Czarist Russia Overview…
Nicholas I
Ruled: 1825 - 1855
• Motto: “One Czar, One Faith, One System.”
• 1853 – Crimean War between Russia &
Ottoman Empire.
– Britain and France aid Ottoman Empire
• Dispute between France and Russia concerning custody
of Christian shrines in Palestine.
• Nicolas died during this and his son, Alexander II,
becomes czar.
Alexander II
Ruled 1855-1881
• Needed to modernize to remain a force in
European affairs.
– 1.) Emancipation Edict – March 3, 1861…”Freed”
20 million serfs. Yet they were still bound to
villages where they were assigned sections
– 2.) Creation of Zemstovs – town councils to which
people elected representatives.
– 3.) Reformed Courts
– 4.) Started a new Industry
• But, was assassinated in 1881.
Alexander III
Ruled 1881 - 1894
• Motto: “Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality”
• Died in 1894.
• His son Nicholas II came to throne after his
death.
Nicholas II
Ruled 1894 - 1917
• Began his reign by marrying Alexandra, granddaughter of
England’s Queen Victoria.
• Continued industrialization
• Encouraged foreign investment
• January 1905 – Bloody Sunday
• June 1905 – general strikes & minority nationalist revolts
• October Manifesto – full civil rights w/Duma
• Fundamental Laws – constitutional Monarchy
• March Rev. 1917 – Crowds of starving workers riot in
??? soldiers join them. Czar ???
• March  November 1917- Provisional Government
• November Rev. 1917 – aka Bolshevik Rev;
Communist Rev. Provisional government is dismissed
to do Bolshevik overthrow & Lenin (and Bolsheviks)
take over. This is the revolution that brings
communism to Russia.
Russian Revolution 1917
End of Czarist Russia;
Beginning of Communist Russia
Stages of the Russian Rev.
1. First stage of revolution - Fall of Czardom
• (March Revolution~Feb.)
• Insurrection of the masses!
2. Second stage of revolution - Provisional
Government formed
3. Third stage of revolution - Return of Lenin
• Bolshevik coup (November Revolution)
Causes
• All classes supported entrance in WWI
– Losing by 1915
• Tsar Nicholas seen as “narrow-minded”
– deprived citizens of political freedom
• Adjourned Duma (parliament)
– Brought economic sufferings and military defeats
– Traveled to war front and left Tsarina in charge
• Dismissed advisors and relied on Rasputin
• 1917 cities experiencing food/fuel shortages
(February) March Revolution(1917)
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initiated by the lower classes.
Workers riot in Petrograd (old St. Petersburg)
Duma declared a provisional government
Czar Nicholas II abdicates (for his son as well)
New Government
They Propose…
• Equality before law
• Freedom of religion, speech, assembly
• Rights of unions to organize/strike
Liberal/moderate socialist did not accept terms
• Petrograd Soviet
Provisional Gov’t; Mar.-Nov. 1917
• Alexander Kerensky becomes president
• Gov’t unable to get Russia out of WWI
• Does not recognize peasant land grab
Lenin gains support for the Bolsheviks
“Peace, Land, Bread”-motto of Bolsheviks
Lenin Returns
• When the March Revolution broke out, the
prominent leaders of the Bolshevik Party were in
exile.
• In March, Lenin returned to Russia (Switzerland)
• Adopted an antiwar policy during the First World
War
– First World War was a fight among the capitalistic
government for influence and power. (The workers
should not assist them.)
• demanded the Provisional Government to give 'All
power to the Soviets’
Different View of Socialism
• Wanted small, elite, disciplined socialist party
• Violent revolution needed to destroy
capitalism
• Revolutions can occur in an agrarian society
• Revolutions determined by leadership, not
history
Vladimir Lenin, leader of the November
Bolshevik Revolution
November Rev. 1917
• A.k.a. Bolshevik Rev./ Communist Rev.
• Bolsheviks led by Lenin defeat the provisional gov’t
• Once in power the Bolsheviks change their name to
Communists
Lenin’s Policies
• Approved the peasant “land grab”
• Approved urban worker control of factories
• January 1918 disbanded Assembly and began
a one party system
• February 1918 – signed treaty with Germany
withdrawing from WWI
• Armed opposition develops
Murder of the Romanovs
• Fear the White Army
would reestablish
Romanov rule if won civil
war.
• On July 16, 1918, Bolshevik
authorities, led by Yakov
Yurovsky, shot Nicholas II,
his immediate family, and
four servant members in
the cellar of the Ipatiev
House in Yekaterinburg,
Russia.
Death of the Romanovs
Rasputin’s prophecy
• Rasputin had made an eerie
prediction before he died.
•
If I am killed by common assassins
and especially by my brothers the
Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia,
have nothing to fear for your children,
they will reign for hundreds of years in
Russia.
•
...if it was your relations who have
wrought my death, then no one in
your family, that is to say, none of
your children or relations will remain
alive for two years. They will be killed
by the Russian people...
•
I shall be killed. I am no longer
among the living. Pray, pray, be
strong, think of your blessed family.
The Romanovs-Together in Life and Death
• Eleven people in all lost
their lives on the night of
July 16, 1918, at
Ekateringburg in this--
cellar. Below is the
execution squad.
The Graves
• The pit where the
skeletons lay.
Diagram of the grave outside Ekaterinburg
-- the pit during excavation
• Bolshevik army led by Trotsky
– Disciplined
– Controlled central Russia and crucial cities
– Established war commissions
– Cheka – Red Terror
• White Army defeated by spring of 1920
• Regained territory given to Germany
Russia of 1917
• Through these 3 steps, Russia became a communist
country, ending Czarist Russia, forever.
• U.S.S.R.Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
• This will last until the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1991.