Tuesday 3/25
RAP
• List two reasons people were unhappy with the Czar
in Russia during WWI?
These we are going to discuss…do not
answer 
1. What was the Bolshevik Revolution?
2. Who were the Reds?
3. Who were the Whites?
4. Who won the civil war in Russia?
5. What did that mean for the country?
Today:
• Review Ch. 17.4—Russian Revolution—30 minutes.
As you read please take notes on the section.
• Read ch. 17.5– Peace at Last
• Work on map of WWI
• SWBAT understand the Russian Revolutions and explain the
impact they had on World War I.
Identify
• Nicholas II —Czar of Russia—unpopular with
public; abdicated in 1917.
• Grigori Rasputin –mystic healer of Czar
Nicholas—gave political advice to the Czar—
killed by Czar’s relatives, due to his unpopularity.
• Alexander Kerensky – moderate socialist who
served as the prime minister of the Provisional
government.
• Vladimir Ilyich Lenin – leader of the radical
Bolsheviks; planned to topple the Provisional
government.
• Leon Trotsky – leader of the Red army defending
the Communist state.
WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE FOR CIVILIANS
AND SOLDIERS OF RUSSIA DURING
WWI?
WWI for Russia
• By 1917Russian army
morale was low.
– No weapons
– Food shortages
– Almost all
resources went
to supply the
army.
– Human and
financial costs of
war increasingly
unbearable.
WHAT HAPPENED IN RUSSIA LEADING
TO THE CZAR’S ABDICATION (resign or
give up)?
Russian Revolutions
First Russian Revolution
March 11th and 12th, 1917
– Riots protesting the
shortage of food and fuel
forced Russia’s Czar
Nicholas II from power.
--On March 15, 1917 the
Czar abdicated the throne.
•Ending the 300 year
Romanov dynasty.
“Cost of Revolution” – March, 1917
March Revolution
• March 8th -12th
– Food and fuel shortages
– Hundreds of thousands of men and women
marched in the streets of Petrograd or present
day St. Petersburg.
– 11th and 12th –troops were ordered to put
down the riots—instead many joined the
protesters.
– The Czar abdicated the throne on March 15th.
• President Wilson believed that the Allies would be stronger
now that Czar Nicholas II was gone.
• Wilson asked Congress to declare war shortly thereafter.
News of the World,
April 18, 1917
WAS THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
BETTER THAN THE CZAR AT HELPING
THE PEOPLE OF RUSSIA?
Provisional (temporary) Government
• Provisional government called for elections later in
the year.
– Middle class Duma (parliament) representatives.
– Majority were Mensheviks
– Alexander Kerensky, a moderate socialist, served as the
first prime minister and minister of justice.
• He belonged to the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet.
– They called for immediate peace, the transfer of land to the
peasants, and the control of factories by workers.
– The economy continued to collapse.
– Provisional government did not withdraw from the war.
• People were not happy…they were still suffering
Communist / Bolshevik Revolution
(“October Revolution”)
•Bolsheviks and Mensheviks competed for
control of Russia.
•Lenin wanted the Bolsheviks to topple the provisional
government from power.
•Lenin had been arrested and exiled to Siberia in 1895
for his activities.
•Once released he went to Germany, Great
Britain, and Switzerland.
•Germany assisted him in returning to Russia
after the March Revolution.
•October 1917 – The
Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir
Lenin, seized power in Russia
and began the communist
revolution.
Vladimir Lenin, 1917
How had the Bolsheviks laid the foundation
of a socialist state in early January of
1918?
CIVIL WAR
•Bolsheviks ended private
ownership of property,
distributing land among the
peasants, and gave workers
control of factories.
•Russia signed the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk with Germany and
dropped out of the war. March
1918.
•Germany then sent their troops
on the Eastern Front to the
Western Front.
•Independent nationalist
governments set up in Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Ukraine, and Azerbaijan.
Russian Czar Nicholas II, left, and his son Prince Alexei are
shown sawing wood to heat the dwelling in Siberia, where
they were held during the Russian Revolution. The entire
royal family was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
Civil War -• 1918-1921
• Communist = Reds
• Royalists, liberal democrats, and moderate
socialists = Whites
• Reds leader---Leon Trotsky
• Whites had a little support from the U.S.
– Both sides killed civilians and burned villages.
– Workers and peasants were starving and the
economy was crumbling.
– People lived in fear
Civil War Terror
• Communists imposed a policy of “war
communism” --took control of industry and
forced peasants to send food to the starving
cities.
• Secret Police force, Cheka, arrested anyone
they believed was an enemy of the revolution.
• Many people left Russia.
• By 1921, the White army finally admitted defeat.
Communism – a theory
that supports the
elimination of private
property and the equal
distribution of goods
Facts:
· Created by the
German philosopher
Karl Marx.
Karl Marx (1818-1883).
Communism – a theory
that supports the
elimination of private
property and the equal
distribution of goods
Facts:
· Supports the violent revolution of
the working class against the
“bourgeois” ruling class.
This 1920 Soviet poster depicts a bourgeois hanging onto a globe by his
fingertips as a dogged Red Army soldier tries to stab him with a bayonet.
Communism – a theory
that supports the
elimination of private
property and the equal
distribution of goods
Facts:
· Led by a single,
authoritarian political
party.
Communist symbol located on the
flag of the former U.S.S. R.
A mourning
poster conveys
the message
that Lenin’s
death has
united workers
and peasants.
Communism: Development and Duration
• Read ch 17.5 – Peace at Last—take notes
• WWI map is DUE on Wednesday! 