The Russian Revolution

Warm up

• What were the four long term causes of World War I?

• What were some conditions in the Treaty of Versailles?• How did Germany react to these conditions.

• What is Total War? How is it different?

Causes

• Social Inequality- Russia still had a feudal society where the workers were far below the nobles

• Revolution of 1905• Russia lost the Russo-Japanese war- first Asian

victory against the west• Tsar Nicholas II violently put down protestors• A constitutional monarchy was established but soon

abolished by the tsar

Marxism

• Karl Marx believed that the ruling class was always were oppressing the working class

• Believed that the proletariat should rise in revolution and create a communist gov’t

Wartime Failures

• Tsar Nicholas II led the Russian army- failure

• Rasputin, a Siberian holy man, gained great influence with the royal family and corrupted the gov’t

Russian Revolution

1917

• February Revolution • Unhappy citizens took to the streets of St.

Petersburg, looking for food• Gov’t stopped following the tsar, Nicholas II

abdicated the throne • A temporary gov’t was undermined by the

Marxist Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin • October Revolution- Lenin led a revolt

against the provisional gov’t

Communist Government

• Lenin outlawed personal property and made Russia a communist country

• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk- made peace with Germany but gave away lots of territory

Russian Civil War (1918-1921)

• Russian Civil War (1918-1921)• Reds (communists) vs Whites (those opposed)• 15 million died as a result of the fighting• Reds won but faced economic collapse

• At the same time, a famine killed many Russians• Communist Russia was renamed the Soviet Union

(USSR)

Stalin’s Russia

• After Lenin died in 1922, two rivals fought for power • Leon Trotsky, leader of the Red Army• Josef Stalin, leader of the Communist party

Russian Under Stalin

• Stalin took power and tried to seize complete control of the USSR

• He created central plans to govern every element of the economy

• Great Purge- Stalin killed up to six million of his own people that he believed were plotting against him