Russian Revolution
1
.
What inspired people
to revolt during the
French Revolution in
the late 18th century?
How and Why:
The French Revolution…WASTE
 Wars
 (in Europe & competition for colonies: markets and resources)
 Absolutism
 (people wanted to replace it with representative gov’t & social contract…
popular sovereignty)
 Social Class
 (new social classes form (3rd estate rises up…)
 Taxes & Debt
 (How do you pay for all those wars? Taxation! Louis XVI was the King
of Debt…)
 Enlightenment
 (there was no turning back after the philosophes… Locke, Rousseau,
Montesquieu, Voltaire, etc…)
November 1917: The Bolsheviks have taken over Russia !
This incredible event has just happened ! But its causes go
back many years…
To find out how this event finally happened, here are a series
of headlines from newspapers between 1904 and 1917...
Our main question: Were W.A.S.T.E. causes also at play in
the Russian Revolution?
NEWSFLASH 1!—February 8, 1904
Japan Torpedos Russian Ship in Port Arthur!!
War Breaks Out Between Russia and Japan!!
Vying for control over the Korean peninsula and influence in China,
Japan and Russia finally face-off. Of these two emerging industrial
powers, who will be the winner? European governments and the
United States say the safe bet is on the Russians—their fellow
Europeans…
Event:
The Russo-Japanese War – 1904-5
Newsflash 2!
Sunday, Bloody
Sunday!!—January 9th,
1905
Unhappy about the cost of the
losing war with Japan (and its
effect on Russian society) Peaceful
demonstrators arrived at the
Winter Palace in Saint
Petersburg to present a petition
to the czar. The Imperial Guard
fired on the crowd, killing around
200 and wounding 800!!
Trust in the czar and the Russian
Monarchy has never been lower…
NEWSFLASH 3! –September 5th, 1905
Japan Victorious In Asia!
Unable to compete with superior Japanese military
technology and industrial production, Russia signs
the Treaty of Portsmouth. In accordance with the
terms of the Treaty, Russia has to leave Manchuria,
given Port Arthur to the Japanese and admit that
Korea is once and for all in the Japanese sphere of
influence.
Rumors of deep dissatisfaction among the Russian
people grow…
NEWSFLASH 4!
Revolt !!!!!—October 17th, 1905
Angry about the loss to Japan, and furious about the
violent suppression on Bloody Sunday, the Russians
rise up and demand the government reforms!
Overwhelmed by this opposition, the czar signs a
constitution and establishes a Parliament: called the
Duma.
However, many Russians suspect the Duma will not hold
any real power, and the czar will continue to hold the
real power…
Newsflash 5!
War Breaks Out In
Europe!!!
—June 28, 1914
Archduke Franz Ferdinand is
assassinated and Russia declares
war on Austria-Hungary to protect
its brother slavs in Serbia!!
(Oh, you know about all this…)
What you don’t know is that
although the war is unpopular with
the Russian people the czar forces
his country to fight—proving once
and for all the powerlessness of the
Duma.
The anger of the people is boiling
over…
NEWSFLASH 6!
Revolt Again!?!?!—February, 1917
Russians are angry about the loss of life in World War I and food
shortages continue, so they are rioting to demand an end to the
war and an end to the shortages!!
The Bolsheviks (communists) are the only political party that is
against the war, so the rioters asked the Bolsheviks to lead them!
But the government sends in troops to stop the rioters.
Fearing persecution and execution, the leader of the Bolsheviks,
Vladimir Lenin, flees to Europe.
Czar Nicholas wants to regain total power and break up the
Duma, but they ignore him and set up the Provisional
Government—a temporary government to see Russia through the
chaos…and the czar leaves the throne.
The Russian people are hopeful that the Provisional Government
will support their goals…
Newsflash 7! Important decisions have
just been made!
March 1917: The Provisional
Government’s decisions !
Decision 1: The Provisional Government will
not end the war because the Germans would
make the Russians pay too great a price (like
giving up Poland) if they surrender!
Decision 2: The Provisional Government will
not give the peasants back their land. They
worry that if they start giving back land,
Russian soldiers will leave the war and return
to claim their land!
Newsflash 8!
Lenin Has Returned!!
April 17, 1917
Lenin, the leader of the
Bolsheviks, has just
returned to Russia!
He is desperate to see the
Bolsheviks take power !
He makes an important
speech from the train
station as soon as he
arrives !
Here is a painting showing
him delivering his speech.
Lenin’s ideas are:
“Peace, Land and Bread!”
and
“All Power to the Soviets”
So he wants:
•An end to the war with Germany…
•Land taken from the nobles and given to the peasants
•Soviets (communist leaders) to take power
•“No co-operation with the Provisional Government!”
These ideas come to be known as the April Theses!
Is change on the way…?
NEWSFLASH 10!
Revolt YET Again!?!?!—October 25, 1917
That’s right: inspired by the words of Lenin and the
Bolsheviks, the soviets of Russia finally rise up in
revolution... they overthrow the czar AND the
Provisional Government!!
This great event is known as:
The Bolshevik Revolution
(aka: The Russian Revolution)
They establish a new government—the Soviet Union,
led by Lenin and start making changes like…
Epilogue Newsflash:
Russia Drops Out Of War!!
Signing the Decree of
Peace—promising an end to
the war with Germany.
And the Decree on Land—
promising to take land from the
Russian nobles and give it to
the people…
Long Live The Revolution!!!
Everything is SURE to be better
now…
How and Why:
The Russian Revolution…WAST-MC!
 Wars
 (in Europe & competition for colonies: markets and resources)
 Absolutism
 (people wanted to replace it with communist leaders [Soviets])
 Social Class
 (the working class and peasants [serfs] revolt against the monarchy, the
nobles and the industrial capitalists, completely changing the social order)
 Taxes & Debt
 (How do you pay for all those wars? Taxation! Czar Nicholas II played
it just liked Louis XIV)
 Marxism-Communism
 (there was no turning back after Karl Marx and the Communist
Manifesto… a new generation of Soviet politicians inspires the working
class to overthrow the corrupt government and set up a “dictatorship
of the proletariat”)
Age of Anxiety: Challenges to the System
 During the Civil War – 1918-20
 The Execution of Tsar & family
 10,000,000 lives lost
Russian soldiers join
Bolsheviks at the Winter
Palace
Red
Army
Train
17
.
Challenges to the System
 Communism in Russia
 War Communism
 The New Economic Policy
 Joseph Stalin (1879-1953)
 First Five-Year Plan
 Collectivization of
Agriculture
 punishing kulaks
18
.
Challenges to the Liberal Order
 Communism in Russia
 The Great Purge, 1934
 “Congress of Victors”
 “Congress of Victims”
 Labor camps
 “cleansing”
Stalin faces down “Capitalist
Enemies” ~ 1930s poster
19
.
We are still the only country of
the proletarian dictatorship and
are surrounded by capitalist
countries, many of which are
far in advance of us technically
and economically…. We must
overtake and outstrip the advanced technology of the
developed capitalist countries. That is why a fast rate of
development of our industry is necessary and imperative.
Persuasion
 Government controls all
media
 Constant propaganda in
support of government
policies
 Education used to teach
children service to the state
 Must join the “Party” to
advance in any profession
Intimidation
 Government exercises
censorship over
competing views
 Terror against “enemies
of the state” - secret
police, political prisons
Features of Totalitarianism in Stalinist Russia:
Intimidation
 Secret Police
 Campaigns against kulaks, people who were “wreckers” of
the state, national minorities
 Gulags - Work camps in Siberia for any critics of the regime
 Purge Trials (1936-38) aimed at all opposition to Stalin
within the Communist Party
 PROPAGANDA!!!
Under the Great Stalin’s Guidance Onward to Communism
Come
Comrades,
Join Us on the
Collective
Farm!
“Two worlds two plans”
We plant life
They plant death
We Will
Keep Out
the Kulaks
100% of
Village
Members
Must Join
the
Collective
Farm!
Reaping for a
Bolshevik
Harvest
Get the Kulak Off the Collective Farm
Fight against
the way of
laziness
Landlords, kulaks, journalists, capitalists, White
Russians, Mensheviks, priests, and drunkards have
declared war on the Five Year Plan because they
understand that it will bring about their final
destruction.
Imperialists
Cannot Stop
the Victorious
Progression of
the Five Year
Plan!
From Shock
Brigades to
Shock
Factories and
Mills
Religion, Drunkenness and Illiteracy Are
the Enemies of Socialist Culture
The active construction of socialism is through
literacy.
Stop!
Here is something
that must be ended.
Here is something
that needs to be
fought: A throw-back
to the old regime.
Cities will be rendered
healthy with
proletarian tempering
and the will and labor
of women.
Proletarians
- Go to
Technical
Institutes!
The smoke
of the
chimneys
is the
breath of
Soviet
Russia
How it Will Be At the End Of the Five Year Plan
We Are Young
Leninists
Let’s raise a generation unconditionally loyal
to the cause of communism