Download Chapter 30, Section 1

Chapter 30, Section 1
Revolutions in Russia
 Leading up to the revolution:
cruel and oppressive rule for most of the 19th century
Social unrest
Social inequalities
Ruthless treatment of peasants
Czars unfair governing
Army officers revolt in 1825
Hundreds of peasants riot
Secret revolutionary groups form
1881 student rev. assassinate the Czar Alexander II
Alexander III Upholds Autocracy
 1881, Alex III comes to the throne and stopped all reforms, he wanted an autocracy (gov’t in
which he has all the power)
 he imposed strict censorship on all published documents-including private letters to wipe out
revolutionaries
 he also had secret police watch high schools and colleges and all the teachers had to send
detail reports on all the students
 political prisoners all were sent to Siberia (east/central Russia)
 he oppressed nationality groups
 Russian became the official language and he forbid the use of any other languages in schools
 Jews were a target for persecution
-laws to encourage prejudice against them
-could not buy land
-could not live among Russians
pogroms: organized violence against Jews and police didn’t stop it
Nicholas II Resists Change
 Alex III’s son came to power in 1894, his name was Nicholas II and he also wanted an
autocracy
 Russia was behind other industrialized nations when Nicholas II came to power
 1890s, Sergey Witte, the czar’s best minister, launched reforms to move the country forward
 they raised taxes, foreign investment, financially supported businesses, number of factories
between 1863-1900 doubled
 they also boosted the steel industry: by 1900 Russia was the world’s 4th largest producer of
steel (behind the U.S., G.B., Germany)
 they built the Trans-Siberian Railway: world’s longest rail line and it connected European side
of Russia to the ports on the Pacific.
Revolution Movements Grow
 all of these changes stirred unrest in the people because…
 factories brought terrible working conditions, low pay and child labor
 gov’t outlawed trade unions
 workers had no say politically
 a group formed that followed Karl Marx and they believed they would overthrow the Czar and
the worker’s would rule
 1903, the Marx followers split into 2 groups:
Mensheviks: wanted broad base support
Bolsheviks: small number but committed and willing to sacrifice all for radical changes
 Vladimir Lenin headed the Bolsheviks, he was an excellent organizer, good personality but
ruthless
Bloody Sunday
 Jan 22, 1905: 200,000 workers went to the czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and carried
signs.
 Nicholas II was not at home and his police started firing on the people, killing up to a 1000
innocent, armless civilians, “Bloody Sunday”
 Bloody Sunday provoked a wave of revolts and strikes
 Nicholas II realized changed was needed so in 1905 the Duma (Russia’s first parliament) was
formed
 Its leaders were moderates and wanted to become a constitutional monarchy like Britain
 Nicholas II didn’t like this idea and shut down the Duma after just 10 weeks
World War I
 1914 Nicholas II made the fatal decision to bring Russia into the War
 within 1 year, 4 million Russians were killed, wounded or POWs
 1915, Nicholas II moved to the war front and left Czarina Alexandra to run things
 She only listened to Rasputin, “holy man,” because he appeared to ease her son’s pain: Alexis
had hemophilia
 She allowed Rasputin to make key decision, spread corruption in the royal court until his
assassination in 1916
March Revolution
 March 1917, women textile workers had a strike in Petrograd, 200,000 started rebelling and
soon the soldiers joined them and starting firing on their officers
 Local protests forced the Czar to step down
 Within a year, revolutionaries had executed the entire family and the Romanov Dynasty, after
3 centuries, came to an end
 Duma step up a provisional gov’t
 Conditions worsened: peasants wanted land, city workers became more radical
 Social revolutionaries formed soviets: local councils consisting of workers, peasants and
soldiers
 Soviets had more influence then the provisional gov’t at times
 WWI still going on and Germany got Lenin back in
 Germany was hoping that Lenin would stir unrest up in Russia and hurt their war effort (it
worked)
Bolshevik Revolution
 Lenin quickly gained support of the soviets in Petrograd and major cities
 Lenin’s slogan was “peace, land and bread”
 Nov 1917, Bolshevik Red Guards (factory workers), stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd
 They took over the gov’t offices and arrested the leaders of the provisional gov’t
 Within days of his takeover, Lenin ordered land to be redistributed among peasants
 He signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany and this triggered anger in some Russians
because they lost so much land
 Russians started to object to the Bolsheviks
 Opponents formed the White Army
 Trotsky was in charge of the Red Guard
 1918-1920, civil war between the White Army and Red Guard
 the U.S. supported the White Army, supplies, food ect
 it was very deadly, 15 million killed or starved
Lenin Restores Order
 Red Guard won but they still had problems:
economy was destroyed
Trade at a standstill
Industrial production dropped
Many skilled workers fled
 March 1921, Lenin started the NEP (New Economic Policy)
 It resorted to small scale capitalism
 Peasants could sell surplus (as opposed to giving to the gov’t)
 Individuals could buy/sell for a profit
 Gov’t control over major industries, banks, means of communication
 Foreign investment was boosted
 Lenin began political reforms by dividing Russia into several self-governing republics under a
central gov’t
 1922, country was renamed the USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
 Bolsheviks renamed themselves Communists (from Marx who used communism to describe a
classless society)
 Communist Party had all the real power
 Lenin was dictator not of the people but of the Party
 1928 Russia was producing as much as they had pre-WWI