1. Russian Revolution

2. Tsarist (Czarist) Russia
“Feudalism”
Serfs actually freed in 1861
Alexander II
but no real land reform
like sharecroppers

3. Tsarist (Czarist) Russia
Anarchists
Assassinate Alexander II
But get more conservative govt.
Lenin’s brother executed for revolutionary activity

4. Tsar Nicholas II and the Romanovs

5. Russia is weak and royal family has no credibility
Evidence of weakness
Russo-Japanese War (1905)
loss to an Asian nation!!!!!
Massive losses to Germans
Opposition to absolutism
1905 Revolution/Bloody Sunday
Tsar makes concessions but then reneges
Tsarina Alexsandra
German
Queen Victoria’s granddaughter
Carrier of “British disease” hemophilia
imperious, aloof
mismanaged govt. in Tsar’s absence
Influenced by Rasputin

6. Rasputin “holy man” has power over Tsarina uses power for Sex
can “cure” sick Alexei (heir)
hemophilia
uses power for
Sex
if you sin so much you can overcome its power over you
corruption
interfering in govt.

7. Rasputin is assassinated by members of nobility

8. Timeline of the Revolution 1917 = Two Revolutions
3/17 Kerensky government = moderate socialism refuses to withdraw from war 4/17 Lenin returns from exile (helped by Germans) 10/17 Lenin (Bolsheviks) “Peace, Land and Bread” “soviets” = councils of soldiers and workers control land, factories, mines, banks, RRs Treaty of Brest-Litovsk = peace w/Germany

9. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3/18)

10. Reds (Communists) vs. Whites (Non-Communists)
Russian Civil War
Reds (Communists) vs. Whites (Non-Communists)
Leon Trotsky
Organizes Red Army
War Communism
Whites supported by Western Democracies
Want to stop the spread of communist revolution
Winston Churchill said Bolshevism must be “strangled in its cradle”
Leads to long-term resentment by Soviets of Western democracies

11. Lenin NEP (New Economic Policy) allowed limited capitalism
hammer and sickle
Industry AND agriculture
Marxist-Leninism
Vanguard will lead the revolution
ruthless oppression
Cheka = secret police
atheism
“religion is opium of the masses”
Int’l revolution
Comintern
USSR = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
invalid 1922, dies 1924
power struggle (Trotsky vs. Stalin)

12. Stalin Communism becomes more nationalistic Five-Year Plans (1928 → )
“socialism in one country”
Trotsky is ousted, exiled, murdered
Five-Year Plans (1928 → )
transforms USSR into industrial power
heavy industry vs. consumer
Collectivization (early 1930s)
kulaks (prosperous peasants) targeted
Ukraine
results in massive starvation
Great Purges (late 1930s)
kills political rivals
mostly Old Guard
hundreds of thousands killed or sent to slave labor camps
Leads USSR 1927 – 1953
Cost?
TOTALITARIAN state
millions dead
“gulags” = labor camps

13. Characteristics of Totalitarianism