The Russian
Revolution
Your Task
Keep a pen and paper ready!
As you move through this presentation at your own
pace, you should be gathering any details that remind
you of characters or events in Animal Farm. Be sure to
take thorough notes!
Also, you will complete a few simple questions that will
help you find numerous similarities.
To access this Russian Revolution Worksheet, click here
OR see your teacher for a worksheet.
See how the Romanov’s lived! Visit the Time
Machine and look for a FIVE details that describe
their wealth and extravagant lifestyles!
The Mountain Hall
The Billiard Hall The Mauve Room (Alexandra’s)
The Jewels and Costumes Exhibit
Tsar Nicholas II was the last Russian emperor and an icon of the Romanov
Imperial Family. His rule (1894–1917) was marked by his insistence that he
was the incontestable (indisputable or unquestionable) ruler of the nation.
The Czar (or Tsar) dictated state policy without regard for the concerns of the
people. He claimed to draw his power directly from God, and passed the
throne to a chosen successor without the interference of elections. This is
known as absolute rule.
He is known both as Nicholas the Martyr for having been executed without
trial and as Nicholas the Bloody for the tragic events during his coronation.
Because his rule was absolute, those who protested his decisions were
subject to severe and immediate punishment, including execution.
The Russian people experienced terrible poverty.
During his reign, the Russian people experienced terrible poverty and
upheaval, marked by such dreadful events as the Bloody Sunday massacre
in 1905, when thousands of unarmed protesters demanding social reforms
and food were killed by the Tsar’s army.
As the years passed, the situation only worsened. The sinister influence of
Rasputin over the Czarina, whom Nicholas had left in charge of the
government when he took personal command of the armed forces in 1915,
destroyed all support for the Tsar.
Ongoing acute food shortages, the appointment of inept officials, and the
intense suffering of the poor created a revolutionary climate. Consequently,
by the end of 1916 the Bolsheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries wanted
to put to an end the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty.
Alexandra bore him four daughters
before their son Alexei was born on
August 12, 1904. The young heir
proved to be afflicted with
hemophilia, a disease that prevents
blood clotting properly, which at that
time was virtually untreatable and
usually led to an untimely death.
Rasputin
In desperation, Alexandra sought help from a
mystic, Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin seemed to
help when Alexei was suffering from internal
bleeding, and Alexandra became increasingly
dependent on him and his advice, which she
accepted as coming directly from God.
Czarina Alexandra
Lenin masterminded the Bolshevik takeover of
power in Russia in 1917 and was the architect
and first head of the Soviet state.
The February Revolution (1917) began as a series of riots protesting food
shortages and the ongoing, unpopular war (World War I ). It involved
thousands of women workers in the textile factories walking out on strike,
demanding bread. The call for bread was soon drowned out by a cry for an
end to the war. The army raised their guns against the crowds, but many
soldiers wavered under the pressure of the masses.
Consequently, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. A provisional government
was formed, but people remained dissatisfied.
The stage was set for change. In April, 1917, Vladimir Lenin and other
revolutionaries returned to Russia from Germany. Lenin galvanized the small
and, until then, cautious Bolshevik party into action.
Lenin (pictured here) established the first
communist government when he overthrew the
Provisional Government.
The courses Lenin advocated were simplified into these powerful slogans:
End the war!
All land to the peasants!
All power to the soviets!
In October of 1917, under the leadership of Bolsheviks like Leon Trotsky,
armed workers loyal to the soviets took over the railway stations, food stores,
telephone exchanges, post offices and power stations. The insurrection was
swift and decisive with surprisingly little bloodshed. At a Congress of Russian
soviets the next day the revolution was greeted with wild enthusiasm.
The downtrodden people were ready to embrace the ideals of Communism.
View some of the posters created by this “modern
propaganda machine.” Provide one motivational
slogan from a political poster of the time.
Visit: http://www.internationalposter.com/ru-text.cfm
Lenin created the first truly modern propaganda machine, and its most
colorful, dramatic and original form was the poster.
Although posters were produced in Russia before the Revolution, they were
overshadowed by the remarkable propaganda posters of the Soviets. Lenin
takes responsibility for creating the first truly modern propaganda machine,
from postage stamps and Mayday parades to monumental sculptures.
The poster played a key role in selling Lenin’s vision of total cultural and
political transformation to a largely illiterate population. Through it, the
greatest artists of the time proclaimed government policies, asked for
support, and demanded greater efforts -- all with the goal of building Soviet
power. In all, about 3,600 poster designs were created in roughly three years
-- more than 20 per week.
Russia had the first communist government in the
world.
After Lenin died, his corpse was embalmed and put on display. To this
day, his body remains intact in the Lenin Mausoleum, where it is regularly
treated to halt deterioration!
View Lenin’s Preserved Corpse
Read More About Lenin’s Preservation
Karl Marx (pictured here) is considered the Father
of Communism.
Excerpts below were taken from Frederick Engels' Principles of Communism, which was
written before The Communist Manifesto.
Lenin’s beliefs were developed from those of a man called Karl Marx who
believed that…
Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat (the working classes).
[The New Social Order would] generally have to take the running of industry …out of the hands of
mutually competing individuals and instead institute a system in which all these branches of production
are operated by society as a whole, that is, for the common account, according to a common plan... It
will, in other words, abolish competition and replace it with association.
Private property [would] also have to be abolished, and in its place must come the common utilization
…and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, the so-called
communal ownership of goods.
If the oppressed proletariat (working class) is thereby finally driven to revolution, then we communists
will defend the cause of the proletarians with deeds just as we now defend it with words.
The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community
will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and thereby to dissolve
themselves
Leon Trotsky (pictured here) remained loyal to
what he regarded as the original goals and
principles of communism.
Leon Trotsky was one of the two leaders involved in starting the October
Revolution that led to the fall of the Provisional Government. He was well
educated - a gifted intellectual who followed Marx’s ideals.
On the eve of the revolution Trotsky, who was also the head of the Military
Revolutionary Committee of Petrograd, had almost all of the locally stationed
troops and a large part of the workers under his control. On the night of
November 7th he mounted an armed insurrection and arrested the members
of the Provisional Government.
His pivotal role in the revolution and his collaboration with Stalin were not
enough to save him later on when he opposed the reactionary policies of
Joseph Stalin. Trotsky was exiled in 1927 and eventually murdered.
Trotsky remained loyal to what he regarded as the original goals and
principles of communism.
Joseph Stalin (pictured here) launched the Great
Purge in order to eliminate all of those who had put
him in power.
As a child, Joseph Stalin experienced the poverty that most peasants had to
endure in Russia at the end of the 19th century. He was not well-educated,
nor was he known as a gifted speaker later in life. Born Iosif Vissarionovich
Dzhugashvili, he adopted the name Stalin, which means "Man of Steel," while
still a young revolutionary.
Although he was originally embraced by Lenin, Lenin later became
increasingly concerned about Stalin's character and wrote a testament in
which he suggested that he be removed.
Ultimately, as ruler of the U.S.S.R. from 1929 to 1953, Joseph Stalin was in
charge of Soviet policies during the early phase of the Cold War.
Stalin first rose to power in 1922 as secretary general of the Communist
Party. Using administrative skills and ruthless maneuvering, Stalin rid himself
of all potential rivals in the party, first by having many of them condemned as
"deviationists," and later by ordering them executed.
Joseph Stalin (pictured here) agreed to a nonaggression pact with Germany during WWII.
To ensure his position, he put the Soviet Union on a course of crash
collectivization and industrialization. An estimated 25 million farmers were
forced onto state farms. Collectivization alone killed as many as 14.5 million
people, and Soviet agricultural output was reduced by 25 percent, according
to some estimates.
In the 1930s, Stalin launched his Great Purge, ridding the Communist Party
of all the people who had brought him to power. It is estimated that more than
1.2 million party members -- more than half the party -- were arrested
between 1936 and 1939, of which 600,000 died by torture, execution or
perished in the Gulag.
Stalin also purged the military leadership, executing a large percentage of the
officers and leaving the U.S.S.R. unprepared when World War II broke out. In
an effort to avoid war with Germany, Stalin agreed to a non-aggression pact
with German leader Adolf Hitler in August 1939.
Source Site: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/stalin/
Making Connections: Interesting Details to
Consider in Light of Animal Farm
See if you can draw some parallels!
 Stalin removed Leon Trotsky from power in 1927.
Stalin maintained a non-aggression pact with Hitler in the early years of WWII.
In 1943, Stalin replaced the old national anthem “The Internationale" with “The Hymn
of the Soviet Union."
Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini were all dictators and represent totalitarianism.
"Mussolini is always right" was a chant used to hail Benito Mussolini during his rule of
Italy from 1922 to 1943.
The Boxer Rebellion was an uprising against Western commercial and political
influence in China during the final years of the 19th century.
Stalin launched his "revolution from above" by setting two extraordinary goals for
Soviet domestic policy: rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture.
The Cheka – The Soviet Secret Police
After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Soviet government instituted its own
secret police, the Cheka (the Russian acronym for All-Russian Extraordinary
Commission for the Suppression of Counterrevolution and Sabotage).
In 1936, Stalin named Nikolai Yezhov as its head, and under Yezhov’s
direction Stalinist purges culminated in the Wave of Terror (1936–38) known
as the Yezhovshchina. Yezhov was succeeded by Lavrenti Beria, under
whose long tenure the security sector became the most powerful and the
most feared section of society.
The basic mission was as follows:
1. To investigate and liquidate all attempts or actions connected with counter-revolution
or sabotage, no matter from whom they may come, throughout Russia.
2. The handing over for trial by Revolutionary Tribunal of all saboteurs and counterrevolutionaries, and the elaboration of measures to fight them
By April 1918, the Cheka had set up its own three-man courts, known as
troikas, to carry out extra-judicial reprisal (retaliation). This gave the Cheka
the power to perform investigations, arrests, interrogations, prosecutions,
trials, and executions of the verdict, including the death penalty.
During the summer of 1918, an attempt on Lenin’s life occurred and a
German ambassador was killed. As a result, the scope of the Cheka’s
activities was greatly increased. This initiated the period known as the Red
Terror that lasted until the end of the Russian Civil War.
From this point the Cheka initiated mass executions of people not based
only on their specific actions, such as sabotage, but also for their beliefs and
class origins. In reprisal for the assassination of the German ambassador,
the Cheka executed 350 Social Revolutionaries and 512 hostages were shot
by the Secret Police after the assassination attempt on Lenin. It has been
estimated that between 100,000 and 500,000 people were executed by the
Cheka during the Red Terror.
In addition to mass executions, the Cheka also initiated the infamous slave
labor camps to imprison not only those considered undesirable, but also
people who happened to have the wrong class origins, most particularly the
bourgeoisie (middle class). By the end of 1920 Soviet Russia had 84 of
these concentration camps with about 50,000 prisoners. This prison system
grew to a total of 315 camps.
Source Site: http://iaia.essortment.com/cheka_rvph.htm
YOUR TASK
The Animal Farm and Russia Comparative Chart
Using the information in this presentation, you will be completing a
chart in which you compare the various “characters” and events in
Russia to those that occur in Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm.
View the chart and recreate it on loose leaf or SAVE A COPY TO
YOUR HOME DIRECTORY and work with it there! Be especially
thorough because some of the information you provide will be used
again later in the lesson. This will be graded.
To view the chart, click on the picture below.
A special thanks to those who created the resources from which we
gathered information!
Source Sites:
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/history/A0860858.html
http://www.turnerlearning.com/tntlearning/animalfarm/afhistory.html
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/O/C/OctoberRevolutionof1917.ht
m
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSstalin.htm
http://www.bartleby.com/65/se/secretpo.html
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/stalin/
http://www.internationalposter.com/ru-text.cfm
Information was compiled and organized by V. Guarino.