1. CAUSES OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

2. BACKGROUND : RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
Economically behind the West (unindustrialized)
Russia is controlled by Czar Nicholas II
1904- Russia at war with Japan (Russo-Japanese War)
Horrible loss for Russia
1905- Revolution within the monarchy
Creates Duma (aka Parliament)

3. BACKGROUND : RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
Created peace alliance with France & Great Britain
Dragged into WWI
Army ill led and underfed
Suffered heavy losses (3 million more than any country)

4. BACKGROUND : RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
Leaves Petrograd to lead army in WWI
Czarina Alexandra is left in charge (German)
Has questionable “friendship” with Gregory Rasputin

5. GREGORY RASPUTIN Illiterate peasant Self-proclaimed holy man
Was reputed as a ‘healer’
Czarina came to believe in his power after he helped her son
While Nicholas II was away, he heavily influenced Czarina’s decisions for Russia
Nobles were suspicious  assassination!

6. RUSSIAN REVOLUTION Czar Nicholas II resigns Food Shortages
Fuel Shortages
WWI
Unemployment
Inflation

7. MARCH (February) REVOLUTION
THREE MAIN GOALS -
Immediate peace
Transfer of land to peasants
Workers control factories
Overthrows the Czar!!

8. PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
Temporary government in place after Czar Nicholas II
Wealthy middle class
Bolshevik
Led by Alexander Kerensky
Duality of power

9. OCTOBER (November) REVOLUTION
Provisional government = weak + ineffective
Forms dictatorship & only represents minority
After March Revolution voted to release political prisoners
Vladimir Lenin
Feels Russia should withdraw from WWI
Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany successfully withdrawing from WWI in exchange for land

10. OCTOBER REVOLUTION
Vladimir Lenin organizes the Bolsheviks and seizes power from the Provisional Government.
Slogan was “Peace, Bread and Land”

11. RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR OPPOSTION - THE WHITES BOLSHEVIKS - THE REDS
Royalists
Middle Class Liberals
Moderate Socialists
European powers + Japan + United States
BOLSHEVIKS - THE REDS
Socialists, Workers, Lower Class
1921 defeat of the Whites by the Reds

12. RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR
Famine
Unemployment
Economic downfall

13. LENIN’S RULE Used terror as a political weapon
Restrictions on the Russian Orthodox Church
Assassination of the Czar’s family
Secret police (Cheka)

14. UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
Creating a perfect Communist state
New Economic Policy
Lenin turns away from pure Communism (War Communism)
Lenin dies before “NEP” can be fully implemented

15. WAR COMMUNISM
Communists took over banks, mines, factories, and railroads
Peasants could be drafted to military or factory work
Trotsky (Lenin’s right hand man) turned the Red Army into a fighting machine
“Shoot every 10th man”
If regiment is performing poorly