1. World War I and the Russian Revolution (1914–1924)
Lesson 4 Revolution in Russia

2. World War I and the Russian Revolution (1914–1924)
Lesson 4 Revolution in Russia
Learning Objectives
Explain the causes of the February (March) Revolution.
Describe the goals of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution.
Summarize the outcome of the civil war in Russia.
Analyze how Lenin built a Communist state in the Soviet Union.

3. World War I and the Russian Revolution (1914–1924)
Lesson 4 Revolution in Russia
Key Terms
proletariat
soviets
V. I. Lenin
Cheka
commissars

5. Causes of the February Revolution
The year 1913 marked the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. Everywhere, Russians honored the tsar and his family. Tsarina Alexandra felt confident that the people loved Nicholas too much to ever threaten him. “They are constantly frightening the emperor with threats of revolution,” she told a friend, “and here,—you see it yourself—we need merely to show ourselves and at once their hearts are ours.”

6. Causes of the February Revolution
Roots of Discontent
World War I Intensifies Discontent
Tsar Nicholas II Steps Down

7. Causes of the February Revolution
This photo shows the Russian royal family—Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra, and their children—in Four years later, they would all be murdered as a result of revolution and civil war.

8. Lenin Leads the Bolsheviks
Outside the provisional government, revolutionary socialists plotted their own course.
In Petrograd and other cities, they set up soviets, or councils of workers and soldiers.
At first, the soviets worked democratically within the government
Before long, though, the Bolsheviks, a radical socialist group, took charge.
The leader of the Bolsheviks was a determined revolutionary, V. I. Lenin.

9. Lenin Leads the Bolsheviks
The Making of a Revolutionary
Family branded a threat
Student Protestor
Nadezhda Krupskaya married in Siberian prison
Lenin Adapts Marxism
“dictatorship of the proletariat”
Bolsheviks

10. Lenin Leads the Bolsheviks
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin took his revolutionary ideas directly to the people, addressing crowds in the streets.

11. The October Revolution Brings the Bolsheviks to Power
Lenin full steam ahead into the revolution
Another dynamic Marxist revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, helped lead the fight
Hungry, war-weary Russian people, Lenin and the Bolsheviks promised
“Peace, Land, and Bread.”

12. The October Revolution Brings the Bolsheviks to Power
Causes of the October Revolution
Alexander Kerensky, provisional government
War effort continues…..disastrous
Troops deserting, peasants want land, urban shortages
November 1917 army
“a huge crowd of tired, poorly clad, poorly fed, embittered men”
Peasants seize land drive off landlords
The Bolsheviks Seize Power
Again conditions ripe for another revolution
Red Guard takes over Kremlin
Moscow Bolshevik’s capital
Lenin, “We shall now occupy ourselves in Russia in building up a proletarian socialist state”
The Bolsheviks become The
Communists

13. The October Revolution Brings the Bolsheviks to Power
Crowds gather in Dvortsovyi Square, Saint Petersburg, to support the Bolshevik cause on May 1, 1917.

14. Lenin’s slogan that united Russia

15. Civil War Erupts in Russia
After Bolshevik Revolution
Lenin quickly sought peace with Germany
Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918
gave up huge chunk of its territory and its population
cost of peace was extremely high
Communist leaders knew that they needed all their energy to defeat a collection of enemies at home

16. Civil War Erupts in Russia
The Opposing Forces
“Reds” Communists
“Whites” counterrevolutionary, tsarist imperial officers, Mensheviks, democrats united to defeat Communists
Allies tried to help the Whites but only succeeded in further alienating the West
Communists successfully appealed to nationalism, promises, terror tactics, brutal force
Terror
July 1918, Communists shot former tsar, tsarina and children
Whites attempted to assassinate Lenin
Forced Labor camps
Cheka, secret police
Used for control of general populace –
executed ordinary citizens
Terrorized Whites
War Communisn
Banks, mines, factories, and railroads
Peasants deliver crops to Red army and urban dwellers
Forced to work in factories or military
Commissars
Teach party loyalty

17. Civil War Erupts in Russia
A crusading white knight slays the red dragon in this Russian civil war propaganda poster. Its title is “For a United Russia.” Draw Conclusions Which side in the Russian civil war made this poster? Why?

18. The Communist Soviet Union Emerges
Russia was in chaos
Millions of people had died since the beginning of World War I
Millions more perished from famine and disease
Lenin faced the enormous problem of rebuilding a shattered state and economy

19. The Communist Soviet Union Emerges
New Government, Old Problems
voting rights, power to the people – all in theory. Communist party reigned supreme
Lenin Abandons War Communism
Near economic collapse
New Economic Policy (NEP)
Small business, small plots for peasants
Stalin Comes to Power

20. The Communist Soviet Union Emerges
Analyze Maps Russia was by far the largest of the various republics that made up the Soviet Union. How do you think nationalism affected the Soviet Union?

21. The Communist Soviet Union Emerges
The hammer and sickle, the emblem of the Soviet Union, represented the union between the urban industrial workers (the hammer) and the rural peasants (the sickle).