In 1894, Nicholas II became ruler of a 

Russian empire that stretched from the  

Baltic to the Pacific, inhabited by 126 

million people, from 194 ethnic groups.

It was a country in which workers and 

peasants lived in poverty and hardship - while  

Russia's elite - its imperial family and 

aristocracy - lived lives of gilded luxury.

There was a long history of struggle in 

Russia against the injustices of the system.

And in 1905, a revolution forced the Tsar 

to allow the creation of a state duma,  

or national assembly.

But its power was limited, and the compromise 

pleased neither the Tsar nor the reformers.

In 1914, this divided empire was plunged 

into fresh crisis... by world war.

World War One was a disaster for Tsarist Russia.

At the front, the country suffered 

a series of devastating defeats,  

while at home there were food 

shortages and economic chaos.

The Tsar was held responsible 

for the crisis – after all,  

he was now the army's commander-in-chief, and 

he was standing in the way of government reform.  

His German-born wife, Empress Alexandra, 

was even thought to be supporting Germany;  

while the entire family was said to have 

fallen under the spell of a Siberian mystic  

and faith healer, Grigory Rasputin.

In December 1916, Rasputin was murdered 

by Russian aristocrats, possibly with  

the help of British secret agents - both groups 

determined to end his influence over the Tsar.  

But in the eyes of many, the 

damage had already been done.

On 23rd February 1917, thousands of women 

took to the streets of the Russian capital,  
Petrograd, to mark International Women's 
Day and protest over bread shortages.

The next day they were joined on 

the streets by workers and students,  

carrying placards that read 'Down with the Tsar!'

Troops, ordered to put down the disorder, 

mutinied, and joined the protestors instead.

Tsarist officials were arrested, prisons 

and police stations were attacked,  

emblems of Tsarist rule smashed and burned.

The government had lost control of the capital.

The Tsar was told by his ministers that 

order could only be restored - and Russia  

saved from military defeat - if he gave up power.

So on 2nd March, Nicholas agreed to abdicate.

In just 10 days, 300 years of 

Romanov rule had come to an end.

The February Revolution had been 

remarkably swift and bloodless,  

and hopes were now high for the creation of 

a more democratic, more just Russian state.

Members of the State Duma, the national assembly, 

had formed a Provisional Government, which was to  

hold power until a Constituent Assembly was 

elected, to give Russia a new constitution.

But in reality, the Provisional Government shared 

power with the Petrograd Soviet, a council elected  

by workers and soldiers, that controlled the 

capital's troops, transport and communications.

The Petrograd Soviet, dominated by 

the Socialist Revolutionary Party  

and the Marxist Menshevik Party, was much more 

radical than the Provisional Government...  

yet it supported the Government's 

decision to continue the war,  

and honour the commitments that 

Russia had made to the Allies.
It was a fateful decision, that ultimately played 
into the hands of one of the smaller parties....  

the Bolsheviks.

Their leader, Vladimir Lenin, recently returned  

from 16 years in exile, bitterly 

opposed the 'imperialist war'.

He also demanded the immediate redistribution 

of land from rich landowners to peasants;  

and the transfer of power from the 

'bourgeoise' Provisional Government  

to the people's Soviets, or councils, 

that were springing up across Russia.

The Bolshevik programme was summed up in 

a simple slogan, 'Bread, Peace and Land'.

And as Russia's economic and military crisis 

deepened, its appeal to the masses grew and grew.

In June, a new Russian military offensive ended 

in disaster, with 400,000 Russian casualties,  

massive desertions, and the collapse 

of army morale and discipline.

In July, soldiers and sailors 

in Petrograd mutinied. They were  

joined in the streets by workers, with 

Bolshevik support. But troops loyal to  

the Provisional Government opened fire on 

the protestors, and dispersed the crowds.

A police crackdown followed, leading to 

the arrest of several Bolshevik leaders,  

including Leon Trotsky, while Lenin, with 

the help of Josef Stalin, fled to Finland,  

travelling with forged papers under 

the name of Konstantin Ivanov...

A socialist, and stirring 

orator, named Alexander Kerensky,  

became Russia's new Prime Minister, and was hailed 

as the man who would save Russia from anarchy.

The army's commander-in-chief, General Kornilov, 

believed Russia's war effort was being undermined  

by chaos at home, and deliberately sabotaged by 

men like Lenin, whom he declared a German spy.

So in August, he ordered his men to 

march on Petrograd, to 'restore order'.

Bolsheviks played a leading role in the city's 

defence against this attempted military coup.

Their most brilliant organiser, Leon 

Trotsky, was released from prison,  

and sent armed Bolshevik militias, the 'Red 

Guards', to defend key points in the city.

Strikes by railway workers, many of them 

Bolshevik supporters, prevented Kornilov  

from moving his men by rail, and his soldiers 

began to switch sides, or simply go home.

The Kornilov Affair cast the Bolsheviks 

as saviours of the revolution.

And by the end of September, they'd 

gained a majority in the Petrograd Soviet.

In October, Lenin decided the time had come.  

He secretly returned from Finland to 

Petrograd, and began preparing to seize power.

On 25th October, the Bolsheviks made their move:  

Red Guards and loyal troops seized key 

points around the capital, and that night  

they stormed the Provisional Government's 

headquarters at the Winter Palace – an event  

later immortalised by Bolshevik propaganda, and 

the great Soviet film-maker, Sergei Eisenstein.

Kerensky fled the city at the last 

moment, narrowly avoiding capture,  

and the next day, at the Second 

All-Russian Congress of Soviets,  

Lenin announced the overthrow 

of the Provisional Government.

The following months saw the Bolsheviks 

consolidate their hold on power, while fighting a  

brutal civil war against counter-revolutionary, or 

'White Russian', forces, who had foreign support.

Some Whites hoped to put Tsar 

Nicholas back on the throne.
After his abdication, Nicholas and his family 
had been held under guard at Tsarskoye Selo,  

outside Petrograd, where they occupied 

themselves with gardening and other diversions.

In summer 1917 the family was 

sent to Tobolsk, in Siberia,  

where they lived under house 

arrest in the Governor's Mansion.

The following spring, the Bolsheviks 

had the family moved to Yekaterinburg.

In July 1918, as White forces approached 

the city, Bolshevik soldiers gathered the  

whole family in a cellar – the Tsar, his 

wife, their son Alexei, their 4 daughters,  

Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, as 

well as 4 servants - and executed them all.

Russia's civil war was one of the 20th 

century's most devastating events.  

An estimated 2 million soldiers lost their lives,  

while a typhus epidemic and famine claimed 

the lives of a further 9 million civilians.

By the end of 1921, the Bolsheviks had 

emerged victorious, and under Lenin's  

determined and uncompromising leadership, 

set about building a new socialist order.

The Soviet Union, created in 1922,  

emerged as a world superpower following the 

defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two.

But it would always remain a single party state,  

where all opposition or dissent 

was ruthlessly suppressed.

Those brief hopes for Russian democracy, 

that flowered amid the euphoria of the  

February Revolution, were extinguished 

by the Bolshevik October Revolution,  

and put beyond reach for decades to come.

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