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World War I: The Final Blow: Nicholas II made the fateful decision to drag Russia into World War I. Russia was unprepared to handle the military and economic costs. Its weak generals and poorly equipped troops were no match for the German army. German machine guns mowed down advancing Russians by the thousands. Defeat followed defeat. Before a year had passed, more than 4 million Russian soldiers had been killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. As in the Russo- Japanese War, Russia’s involvement in World War I revealed the weaknesses of czarist rule and military leadership.

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Lenin and the Bolsheviks soon gained control of the Petrograd and the soviets in the other major Russian cities

Fall 1917, people in the cities were rallying to the call “all power to the soviets”

Lenin’s slogan, “peace, land, and bread” was popular

Lenin decided to take action

Provincial government topples

In November 1917 armed factory workers stormed the winter palace. They call themselves the Red Guards

They took over government offices and arrested the provisional leaders

Kerensky and his colleagues disappeared

Just days after the takeover of the winter palace, Lenin ordered that all farmland be distributed among the peasants

Lenin and the Bolsheviks gave control of factories to the workers

They then signed a truce with Germany to stop fighting and begin peace talking

March 1918, Russia and Germany sign the treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Russia surrendered a large part of their territory and its allies

The terms of the treaty triggered widespread anger among many Russians. They objected to the Bolsheviks and their policies and to the murder of the royal family

Bolsheviks have a new challenge: get rid of their enemies at home

Their opponents formed the White Army

The  White Army was made of many different groups. There were ones that wanted the return of the royal family, others that wanted democratic government. There were even socialist that opposed Lenin’s style of socialism. The groups barely cooperated with each other

Civil war raged within Russia

The revolutionary leader, Leon Trotsky, commanded the Red Army from 1918-1920

Several western nations sent military aid and forces to help the White Army

Civil war proved deadly, around 14 million Russians died in the three year struggle and following famine. The country was left in chaos

In the end, the Red Army seized power and was able to maintain it

Oval the Russian Revolution was more like the French Revolution than the American

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Anyone who questioned the authority of the Czar, worshiped outside the Russian Orthodox Church, or spoke a language other than Russian was labeled dangerous.

Alexander III imposed strict censorship codes on published materials and written documents, including private letters.

To wipe out revolutionaries, Alexander III
used harsh measures. He imposed strict censorship codes on published materials
and written documents, including private letters. His secret police carefully
watched both secondary schools and universities.

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In March 1917, women who were textile workers in Petrograd led a strike.

During the strike the the soldiers were ordered to shoot the rioters but eventually sided with them

The local protest became the March Revolution.

The revolution led to Czar Nicholas II to resign his throne.

Leaders of the Duma established a provisional government, or temporary gov-

Ernment

Alexander Kerensky decided to continue with the world war.

Which cost him the support of his soldiers and this led to worse conditions in Russia.

Lenin Returns to Russia The Germans believed that Lenin and his Bolshevik supporters would stir unrest in Russia and hurt the Russian war effort against Germany.

They arranged Lenin’s return to Russia after many years of exile.

Traveling in a sealed railway boxcar, Lenin reached Petrograd in April 1917.

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Karl Marx was a German philosopher. In 1847, he wrote a plan The Manifesto of the communist party for a group called communist League.

Marx saw a struggle between the capitalist class and the proletariat, or working class.

Marx envisioned workers where each person would work according to their ability and receive money according to their needs.

He saw the final step of his Communist system being total economic equality worldwide.

The revolution would end with a “dictatorship of the proletariat”- the communal ownership of wealth.

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- Communism is a economic and political system.

- Citizens share wealth and resources to help the community needs.

-The Bolshevik Party was a group of people that took over Russia joined by the other socialists. Vladimir Lenin led the Bolshevik Party.

-They started communism in Russia and ruled the government from 1918-1921, and changed the name of the country to Soviet Union.

-In 1928, Joseph Stalin had total command of the communist party.

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Lenin:

March 1921, Lenin temporarily put aside plan for a state-controlled economy, instead using a small-scale version of capitalism called the New Economic Policy (NEP).

Reforms under NEP allowed peasants to sell their surplus crops instead of turning them over to the government.

Government kept control of major industries, banks, and means of communication, but it let some small factories, businesses and farms operate under private ownership.

Government also encourage foreign investment.

By 1928, Russia’s farms and factories were producing as much as they had before world war 1.

Bolshevik leaders saw nationalism as a threat to unity and party loyalty. To keep nationalism in check, Lenin organized Russia into several self-governing republics under the central government. In 1922, the country was named the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), in honor of the councils that helped launch the Bolshevik Revolution.

The bolsheviks renamed their party to the Communist Party. The name came from the writing of Karl Marx.

Lenin had established a dictatorship of the Communist Party, not “a dictatorship of the proletariat,” as Marx had promoted.

Stalin:

Lenin suffered a stroke in 1924. He survived, but the incident set in  motion competition for head of the Communist Party. Two of the most notable competitors were Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin.

Stalin was cold, hard, and impersonal. During his early days as a Bolshevik, he changed his name to Stalin, which means “man of steel” in Russian.

Stalin began his climb to the head of the government between 1922 and 1927.

In 1922, as general secretary of the Communist Party, he worked behind the scenes to move his supporters into positions of power. Lenin believed that Stalin was a dangerous man. Shortly before he died in 1924, Lenin wrote, “Comrade Stalin . . . has concentrated enormous power in his hands, and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution.”

By 1928, Stalin was in total command of the Communist Party.

Trotsky was forced into exile in 1929.

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Russian Industrialization

Between 1863 and 1900, Russia doubled its amount of factories, but Russia could still not compete with other industrialized nations in Europe.

During the 1890’s, the Russian government raised taxes and got foreign investors to boost their industry growth → specifically steel.

-    Russia became the 4th largest producer of steel in the world.

Trans-Siberian Railway: world’s longest continuous railway. Production began in 1891 and was finished in 1916, and it connected European Russia in the west to ports to the Pacific Ocean in the east.

Revolutionary Movement Grows:

With more factories being produced, new problems arose between the people of Russia over poor work conditions, considerably low wages, and child labor.

- The government outlawed trade unions.

- The Russian people, displeased with these conditions, organized a strike(s)

Karl Marx: The industrial class wanted to overthrow Czar. People began to follow the views of Karl Marx and thus arrived the Marxist revolutionaries.

- The workers “a dictatorship of the proletariat” → the workers ruled the country.

- Russian Marxists broke into two groups → one being the Mensheviks,     considered to be the more moderate group and the more radical group, the Bolsheviks.

- The Bolsheviks supported revolutionaries that were willing to sacrifice for change.

Vladimir ILyich was the main leader of the Bolsheviks and he adopted the name Lenin.

- He was considered to be quite engaging, but also very ruthless

-  Lenin fled to western Europe to escape Czar, but he maintained contact with the Bolsheviks, and waited until he could safely return to Russia.

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These events showed the czar’s weakness and paved the way for revolution.

- The Russo Japanese War: In the late 1800s, Russia and Japan competed for control of Korea and Manchuria. The two nations signed a series of agreements over the territories but Russia broke them.

Japan retaliated by attacking the Russians at Port Arthur, Manchuria, in February 1904. News of repeated Russian losses sparked unrest at home and led to a revolt in the midst of the war.

The Bloody Sunday: The revolution of 1905: On January 22, 1905, about 200,000 workers and their families approached the czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

World War I: The Final Blow: Nicholas II made the fateful decision to drag Russia into World War I.

-Russia was unprepared to handle the military and economic costs. Its weak generals and poorly equipped troops were no match for the German army.

-German machine guns mowed down advancing Russians by the thousands.

-Before a year had passed, more than 4 million Russian soldiers had been killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. As in the Russo- Japanese War, Russia’s involvement in World War I revealed the weaknesses of czarist rule and military leadership.