) and that she had to go through all the stages. Therefore, Lenin was willing to support the provisional government's attempt at democracy since a middle class government was one of the stages. There had to be a bourgeois government to overthrow. Also, the civil rights granted by the provisional government would help Lenin to organize and recruit followers. No one could arrest them. Leon Trotsky, another Bolshevik, and Lenin's main rival, disagreed. He believed some of the stages could be combined; "telescoped" as he put it. Trotsky was also interested in spreading the revolution, because he believed it could never be safe in Russia unless it was successful outside Russia, also. Lenin disagreed; he said Russia could survive as the only Marxist nation. Lenin and Trotsky never resolved these issues and remained rivals.
Lenin also had his own ideas of how the party should be organized. He did not trust the masses to make a revolution so he favored the creation of a party dictatorship over the working class. Since he did not trust the rank and file Bolshevik party workers, he favored the creation of a party elite who would dictate to the rest of the party. Since, in the end, he trusted no one but himself, he favored a dictatorship by the party leader (himself) over the rest of the party.
When Lenin arrived back in Russia, he got to work to bring on the "revolution". He wrote papers and made a speech known as the "April Theses". This called for a) getting rid of the provisional government, and setting up a republic of soviets; b) confiscation of the great estates (that means taking the land from the noble); c) abolition of the army, the police and all government jobs; d) end of the war e) nationalization of land. His rallying cry was "All power to the soviets!". This was, of course, very popular with the poor and the peasants.
Lenin then proceeded to organize the Bolsheviks into a truly revolutionary fighting force ready to seize power when the right moment came. He used them to undermine and work against the provisional government. The provisional government did not arrest Lenin because it had promised everyone civil rights and you can't arrest someone for organizing a political party. Of course, Lenin kept his real intentions to himself and worked behind the provisional government's back, so they really didn't know how much damage he was doing. He published his party newspaper Pravda(Truth), wrote anti-war propaganda and organized the Red Guard. The Germans gave him money to do this. Remember, they are helping Lenin because they hope he will cause so much trouble that Russia will have to drop out of the war.
The November Revolution
That summer, in July, of 1917, the provisional government tried to resume the war. It did this because it wanted to get the things promised to Russia by the Allies (one of those things being the Straits of Dardanelles) and because it was an honorable group of people who felt an obligation to live up to Russia's promises. Also, there was a promise of a loan to Russia if she stayed in the war. The Soviet was very opposed to this move. At this point, Kerensky emerged as the dominant leader of the provisional government. What Kerensky did not realise was that the Russian people would no longer support the war even a little bit. The armies, tired, and lacking good leadership, and with heads full of Bolshevik propaganda, simply refused to go on. No one showed up at the war! Instead, the soldiers ran home to their villages to seize land. Due to Lenin and Trotsky's hard work at organization and recruitment, the soviets were becoming more and more Bolshevik in their views. At this point, the provisional government began to catch on to Lenin's activities, and they called him a "divisive agent of Germany" and were thinking about arresting him. Lenin figured out that he might be arrested, so he decided to leave Russia for awhile and lie low! He left Trotsky behind to continue the work.
In September, Kerensky appointed General Kornilov to be the Commander in Chief of the Russian armies. Kornilov used his position to organize a plot to take over the provisional government, and disperse (throw out) the Soviet. The Soviet, fearing Kornilov, supported Kerensky. When Kerensky got wind of the plot, he dismissed Kornilov, but Kornilov would not leave. It looked as though Kornilov would march against the provisional government. As they certainly did not want Kornilov in power, the Bolsheviks supported Kerensky and together with the rest of the political groups, they arrested Kornilov and the coup was averted (avoided). However, the idea of it scared people into being afraid of the conservative people-afraid that the conservatives might put things back together the way they had been. This made many people support the Soviet and the Bolsheviks.
The Kornilov affair turned the army mutiny into widespread revolt. Farms were burned, manor houses were destroyed and landowners were killed. Peasants took over these lands, and of course, would not want to give them up, even though they were in possession of them illegally.
In the midst of all this disorder, Lenin returned to St. Petersburg, figuring it was pretty safe now. Trotsky told the people that Kerensky was going to hand St. Petersburg over to the Germans, which enabled him to gain control of a committee whose purpose ostensibly was to defend the city; its real purpose was to organize a staff for the revolution. The committee planned carefully what to do. They pinpointed every bank, every communication center, every transportation station and all power stations, and waited for the right moment. On November 4, Trotsky held large demonstrations and mass meetings and on November 7, the revolt against the provisional government began, just as Trotsky had planned. The provisional government was unable to do a thing-the Bosheviks had cut off all communications and transportation to the outside. The Bolsheviks walked in and arrested the members of the provisional government. The whole takeover went so smoothly there was hardly any bloodshed. Trotsky's committee took over. On November 8, a Congress of Soviets opened. The Mensheviks and SR's soon walked out, because they didn't agree with the Bolsheviks' actions in taking out the provisional government. They didn’t agree with the Bolsheviks’ methods of taking the provisional government out. Trotsky remarked that they "were garbage that would be tossed into the trashcans of history"! The rest of the Congress, which now had a majority of Bolsheviks, passed the following decrees: a) to seek peace immediately b) to abolish private ownership of the big estates, whether it be by individuals or the church. The land would be brought under the control of land committees and peasant soviets c) a 15 member "Council of People's Commissars" would be formed. Also an All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets was elected. The Council of People's Commissars was headed by Lenin ; the Commissar for Foreign Affairs was Trotsky and Stalin was the Commissar for Nationalities. This job involved keeping Russia's many ethnic groups happy. "Commissar" was a Marxist term that meant minister; Marxists thought the term "minister" was too middle class!
Early Legislation
The following are some of the new laws which the Council of People's Commissars passed: The Council gave itself the right to shut down "hostile" newspapers. Class distinctions were ended. Women were given "equal rights"; in the army, all ranks were abolished, and it was suggested that leaders be elected, except for the Red Army, of course! The law system was replaced by "people's courts" and elected judges. At this time the first secret police of the Bolshevik government was organized. It was called the Cheka. The name of the party was changed to the Communist Party. "Communist" came from the last stage of the revolution in which a perfect place was achieved. (see chapter on Industrial Revolution). In the area of economics, the following were passed: The State Bank was nationalized-that means the government took it over. All private banks were then nationalized, and all the money and valuables were taken by the government. You were no longer allowed to buy and sell bonds and stock, nor could you get a loan. Foreign trade was nationalized.
Constituent Assembly
Support of the constituent assembly was the one thing all revolutionary parties agreed on in 1917. Defense of the constituent assembly against the supposedly sinister designs of the provisional government was one of the Bolsheviks' excuses for the November Revolution. Therefore, even though Lenin did not like the idea of a democratically elected body of constitution writers, he felt obligated to have the elections. He had made too much noise about it. It would look really bad if he did not follow through. So, in late November , the elections were held. The Bolsheviks won only 25% of the vote, the rest going to the SR's (62%) and other parties (13%). This would definitely make the Bolsheviks a minority at the assembly meetings, which was a situation Lenin and the Council of People"s Commissars would not allow. In December, Lenin announced that if the Constituent Assembly wished to survive, and be allowed to meet , it had to accept "Soviet power, Soviet revolution, and Soviet policies of peace, land , and workers' control." The alternative was a "solution by revolutionary means".
The Constituent Assembly held its first and only meeting January, 1918. It rejected Lenin's command above, whereupon the Bolsheviks and their friends got up and left. The other delegates stayed there until they were thrown out for the day. Twelve hours later, the Central Executive Committee (part of Lenin’s government) dissolved the assembly and Bolshevik soldiers prevented the delegates from meeting. No one said a thing about it. Russians did not have enough experience to know that what had just been done was illegal. This was the last chance Russia had had for a democratically run government.
For the purposes of review, here is a list of things the Council for People's Commissars had done by 1920:
Civil War
From 1918 until 1921, Russia was engaged in civil war. Civil war is when the people of a country fight each other. In the Russian civil war, the Bolsheviks, nicknamed the "Reds" fought their collective enemies, the "Whites". The execution of Tsar Nicholas and his family was part of this civil war; the Reds feared that the Whites would come and rescue them. The Allies intervened in this civil war because a) they wanted the vast stock of war supplies they had given Russia back, and b) they were mad at the Reds for repudiating the debt, and c) they feared the spread of communism. (This fear of communism spreading dictated more than one Allied decision in the 20th century. In fact, the western countries were obsessed with this fear, including the United States). The Whites were doomed to failure in their effort to get rid of the Bolsheviks. The White side included all of the opposition to the Reds and they were not agreed on what to do.
The intervention of the Allies probably did more harm than good, as many Russians resented the interference and supported the Bolsheviks against the "enemies". There was no dramatic end to this civil war. People just got tired of fighting and getting nowhere. The Allies went home, without getting anything they came for. For the next several years, the Allies were too busy with their own concerns to bother about Russia. The Bolshevik regime entrenched itself in those years. After 1921, there was no chance of removing it. It stayed there until 1989; there were few significant changes in it in all those years.
Post Script
Some terminology to learn: In 1918, the Bolsheviks became "Communists". They were "Communists" all through the rest of the 20th century. There are still probably a good many of them left in Russia today. As Communists, they spread their ideology into China in the late 40's; to Eastern Europe right after WWII; and to Castro's Cuba in the 50's. Chinese Communists tried to spread the ideology throughout the Far East, which caused great concern on the part of the United States. To prevent this spread, we fought wars in Korea in the early 50's and in Vietnam in the 60's. Neither was a particularly successful attempt, as the Communists regained their territory as soon as we left!
You need to remember that the term "Communist" refers to the Bolsheviks and their variety of Marxism. It DOES NOT refer to all Marxists. You cannot say Marxist if you mean Communists, because not all Marxists in the 20th century were Communists.
Questions
UNIT TEN-Weimar Republic and Rise of Hitler