1. Chapter 14 sec. 1 Russian Revolution
From the collapse of the Russian government (Czar) in 1917 came the Russian Revolution. Its impact would be felt around the world.

2. Bell ringers
Czar Nicholas II
War communism
Alexandra
Trotsky

3. Background to revolution
Russia was historically ruled by heavy handed outsiders from Asia.
19th century: oppressive rule by Czars caused social unrest
1825 army officers revolted.
Secret organizations plotted.
1881: Alexander II was assassinated by aristocracy. Alexander III took over. He stopped reforms. Nationalistic groups were oppressed. Jews were persecuted.

4. Background to revolution
1894: Czar Nicholas II takes over
He continued autocratic rule. Pogroms broke out against Jews.
He continued “Russification”
1905: Bloody Sunday: The Revolution of 1905
Czar Nicholas II promised reform, but didn’t let it happen. Duma met one time.

5. Background to revolution
Czar Nicholas II took charge of the military once the war started. He had no competent military leaders. He wasn’t very good.
The Russian Industry could not support the war effort. They were not prepared for total war.
soldiers were not prepared for fighting.
From 1914 to 1916, two million soldiers died; 2 to 4 million were wounded.
The Russian people lost the will to support the war effort.

6. Beginnings of upheaval
Czar Nicholas II was an autocratic ruler
He drew his power from his bureaucracy and military.
While Czar Nicholas II was off fighting the war, his wife, Alexandra, was making the decisions as a monarch.
She was under the influence of Rasputin, a self proclaimed holy man. A real freak. He was the real power behind the throne of monarchy.
The people and some of the Russian conservative aristocrats realized the faults of the monarchy…military and economic problems.

7. Rasputin
He had total psychological control over Alexandra. He was a charlatan and a magician. He did cyanoses. He was a real freak.
He had more admirers than the czarina.
Anyway, the monarchy was pretty well messed up and out of touch.

9. What was to be done?
Russian aristocrats realized that something had to be done to save the monarchy. What do you think they did?
Dec 1916: they killed Rasputin.
He was not easy to kill. They poisoned him. They beat him. They shot him 3 times, then tied him up and threw him in the river. He untied his knots and nearly made it. This added to his mystical aura. Some thought that maybe he was some sort of godlike man.
Did it help?

10. March Revolution
Bread riots broke out when the govt rationed bread after the price of bread went up.
March 1917, strikes broke out in Petrograd (St. Petersburg)
Women were a big factor, because they were the ones working 12 hour days and standing in line for bread.
10,000 women marched demanding “Peace and Bread” and “down with autocracy”
General strike shut down all factories in Petrograd

11. March Revolution Alexandra wrote to her husband, Czar Nicholas II
He sent troops to put down the strikers
Soldiers got there and joined the strikers
March 12, 1917 the Duma met and formed a provisional govt made up mainly of middle-class representatives
Czar Nicholas II stepped down as the monarch.

12. First act of the new govt
Was to continue the war to protect Russian honor
This didn’t satisfy the workers or the peasants
Now the govt faced a challenge from “soviets” (sort of like political groups formed of workers and soldiers)
These soviets were in most of the cities, towns and even rural areas throughout Russia
Soviets were made up of the lower classes

13. Bolsheviks
Bolsheviks started as a small part of a Marxist Party called the Russian Social Democrats
Vladimir Lenin was the leader
He and the Bolsheviks believed in radical overthrow of the government.
Lenin lived outside Russia from
In 1917, German military leaders sent Lenin and some of his revolutionary friends to Russia to cause chaos.

14. Lenin
Lenin realized that the soviets of soldiers, workers, and peasants could be used to help his revolution.
What did the Bolsheviks promise?
End war
Land to peasants (redistribution)
Transfer of factories from owners (capitalists) to the workers
Transfer of governmental power from provisional government to the soviets
Slogans “peace, land, bread”; “worker control of production”; and “all power to the soviets”

15. Leon Trotsky
Trotsky was a dedicated revolutionary and the leader of the Petrograd Soviet.
By October 1917, Bolsheviks made up a majority of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets
At this time the provincial government was very weak.
Bolsheviks took over the Winter Palace, almost no fighting. The govt quickly collapsed.

16. More Lenin
Bolsheviks claimed control of the government. At the same time all the soviets in Russia met in Petrograd to form the Congress of Soviets.
Lenin turned over control of the Provincial Govt to the Congress of Soviets.
But the leadership of the Congress of Soviets was the Council of People’s Commissars, which was controlled by Lenin.
So basically Lenin set himself up to be a dictator that way.
Bolsheviks changed their name to Communists

17. Lenin’s peace promise
Lenin gave some land in Poland and around the Baltic Sea.
Russian critics didn’t like it.
Lenin was not a Nationalist Movement.
But Lenin said that the spread of communism would soon spread to those areas and other areas of Europe and the world.
The only peace was external. No more war against Germany, but a new civil war would cause much bloodshed, not peace.

18. Civil War in Russia Many Russians opposed the Bolsheviks
Groups loyal to the czar
Anti-Leninist socialists
Liberals
The Allies opposed the Bolsheviks; sent arms and supplies to fight the Bolsheviks
Allies also sent troops to parts of Russia, but they didn’t fight much.
The Red Army (communists) fought against many of these opposition groups in different parts of Russia
The White Army (anti-communists) attacked from Siberia
More attacks on the Red Army came from the Ukraine and the Baltic Region

19. Civil War in Russia Reds beat the Whites and also retook the Ukraine
By 1921 the Communist Regime pushed south and conquered Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan (all independent countries)
Czar Nicholas II was held captive with his family and killed by some locals in the Ural Mountains. His family was killed too.

20. Triumph of the Communists
The Red Army was not as large as the White Army. But the Whites were not organized. There was no central leader
Reds had a system of war communism
Government control of banks, industry, food supply (they took grain from peasants)
Reds used “Red Terror” to control the people
And the presence of foreign troops enabled the Reds to appeal to Russian patriotism

21. Result of the Russian Revolution
By 1921 the Communists were in control
They instituted single party rule
They had a strong centralized nation
They were hostile to the Allies, because the Allies had helped the Whites