Russian Revolution

• Revolution


  Fundamental changes politically, economically, or socially
• Russian Revolution


  1. Tsar deposed

  2. Democratic legislature put into place, then removed

  3. Bolshevik party put in power
• Economic changes


  1. Economy transformed to war communism (1918-1922)

  2. Some industry nationalized

  3. Industry not nationalized under "workers" committees' control
• Life for peasants


  • Worthless money
  • Insecure property titles
  • Unruly hired hands
  • Armed marauding
  • Producing less food than usual, and then hoarding it
  • Land-owning peasants, especially larger farmers, rally against Bolsheviks
• New Economic Policy


  1. Mixed economy created

  2. Goal of socialism, then communism
• Attempt to create a classless society

  • Creation of NEPmen as a new class
• Bloody Sunday


  1905
• Demands of factory workers led by Father Gapon


  • Constitutional assembly
  • Universal suffrage
  • Universal education
  • Equality under the law
  • Separation of church and state
  • End to Russo-Japanese War
  • More land for peasants
  • Eight hour work day
• Thousands marched; more than one hundred men, women, and children were killed by the royal guards
• Opposition to the tsar


  1. Students protested

  2. Workers went on strike

  3. Peasants attempted to take the land

  4. Military units
• Nicholas finally conceded greater religious tolerance, more freedom at the local level, and created the Duma-a legislative body which had little real power
• World War 1


  Increased anger toward the tsar
• Causes of anger toward the tsar


  • Food shortages due to requisitioning for the troops
  • High inflation caused by government printing more rubles to pay for the war
  • High Russian losses during the war attributed to the poor leadership of Nicholas II
• Rasputin, a monk the tsarisa relied on to heal her son, was resented by the Russian people for his perceived interference in government
• Women's Day


  1. Women demonstrated, demanding "bread"

  2. 80,000 striking workers joined

  3. Members of demonstrators kept rising

  4. Military joined the demonstration
• Following events


  1. Duma suspended until April

  2. Nicholas II abdicated the throne

  3. Duma created provisional government ruled by Prince Lvov

  4. Duma created the Petrograd Soviet
• Petrograd Soviet


  • Controlled the railways, communications, military and food supplies
  • Did not have as much control as the provisional government
• Lenin's return to Russia


  1. The German government arranged for his return in the hopes of perpetuating the revolution and forcing Russia to disengage from the war

  2. On April 3 he read his "April Theses" to the people of Petrograd
• "July Days" protests and rioting

  1. Rioters marched on Tauride Palace, demanding Bolsheviks take control

  2. Prince Lvov was replaced
• Leon Trotsky became a Bolshevik after the July Days, and quickly became part of Lenin's inner circle
• Bolsheviks began to take control of the revolution
• Dynasty


  When control of a country is passed from family member to family member
• For centuries, Russia was relatively isolated from the affairs of Western Europe due to their cold climates and long distances
• Russia was a strongly agricultural country who still relied on the principals of serfdom to plant crops
• Serfdom was finally abolished

  1861
• Nicholas II


  Ruled Russia as Czar since the death of his father in 1894
• Nicholas wanted an autocratic rule in which he alone made all the laws and determined all foreign policy
• When Nicholas took control, Russia was very far behind the industrial production of the Western European countries such as Britain and Germany
• Nicholas increased industrial production in Russia but at the same time created a larger class of urban poor
• Most people in Russia still lived on farms
• Bloody Sunday


  January 9, 1905
• Bloody Sunday


  The Czar's generals ordered the troops to open fire on the unarmed people, over 500 were killed
• The Czar was forced to give up some of his power to a legislative branch called the Dumas
• Petition Prepared for Presentation to Nicholas II on "Bloody Sunday" (January 9, 1905): 'We, workers and inhabitants of the city of St. Petersburg ... our wives, children, and helpless old parents, have come to you, Sovereign, to seek justice and protection. We are impoverished and oppressed, we are burdened with work, and insulted. ...And we have suffered, but we only get pushed deeper and deeper into a gulf of misery, ignorance, and lack of rights ...And so we left our work and declared to our employers that we will not return to work until they meet our demands. We do not ask much; we only want that without which life is hard labor and eternal suffering....to reduce the working day to eight hours ... to increase the wages of unskilled workers and women to one ruble per day; to abolish overtime work; to provide medical care attentively and without insult; to build shops so that it is possible to work there and not face death from the awful drafts, rain and snow.'
• At the turn of the twentieth century, Europe was in an increasingly complex situation
• Countries like Austria and Germany seemed to want to grow bigger and bigger and other countries like France and Britain built up their armies to be able to defend themselves
• Russia chose to ally themselves with the French and British and at the same time they formed an alliance with another Slavic nation, the small newly independent nation of Serbia
• A Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip shot and killed the archduke to the Austrian throne setting of a series of events that started World War One


  June 1914
• Serbian telegram to Russian Czar July 1914: 'We have been given too short a limit . . . We can be attacked after the expiration of the time-limit by the Austro-Hungarian Army which is concentrating on our frontier...It is impossible for us to defend ourselves, and we supplicate your Majesty to give us your aid as soon as possible.'
• Russian troops were not as strong as the Western European industrial nations of Germany and Austria