TWO REVOLUTIONS IN RUSSIA

Untitled Slide

• Michael Romanov was elected to rule in 1613.
• The 300 th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty was celebrated with festive activities.
• After the 1905 revolution Nicholas failed to solve Russia's political, economic, and social problems.
• Russia was a land dominated by poverty, landowning nobles, priest, and an autocratic czar.
• Revoultutionaries worked in secrecy under rigid discipline.
• In 1897, more than half the people under czarist rule were not Russians. Nationalism led to the rise of more political parties and radicals began dreaming of independent nations, leading to unrest in the Russian empire.

RASPUTIN

• The outbreak of war in 1914 fired national pride and united Russians.
• World War 1 quickly strained Russian resources. Factories could not turn out enough supplies. The transportation system broke down.
• By 1915, many soldiers died in staggering numbers.
• Alexandra came to rely on the advice of Gregory Rasputin, an illiterate peasant and self-proclaimed "holy man".
• The czarina Alexandra came to believe in his powers causing weakened confidence in the government.
• On December 29, 1916, a group of Russian nobles killed Rasputin.
• By March 1917, disasters on the battlefield combined with food and fuel shortages on the home front brought the monarchy to collapse.
• In St. Petensburg workers began to go on strike.
• Finally, on the advice of military and political leaders, the czar abdicated.
• Duma politicians then set up a provisional, or temporary, government.
• 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.
• Then, the Bolsheviks and their leader Vladimir Lenin took charge.

VLADIMIR LENIN

• Vladimir Lenin's father died when he was 16 years old and a year later his brother was hanged for plotting to kill a czar.
• Lenin was angry and spreading Marxist ideas consumed him.
• Lenin created an elite group to lead the Revolution called the Bolsheviks, meaning majority.
• Leading socialist believed that socialism could be reached through moderate reforms. However, Lenin believed it could only be reached through revolution.
• Lenin was assisted by Leon Trotsky.
• Lenin and the Bolsheviks promised "peace, land, and bread".

Untitled Slide

• Members of the government met at the Winter Palace. The Bolsheviks began to storm the place so the provisional government gave up, without a struggle.
• Moscow became the Bolshevik's capital and the Kremlin their headquarters.
• Lenin declared, "we shall now occupy ourselves in Russia in building up a proletarian socialist state".
• The new flag that was red with an entwined hammer and sickle to represent the Union of workers and peasants.
• There was a civil war for three years between the "reds" (communists) and the "whites" ( counterrevolutionaries still loyal to the czar).
• The Allied powers intervened in hope that the whites might overthrow the Communists and support the fight against Germany.
• The Reds appealed to nationalism and urged Russians to drive out the foreigners. In the long run, the allied invasion fed distrust of the west.
• After the revolution, Lenin signed a treaty with Germany called the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. This gave up Russian territory and a chunk of its population.