Revolutions in Russia Part II: The Revolutions of 1917 Global II: Spiconardi

March Revolution Causes  World War I Nicholas II involves Russia in WWI  Russian army unprepared to handle a war on this level 4 million casualties in the first year  Nicholas goes to war front & leaves wife in charge  Czarina doesn’t listen to advisors, but a mystic monk named Rasputin

March Revolution  Rasputin Claimed to have magic healing powers Czarina Alexandra believed he eased her son’s hemophilia Alexandra allowed him to make key political decisions Russian people furious  “We don’t have any say in government, but this crazy ‘holy man’ does?”

Spiconardi & Rasputin gettin’ frisky in Buenos Aries La Bocca neighborhood

Rasputin’s Death Russian nobles plot to assassinate Rasputin  Poisoned with enough cyanide to kill five men  Shot once…Didn’t die  Shot three more times…didn’t die  Clubbed to death….nah…still didn’t die  Drowned in the Neva River…finally died

March Revolution  Strikes 200,000 workers strike shouting, “Down with autocracy! Down with the war!” Troops fire on striking workers, but later side with them  Czar Nicholas II abdicates the thrown on March 2 Nicholas and the imperial family are killed in May 1918 under the order of Lenin and the Bolsheviks

The Provisional Goverment After Czar Nicholas abdicated, a provisional government under moderate Alexander Kerensky was formed  Provisional government  temporary government  Kerensky Kept Russia in World War I Refused to kill imperial family Had no support from workers or peasants

V.I. Lenin Leader of the Bolshevik Party Beliefs  History is the story of class struggle (student of Marxism)  Peasants and workers unable to lead a revolution; needed professional revolutionaries  Centralized government/command economy  One party system

V.I. Lenin Peace! Land! Bread!  After being exiled, Germans help Lenin return to Russia 1917  Under promise of Peace, land, and bread, Lenin gains support of Russian people People overthrow Kerensky & provisional government in October/November 1917

V.I. Lenin Lenin seizes power  Peace: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is signed to end WWI for Russians  Land: Redistributed land to peasants Civil War  White Army  wanted to return to rule by Czar  Red Army  Bolsheviks; communists  REDS WIN!

V.I. Lenin Lenin restores order after civil war New Economic Policy  Lenin allowed for some capitalism Peasants could sell surplus crops Private ownership of small factories  Government kept control of banks, telecommunications, and major industries Only allows one political party Bolsheviks (later renamed Communist Party) Renames Russia to the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (U.S.S.R.)  RUSSIA BECOMES THE FIRST COMMUNIST COUNTRY EVER

Lenin’s Mausoleum