28.

4- The Russian
Revolution
 Review- Russia
• Russia is the largest country in the world with a variety of geographic
features and struggles
• Harsh winters
• Widely dispersed population
• Napoleon, Caesar, and many others fail to conquer Russia
 Review- Russia
What we already know:
• Russia was ruled by Czar Nicholas II- an absolute ruler
• Russification enforced Russian language and Orthodox Christianity
• Pogroms had forced millions of Jews to flee
• Russia was not industrialized (lost the Russo-Japanese war as a result)
• Majority of the peasant population lived in stark poverty
• Bloody Sunday (1905)- massacre of peaceful protestors
 WWI Intensifies Discontent
• Outbreak of WWI fueled national pride and united Russians, but it was
short-lived
• Russian involvement in WWI made many preexisting problems worse:
• Soldiers were poorly trained and dying- 2M in 1915 alone
• Incompetent military leadership
• Lack of industrialization- factories weren’t producing enough
supplies, transportation broke down
 March Revolution (1917)
• By 1917, peasants and workers are fed up with disastrous Note- in
battle losses and food/fuel shortages at home Russia,
• Workers strike, march through the streets shouting known as
“Bread! Bread! Bread!” February
• Troops refuse to fire on protestors- join them instead Revolution
• Czar Nicholas II abdicates (gives up) the throne, and the Duma creates a
provisional (temporary) government
 Soviets
• Outside of the provisional government, soviets are Soviets-
created in most cities councils of
• Soviets were more powerful and had more workers and
support than the provisional government soldiers set up by
• At first, soviets worked democratically within the revolutionaries
government
• Over time, the communist-leaning Bolsheviks took
charge
 Review- Communism
• During the Industrial Revolution, Karl Marx developed the idea of
communism
• A communist society has no class structure because everyone is
equal and all property is shared.
• Marx believed the masses would rise up to overthrow the Bourgeoisie
• History has been the struggle of the Proletariat against Bourgeoisie
• Government controls the means of production (factories, resources)
 Vladimir Lenin
• Vladimir Lenin was a socialist who adapted Marxist
ideas to fit Russian conditions
• Because Russia did not have a large urban
proletariat, he called for an elite group to lead
the revolution into communism
• Called his group the Bolsheviks, which means
“majority” (even though they only represented
a small number of socialists)
• Lenin had been exiled but was smuggled back in to
Russia by the Germans during WWI to spread
revolution and force Russia out of the war

Bolsheviks =
Communists
 Peace, Land, Bread
• Lenin’s goals were summed up in the slogan that gained him support:
“Peace, Land, Bread”

Get Russia out of WWI

End serfdom, give

peasants land

Increase food supply

 November Revolution (1917)
• In November 1917, Red Guards (armed factory workers)
Also known
attacked and overtook the provisional government
as the
• Bolsheviks quickly seized power in other cities- made Bolshevik
Moscow their capital and the Kremlin their headquarters Revolution
• Lenin and the Bolsheviks ended private land ownership
and redistributed land to peasants, gave workers
control of factories

New flag symbolizing union between

workers (hammer) and peasants (sickle)
 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
• After the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin
wanted to get Russia out of WWI ASAP
• Signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which
negotiated peace between Russia and
Germany
• However, Germany punished Russia by
forcing them to surrender huge
amounts of territory
 Civil War
• Once Lenin gained control, civil war began in Russia
• The Red Army- Bolsheviks/Communists
• The White Army- Tsar loyalists, Allied powers
• Brutality was common- White Army attempts to assassinate Lenin
and slaughtered communist prisoners; The Red Army kills former
Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family
• Millions die from starvation as the
civil war drags on for 3 years
 War Communism
• Communist forces also used terror to control their own people
• Organized the Cheka- secret police force that executed
citizens accused of taking action against the revolution
• Adopted a policy known as “war communism”
• Took over banks, mines, factories, railroads
• Peasant farmers deliver crops to feed soldiers/hungry
people in cities
• Peasant laborers drafted into army or
forced to work in factories
• Red Army becomes highly effective
(every 10th man is shot if they fail)
 Civil War
In 1921, the Communist Red Army defeats the White Army