Grade 10 History

Chapter 30 Section 1

These are notes I made for the History quiz. I can’t guarantee this contains 100%
of all content but I hope it covers most important points. I got information from:

 Textbook
 PowerPoint presentation
 Class notes
Note: Since these notes contain information from the book, there are many
details. If you only want to study the main ideas, you can read the PowerPoint,
but the teacher said it won’t be enough.

Sec 1 Revolutions in Russia

Setting the stage
 Many factors led to the Russian Revolution over a long time.
 The Revolution happened in 1917, but for almost a century the harsh rule
of the czars had caused social unrest.
 Many groups revolted in the 1800s.
 Russia was heading towards a full-scale revolution.

Czars Resist Change

Alexander III
 In 1881, Czar Alexander III ruled Russia after his father, Alexander II.
 He stopped all reforms in Russia.
 Like his grandfather Nicholas I, Alexander III stuck to the ideas of
autocracy, a form of government where the czar had total power, just like
absolute monarchy.
 Anyone who questioned the czar’s absolute authority, worshipped outside
the Roman Orthodox Church, or spoke a language other than Russian
was considered dangerous.
Harsh rule
 To wipe out revolutionaries, Alexander III used harsh measures.
 He put strict censorship on documents, including private letters.
 His secret police watched schools and universities. Teachers had to send
reports on every student.
 Prisoners were sent to Siberia, a cold and empty region in eastern Russia.

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Jews persecuted
 To make a united Russian culture, Alexander III opposed other groups
within Russia.
 He made Russian the official language and banned other languages, like
Polish, in schools.
 He opposed the Jews in Russia.
 Jews could not buy, get educated, or live among other Russian people.
 A series of pogroms, or organized violence against Jews, broke out in
many parts of Russia.
 Police and soldiers watched Russian citizens destroy Jewish homes,
stores, and synagogues.

Russia Industrializes
Economic plan
 Nicholas II became the next czar.
 Under his rule, the Russian economy industrialized quickly.
 The number of factories was more than double between 1863 and 1900.
 Still Russia was far behind the industrial nations of western Europe.
 In the 1890s, one of Nicholas’ ministers, named Witte, made a program to
move the country forward.
 To finance the building of Russian industries, the government:

1. Invited foreign investors to invest in Russian companies.

2. Raised taxes.
3. Focused on factories and production.
4. Increased steel production. Russia was the 4th producer of steel after
the US, Germany, and Great Britain.
5. With the help of British and French investors, work began on the world’s
longest continuous rail line: the Trans-Siberian Railway.
It began in 1891 and was completed in 1916.
It connected European Russia in the west with Russian ports on the
Pacific Ocean in the East.
Revolution grows
 This fast industrialization made the Russians unhappy.
 The growth of factories brought new problems, such as horrible working
conditions, low salaries, and child labor.
 Gap between the rich and poor widened.
 To try to improve their lives, workers unhappy with their low standard of
living and lack of political power made strikes (=‫)مظاهرات‬.

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 Karl Marx and Communism
 Karl Marx was a German philosopher,
economist, historian, sociologist, political
theorist, and journalist.
 His ideas led to communism / socialism:
 the belief that everything should be owned
by the country, and the government will
equally divide it among all citizens. There will
be no rich people, everyone will be equal.

≠ opposite of communism is capitalism or privatization, when there

are private businesses owned by rich businessmen.

 More and more Russians liked the ideas of Karl Marx.

 They believed that the industrial class of workers could overthrow the
czar.
 They wanted to create a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. This means
that the proletariat, or the workers, would rule the country.

2 groups
 In 1903, the Marxists, or supporters of Karl Marx’s ideas, split into 2
groups:

Bolsheviks Mensheviks

 They were radical, meaning they

wanted a lot of change.  Moderate, wanted few changes.
 Hated the czar.  Liked the czar.
 Were ready to sacrifice everything  Wanted a broad base of popular
for change. support for the revolution.
 Known as the Red Army or Red  Formed the White Army.
Guards.

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 Lenin
 The main leader of the Bolsheviks was Vladimir
Ilyich Ulyanov who took the name of Lenin.
 He was a good organizer with an interesting
personality. He also had no mercy. These traits
eventually helped him gain command of the
Bolsheviks.
 In the early 1900s, Lenin escaped to western
Europe to avoid arrest by the czar.
 From there he maintained contact with the other Bolsheviks. Then
he waited until he could return safely to Russia.

Before the Revolution

Between 1904 and 1917, Russia faced a series of crises. These events showed
the czar’s weakness and prepared for the revolution.
Russo-Japanese War
 In the late 1800s, Russia and Japan competed for control of Korea and
Manchuria.
 Russia controlled Manchuria, and Japan controlled Korea.
 They had signed a treaty over these lands.
 However, Russia broke this treaty.
 A war happened and Japan won, which showed the Russians that their
government was weak.
Bloody Sunday: the Revolution of 1905
 In January 1905, about 200,000 workers and their families approached the
czar’s Winter Palace.
 They asked for better working conditions, more personal freedom, and
an elected national government.
 Nicholas II ordered his soldiers to shoot at the crowd. More than
1,000 people were wounded and several hundred were killed.
 Russians soon named this event Bloody Sunday.
 Bloody Sunday provoked a series of strikes and violence that spread
across the country.

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  In October 1905, Nicholas promised more freedom.
 He approved the creation of the Duma, Russia’s first parliament.
 The first Duma met in May 1906. Its leaders were moderates who wanted
Russia to become a constitutional monarchy similar to Britain. This is a
form of government in which a single ruler heads the government and
shares the authority with elected law makers.
 But because he didn’t want to share his power, the czar removed the
Duma after ten weeks.
World War I
 In 1914, Nicholas II made the decision to drag Russia into World War I.
Russia was unprepared to face the military and economic cost.
 Its weak generals and poorly equipped soldiers were no match for the
German army.
 Before a year had passed, more than 4 million Russian soldiers had
been killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.
 Eventually, soldiers ignored their orders. Russian cities had high prices.
People from all classes wanted Russia to exit the war.
Rasputin
 In 1915, Nicholas went to the border. From there, he hoped to lead his
soldiers to victory in WWI.
 His wife, Czarina Alexandra, ran the government while he was away.
 She ignored the czar’s advisors.
 A man called Rasputin treated her son, Alexis, who had a serious disease
called hemophilia.
 Rasputin said that he had magical healing powers. He used black magic.
 Alexandra wanted to thank Rasputin for healing her son so she told him
to rule Russia.
 He opposed changes and gave his friends powerful positions.
 In 1916, a group of nobles were scared of Rasputin and murdered
him.

The March Revolution

Revolution starts
 In March 1917, women workers in Petrograd, a city, led a strike because
they had no bread or fuel.
 Nearly 200,000 workers marched in the streets shouting, “Down with the
autocracy!” and “Down with the war!”
 At first the soldiers tried to shoot the people but later joined their side.
 It turned into a revolution: the March Revolution.

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Czar steps down
 The revolution forced Nicholas II to step down from his throne.
 A year later, revolutionaries killed Nicholas and his family.
 The Romanovs, the family that ruled Russia for 3 centuries, fell.
Provisional government
 Leaders of the Duma created a provisional government, or temporary
government.
 Alexander Kerensky was its leader.
 He decided to continue fighting in WWI, so the people started hating him.
 As the war continued, conditions inside Russia got worse.
 People formed soviets, or local councils made of workers, peasants, and
soldiers.
 In many cities, the soviets had more power than the provisional
government.
Lenin returns to Russia
 The Germans believed that Lenin and his Bolsheviks would cause unrest
in Russia, which would be good for Germany, Russia’s enemy.
 So they helped Lenin return to Russia after many years of exile.
 Traveling secretly, Lenin returned to Russia in April 1917.

The Bolshevik Revolution

Bolshevik power
 Lenin and the Bolsheviks soon gained control of the Petrograd soviet, as
well as the soviets in other major Russian cities.
 By the fall of 1917, people in the cities shouted, “All power to the soviets.”
 Lenin’s slogan was “Peace, Land, and Bread.”
Provisional government falls
 In November 1917, without warning, armed factory workers attacked the
Winter Palace in Petrograd.
 The Bolsheviks took the government offices and arrested the leaders
of the provisional government, including Alexander Kerensky.
Bolsheviks rule Russia
 Right after taking control, Lenin ordered that all Russia’s farmland be
distributed among the peasants.
 He also gave control of factories to the workers.

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  The Bolshevik government signed an agreement with Germany to stop all
fighting and began peace talks.
 In March 1918, Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to
stop fighting each other in WWI.
 Russia surrendered many of its lands to Germany and its allies. This
caused a lot of anger among many Russians.
 They didn’t like the Bolsheviks’ ideas and their murder of the royal family.
Civil war rages in Russia
 The people against the Bolsheviks were the White Army.
 The White Army was made up of very different groups.
 The groups barely worked together. At one point there were three White
Armies fighting against the Bolsheviks’ Red Army.

 Leon Trotsky led the Bolshevik Red Army.

 From 1918 to 1920, a civil war happened in Russia.
 Several Western nations, including the US, helped the White Army.
However, they were of little help.
Civil war ends
 This civil war was far more deadly than the earlier revolutions.
 Around 14 million Russians died in the three-year war and in the famine
that followed.
 Russia was left in chaos.
 In the end, the Bolsheviks’ Red Army won.
 The victory showed that the Bolsheviks were able to take and keep power.
Comparing revolutions
 The Russian Revolution was more like the French Revolution than
the American Revolution.
 Both the French and Russian revolutions attempted to destroy existing
political and social systems.
 Revolutionaries in France and Russia used violence to control people.
 France became a constitutional monarchy for some time, but the Russian
Revolution made a state-controlled government that lasted for decades.

Lenin Restores Order

New Economic Policy
 War and revolution destroyed the Russian economy.
 So Lenin decided to improve the economy and government.
 In March 1921, Lenin moved away from communism and made a plan
called the New Economic Policy (NEP).

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  The changes of the NEP allowed peasants to sell their crops instead of
always giving the crops to the government.
 The government kept control of major industries, banks, and
communication, but it let some small factories, businesses, and
farms be owned privately.
 The government also encouraged foreign investment.
 Russian economy slowly improved. By 1928, Russia’s farms and
factories were producing as much as they had before WWI.
Political reforms
 Bolshevik leaders saw nationalism as a threat.
 Lenin organized Russia into several republics under the central
government.
 In 1922 Russia was named the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR).

 The Bolsheviks renamed their group the Communist Party. The name
came from Karl Marx’s work. He used the word “communism” to describe
the society that would exist after workers overthrow the government.
 In 1924, the Communists created a constitution based
on socialist and democratic ideas. In reality, the Leaders of
Communist Party held all the power. Russia
in this section
Stalin Becomes Dictator
Nicholas I
 Lenin had a stroke and almost died in 1922. (not important)
 He survived, but this caused competition for the next
leader of the Communist Party.
 Two of the most notable men were Leon Trotsky and Alexander II
(not important)
Joseph Stalin.
 Stalin was cold and harsh.
 During his early days as a Bolshevik, he had changed his Alexander III
name to Stalin, which means “man of steel” in Russian.
 Stalin slowly gained more and more power in the Nicholas II
government.
 Lenin believed that Stalin was a dangerous man.
 By 1928, Stalin took control of the Communist Party. Lenin
 Trotsky, forced into exile in 1929, was no longer a threat.
 Stalin was now ready to have absolute power as a
dictator, which we will see next section. Stalin

Made by Adham Hazem. Good luck! 