Russian Revolution

Objectives

Today we will be able to identify the main causes and phases of the Russian Revolution.

Causes

By late 1916, Russia faced rising prices and huge bread and fuel shortages.

Tsar Nicholas also lost the support of the people The Russian people did

not trust his German wife, Alexandra, or the peasant healer Grigory Rasputin.

The February (March) Revolution

Women were denied bread, which coincided with International Women’s Day protests.

These two contingents banded together and created a demonstration 10,000 strong.

They called for equal rights for women, a Russian republic and and end to the war.

The tsar abdicated when he could not suppress the demonstrations.

The Provisional Government

Moderates from the political center and moderate left formed a government. They sought a free, liberal

and democratic Russia.They issued amnesty for

political prisoners, codified equality for Jews and Muslims, promised to convene a constituent assembly and pledged to continue the war effort against Germany.

The Petrograd Soviet

There was a dual governmental system. The Provisional Government

and the Petrograd Soviet.The Soviet was made up of

elected radical local worker and military counsels.

They demanded that military officers show respect for common soldiers and sailors and that no military orders were to be issued without approval by the Petrograd Soviet.

Political Amnesty

Political prisoners returned to Russia.

This included Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the radical Bolsheviks.

He published his April Theses.

Read and analyze the April Thesis.

The October (November) Revolution

Lenin organized a takeover of Petrograd.

The Bolshevik party’s Red Guards executed the takeover.

They arrested the Provisional Government in the Winter Palace.

By the end of November, the Bolsheviks were in control of the largest country in the world.

The Bolsheviks in Power

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Russian-German

treaty ending Russia’s involvement in the war.

Gave Germany ¼ of what had been imperial Russia.

German troops occupied the Baltics.

The constitution of 1918

The Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic

Read your section of the constitution.Summarize your section and be prepared to

report out to the class.Present your section to the class while the

class takes notes on the important aspects of your presentation.

The Civil War

Imperial and Provisional Generals raised armies to fight the Bolsheviks.

These forces became known as the “whites” because they opposed the “reds”

The Allies supplied and supported the white army. British, American and Canadian

forces landed on Russian soil on July 17.

They claimed they were deterring Germany from taking Russian land.

Whites and Reds both engaged in terror campaigns.

The Reds defeated the Whites in 1920.