Chapter 23 section 3
The Russian Revolution
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Background to Revolution
o No competent military leaders
o Nicholas II insisted on taking personal charge of the army
o Industry was unable to produce enough weapons
o 1914-1916 two million soldiers were killed, and another four to six million wounded or
captured.
o 1917, the Russian will to fight had vanished
Beginnings of Upheaval
o Czar Nicholas II relied on the army to hold up his regime
o German wife Alexandra influenced by Rasputin a self-claimed holy man.
o Czar at the front – Alexandra made all important decisions consulting Rasputin.
o Military and economic disasters the people are more and more upset with the czarist
regime.
o People blame a perceived weak Nicholas who cannot control his wife’s actions.
o Rumors spread about Alexandra being a traitor.
o Conservative aristocrats assassinate Rasputin
The March Revolution
o 1917 strikes led by working-class women break out in the capital of Petrograd(St.
Petersburg)
o Many of the women are factory workers who have to stand in lines of hours just for
bread
o March 8, 1917 – 10,000 women marched through the capital demanding “peace and
bread”
o Women are joined by other workers they call for general strike
o Nicholas orders troops to break up the crowds by shooting them if necessary.
o Large numbers of soldiers join the strikers.
o March 12, 1917 Duma (legislative body) established new provisional government
o March 15 Nicholas II abdicates (steps down) ends 300 years of family rule
o Provisional government decides to continue the war for the honor of Russia
o Russian people are tired of war and want peace
o Soviets challenge the authority of the government
The Rise of Lenin
o Bolsheviks (radical soviets who were dedicated to violent revolution as only way to
destroy capitalist system) come under the leadership of Vladimir Illyich Ulianov (Lenin)
o March 1917 Lenin see’s opportunity for the Bolsheviks to seize power
o Lenin arrives from Paris and sees the soviets soldiers, workers, and peasants as key to
power.
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Bolsheviks reflect discontent of the people. Promise an end to the war, redistribution of
all land to the peasants, and transfer of factories and industries form capitalist to
committees of workers, and the transfer of government power to the soviets.
 Slogans “Peace, Land, Bread”, “Worker Control of Production”, and “All Power
to the Soviets”.
The Bolsheviks Seize Power
o Leon Trotsky head of the Petrograd soviet
o November 6, 1918 Bolsheviks seize (capture) the Czar’s winter palace. (place of
government in Russia). Government collapsed.
o Outwardly, Lenin turned over the power to the Congress of the Soviet but real power
passed to the Council of the People’s Commissars headed by Lenin.
o Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists
o March 3, 1918 Lenin signs treaty of BrestLitovsk with Germany gave up eastern Poland,
Ukraine, Finland and the Baltic provinces.
o Lenin believed it did not matter since all of Europe would become socialists.
o Russia falls into civil war
Civil War in Russia
o Many remain loyal to the czar, many liberals are anti-Leninist socialist.
o These groups are joined by the Allies
o Allies send thousands of troops but these troops rarely fight on Russian soil.
o 1918-1921 the Communists (Red Army) fight against these anti-communist forces
(White Army).
o By 1920 major White forces have been defeated
o April 1918 Royal family are taken prisoners of the Red Army and moved to the Urals.
o July 1918 Royal family are shot and killed by local soviet and their bodies are burned.
Triumph of the Communists
o Leon-Trotsky was commissar of war and helped create Red Army as a well-disciplined
fighting force.
o Trotsky reinstated the draft and demanded rigid discipline.
o Disunity among the anti-communist forces (White Army) caused distrust and weakened
their efforts.
o Whites had no common goal.
o Communists had determination that comes from revolutionary zeal and convictions.
o Communists instituted WAR COMMUNISM – government controlled banks, industries,
grain, and the centralization of state administration.
o Red secret police – scared people into following the revolution.
o Foreign armies on Russian soil allowed for the communists to use propaganda focusing
on patriotic Russians to help drive the foreigners from Russian soil and view the Whites
as puppets of the foreigners.
o 1921 Communists are in total control.
o Russia was now a centralized state controlled by a single party.
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The party was largely hostile to the Allied powers because the Allies had tried to help
the anti-communists defeat them during the civil war.