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
