Russian Revolution

• The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia was caused in part by what?

  A shortage of military supplies and food during WWI
• A key principle of the economic theory of Communism is...?


  Government ownership of property
• The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was a major turning point in history because...?


  Russia became the first nation with a Communist economic system
• What phrase best describes the political situation of the Soviet Union immediately after Lenin's death in 1924?

  A power struggle developed among Communist Part leaders
• Totalitarian countries are characterized by what


  government control of newspapers, radio, and television
• What condition was a result of Joseph Stalin's command economy?


  The government controlled agriculture through collective farms
• The main purpose of the many purges and public trials that took place in the Soviet Union in the 1930s was to what?


  Eliminate opposition to Joseph Stalin and his government
• Russia is the largest country in the world
• Russia


  • Harsh winters
  • Widely dispersed population
• Napoleon, Caesar, and many others fail to conquer Russia
• Czar Nicholas II


  An absolute ruler
• Russification


  1. Enforced Russian language and Orthodox Christianity

  2. To ensure Russian protection
• Pogroms had forced millions of Jews to flee Russia
• Russia was not industrialized and lost the Russo-Japanese war as a result
• Majority of the peasant population lived in stark poverty
• Bloody Sunday (1905) was a massacre of peaceful protestors
• Outbreak of WWI intensified discontent in Russia
• Russian involvement in WWI made many pre-existing problems worse
• By 1917, peasants and workers are fed up with disastrous battle losses and food/fuel shortages at home
• Troops refuse to fire on protestors- join them instead
• Czar Nicholas II abdicates the throne and the Duma creates a provisional (temporary) government
• Soviets


  Council of workers and soldiers set up by revolutionaries
• Soviets were more powerful and had more support than the provisional government
• Over time, the communist-leaning Bolsheviks took charge of the soviets
• Communism


  A system where there is no class structure, all property is shared, and the government controls the means of production
• Vladimir Lenin


  A socialist who adapted Marxist ideas to fit Russian conditions, called his group the Bolsheviks
• Lenin was smuggled back into Russia by the Germans during WWI to spread revolution and force Russia out of the war
• Lenin's goals


  • Peace (get Russia out of WW1)
  • Land (end serfdom, give peasants an equal chance at land)
  • Bread (increase food supply)
• In November 1917, Red Guards (armed factory workers) attacked and overtook the provisional government
• Bolsheviks quickly seized power in other cities, made Moscow their capital and the Kremlin their headquarters
• After the Bolshevik Revolution

  1. Lenin ended private land ownership

  2. Redistributed land to peasants

  3. Gave workers control of factories
• New flag symbolizing union between workers (hammer) and peasants (sickle)
• After the Bolshevik Revolution, civil war began in Russia between the Red Army (Bolsheviks/Communists) and the White Army (Tsar loyalists, Allied powers)
• The Red Army kills former Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family
• War Communism


  Communist forces used terror to control their own people, took over banks, mines, factories, railroads, and peasant farmers were forced to deliver crops
• In 1921, the Communist Red Army defeats the White Army
• Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

  A multinational state made up of European and Asian peoples, where the Communist Party held all the power and used the army and secret police to enforce its will
• New Economic Policy (NEP)

  The state kept control of banks, trade, and large industries, but small businesses could open for profit and peasants could sell surplus crops for profit
• Vladimir Lenin dies suddenly in 1924, leading to a power struggle in the Communist Party between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky
• Factors influencing the power struggle

  • The Ban on Factionalism
  • A Centralized Party Machine
  • Growth in Party Membership