Russian Revolution

February Revolution

• On Feb. 23rd 1917, working-class women gather in Petrograd to ask for “bread and peace”

• Men join them and Nicholas II soon orders his troops to fire on them

• The troops refuse and 80,000 of them join the protestors

• The Duma and other political parties secretly say Nicholas II must go

• Nicholas II abdicates; his brother Michael abdicates

• The Duma becomes the provisional gov’t

• Alexander Kerensky becomes temporary prime minister; keeps Russia in WW I

Arrival of Lenin

• Lenin had been living in exile in Switzerland

• Germany helps him get to Petrograd by train

• Arrives April 3rd, 1917• Lenin’s speeches are published,

become known as “April Theses”

• Lenin’s #1 goal: place Russia under Bolshevik control (Communist)

• Anti-Provisional Gov’t• Tries to organize massive street

demonstrations

October Revolution

• Bolsheviks gain more power over the summer of 1917

• However, Kerensky is calling for new elections to take place on Nov.12th

• Lenin knows it will be much harder to overthrow a gov’t that is legitimately elected

• Lenin organizes a Bolshevik army• On October 24th, revolutionaries

occupy key posts in Petrograd: telegraph offices, banks, railroad stations, bridges

• By October 25th, the Winter Palace was the only gov’t building not taken

• Kerensky flees morning of Oct. 25th • His officials stay, thinking he’ll bring

back troops• The palace is surrounded, but

revolutionaries refuse to fire on Russians

• The officials are persuaded to give up and are arrested

Aftermath• Kerensky flees to Europe, then

eventually becomes a professor of history in the U.S.

• Lenin declares Decree of Peace (Russia will leave WW I)

• Decree on Land (Land will be redistributed among peasants)

• Russia was still on the Julian Calendar; November 7th everywhere else