THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The Russian Revolution of 1917

had many causes.

THE LONG TERMS CAUSES OF

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
THE SHORT TERMS CAUSES OF
• The extreme poverty of the peasants THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
and their need for more land. • Influence of Rasputin in the
• The bad working and living conditions Government
for the workers towns. • Inflation and Unrest
• An undemocratic government which
was neither fair nor very good.
• The opposition of diferent groups:
BOLSHEVIKS
THE DUMA
 Autocracy
Russia until 1905 >The Tsar rules without objections.
>He could assign ministers and sacked
them without a reason.

>80% of the population lived as peasants farming the land but not
owning it, in dreadful working conditions.
>The aristocracy owned the land and pay taxes to the Tsar, but
they live opulent and elegant lifestyles.
>The orthodox church taught devotion and respect to the Tsar, the
population was very religious.
>However farmland was scarce and Russia had crippling famines
quite regularly.
 The Tsarist System

The royal family

>However at the begining of the 1900, Russia
The church faced an industrial boom in coal and oil.

The army >Peasants began to mobilise to the cities

looking for opportunities.

The aristocrats
Workers and
peasants

But with low pay, life threatening conditions and 12 to

15 hours of work a day, the peasants soon realized
that life in the cities were not better than living in
farms.

Strikes for food and better living and working

conditions started all over the country in 1905.
The Tsar acted swiftly to prevent a revolution by
creating the DUMA: The first parliament system in
Russia. Russian people can now have their
representatives and the right of free speech.

>However the Tsar imposed so much limitations to
the Duma that it virtually had no power.
>Opposition groups such as the liberals, the
Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were growing in
influence and support.
Enter the Bolsheviks!
>The Provisional Government faced its first threat from the
general of the russian army, Kornilov. He refused to fight in the
war, he was still loyal to the Tsar.
>Alexsander Kerensky, leader of the Duma pleaded for help to
the Bolsheviks, the only group with military power at that time.
Kornilov's army refused to fight the bolsheviks and the problem
was solved.
>By November 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks with the slogan
“Peace, Bread and Land!” decided to overthrow the
provisional government.
>With little opposition, the red guards stormed the Winter
Palace on 7 November 1917, the Bolsheviks seized complete
power of Russia.
Russia joins the WWI:
A total disaster
>Russia joined the WWI in 1914 to fight against
the german invasion of Europe.
>However russian army was badly equipped and
trained. Only 2 out of 3 russian soldiers had rifles
and many had no boots to wear.
>Food and ammunition supply was the decisive
factor of the defeats of Russia in WWI. Russian
railway infrastructure was backwards and lacked
proper maintenance, meaning the resources for
soldiers were stuck.
>After massive defeats, Tsar Nicholas decided to
command the army himself. So he leaves the
capital in charge of Rasputin, his advisor.
>Russia could not afford to feed an army and it's
citizens at the same time, so general strikes
started all over the country by January 1917.
>By the time Tsar Nicholas went back from war,
he could no longer stop the chain of events
leading to the revolution. When his own army
refused to obey his orders, he decided to
abdicate to the throne in March 1917.
>The Duma set a Provisional Government to deal
with the crisis, but Russia still had a war to fight.
 CONSEQUENCES OF THE
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

• The government is taken over by the Bolshevik Party, led by LENIN,

later, it will be known as the communist Party.
• Farmland is distributed among farmers, and Factory is given to
workers.
• Banks are nationalized and a national council is assembled to run the
economy
• Russia pulls out of the World War I, singing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
conceding much land to germany.
• Tsarist rule ends, Nicholas II, his wife and five children were executed.
• Civil War, between Bolshevik (red) and anti-Bolshevik (white) forces,
sweeps Russia from 1918 to 1920. Around 15 million die in conflict and
the famine
• The russian economy is in shambles. Industrial production drops, trade
all but ceases, and skilled workers flee the country.
• Lenin asserts his control by cruel methods such as the GULAG, a vast
and brutal network of prision camps for both criminals and
political .prisioners,