RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

CHARACTERISTICS OF

19TH CENTURY CZARS

• Autocracy• Harsh measures against opponents• Secret police• Pogroms violence against Jews• Oppression of non-Russians restrictive

laws• Resistance to change

Some of the Causes…• Rapid

industrialization– Development of industries for

the production of machine made goods

– # of factories doubled between 1863-1890

– 4th leading producer of steel by 1900

Why build the Trans-Siberian Railroad?

What are some problems you may encounter during the building of the Trans-Siberian Railroad?

Video Reflection• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH6Xpr

_kyxQ end 8:50; start again 13:00-19:00

• When watching the video, answer the following…so write these questions in your notebook.

• 1. Why did Russian czars feel it was necessary to build the railroad? Benefits?

• 2. What were the major problems Alexander III faced in order to build the railroad?

Industrialization…a cause?

• What is needed when a nation begins to industrialize?

• Land, labor, and money(capital)

• Problems?– Low wages trade unions outlawed– Gap between rich and poor widened– Influence of Karl Marx

Workers of the World Unite!

• Karl Marx influenced the new class of workers

• “Haves” vs. the “Have-nots”

• Workers “dictatorship of the proletariat”

• Mensheviks(moderates) and Bolsheviks(radical) form Marxist groups

Russo-Japanese War

• Russia and Japan fought over control over Manchuria and Korea

• Russia lost embarrassing

• Unrest grows at home

EVENTS OF 1905Bloody Sunday

• 200,000 workers march on czar’s winter palace wanted better working conditions and wages

• Troops fire on crowd, 1,000 + killed

Creation of Duma

• First parliament of Russia

• Czar forced to share power; dissolved it after 10 weeks who really has the power?

NICHOLAS II’s MISTAKES

• Brought Russia into WWI many defeats

• Czarina Alexandra given power; she became influenced by Rasputin

• Rasputin was freaky, crazy, and corrupt

• People were poor and starving; lots of unrest

Russian Revolution – Part I (The March Revolution)

March 1917: strikes expand in Petrograd; riots over bread and fuel shortages.

Soldiers ordered to fire on people but turned guns on commanding officers (mutiny).

FYI: At start of WWI, St. Petersburg sounded too German and was renamed Petrograd. After Lenin’s death in 1924, renamed Leningrad.

Czar Nicholas II forced to abdicate his throne in March 1917. The end of 300 years of Romanov rule.

I guess they won’t call you “Nicholas

the Great!”

PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

Temporary Government

Led by:

Alexander Kerensky

But the Provisional Government did not have as much power as the…

• Formed by social revolutionaries

• Local councils in cities

• Consisted of workers, peasants, and soldiers

MISTAKES OF PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

Biggest mistake: kept Russia in World War One

Also, did not help workers or peasants with food and fuel shortages

Lost all support!

Bolshevik REVOLUTION

Led by:

Vladimir Lenin, leader of Bolshevik Party (Communists!)

His slogan:

“Peace, Land, and Bread”

• Bolshevik Red Guards took over gov’t offices; arrested Prov. Gov’t leaders

• Bolsheviks in power November 1917

• All farmland distributed to peasants• Factories controlled by workers• End Russia’s involvement in WWI

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk(costly)• Gained many opponents, leading to

Russian Civil War

RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR1918-1920

RED ARMYRED ARMY• Bolsheviks(Communists!)• Led by…Leon Trotsky

WHITE ARMYWHITE ARMY• Opponents of

Bolsheviks in Russia; western nations like the USA

RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR

• Red Army crushes all opposition to Bolshevik rule

• Russian economy destroyed: no trade or industrial production

BOLSHEVIKS BECOME KNOWN AS…

THE COMMUNIST PARTY

(still led by Lenin)

THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY1921

To help Russia recover from the war Lenin allowed for a little bit of capitalism

• Peasants could sell surplus (extra) crops for profit

• Individuals could buy and sell goods for profit

• Some small factories, farms, and businesses allowed

NEW COUNTRY

• Lenin organized Russia into self-governing republics

• Central Government controlled them!• 1922: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

(USSR)• Capital: Moscow• Lenin had created a “Dictatorship of the

Communist Party”• This becomes known as Leninism

Lenin dies in 1924.

By 1928, country’s factories and farms recovered and returned to prewar levels of production.

Lenin is #35 on the Biography of the Millennium list.

Lenin's Tomb, in Red Square in Moscow, serves as the current resting place of Vladimir Lenin. His embalmed body has been on public display there since shortly after his death (with rare exceptions in wartime).