Russian Revolution, or Don’t Tell Me That History is Boring

Romanovs, Rasputin, and

Lenin

Part I: The Reign of Nicholas II

Czar Nicholas II and Czarevitch (Crown Prince) Alexei

The Czar and Family

• Czar Nicholas II• Czarina Alexandra

• Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia

• Czarevitch (Crown Prince) Alexei

Czar’s Naiveté

• Thought Russia faced no serious threats

• Thought all Russians loved him as their “little father.”

• Shy, quiet man, isolated from society

• Czarina Alexandra domineering

• Czarevitch Alexei had hemophilia

A Politically Unstable Russia

• Nicholas II absolute monarch

• Middle class liberals wanted constitutional monarchy

• National minorities (e.g., Poles, Lithuanians) wanted independence

• Peasants wanted land • Factory workers wanted

better working conditions“The Tsar, the Priest, and the Rich Man on the Shoulders of the Laboring People”

Part II: The 1905 Revolution

“Bloody Sunday”--1905

“Bloody Sunday”--1905• Father Gapon led

peaceful march through St. Petersberg to Czar’s Winter Palace.

• Workers wanted constitution, better conditions, unions

• Thought Czar was their friend and would protect them

• Palace guards fired on workers, killing hundreds

1905 Revolution

• Sparked by “Bloody Sunday”

• Riots throughout Russia

• Workers struck, soldiers and sailors mutinied, peasants burned and looted

• Russia completely shut down

• Czar isolated

The First Soviets• Radicals organized

workers, peasants, and soldiers into soviets(councils)

• Grassroots committees spread revolutionary ideas

• “All Power to the Soviets!”

The Duma• Czar created Duma

(parliament) in response

• Guaranteed freedom of conscience, speech, assembly, and press

• Between 1906 and 1916, Czar shut down 4 Dumas

• Czar kept his autocratic control

Czar Nicholas II

Stolypin’s Reforms

• Prime Minister 1906 to 1911

• Gave land to millions of landless peasants

• Assassinated in 1911 by anarchists

Part III: World War I in Russia

WWI in Russia• Russia not prepared for

war

• Nicholas II led troops from front—bad idea

The Russian Army

• Huge losses to Germans—170,000 at the Battle of Tannenberg alone

• Poor transportation• 1915—no more

rifles, used clubs• 15 million

mobilized by end of war

Nicholas at Front, Rasputin at the Court

• Czarina Alexandra controlled the day-to-day running of Russia

• Influenced by Rasputin, illiterate, adulterous monk

• Only person who could stop Alexei’s bleeding

• Engaged in wild orgies with members of court

• Life in Petrograd (St. Petersberg) became out of control with scandal after scandal

Death of Rasputin• Betrayed by disciple,

Prince Yussoporov• Given cakes and wine

laced with cyanide• Then shot with revolver

• Then knifed, kicked, clubbed

• Finally, stuffed in hole in ice in River Neva

• Coroner: death from drowning

Discontent

• People in cities had no food

• Peasants --no markets for food

• Average war losses—30,000 per month

• Thousands of troops deserting per month

Destruction During WWI

• 1,650,000 dead; 3,850,000 wounded; 2,410,000 taken prisoner

• Billions $ lost in loans, damage, expenses

• Huge loss of territory to Germany with Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Russian prisoners after defeat in East Prussia

Part IV: The February Revolution (March 1917)

Alexander Kerensky, Provisional Government

Vladimir Lenin, Bolsheviks

Vs.

The Women’s March• Thursday, February 23,

women demonstrated in Petrograd

• Demanded “bread and peace”

• Became a revolt• Factory workers,

soldiers and sailors joined

• Chanted “down with the monarchy,” “peace now,” “bread for all”

• Joined by some members of Duma

The Petrograd Soviet

• Became center of authority in revolutionary Russia

• Soviets all over Russia sent representatives to Petrograd

• Executive Committee of Petrograd Soviet took charge

The Provisional Government• Formed by Duma• Purpose: restore order,

continue the war• Goal: create

constitutional monarchy

• Competed with Petrograd Soviet for control

Women’s battalion, defending Provisional Government, near the Winter Palace in Petrograd, 1917

Czar Abdicates, March 2

• Czar out of touch at front

• Czar’s train blocked from returning to Petrograd by workers

• Abdicated (gave up power) to brother Michael

• Michael refused; Romanov dynasty ended

Grand Duke Michael

Alexander Kerensky

• Leader of Provisional Government

• Democratic socialist• Went to school with Lenin as

a boy• Key decision: keep Russia in

war, don’t give land to peasants

• Clashed with Petrograd Soviet

Part V: Lenin and the Great October Revolution (November

1917)

Vladimir LeninLeon Trotsky

Lenin’s Leadership• Real name: Vladimir

Ilyich Ulyanov• Exiled in Switzerland;

smuggled back to Russia by Germans

• Lenin’s Bolsheviks (“majorityists”) vs. Mensheviks (“minorityists”)

• Lenin only let career revolutionaries join; Mensheviks wanted everyone to join

Peace, Land, and Bread

• All power to the soviets of workers, peasants, and soldiers!

• Peace (for soldiers), land (for peasants), bread (for workers)

• Great speaker

• Gained support from common people

• Lost support from other parties and Mensheviks

The Red Guard

• Lenin went into hiding in July 1917

• Trotsky commanded Bolshevik militia, the Military Revolutionary Committee or Red Guard

• Defended Petrograd against Russian army

• Gained weapons, ammunition, and experienceTrotsky saluting a Red

Guard

Russian (October) Revolution• Lenin planned to topple

Provisional Government• Kerensky thought it

wouldn’t work

• Most people so tired of war and confusion that they didn’t oppose Bolsheviks

• Trotsky’s troops seized most of Petrograd without a fight

• Lenin proclaimed a Bolshevik state

Revolution, by Kirakov (Storming the Winter Palace)

Civil War (1917-1921): Reds vs. Whites

• Revolution only succeeded in Petrograd at first

• Lenin abolished private property• No elections—commissars run

country• Lenin created Cheka, secret police, to

arrest and kill all enemies of Revolution

• Army officers, social democrats, nobles, capitalists opposed to Bolsheviks

• Opponents called the Whites• By 1922 Bolsheviks won Civil War

thanks to Trotsky’s leadership

Example of Lenin’s Use of Terror: “Hanging Orders” (don’t

have to copy this)"Comrades!...Hang (hang

without fail, so that people will see) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers.... Do it in such a way that... for hundreds of versts around, the people will see, tremble, know, shout: 'They are strangling and will strangle to death the bloodsuckers kulaks'. ...Yours, Lenin".

Banner: “We will liquidate the kulaks as a class.”

Death of Czar and family (don’t have to copy)

• Killed as Civil War was raging

• Lenin did not want them captured by Whites

• July 17, 1918 killed• Ana Anderson

Part VI: The Soviet Union Under Lenin

V.I. Lenin, 1922

Chaos in Russia

• Russia devastated after WWI and Civil War—lost ½ population

• High inflation, low wages, Western blockade

• Was communism destroying Russia?

New Economic Policy, 1921-1928

• “One step backward, two steps forward”

• Peasants allowed to grow and sell their own food

• Small businesses allowed to operate

Communist Party• Lenin wanted to create

modern society• Equality of women; vote

for everyone; healthcare

• Abolished nobility and religion

• Bolshevik replaced by “Communist Party”

• Education key to industrialization

Death of Lenin (don’t have to copy

this)

• Suffered many strokes

• Died in 1924

• Body preserved in Red Square

• Warning: Stalin had “unlimited authority concentrated in his hands” and suggested “comrades find a way to remove him from that post”