Revolution and Nationalism

Proletariat

The industrial working class; Marxist theory held that workers would overthrow the czar and rule the country.

Bolsheviks

A radical Marxist group led by Lenin that supported a small number of committed revolutionaries; they seized power in the October Revolution of 1917.

Lenin (V.I. Lenin)

Leader of the Bolsheviks and founder of Soviet Russia; organized the October Revolution and established the first Communist government.

Rasputin

A self-described 'holy man' who gained enormous influence over Czarina Alexandra by claiming to heal her son Alexis; his political meddling weakened the czar's government.

Provisional Government

The temporary government set up by leaders of the Duma after Czar Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917; it was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in November 1917.

Soviet

A local council of workers, peasants, and soldiers; soviets often had more influence than the provisional government during 1917.

Communist Party

The renamed Bolshevik Party; it held all political power in the USSR and established a one-party dictatorship based on Marxist principles.

Joseph Stalin

Lenin's successor who became dictator of the Soviet Union; he transformed it into a totalitarian state through terror, purges, and forced industrialization.

Bloody Sunday (1905)

January 22, 1905 — czarist troops fired on peaceful workers petitioning the czar, killing over 1,000 and sparking widespread revolution.

March Revolution (1917)

Women textile workers in Petrograd led a strike that grew into a nationwide uprising, forcing Czar Nicholas II to abdicate.

Bolshevik Revolution / October Revolution

November 1917 — armed Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace and overthrew the provisional government, putting Lenin in power.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

March 1918 treaty in which Russia surrendered large territories to Germany to exit World War I; its humiliating terms fueled opposition to the Bolsheviks.

New Economic Policy (NEP)

Lenin's 1921 compromise allowing limited private enterprise and peasants to sell surplus crops; it revived the economy after war and revolution.

Totalitarianism

A system of government that takes total, centralized state control over every aspect of public and private life.

Great Purge

Stalin's 1937–1938 campaign of terror to eliminate political rivals; millions were executed or sent to labor camps, causing an estimated 8–13 million deaths.

Command Economy

An economic system in which the government makes all economic decisions and sets production goals; introduced by Stalin in 1928.

Five-Year Plans

Stalin's government programs setting impossibly high industrial production quotas; they rapidly industrialized the USSR but caused severe consumer goods shortages.

Collective Farm

A large, government-owned farm where hundreds of families worked together producing food for the state; part of Stalin's forced agricultural revolution.

Kuomintang

The Chinese Nationalist Party; its leaders included Sun Yixian and later Jiang Jieshi, who sought to modernize and unify China.

Sun Yixian

Leader of the Kuomintang who overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1911 and became first president of the Republic of China in 1912; promoted nationalism, democracy, and economic security.

May Fourth Movement

A 1919 nationwide Chinese protest sparked by the Treaty of Versailles giving Germany's Chinese territories to Japan; it fueled nationalism and interest in communism.

Mao Zedong

Founder of the Chinese Communist Party; he adapted Marxism to rural peasants and eventually led the Communists to victory in the Chinese Civil War.

Jiang Jieshi

Leader of the Kuomintang after Sun Yixian; became president of Nationalist China in 1928 but his corrupt government lost peasant support to the Communists.

Long March

1934–1935 — a 6,000-mile retreat by 100,000 Communist forces fleeing Jiang's army; the survivors rebuilt Communist strength and made Mao the undisputed leader.

Rowlatt Acts

1919 British laws allowing imprisonment of Indian protesters without trial for up to two years; they fueled Indian nationalism and outrage.

Amritsar Massacre

April 1919 — British troops fired on unarmed Indians attending a festival in Amritsar, killing nearly 400 and wounding 1,200; it turned millions of Indians into nationalists.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

Leader of India's independence movement; he used civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance (satyagraha) to challenge British rule.

Civil Disobedience

The deliberate, public refusal to obey an unjust law as a means of protest; Gandhi endorsed it as India's strategy against British rule in 1920.

Salt March

Gandhi's 1930 peaceful 240-mile march to the sea to make salt in defiance of British salt laws; it won worldwide support for Indian independence.

Mustafa Kemal

Military leader who founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and modernized it by separating religion from law, granting women's rights, and industrializing; called 'Ataturk.'

Autocracy

A form of government in which one ruler has total, unchecked power; the system used by Russian czars like Alexander III and Nicholas II.

Satyagraha

Gandhi's concept of 'soul-force' or 'truth-force' — passive resistance that secures rights through personal suffering rather than violence.

Trans-Siberian Railway

The world's longest rail line, connecting European Russia to Pacific ports; begun in 1891 with British and French investment and completed in 1916.

Duma

Russia's first parliament, approved by Nicholas II after Bloody Sunday in 1905; he dissolved it after ten weeks.

Qing Dynasty

China's last imperial dynasty (ruled since 1644); overthrown in 1911 by the Revolutionary Alliance led by Sun Yixian's Kuomintang.

Pogrom

Organized violence against Jewish communities; used by Alexander III's government to persecute Jews and enforce Russian cultural uniformity.