Revolutions in Russia CH.30 SECTION 1

Peasant Life in Russia  4/5 of Russians were peasants  Peasants worked land in strips that were assigned by the village commune.  Individual land ownership was rare.  Loyalty was to the village and commune more than to the nation.

Czarist Rule  Russian Czars (emperors) were supported by rich nobles, army, secret police and the Russian Orthodox Church  By the late 1800s the small middle class turned against the czar.  Czar Alexander III imposed censorship, had secret police monitor activities, and encouraged pogroms.  Czar Nicholas II continued these autocratic policies.

● Czar Alexander III

● Czar Nicholas II

Bolsheviks  Followers of Karl Marx, co-author of the Communist Manifesto  Believed the proletariat were overworked and underpaid and would one day rise up against their governments.  Bolsheviks wanted to create the world’s first communist government in Russia.  Gained support in Russia starting in the late 1800s.

Bloody Sunday  Jan. 22, 1905  200,000 workers and families march to czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg  They wanted better working conditions and more freedoms  Soldiers guarding the palace fired into the crowd killing several hundred and wounding 1,000.

The March Revolution  March protests broke out in the capital of St. Petersburg against food shortages and high prices.  Soldiers joined the protests.  This led to a general uprising which led to Czar Nicholas being forced to abdicate his throne.  A provisional government was set up and led by Alexander Kerensky.  Soviets were then formed in most cities.

The November Revolution  Vladimir Lenin returned to St. Petersburg in April  Lenin and the Bolsheviks soon gained control of the St. Petersburg soviet and the soviets of most major cities.  Bolsheviks arrested the leaders of the provisional government.  Lenin took over as head of state and began creating a totalitarian government.

Civil War ( )  Many Russians hated the treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the treatment of the royal family.  The Bolshevik Red Army was led by Leon Trotsky  The White Army was a conglomeration of groups that hated the Bolsheviks. Several Western nations also sent troops.  The Red Army won the war after 2 years.  14 million died in the civil war and the famine that followed.