The Russian Revolution
1917 - 1921
Fall of the Tsar (Czar?)• The __________________________
– Russia’s Congress
• Criticizes the war effort in 1916
• Tsar Nicholas II closes it down
Rasputin
– _____________________________• Mystic monk• Claimed to be able to heal Alexi’s
____________________________________• Influenced royal couple
– Nicholas goes to the front, leaving wife and Rasputin in charge
• December 29, 1916– Relatives invite Rasputin to dinner
Creepy?
While at Dinner
• Relatives poison and shoot Rasputin
– HE DOESN’T DIE
– Throw his body in the Neva River
Problems Continue
• _______________________________
– Where’s my Beef Stroganoff?
• _______________________________
• Military told to fire at protestors
– won’t fire and join protestors
Tsar Steps Aside
• March 15, 1917–Tsar Nicholas II ends the ___________________________
dynasty and steps down• Romanovs had been in power for __________________________
Provisional Government
• Liberals call for elections– Mostly members of the Duma– Saw the need for support from the Petrograd
Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies• Socialistic groups
– ___________________________________________ – moderates
– ___________________________________________ – radicals
• Run by Alexander Kerensky– Member of the Petrograd Soviet
Kerensky
Provisional Government (con’t)
• Does not pull out of __________________________________– Desertion grows, economy drops– Could not make changes that the Soviets
wanted – BIG PROBLEM
Lenin to the rescue
Lenin’s Tomb
Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin)
• Lenin’s Big Brother, Alexander Ilyich, tries to kill Tsar Alexander Romanov (Father of Nicholas II)
– Alexander fails and is sentenced to hanging by the Tsar
• Lenin vows to lead revolution against the Romanovs
• Lenin exiled to prison in Siberia (1895)
– Lenin goes to Germany after his release
• Germany sends Lenin back to Russia after Nicholas abdicates the throne (Why?)– To distract the Tsar from his WWI war efforts
Lenin’s Work
• Promised “Peace, Land, Bread” – Get Russia out of WWI– Peasants would get land– Everyone gets enough to eat
• “ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS”– Soviets (committees) should be the nation’s only
government– No other political parties allowed
Karl Marx
• German philosopher who wrote Communist Manifesto with Englishman Richard Engels– Detailed theory of Historical Materialism
• All history was a fight between the bourgeise (haves) and the proletariat (have nots)
– Proletariat – working peasant class– Bourgeisie – wealthy noble landowner
• Bourgeisie would never willingly give wealth and power to the Proletariat
• Proletariate would have to revolt to overthrow the Bourgeisie• Largely influenced Lenin and Trotsky
The Revolution
• Summer 1917– Gov’t issues warrants
for Bolshevik leaders
• Fall 1917– Bolsheviks control
Petrograd Soviet through elections
• November 1917– Storm communication,
train, and electric hubs– Turn the guns of the
Aurora on the Tsarist palace
– Provisional Government surrnders
What Happened Next
• Elections held– ___________________________________ - 420
seats– ___________________________________ - 225
seats
• ________________________________ dissolve gov’t the next day– Seize power under Lenin
“_______________________________________”• Signs Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany
– Russia gives Baltic provinces, Ukraine, and Poland to Germany
Civil War
• White (Mensheviks)– Opposed Bolsheviks– Could be
• _________________ – want to restore the Romanovs
• __________________ – want a capitalistic democracy
• __________________ – want democracy and state run economy
• Red– Bolsheviks
• Begin to call themselves communist
• Choose red as color of revolution
• Very __________________ politically
• No private ownership• One party system
Mensheviks get help
• Allies want to get rid of Bolsheviks– Bring _____________________________
back into WWI with Germany– Give soldiers and money to Mensheviks
Why the Reds Win
• Leon Trotsky– Reorganized the ___________________________________
• Restored discipline• Fostered loyalty
– Taught soldiers how to read an write• Lack of unity on ______________________________________
– Different groups didn’t trust one another• Lenin used terror
– ________________________________________________ – secret police arrests anyone who is “enemy of the revolution”
• Leon Trotsky– Returns from
________________________
for Russ. Rev.
– Right Hand Man of Lenin
• Lenin was not anti-semitic
– Exiled to Siberia by ______________________
• Escapes, moves to Mexico
• Friends with Frida Kahlo
• Stalin’s assassins kills him with an ice pick
End of the Romanov Dynasty
• July 1918
– ________________________ orders soldiers to kill the Tsar and his family. Why?
• Family was exiled in Siberia
– Told they were going to get a family portrait
– Taken to basement of their home and shot
– Ended 300 year rule
– _________________ – Still Alive?????
The Royal Family
Lenin and Religion
• Lenin sees religion as against the revolution– Places sever restrictions on the Russian
______________________________ Church
Ending the Civil War
• __________________________________control entire country by 1921
• White armies surrender in 1921 due to disorganization, lack of equipment, etc.
• Lenin and the ____________________________ WINS
Next Up
•STALIN!!
Stalin (1879–1953)
• Soviet _____________________ leader, who more than any other individual molded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of post-World War II Europe.
• Stalin is considered by some to have been the most _____________________and influential political figure of the 20th century.
Map of Russia – former USSR
Stalin Cont…
• Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, as he was originally named—he adopted the pseudonym Stalin, meaning “a man of steel,” only about 1910—was born on Dec. 21, 1879, in Gori, now in the _________________________________.
• Both his parents were Georgian peasants. Neither of them spoke Russian, but Stalin was forced to learn it, as the language of instruction.
• When he attended the Gori church school in 1888–94. The best pupil in the school, Soso (his schoolboy nickname) earned a full _____________________________ to the Tbilisi Theological Seminary.
Stalin The Revolutionary• While studying for the priesthood, Stalin read forbidden literature,
including ______________________________ Das Kapital, and soon converted to a new orthodoxy: Russian Marxism. Before graduation he quit the seminary to become a full-time revolutionary.
• Stalin began his career in the Social-Democratic party in 1899 as a propagandist among Tbilisi railroad workers. The police caught up with him in 1902.
• Arrested in Batum, he spent more than a year in prison before being exiled to ________________________, from which he escaped in 1904. This became a familiar pattern.
• Between 1902 and 1913 Stalin was arrested ____________________________________________ times; he was exiled seven times and escaped six times. The government contained him only once; his last exile in 1913 lasted until 1917.
• On his return from Siberia in 1904 Stalin married. His first wife, Yekaterina Svanidze, died in 1910.
• A second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva (1902–32), whom he married in 1919, committed suicide in 1932.
• Their daughter, ___________________________Alliluyeva (born Svetlana Iosifovna Stalina in 1926, in Moscow; married name Lana Peters), defected to the West years later, in 1967.
– She became a U.S. citizen and wrote several books, including ___________________________(1967), an account of her life as Stalin’s daughter. The HBO movie Stalin is based on this book.
Lenin 1870 -1924• Before his death, Lenin came
to regard the _____________________ in Stalin’s personality and conduct as political liabilities. In his political “testament”
• Lenin doubted whether the party’s general secretary would use his great power with sufficient caution. He also attacked Stalin as being ________________ and called for his removal. Luck and maneuvering enabled Stalin to suppress Lenin’s testament.
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