Revolutions in Russia Part II: The Revolutions of 1917

Global II: Spiconardi

March Revolution

Causes World War I

Nicholas II involves Russia in WWI Russian army unprepared to handle a war on this level

4 million casualties in the first year Nicholas goes to war front & leaves wife in charge Czarina doesn’t listen to advisors, but a mystic monk named Rasputin

March Revolution

Rasputin Claimed to have magic

healing powers Czarina Alexandra

believed he eased her son’s hemophilia

Alexandra allowed him to make key political decisions

Russian people furious “We don’t have any say

in government, but this crazy ‘holy man’ does?”

Spiconardi & Rasputin gettin’ frisky in Buenos Aries La Bocca neighborhood

Rasputin’s Death

Russian nobles plot to assassinate Rasputin Poisoned with enough cyanide to kill five men Shot once…Didn’t die Shot three more times…didn’t die Clubbed to death….nah…still didn’t die Drowned in the Neva River…finally died

March Revolution

Strikes 200,000 workers strike shouting, “Down with autocracy! Down with

the war!” Troops fire on striking workers, but later side with them

Czar Nicholas II abdicates the thrown on March 2 Nicholas and the imperial family are killed in May 1918 under the

order of Lenin and the Bolsheviks

The Provisional Goverment

After Czar Nicholas abdicated, a provisional government under moderate Alexander Kerensky was formed Provisional government

temporary government Kerensky

Kept Russia in World War I Refused to kill imperial

family Had no support from

workers or peasants

V.I. Lenin

Leader of the Bolshevik Party Beliefs

History is the story of class struggle (student of Marxism)

Peasants and workers unable to lead a revolution; needed professional revolutionaries

Centralized government/command economy One party system

V.I. Lenin

Peace! Land! Bread! After being exiled, Germans help Lenin return to

Russia 1917 Under promise of Peace, land, and bread, Lenin

gains support of Russian people People overthrow Kerensky & provisional government in

October/November 1917

V.I. Lenin

Lenin seizes power Peace: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is signed to end WWI for Russians Land: Redistributed land to peasants

Civil War White Army wanted to return to rule by Czar Red Army Bolsheviks; communists REDS WIN!

V.I. Lenin

Lenin restores order after civil war New Economic Policy

Lenin allowed for some capitalism Peasants could sell surplus crops Private ownership of small factories

Government kept control of banks, telecommunications, and major industries

Only allows one political party Bolsheviks (later renamed Communist Party)

Renames Russia to the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (U.S.S.R.) RUSSIA BECOMES THE FIRST COMMUNIST COUNTRY

EVER

Lenin’s Mausoleum