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The Russian
Revolution
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Background: Causes of
Revolution
• Repressive and aristocratic regimes of the
Romanov dynasty: Nicholas II
• Severe economic and social crisis in Russia
• Russia in WWI: “This isn’t war it is
slaughter” Lenin
• Corruption in Government
• Numbers of Poor and Rich
Causes Continued
• Revolutionary Middle Class
• Nicholas II inability to allow any form of
reform and a refusal to abdicate Absolutism
• New Ideas of Marxism in Europe (Marx
Link)
• Vladmir Lenin leader of the visionary
Revolutionary class
• Chronology of Events:
Chronology
• Russo Japanese War of 1905-a humiliating
event for proud Russia.
• Nicholas II and the Duma fiasco
• WWI (1914-1918)
• March 1917 mass desertions in army, riots
in streets, labor strikes chaos. Bread riots,
fuel riots. Soldiers sent by the Tsar/Czar
ended up joining with the rioters. (3/8/17)
• Nicholas abdicates on the ides of March
1917
• The “Provisional Government” established
almost immediately. Totally out of touch
with peasants and the “real Russian
situation”. Refused to end WWI for Russia!
• Establishment of Soviets-councils of angry
workers pop up to counter the new
government
• Marxist tendencies infiltrate the “Soviets”
– Two branches: Mensheviks (minority) and
radical Bolsheviks (majority)
• 1917 Lenin returns to Russia, revolution in mind
Communist Manifesto in pocket.
• Lenin’s slogan: “Peace Land and Bread”
• November 6, 1917 Russian Bolsheviks led by
Lenin seize public places, government offices in
Petrograd.
• Next day: the Winter Palace overthrows
Kerensky’s regime.
• November 1917: at the urging of Lenin free
elections held, Lenin and his band only won ¼ of
the seats…Lenin seizes legislature.
• Lenin institutes: Leninism-often titled
“Communism” but it is not even close to
theoretical communism.
Leninism
Politburo
Politbur
o
Committees
General
Secretary of
the
Communist
Party
National Congress
Soviets
The Russian State from 1918 until 1989
• Civil War Breaks out in 1919: Lenin at this time
begins to have serious disagreements with his
counterpart Leon Trotsky a fellow communist with
whom he clashes about the “true nature” of the
movement.
– Anti-Bolsheviks: Whites (led by Liberal Russians and
Angry Western Powers
– Bolsheviks: Reds (led by Lenin and Trotsky)
White
Propaganda
poster of the “evil
Trotsky”
Trotsky
• Lenin starts Anti-West phenomenon during Civil War
with his commentary on the betrayal of Russia by the
west during WWI and his hatred of Versailles.
Refuses to pay any loans back to West incurred by
Nicholas II, who is killed during the Civil War.
(executed by Red forces on 6-16-18)
• Thousands of people tortured and killed during the
titanic struggle.
• Lenin establishes the “Cheka” after Red victory in
Civil War and alters Russian History forever with the
use of Terror as an acceptable political means.
• Lenin’s death in 1924 sets up a power struggle
between Trotsky and Stalin…who wins????
The Legacy of Lenin
• A revolutionary from an early age…in his
genes if you will. Brother was murdered for
Revolutionary activities by the Romanov’s.