The Russian Revolution and the End of World War I

Fall of the Czar

• War - huge burden on Russia– Heavy losses, few supplies,

inadequate training, incompetent leaders

• Czar Nicholas II (Romanov)• Alexandra – influenced by

Rasputin, claimed to be holy man, cured son’s hemophilia

• Riots, demonstrations• Rasputin assassinated• 1917 – Nicholas II abdicates

his throne (steps down)– Ends 300 year dynasty

The Provisional Government• Provisional government

created – Alexander Kerensky

• Soviets – councils of workers and soldiers

• Duma - legislature

• Provisional gov’t did not withdraw from war, angered Russian people

Lenin• Bolsheviks – small, radical

Marxist group that wanted to bring socialism through force

• Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) leader

• Enemy of tsarist Russia, exiled

• Germans helped him return in 1917 to lead Bolsheviks

• Promised to take Russia out of the war

The Bolshevik Revolution• “Peace, Bread, Land”• Bolsheviks overthrow

provisional government in November, 1917

• Signed Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; Russia withdraws from war; loses lots of territory

• Set-up Communist nation– Ended private ownership of

property– Wanted to spread movement

around the world

Civil War• Reds – Communists (Lenin

and Trotsky)• Whites – wanted to get rid of

Communists (supported by allied powers)

• Three years of fighting destroys nation

• Red army led by Leon Trotsky well organized, disciplined

• Whites – no common goal, mixture of various groups

Joseph Stalin

• Lenin dies 1924• Power struggle Trotsky, Stalin• Trotsky ends up dead in Mexico• Stalin’s regime

– Brutal dictatorship– KGB – secret police; terror and murder– 5 year industrialization plans – forced labor– Work camps, people disappeared– Collective farms– Propaganda, oppression

Civil War• The Terror

– Lenin uses “war communism”– 1918 – killed czar and his

family– Cheka arrested anyone

accused of being an “enemy of the revolution”

– Restricted religion

• By 1921, Lenin had entire country under Communist control

• Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.)

Ending of World War I• 1917-1918 – Russia

withdrew at the same time as the U.S. enters– Provided supplies and men– Convoy system in Atlantic

• Fighting on Western front still a stalemate

• Total War– All people and resources in

the war effort

Ending of World War I• Allies push Germans back to

border• Ottoman Empire asks for

peace• Austria-Hungary defeated by

Italy• November 11, 1918 armistice

signed• Austria-Hungary replaced with

independent republics (Austria, Czech, Hung, Yug)

Peace Settlement

• Woodrow Wilson’s peace plan:

• Fourteen Points

• No alliances, reduction of armaments, self-determination of nations

• Saw new world order based on democracy and international cooperation

• Very different mood at the peace table…..

Versailles 1919 (France)

• “Big Four”– Lloyd George (GB)– Clemenceau (France)– Wilson (US)– Orlando (Italy)

• France wanted revenge; crush Germany, remove threat forever, payments

The Treaty

• Harsh treatment of Germany

• “War Guilt” clause – had to accept blame for war

• Reparations ($ compensation) for the war ($56 billion)

• Reduce army to 100,000, reduce navy, no air force

• Demilitarized or “buffer” zone created

The Treaty

• League of Nations created – peacekeeping organization

• New nations out of old empires (Germany, Austria, etc.)

• Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia

• U.S. fails to join League – weakens it• U.S. and G.B. withdraw from Europe leaving

France to stand alone; tensions, revenge• WWII is only 20 years away!

Allied Powers

Russian Empire 12,000,000 1,700,000 4,950,000 2,500,000 76

France 8,410,000 1,357,800 4,266,000 537,000 73

British Empire 8,904,500 908,400 2,090,200 191,700 36

Italy 5,615,000 650,000 947,000 600,000 39

United States 4,355,000 126,000 234,300 4,500 8

Romania 750,000 335,700 120,000 80,000 71

Serbia 707,300 45,000 133,100 153,000 47

Belgium 267,000 13,700 44,700 34,700 35

Greece 230,000 5,000 21,000 1,000 12

Portugal 100,000 7,000 13,800 12,300 33

Montenegro 50,000 3,000 10,000 7,000 40

Central Powers

Germany 11,000,000 1,773,700 4,216,100 1,152,800 65

Austria-Hungary 7,800,000 1,200,000 3,620,000 2,200,000 90

Ottoman Empire 2,850,000 325,000 400,000 250,000 34

Bulgaria 1,200,000 87,500 152,400 27,000 22

Country Men Mobilized Dead Injured Missing/Prisoners

%

Effects of the War

• Post war period made worse by flu epidemic in 1918

• Killed millions• Came on the heels of a devastating war• End of war spelled end of economic

opportunities for women and African Americans• Inflation (rising prices), demand for consumer

goods high, supply low, farm prices fell; wages fell, strikes often turned violent

The Red Scare

• Fear of radicals, communists, “Reds”

• Feared labor unions because of this

• Wave of fear gripped country

• Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer – raids on radicals (Palmer raids); many were simply immigrants; deported

• ACLU formed in response (fear of losing civil rights)

Sacco & Vanzetti

• Italian immigrants charged with murder

• Quick trial, guilty without much evidence

• Executed

• Belief that it was due to the fear of immigrants, anarchists, labor, socialism

• Eventually dies down as America returns to “normalcy.”

Normalcy cont.

• 1920 – Warren G. Harding (Rep) rejects Wilson’s idealism, progressive reforms; wants a return to a simpler time before the war; landslide victory (Congress too)

• America now the most industrialized nation in the world; “quiet American giant”

New Order – effects of WWI

• German, Russian monarchies toppled• Ottoman & Austria-Hungarian empires gone• GB and France emerge victorious but politically

& economically weakened• U.S. emerges strong & prosperous• A 500 year old world order of monarchies,

empires, etc. had crumbled in 4 years• What would be the role of America and other

nations?????