The Russian revolution
aka – the communist
revolution
aka – the Bolshevik
revolution
background
• 1881 – Alexander III
• Took away reforms of father
• Complete absolutism
• Pogroms
• Police state
Nicholas II
• 1894
–Pledged to continue czarist rule
–But problems exist
• Still lagging behind in industry
• Russo – Japanese War 1905
• The revolution of 1905
–Bloody Sunday
–Duma
WWI – the final blow
• Russia joins WWI – 1914
• 1915 Nicholas goes to the front
• Rasputin is left to influence
Czarina Alexandria
• March Revolution
The provisional government
• Alexander Kerensky
–No change
• War raged on
• Economic problems
• Land shortage
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
• Bolshevik
• “peace, land
and bread”
• November
1917
New economic policy
• Peace
–Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
• Land
–Redistribution of Land
• Bread
–Changes in the economy
And politics
•
•
•
•
1922 USSR
Moscow
Communism
NOT Karl Marx
– Dictatorship of Communist
party not a dictatorship of
the Proletariat
And then there was Stalin
• “man of steel”
• 1928 –power in SU
• totalitarianism
What is totalitarianism?
Stalin seizes control over
everything
• The five – year plans
–Industrialization
• Command economy
»High quotas
»No consumer products
Stalin seizes control over
everything
The five – year plans
• Agricultural revolution
• Collective farms
–kulaks
Weapons of totalitarianism
Police terror
•
•
•
•
Force obedience
Crush opposition
Monitor everything
Great purge - 1934
Indoctrination/propaganda
• Instruction in government’s
set of beliefs
• Socialist realism
• Censorship
• Religious persecution
Daily life
• Soviet women
–Women worked in industry
–Educational opportunities
–Responsible for raising “good
communists”
• Education
–Government controlled all
education
–University/technological
training