Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov, known in the Russian Orthodox Church as

Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland
and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March
1917..
The Khodynka Tragedy (Russian: Ходынская трагедия) was a crowd crush that occurred on 30
May [O.S. 18 May] 1896, on Khodynka Field in Moscow, Russia. The crush happened during
the festivities after the coronation of the last Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II. 

RUSSIA AT WAR

The impact of the First World War on Russia was immense. In the early stages of the war the Russian
army suffered huge losses at Tannenburg and at the Battle of the Masurian Lakes. These losses resulted
in unrest in the army and led to questions being asked about the way in which the military was run. As a
result of ongoing military blunders, Tsar Nicholas II decided to take charge of the army himself. Whilst
his presence at the frontlines may have acted as a boost to troops in the short term, it created a huge
problem in the medium term. Firstly, as commander in chief of the army he would have to shoulder the
blame for any defeats himself. Secondly, as head of an autocratic state he was required to make
governmental decisions. How could be do this when government was in St Petersburg, and he was
several days journey away at the front? In his absence many rumours about the Tsarina and the Holy
man Rasputin spread. The Tsarina was a German princess and she was an easy target for those who
were disgruntled. Rasputin was a strange figure. He was a Holy Man who had become very close to the
Imperial family. He had a calming influence over the Tsarina and was widely believed to have mystical
powers that would help the ill Tsarevich in his fight against illness. With the Tsar away though,
Rasputin’s excesses became a major focus of attention and his influence on the Imperial Family was
viewed with suspicion by many. In 1916, supporters of the Tsar murdered Rasputin.

The February Revolution was the first of two revolutions that took place in Russia in 1917. 
At the time of the revolution Russia was an autocracy, with Tsar Nicholas II holding absolute
power over his people. Its political, social and economic structures were extremely backward in
comparison to other countries in Europe. Food shortages and military failures at the start of the
twentieth century had caused strikes and riots that were often brutally suppressed. The 1905
Revolution had led to some reforms, including the establishment of a State Duma (legislative
assembly), but there was still no real democracy in Russia.
Russia's entry into the First World War was initially supported by most Russians. However its
infrastructure struggled to cope with the demands of war. Russia's industry depended almost
entirely on foreign imports. When Germany and its Turkish allies blockaded Russia's Eastern
ports, its railway, electricity and supply systems broke down. There were not enough laborers to
collect the harvests and there were serious food shortages. 
PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Republic
established immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of the Russian Empire on
March 2, 1917. It was intended to organize elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and
its convention.
Despite its short reign of power and implementation shortcomings, the provisional government
passed very progressive legislation. The policies enacted by this moderate government (by
1917 Russian standards) represented arguably the most liberal legislation in Europe at the time.
It abolished capital punishment, declared the independence of Poland, redistributed wealth in
the countryside, restored the constitution of Finland, established local government on a
universal suffrage basis, separated church and state, conceded language rights to all the
nationalities, and confirmed liberty of speech, liberty of the Press, and liberty of assembly.

THE army
It is difficult to exaggerate the centrality of the army to the history of the Russian Empire. After
all, it was due to the army that the empire came into existence in the first place. It was the army
that conquered the territories of the empire, defended them, policed them and maintained
internal security all at the same time. It was the army that transformed Russia into a great
power, for it was the army that built the Russian state..

Yet if the army built the state, the state also built the army, and there was a symbiotic
relationship between these two processes. By any reckoning the creation of a strong army was
an extraordinary achievement, for in the middle of the seventeenth century Russia did not enjoy
many advantages when it came to the generation of military power. To be sure, comprising over
15 million square kilometres in the 1680s, Muscovy was extensive in land area, but the
population of the country, probably less than 7 million persons, was relatively small, and widely
dispersed. Distances were vast, roads were execrable, the climate was insalubrious and much
of the soil was of poor agricultural quality. Total state income amounted to a paltry 1.2 million
roubles per annum and the country as a whole was undergoverned. Industry was
underdeveloped, and Muscovy had to import both iron and firearms. Still worse, Russia lacked
any natural, defensible frontiers and was hemmed in from the south, west and north by
formidable enemies – the Ottoman Empire, the Khanate of the Crimea, the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth and the Kingdom of Sweden.
On April 16, 1917, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returns to
Petrograd after a decade of exile to take the reins of the Russian Revolution.
Vladimir Lenin, one of the most prominent socialists in the early 1900s, always believed that
revolution was the key to establishing socialism. But when the First World War broke out, he
was extremely surprised to see his fellow socialists aligning with their governments to vote for
war. He was furious with the actions of his comrades and cut ties with them.

JULY DAYS ]
July Days, (July 16–20 [July 3–7, old style], 1917), a period in the Russian Revolution during
which workers and soldiers of Petrograd staged armed demonstrations against the Provisional
Government that resulted in a temporary decline of Bolshevik influence and in the formation of a
new Provisional Government, headed by Aleksandr Kerensky. In June dissatisfied Petrograd
workers and soldiers, using Bolshevik slogans, staged a demonstration and adopted resolutions
against the government. On July 3 protestors, motivated in part by the resignation of the
government’s Kadet (Constitutional Democratic) ministers, marched through Petrograd to the
Tauride Palace to demand that the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies assume formal
power. The Bolsheviks, initially reluctant, attempted to prevent the demonstration but
subsequently decided to support it.

Kornilov affair
The son of a Cossack officer in the tsarist army, Lavr Kornilov enlisted at a young age and
served with distinction in both the Russo-Japanese War and World War I.
The Kornilov affair was a confused episode in August 1917 when, for a short time, the
Provisional Government appeared to be under threat from a counter-revolution led by its own
army. Alexander Kerensky and his government survived, in part due to support from Bolshevik
troops, but their weakness had been fatally exposed.
Like others of his kind, the general was taciturn, conservative and authoritarian. He was
respected but also feared by the men in his command. Kornilov was a loyal tsarist who
reluctantly accepted the February Revolution and barely tolerated the Provisional Government.
He despised socialism and socialists and considered the Petrograd Soviet an illegal gathering
and Lenin a German agent working to destroy Russia.
In summary, Kornilov was a figure of the old order rather than the new one. He was one of the
best generals in the Russian army, however, which made him indispensable to the government.
OCTOBER REVOLUTION
The October Revolution, commonly referred to as Red October, the October Uprising, or the
Bolshevik Revolution, was a seizure of state power instrumental in the larger Russian
Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd on October 25,
1917.The October Revolution ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February,
replacing Russia’s short-lived provisional parliamentary government with government by
soviets, local councils elected by bodies of workers and peasants.
BOLSHEVIK
On November 7, 1917, members of the Bolshevik political party seized power in the capital of
Russia, Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). This conflict, ultimately, led to a Bolshevik victory in the
Russian civil war that followed, and the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922. The
October Revolution was actually the second Russian revolution of 1917. In
March, revolutionaries led by the Petrograd soviet, or council, violently overthrew Czar Nicholas
II, the monarch whose family had ruled Russia for more than three centuries.
The czarist government was replaced by a republic, largely led by Russian nobles.

The majority (bolshe in Russian) of Russians were peasants and industrial workers. They did
not support the new, noble-led government. The communist policies of the Bolshevik Party, led
by charismatic lawyer Vladimir Lenin, appealed to these working class Russians. Why does the
October Revolution have a November date? In 1917, Russia used the Julian calendar, which
placed the date for the October Revolution on October 25. (For the same reason, the March
uprising that led to the abdication of the czar is known as the “February Revolution.”) Today,
Russia uses the Gregorian calendar, which dates the revolution to November 7.

THE PEACE OF BREST-LITOVSK

treaties of Brest-Litovsk, peace treaties signed at Brest-Litovsk (now in Belarus) by the Central

Powers with the Ukrainian Republic (Feb. 9, 1918) and with Soviet Russia (March 3, 1918),
which concluded hostilities between those countries during World War I. Peace negotiations,
which the Soviet government had requested on Nov. 8, 1917, began on December 22. They
were divided into several sessions, during which the Soviet delegation tried to prolong the
proceedings and took full advantage of its opportunity to issue propaganda statements, while
the Germans grew increasingly impatient.
When no substantial progress had been made by January 18, the German general Max
Hoffmann firmly presented the German demands, which included the establishment of
independent states in the Polish and Baltic territories formerly belonging to the Russian
Empire and in Ukraine. Leon Trotsky, head of the Soviet delegation since January 9, called for a
recess (January 18–30). He returned to Petrograd where he persuaded the reluctant Bolsheviks
(including Lenin) to adopt a policy under which Russia would leave the war but sign no
peace treaty (“neither war nor peace”).

RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR

The Russian Civil War (November 1917 – October 1922) was a multi-party war in the former
Russian Empire immediately after the Russian Revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to
determine Russia’s political future. The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army,
fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism, and the loosely allied forces known as the White
Army, which included diverse interests respectively favoring monarchism, capitalism, and
alternative forms of socialism, each with democratic and antidemocratic variants. In addition,
rival militant socialists and non-ideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and
the Whites. The Whites had backing from Great Britain, France, the U.S., and Japan, while the
Reds possessed internal support which proved much more effective.
The Red Army defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine and the army led
by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak in Siberia in 1919. The remains of the White forces commanded
by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser
battles of the war continued on the periphery for two more years, and minor skirmishes with the
remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into 1923. Armed national
resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until 1934. There were an estimated 7-12
million casualties during the war, mostly civilians. The Russian Civil War has been described by
some as the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen.
SOVIET UNION
Soviet Union, in full Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh
Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik or Sovetsky Soyuz, former northern Eurasian empire (1917/22–
1991) stretching from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean and, in its final years,
consisting of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics (S.S.R.’s): Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia
(now Belarus), Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgiziya (now Kyrgyzstan), Latvia, Lithuania,
Moldavia (now Moldova), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The
capital was Moscow, then and now the capital of Russia.
During the period of its existence, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was by area the
world’s largest country. It was also one of the most diverse, with more than 100 distinct
nationalities living within its borders. The majority of the population, however, was made up of
East Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians); these groups together made up more than
two-thirds of the total population in the late 1980s.

Democratic centralism 
Is a practice in which political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all
members of the political party. It is mainly associated with leninism, wherein the party's political
vanguard of professional revolutionaries practised democratic centralism to elect leaders and
officers, determine policy through free discussion, and decisively realise it through united action.
[1] democratic centralism has also been practised by social democratic and democratic
socialist parties as well.[2][3] scholars have disputed whether democratic centralism was
implemented in practice in the soviet union and china, pointing to violent power struggles,
backhanded political maneuvering, historical antagonisms and the politics of personal prestige
in those regimes.

NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

New Economic Policy (NEP), the economic policy of the government of the Soviet Union from
1921 to 1928, representing a temporary retreat from its previous policy of extreme centralization
and doctrinaire socialism.
The policy of War Communism, in effect since 1918, had by 1921 brought the national economy
to the point of total breakdown. The Kronshtadt Rebellion of March 1921 convinced the
Communist Party and its leader, Vladimir Lenin, of the need to retreat from socialist policies in
order to maintain the party’s hold on power. Accordingly, the 10th Party Congress in March
1921 introduced the measures of the New Economic Policy. These measures included the
return of most agriculture, retail trade, and small-scale light industry to private ownership and
management while the state retained control of heavy industry, transport, banking, and foreign
trade. Money was reintroduced into the economy in 1922 (it had been abolished under War
Communism). The peasantry were allowed to own and cultivate their own land, while paying
taxes to the state. The New Economic Policy reintroduced a measure of stability to the economy
and allowed the Soviet people to recover from years of war, civil war, and governmental
mismanagement. The small businessmen and managers who flourished in this period became
known as NEP men.