The Russian Revolution

1
TheRussian Revolution
2
(No Transcript)
3
Background to Revolution

• Unprepared for WWI
• Heavy casualties
• People lost the will to fight

4
Beginnings of Upheaval

• Czar Nicholas II- absolute ruler
• Wife- Alexandra
• English ancestry, born in Germany
• Rasputin- peasant holy man
• Lots of influence over the government
• Rasputin shot three times, tied up and thrown
  into the river, but still untied the knots
  underwater before drowning.

5
(No Transcript)
6
The March Revolution

• March 1917- strikes in Petrograd
• Peace and Bread Down with Autocracy
• Troops refused to fire
• Nicholas II abdicated
• Kerensky led the provisional government
• Soviets- councils of workers and soldiers
• Bolsheviks- a group of radical socialists

7
(No Transcript)
8
The Rise of Lenin

• V.I. Lenin- leader of the Bolsheviks
• Violent revolution
• Control the soviets
• Peace, Land, Bread Worker Control of
  Production All Power to the Soviets

9
The Bolsheviks Seize Power

• Bolsheviks had a majority in the Petrograd and
  Moscow soviets
• Leon Trotsky- head of the Petrograd soviet
• Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace
• Provisional Government out
• Bolsheviks Communists
• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

10
Civil War in Russia

• Allies sent troops to help the White army
• Major forces fighting against the Red Army
• Royal family assassinated

11
Triumph of the Communists

• Strict discipline
• Trotsky
• Single goal
• War Communism
• Cheka
• Foreign powers