The Decrees, the Constituent Assembly and Brest-Litovsk

What the specification asks for

“Bolshevik consolidation of power, including the significance of the 1917 Decrees, the closure of the Constituent Assembly and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk” — examined through change and consequence. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

The decrees

The Decree on Peace, issued the day after the seizure, called for an immediate peace without annexations or indemnities. The Decree on Land abolished private ownership of land without compensation and legalised the seizures peasants had already carried out — which is to say it granted what had happened and thereby bound the countryside to the new regime at the moment it most needed it. The programme was in substance the SRs', and the Bolsheviks adopted it because it worked.

Other measures followed quickly: workers' control in factories, an eight-hour day, the abolition of ranks and titles, the separation of church and state, and the nationalisation of banks. The Cheka was created in December 1917 under Dzerzhinsky, and the Bolsheviks briefly governed in coalition with the Left SRs until the latter resigned over Brest-Litovsk in March 1918.

The Constituent Assembly

The election, held in November 1917, was the freest national vote in Russian history until 1991, with universal suffrage and around 44 million votes cast. The SRs took roughly 40 per cent and the Bolsheviks about 24 per cent, and the peasant majority voted for the party that had always been theirs.

The Assembly met on 5 January 1918, sat for one day, refused to endorse the Bolshevik decrees, and was closed by the guard the following morning on the Bolshevik commander's instruction. Demonstrations in its support were fired on.

Lenin's justification was that a soviet republic was a higher form of democracy than a parliamentary one, that the SR lists had been drawn up before the party split so the vote did not reflect the Left SRs' separate position, and that the Assembly was an instrument of counter-revolution. Whatever the merits of the argument, the fact is not in dispute: a party with a quarter of the vote dissolved the parliament the country had elected.

That is the clearest single fact about what the regime was going to be, and it belongs in any answer about consolidation. It also removed the possibility of a legitimate opposition, which is why the conflict that followed had to be settled by force.

Brest-Litovsk, March 1918

Germany's terms were extreme and the Bolsheviks had no army with which to refuse them. Trotsky attempted a policy of no war, no peace; the Germans resumed their advance and the terms worsened. Lenin argued for acceptance on the ground that the regime's survival mattered more than any territory and that a European revolution would soon make the treaty irrelevant.

Russia lost around a third of its population, a third of its agricultural land, over half its industry and about nine tenths of its coal mines — Poland, the Baltic provinces, Finland, Ukraine and parts of the Caucasus. It was, at the time, the harshest peace imposed in modern European history, and it is the fact that makes the German complaint about Versailles in the Germany option answerable in one sentence.

The consequences at home were immediate. The Left SRs left the government and assassinated the German ambassador in July 1918 in an attempt to restart the war. Officers who had accepted the revolution regarded the treaty as treason, and the Whites gained recruits and an argument. The treaty is therefore a cause of the civil war as well as an act of survival.

It was annulled in November 1918 when Germany itself surrendered, which is exactly what Lenin had gambled on, though not for the reason he expected.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

26 October 1917 (OS)

Decrees on Peace and Land. Why this date: The land decree legalised what peasants had already done, which bought the countryside cheaply.

November 1917

The Constituent Assembly election: SRs about 40 per cent, Bolsheviks about 24 per cent. Why this date: The only free national election until 1991, and the Bolsheviks lost it.

5–6 January 1918

The Assembly meets for one day and is closed. Why this date: The single clearest statement of what the new regime intended to be.

3 March 1918

Brest-Litovsk signed. Why this date: Survival bought with a third of the population, and a direct cause of the civil war.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• About 40 per cent to about 24 per cent — SR and Bolshevik shares in the Constituent Assembly election.
• 1 day — The Assembly's life.
• About a third of the population and about 90 per cent of coal mines — Lost at Brest-Litovsk. (Figures vary by which territories are counted; the order of magnitude is standard.)
• About 44 million — Votes cast in the November 1917 election.

The people to place

• Vladimir Lenin — Ordered the Assembly's closure and forced acceptance of Brest-Litovsk against most of his own party.
• Leon Trotsky — Led the delegation and attempted no war, no peace, which cost Russia further territory.
• Felix Dzerzhinsky — First head of the Cheka, created in December 1917.
• Viktor Chernov — SR leader elected president of the Constituent Assembly for its single day.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The Charge of Continuity: One-party rule, the Cheka, government by decree and the closure of an elected parliament were all in place by mid-1918, so Stalinism inherited its instruments rather than inventing them. Contested by The reading that these were emergency measures taken in a civil war the Bolsheviks did not start, that the party debated openly until 1921, and that the leap to the scale of the 1930s requires its own explanation..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The Bolsheviks won the Constituent Assembly election.

This: They took about 24 per cent against roughly 40 per cent for the SRs, and closed the Assembly after one day. This is the most commonly reversed fact in the option.

Not this: Brest-Litovsk was a betrayal that gained Russia nothing.

This: It bought the regime the survival it needed and was annulled eight months later when Germany surrendered. It also cost a third of the population and helped cause the civil war. Both are true and the criterion decides which weighs more.

Two things students merge

Blurred: The Decree on Land and collectivisation.

The distinction: The 1917 decree gave peasants the land they had seized; collectivisation from 1929 took it back and more. Eleven years and an opposite direction separate them.

Blurred: Dissolving and losing.

The distinction: The Bolsheviks lost the election and dissolved the Assembly. An answer that says they dissolved it because it was counter-revolutionary has adopted their justification instead of stating the fact.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer treats the winter of 1917–18 as the point at which the regime's future was settled. A party with a quarter of the vote closed the parliament the country had elected, created a political police within eight weeks, and bought its survival with a third of the population — and every instrument used in the 1930s is visible in that list.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section A (a) (6 marks — “Describe TWO features of EITHER … OR ….”); Paper 2 Section A (b) (8 marks — “How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about …? Explain your answer.”); Paper 2 Section A (c) (16 marks — “Extract C suggests that …. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer.”).

What earns marks: The 24 per cent and the one day, together. Two figures that state the regime's character without any adjective, which is precisely how a Level 4 answer handles a contested judgement.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Describe TWO features of the Bolshevik decrees of 1917. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section A (a)]
2. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about the closure of the Constituent Assembly? Explain your answer. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section A (b)]
3. Describe TWO terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section A (a)]
4. Extract C suggests that the Bolsheviks consolidated power mainly by force. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer. [16 marks · Paper 2 Section A (c)]
5. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? Explain your answer. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section A (b)]

Decide it

This lesson feeds a Decide History judgement — a position you commit to, an objection you answer, a criterion you name: Was October 1917 a revolution or a coup?.

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson, in key topic 3: The April Theses, the July Days, Kornilov and October
• Next lesson: The Civil War and the reasons for Bolshevik victory
• Key topic 4 · The Bolshevik consolidation of power and the Civil War · Russia and the Soviet Union, 1905–24 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of Russia and the Soviet Union: Tsarist rule in Russia, 1905–14 · Opposition to Tsarist rule 1914–17: the impact of war and the February Revolution · Provisional Government and the Bolshevik Revolution · War Communism and the New Economic Policy (NEP)