NCSS Theme # 7 Lesson Plan: Production, Distribution and

Consumption


Lesson Title: Causes of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, 1917

Lesson Author: Robert Atkinson, Ansis Nudiens

Key Curriculum Words: scarcity, economic inequality, industrialization, intensive and
extensive production, World War I, tsar, landless peasants, resources.

Grade Level: 12
th
grade World history

Time Allotted: 90 minutes

Purpose
The purpose of this lesson is to explain causes of the Bolshevik Revolution and to
emphasize the importance of economic wealth and equality for a political stability in
Russia and in every country in general. As well the purpose is to help students to develop
their skills of reading, analyzing, assessing and processing information.
Background/Context
This lesson will be aimed to address the SOL requirements for WHII 10, section c and
CE 11 section a and b. It was designed for a 12 grade World history class and is
intended to demonstrate coherence between economic wealth and political stability.
Key Concepts:
Capitalism;
Marxism;
Socialism;
Communism;
Industrialization;
Landless peasantry;
Serfdom;
Exploitation;

SOL Objective (Essential Knowledge and Skills)
WHII.10 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the worldwide impact of World
War I by:
c) Citing causes and consequences of the Russian Revolution.
CE.11 The student will demonstrate knowledge of how economic decisions are made in
the marketplace by:
a) Applying the concepts of scarcity, resources, choice, opportunity cost, price,
incentives, supply and demand, production, and consumption.
b) Comparing the differences among traditional, free market, command, and
mixed economies.

NCSS Theme
The lesson will be focused on NCSS Standard number 7, which is Production,
Distribution and Consumption
NCSS Indicators
provide opportunities for learners to assess how values and beliefs influence
economic decisions in different societies;

have learners compare basic economic systems according to how rules and
procedures deal with demand, supply, prices, the role of government, banks, labor
and labor unions, savings and investments, and capital;
challenge learners to apply economic concepts and reasoning when evaluating
historical and contemporary social developments and issues;

Guiding Questions
Is army of Russian Empire successful in the World War I?

What is the biggest class in Russian Empires society? Is this class wealthy?


How big and how effective is industry in Russian Empire before 1917?

What are promises to society given by revolutionaries?

The Days Big Question
What are the causes of Bolshevik revolution? What role for this revolution plays
economic wealth of society?
Lesson Objectives
1. Students will be able to process analyze information using video and printed materials
selecting important information and examining the economic conditions and causes of
revolution in Russia.
2. Students will be able to explain coherence between production, economic conditions of
people and political stability. Students will be able to explain responsibilities of
government before its people.
Assessments
Using materials and sources students will discuss the economic and politic conditions in
Russia and causes of Bolshevik revolution. This discussion, which is based on video and
printed materials, will determine students ability to process given information. At the
end of the class students will fill out and hand in as they go an exit slips which will be
assessed formative.

Materials
Textbooks
White (or Smart) board
Projector
Internet access




Just Do It! (15 minutes)
Students will fill out a blank map (http://faculty.unlv.edu/pwerth/Blankmap-Europe-
1914.jpg appendix 7a) of Europe during World War I and answer one question (10 min.)
Students will indicate in this map: a) situation of war at the beginning of year 1917
(frontlines and most important battles); b) countries and armies involved in this war
(January 1917). Students will answer those questions: a) what are the most successful
countries in the war at the beginning of year 1917? Explain why! b) Which country has
the biggest economic advantage in the war (most advanced industry, colonies, control
over trade routes etc.)
Students will share their answer and compare their maps with map projected on the white
(or smart) board (5 min.) Map => http://media.maps.com/magellan/Images/USAH070-
H.gif (also see appendix 7b)
This will be based on students knowledge on World War I from previous classes in the
unit.

Activities (65 minutes)
Video (10 min.)
1) Demonstrate video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0RgFDM9ZvE on
Bolshevik Revolution
2) While watching the video students are gathering information and answering
questions in worksheet (appendix 7c)
Materials and sources (55 min.)
1) Hand out materials and sources (appendix 7d) and worksheet (appendix 7e)

2) Students will read and examine materials and sources and answer the questions
on question sheets (35 min.)

3) After individual examination of materials students discuss and compare
answers with their partners (5 min.)

4) Students share their answers and discoveries in class and with teachers
assistance picks the most important causes of revolution. In this discussion
students try to figure out what is the coherence between economic wealth and
political stability (15 min.)


Closure (10 minutes)
Students will fill out an exit slip (Appendix 7f), where they indicate their understanding
on Bolshevik Revolution. Students will provide their conclusions on the issue. This
assessment will be formative and they will hand it in as they leave. The exit slip
assessment is designed show student understanding of the SOL standard WHII 10 c and
CE 11 a b, as well as the lesson objectives, which are also based on this SOL standard.

Diverse Learner Accommodations
Students will start by learning the basic information on their own and it will build
toward more complex thinking and understanding. This will help slow learners
We will be discussing everything the individual students do as a group, so
everybody is on the same page
Both audial and visual learners will be helped, because there are charts that help
put things into context for visual learners, and discussion to help visual learners
IEPs that require students to get extra time on assignments will not be necessary,
as these assignments are not for grades, and it is expected that some students will
not finish. The discussion at the end of each section will allow for these students
to learn the required information, regardless of whether or not they have finished.
















JUST DO IT!

1. Indicate in the map!
a) Situation of war at the beginning of year 1917 (frontlines and most important battles);
b) Countries and armies involved in this war (January 1917).
2. Write down answers to these questions!
a) What are the most successful countries in the war
at the beginning of year 1917? Explain why!
b) Which country has the biggest economic
advantage in the war (most advanced industry,
colonies, control over trade routes etc.)

MAP

http://media.maps.com/magellan/Images/USAH070-H.gif






WORKSHEET (video)

Question Answer
What is the form of government in Russia before
revolution?

What is the name of ruler in Russia before
revolution?

When the revolution takes place?
What Lenin and the Bolsheviks are promising to the
people?

What people and revolutionaries are expecting from
revolution?

What changes take place after the coupe in October?





MATERIALS

Peace, Bread and Land! All power to the Soviets!
Political Slogans of the Bolshevik Party (1917)

(A)
Russian Revolution Timeline
1881. Alexander II is assassinated. Alexander III becomes Czar and represses dissent in
Russia.
1894. Nicholas II becomes Czar
1903. Social Democrats Party splits into Menshevik and Bolshevik factions.
February, 1904. Japan attacks Russian troops at Port Arthur.
January 22, 1905. Bloody Sunday. Troops open fire on demonstrators in Petrograd.
October, 1905. October Manifesto by Czar Nicholas II provides for a Russian Parliament
(Duma).
August 1, 1914. Czar Nicholas II mobilizes Russian troops on the Eastern Front for war
with Germany.
March, 1917. Soldiers mutiny and food riots in the cities. The Parliament creates a new
Provisional government.
March 15, 1917. Czar Nicholas II abdicates and Russia becomes a republic.
November 7, 1917. Bolsheviks seize control over Petrograd
November 8, 1917. Russian Provincial Government is replaced by Bolsheviks.
January, 1918. Lenin declares a dictatorship of the proletariat.
March, 1918. Brest-Litovsk Treaty ratified by the Congress of Soviets and Russia
withdraws from World War I.









(B)
Economic and social changes

An elementary theory of property, common to many peasants, that land should belong to those
who work it. At the same time, peasant life and culture was changing constantly. Change was
facilitated by the physical movement of growing numbers of peasant villagers who migrated to
and from industrial and urban environments, but also by the migration of city culture into the
village through material goods, the press, and word of mouth.

Workers also had good reasons for discontent: overcrowded housing with often deplorable
sanitary conditions, long hours at work (on the eve of the war a 10-hour workday six days a week
was the average and many were working 1112 hours a day by 1916), constant risk of injury and
death from very poor safety and sanitary conditions, harsh discipline (not only rules and fines, but
foremens fists), and inadequate wages (made worse after 1914 by steep war-time increases in the
cost of living). At the same time, urban industrial life was full of benefits, though these could be
just as dangerous, from the point of view of social and political stability, as the hardships. There
were many encouragements to expect more from life. Acquiring new skills gave many workers a
sense of self respect and confidence, heightening expectations and desires. Living in cities,
workers encountered material goods such as they had never seen while in the village. Most
important, living in cities, they were exposed to new ideas about the social and political order.

The social causes of the Russian Revolution mainly came from centuries of oppression towards
the lower classes by the Tsarist regime and Nicholas's failures in World War I. While rural
agrarian peasants had been emancipated from serfdom in 1861, they still resented paying
redemption payments to the state, and demanded communal tender of the land they worked. The
problem was further compounded by the failure of Sergei Witte's land reforms of the early 1900s.
Increasing peasant disturbances and sometimes full revolts occurred, with the goal of securing
ownership of their land. Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants, with 1.5% of the
population owning 25% of the land.

The rapid industrialization of Russia also resulted in urban overcrowding and poor conditions for
urban industrial workers (as mentioned above). Between 1890 and 1910, the population of the
capital of St. Petersburg swelled from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600, with Moscow experiencing similar
growth. This created a new 'proletariat' which, due to being crowded together in the cities, was
much more likely to protest and go on strike than the peasantry had been in previous times. In one
1904 survey, it was found that an average of sixteen people shared each apartment in St.
Petersburg, with six people per room. There was also no running water, and piles of human waste
were a threat to the health of the workers. The poor conditions only aggravated the situation, with
the number of strikes and incidents of public disorder rapidly increasing in the years shortly
before World War I.

World War I only added to the chaos. Conscription swept up the unwilling in all parts of Russia.
The vast demand for factory production of war supplies and workers caused many more labor
riots and strikes. Conscription stripped skilled workers from the cities, who had to be replaced
with unskilled peasants, and then, when famine began to hit due to the poor railway system,
workers abandoned the cities in droves to look for food. Finally, the soldiers themselves, who
suffered from a lack of equipment and protection from the elements, began to turn against the
Tsar. This was mainly because as the war progressed, many of the officers who were loyal to the
Tsar were killed, and they were replaced with discontented conscripts from the major cities who
were much less loyal to the Tsar.
Source: http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/nov2007/russian_revolution.html














(C)
Tsarist Russian Social Pyramid


This diagram shows agricultural workers at the bottom of the social pyramid. Just above them is
the urban working class. At the top of society was a small ruling elite.

Source: https://forthesakeofhumanities-10.wikispaces.com/file/view/socstructure.jpg/296896962/socstructure.jpg





(D)
Hunger Causes Petrograd Riots.

The question of the food supply of the capital of Russia has reached a crisis. Petrograd
is particularly badly situated on the confines of the empire, in a region incapable of
producing breadstuff, and therefore wholly dependent upon railways for the necessaries
of daily life. . . . The people have cheerfully endured every manner of inconvenience
throughout the long winter in obtaining food supplies. Latterly, however, there has been
witnessed the phenomenon of shortage in certain quarters of the city of the staple food of
the common people, namely, the favorite Russia black bread. . . . On Thursday a number
of women and younger men of the working class made a peaceful demonstration of
protest against the mismanagement of the food supplies. A similar movement was noticed
in certain quarters of the city yesterday.
Source: The New York Times, March 12, 1917
/ http://people.hofstra.edu/alan_j_singer/CoursePacks/VladimirLeninandtheBolshevikRevolutioninRussia.pdf/


(E)
Lessons of the Revolution
By
Vladimir I. Lenin (July, 1917)
The people want peace. Yet the revolutionary government of free Russia has resumed
the war of conquest on the basis of those very same secret treaties which ex-Tsar
Nicholas II concluded with the British and French capitalists so that the Russian
capitalists might plunder other nations. . . . There is no bread. Famine is again drawing
near. Everybody sees that the capitalists and the rich are unscrupulously cheating the
treasury on war deliveries, that they are raking in fabulous profits through high prices,
while nothing whatsoever has been done to establish effective control by the workers
over the production and distribution of goods. The capitalists are becoming more brazen
every day; they are throwing workers out into the street, and this at a time when the
people are suffering from shortages. A vast majority of the peasants . . . have loudly and
clearly declared that landed proprietorship is an injustice and robbery. Meanwhile, a
government which calls itself revolutionary and democratic has been . . . deceiving them
by promises and delays. . . . The government has become so brazen in its defense of the
landowners that it is beginning to bring peasants to trial for unauthorized seizures of
land. The lesson of the Russian revolution is that there can be no escape for the working
people from the iron grip of war, famine, and enslavement by the landowners and
capitalists unless . . . they renounce all compromises with the bourgeoisie. . . . . Only the
revolutionary workers, if supported by the peasant poor, are capable of smashing the
resistance of the capitalists and leading the people in gaining land without compensation,
complete liberty, victory over famine and the war, and a just and lasting peace.
Source: http://www.marx.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/06htm

(F)
Call to Power by V. I. Lenin (October 24, 1917)
The situation is critical in the extreme. In fact it is now absolutely clear that to delay the uprising
would be fatal. With all my might I urge comrades to realize that everything now hangs by a
thread; that we are confronted by problems which are not to be solved by conferences or
congresses (even congresses of Soviets), but exclusively by peoples, by the masses, by the
struggle of the armed people. . . . History will not forgive revolutionaries for procrastinating when
they could be victorious today . . . , while they risk losing much tomorrow, in fact, the risk losing
everything. If we seize power today, we seize it not in opposition to the Soviets but on their
behalf. . . . It would be an infinite crime on the part of the revolutionaries were they to let the
chance slip, knowing that the salvation of the revolution, the offer of peace, the salvation of
Petrograd, salvation from famine, the transfer of the land to the peasants depend upon them. The
government is tottering. It must be given the death-blow at all costs.
Source: www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1917lenin1.html







(G)
Lenin Demands Defeat of Counter-Revolutionary Kulaks [prosperous peasants]
(November 8, 1918).

Comrades! The revolt by the five kulak volosts [communities] must be suppressed without
mercy. The interest of the entire revolution demands this, because we have now before us our
final decisive battle with the kulaks. We need to set an example.
1. You need to hang (hang without fail, so that the public sees) at least 100 notorious
kulaks, the rich, and the bloodsuckers.
2. Publish their names.
3. Take away all of their grain.
4. Execute the hostages - in accordance with yesterdays telegram.
This need to be accomplished in such a way, that people for hundreds of miles around will see,
tremble, know and scream out: lets choke and strangle those blood-sucking kulaks.
Source: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Experimental/soviet.exhibit/ad2kulak.html














WORKSHEET (materials)
1. Fill out these tables!
Table 1 What do we know on these sources?
Source Year Author Describe the source. What might be the audience and purpose of it?
A
B
C
D
E
F
G








Table 2 What is suggested by these tables?
What is suggested by
the source
What interpretations
may be drawn from the
source?
What perspectives or
points of view are
indicated in the source?
What interferences may be
drawn from absence or
omissions in the source?
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
2. Answer these questions:
1) In your opinion, why would these slogans (Peace, Bread and Land! All power
to the Soviets!) appeal to the Russian people?





2) Why were food shortages a major problem in Petrograd (Petersburg)? (source B and
D)





3) In your opinion, how did food shortages contribute to a revolutionary movement in
Russia? (source B and D)





4) How is Russian society depicted in this social pyramid? (source C)







5) Why does Lenin denounce the new Provisional government? (source E)







6) According to Lenin, what lesson must be learned from the revolution? (source E)









7) Why does Lenin describe the situation in Russia as critical? (source F)



8) What does Lenin want the revolutionaries to do? (source F)








9) What does Lenin want to do to prosperous peasants who are opposing the
communist revolution? (source G)







10) In your opinion, were these actions justified against enemies of the revolution?
Explain. (source G)







11) List three causes to the Bolshevik revolution. (all sources)











EXIT SLIP
Please answer following questions
Did you understand the issue? If not, which part is unclear?



Does government influence economic wealth and vice versa?



List three causes of Bolshevik revolution (give at least 3 examples)


1)

2)

3)