1. The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921
From the Russian Empire to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

2. Imperial Russia,

3. Russian Krestyanin (Peasant)

4. 19th Century Russia 1861 Abolition of Serfdom by Tsar Alexander II
Rapid industrialization after 1880 but an overwhelming rural society (peasants 90%)
Urban working class (2.3 million in 1900) concentrated in large cities.
The “intelligentsia”: well educated nobles and middle class who desire reform or revolution
The Narodniks:”to the people” populist movement
Russian Social Democratic Labor party (Marxist)

5. Putilov Machine Works

6. Putilov Machine Works

7. Russian Steel Workers

8. The Failed Revolution of 1905
Russo-Japanese War ( ) fought over imperialist aims in Korea and Manchuria
Japan, victorious in land and naval war, emerges as a great world power.
. ”Bloody Sunday” massacre. Rioting in St. Petersburg and Moscow; general strike; mutiny on the battleship Potemkin; worker’s soviets.
Army puts down uprising
Tsar Nicholas II establishes Duma (parliament), but later takes away any real power

9. 1905 Protests

10. “Bloody Sunday” (9 Jan. 1905)

11. Potemkin Mutiny, 1905

12. General Strike (17 October 1905)

13. Nicholas II opening the Duma

14. Czar Nicholas II

15. The February Revolution 1917
Disastrous military defeats
Riots and demonstrations in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) caused by shortages of bread and coal.
Soldiers join demonstrations
Tsarist government collapses; Nicholas II abdicates throne
Provisional Government established pending nationwide elections.
Rival government: Petrograd Council of Workers and Soldiers Deputies (Petrograd Soviet)

16. Russian Artillery

17. Russian Artillery Shelling Galacia

18. Russian Rout

19. Russian War Dead (German Photo)

20. Russian Gas Victims

21. Russian Imperial Officers

22. February Bread Riot (Painting)

23. February (March) 1917

24. Petrograd, February Revolt of the Pavlovsky Guards Regiment

25. Nicholas II at Tsarskoye Tseloe

26. Petrograd Demonstration

27. The Provisional Government

28. Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies

29. Alexander Kerensky

30. Kerensky as Prime Minister

31. Kerensky at the Front

32. Kerensky with Socialist Revolutionary Katerina Breshkovskaia

33. V. I. Lenin

34. VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN 1870-1924
Older brother, Alexander, executed for attempt to assassinate Tsar, 1887
Exiled to Siberia, then escapes to Europe in 1896
Leader of Bolshevik faction of RSDP in 1903
Revises ideas of Karl Marx to fit Russian conditions
Since Russians had no political experience, they need disciplined party cadre to educate and lead them
Imperialism, the highest Stage of Capitalism
Denounces War as imperialist.
In Zurich at time of February revolution. Germans arrange for his transport back to Russia in a sealed train car.
Lenin denounces Provisional Government and calls for revolution.

35. Lenin: “What is to be Done”1902
The active and widespread participation of the masses will not suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the fact that a "dozen" experienced revolutionaries, no less professionally trained than the police, will centralise all the secret side of the work-prepare leaflets, work out approximate plans and appoint bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and to each educational institution, etc. (I know that exception will be taken to my "undemocratic" views, but I shall reply to this altogether unintelligent objection later on.) The centralisation of the more secret functions in an organisation of revolutionaries will not diminish, but rather increase the extent and the quality of the activity of a large number of other organisations intended for wide membership and which, therefore, can be as loose and as public as possible, for example, trade unions, workers' circles for self-education and the reading of illegal literature, and socialist and also democratic circles for all other sections of the population. etc, etc We must have as large a number as possible of such organisations having the widest possible variety of functions, but it is absurd and dangerous to confuse those with organisations of revolutionaries, to erase the line of demarcation between them, to dim still more the masses already incredibly hazy appreciation of the fact that in order to "serve" the mass movement we must have people who will devote themselves exclusively to Social Democratic activities, and that such people must train themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional revolutionaries. Aye, this appreciation has become incredibly dim. The most grievous sin we have committed in regard to organisation is that by our primitiveness we have lowered the prestige o revolutionaries in Russia. A man who is weak and vacillating on theoretical questions, who has a narrow outlook who makes excuses for his own slackness on the ground that the masses are awakening spontaneously; who resembles a trade union secretary more than a people's tribune, who is unable to conceive of a broad and bold plan, who is incapable of inspiring even his opponents with respect for himself, and who is inexperienced and clumsy in his own professional art-the art of combating the political police-such a man is not a revolutionary but a wretched amateur! Let no active worker take offense at these frank remarks, for as far as insufficient training is concerned, I apply them first and foremost to myself. I used to work in a circle that set itself great and all­embracing tasks; and every member of that circle suffered to the point of torture from the realisation that we were proving ourselves to be amateurs at a moment in history when we might have been able to say, paraphrasing a well­known epigram: "Give us an organisation of revolutionaries, and we shall overturn the whole of Russia!" From, V.I. Lenin: "What is to Be Done?", Lenin: Collected Works Vol V, pp , ,

36. The October Revolution
Bolsheviks gain majority in Petrograd and Moscow Soviets in September
Lenin calls for a seizure of power
October: Soldiers from Petrograd garrison, sailors from Kronstadt and Bolshevik Red Guards storm the Winter Palace and arrest members of Provisional Government.
November 9, 1917: New government: Council of People’s Commissars: Lenin is chairman; Leon Trotsky, commissar of foreign affairs; Josef Stalin, Commissar of Minorities

37. Inside the Winter Palace

38. Women’s Volunteer Detachment

39. Bolsheviks Storming the Winter Palace

40. SR Election Poster, November 1917

41. November 1917 Election Results
Party
Votes
Total (all Russia)
44,218,55
Socialist Revolutionaries
37% (48% including Ukrainian bloc)
Peasant
0.6%
Bolshevik Social Democrats
24%
Menshevik Social Democrats 3%
Other Socialist Parties 1%
Kadets 5%
Cossack Party 2%

42. American John Reed

43. Peace, Land, Bread and National Self-Determination!

44. Long Live World October!

45. Leon Trotsky

46. Land Reform

47. Lenin Rids the Land of “Byvshiie”

48. “Red Guards”

49. WAR COMMUNISM December 1917: Armistice with Germany
March 3, 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Russia loses one fourth of land and population (Ukraine, Poland, Finland and Baltic states).
Peasants allowed to seize landlord’s lands
Control of factories given to worker’s committees
Church property confiscated
Opposition parties suppressed
Industry nationalized
Secret Police to war on internal enemies: the Cheka

50. Felix Dzerzhinsky – Head of the Cheka

51. Reds and Whites

52. “Red Terror,” Summer 1918

54. Stages of the Russian Civil War
Nov – Nov. 1918
Rising Tensions, Conflict, End of WWI
Nov – Nov. 1919
Peak of White Fortunes in South
Nov – July 1921
Red Victory by 1920
1921 – Rebellions against the Soviets by peasants, workers, and soldiers suppressed

55. Did you volunteer for the Red Army?

56. Foreign Intervention

57. US soldiers in Murmansk

58. Murmansk (Northwest Europe)

59. Japanese and Russian Officers 1922

60. White Troops and Their Red Opponents

61. Devastation of War – Ukraine

63. Trotsky as Commissar of War

64. Trotsky as Commissar of War

65. The Red Cossack

66. Red Army Armored Train