Russian Revolution

Key People and Groups

  • Czar – Absolute Monarch or ruler of Russia

  • Proletariat – lowest class in a society, referring mostly to industrial workers

  • Bourgeoisie – the middle class

  • Bolsheviks – Communist majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party

Key Terms to Know

  • Romanov – Czarist royal family who ruled Russia for 3 centuries

  • Totalitarianism – Absolute unlimited power by a ruler and control over every phase of life

  • Soviet – elected councils formed during the Revolution

Pre-Revolutionary Russia

  • Only true autocracy left in Europe

  • No representative political institutions for the people

  • Nicholas II became Tsar in 1884

  • Marxist ideas become popular

    • Popular Mensheviks VS

    • Radical Bolsheviks, led by Lenin

  • Russia suffers humiliating defeat in the Russo-Japanese war

Bloody Sunday – The Revolution of 1905

  • Thousands of discontented urban workers & poor peasants
    from countryside peacefully protest

  • Sought to petition the czar for better working conditions & suffrage

  • The czar’s guards fired into the crowd

  • Shooting sparked widespread strikes and uprisings

  • The Duma (Russian Congress) was allowed more power temporarily

  • Nicholas dissolved the Duma within weeks




World War 1: The Last Straw

  • Czar Nicholas II brings Russia into the Great war

  • War revealed the ineptitude and arrogance of the country’s aristocratic elite

  • Most peasants had very little invested in the War

  • Poorly supplied troops result in massive casualties

Czarina Alexandra: The Power Behind the Throne

  • Czarina Czarina Alexandra ran the government (as an autocrat) while Nicholas II was at the Eastern Front for the war

  • She was heavily influenced by Rasputin – a mystical “holy man”

  • Scandals surrounding Rasputin served to discredit the monarchy

Collapse of the Imperial Government

  • Alexandra and Rasputin throw the government into chaos

  • Complete mismanagement of the wartime economy

  • Alexandra and other high government officials accused of treason

  • Rasputin assassinated in December of 1916

The March Revolution

  • Starts with food riots, strikes, and protests against the war 

  • The Duma declares itself a Provisional Government 

  • Formed SOVIETS – local councils

  • Czar Nicholas abdicates the throne (steps down)

  • Lenin and his Bolsheviks return

Vladimir Lenin

  • Leading Marxist revolutionary

  • Committed to class struggle and revolution

  • Exiled to Siberia for anti-czarist protests

  • Later fled to Western Europe

  • Returns to take the lead and implement socialist reforms

October Bolshevik Revolution

  • Bolshevik Red Guards - Workers take over government offices
    and arrest the leaders of the Provisional government

  • All private property of wealthy was abolished and divided among the peasantry

  • Largest industrial enterprise nationalized

  • Political police are organized

  • Revolutionary army created with Leon Trotsky in charge -the “Red Army”

  • Bolshevik Party renamed Communist Party in March of 1918

  • The Treaty of Brest Litovsk negotiated with Germany and Russia leaves WWI

Civil War in Russia

  • Fought between 1917-1920

  • “Reds” versus “Whites”

  • “Reds” were the Bolsheviks & Red Army

  • “Whites” were army officers, bourgeoisie, Cossacks, and moderate revolutionaries

  • Whites received support from England, France, USA, & Japan

  • Bolsheviks ultimately victorious

Death of the Imperial Family

  • Placed under house arrest during the March Revolution

  • Czar Nicholas, Alexandra & their 5 children were murdered in July 1917

The Soviet Union

  • Lenin reorganized the country & renames it the Soviet Union in 1922

  • Implements the ideas of Karl Marx

  • Issues his New Economy Policy  in 1921 allowing some capitalist policies

Joseph Stalin’s Rise to Power

  • Stalin was a Bolshevik  revolutionary

  • Appointed general secretary of the party’s Central Committee in 1922

  • Managed to consolidate power following Lenin’s death in 1924

  • Viciously eliminated any opposition

  • Stalin modernized the Soviet Union through “5 Year Plans” of industrialization

  • His secret police allowed no opposition or freedoms  

  • Ordered the execution of millions

  • Created a fully communist state