Transcript The Russian Revolution Russian Revolutions 1905 - 1917 •Revolutions were actually several protests (people revolting) against the Czar over a 12 year span, culminating with.

The Russian
Revolution
Russian Revolutions
1905 - 1917
•Revolutions were actually several protests
(people revolting) against the Czar over a 12 year
span, culminating with the October Revolution of
1917.
•It ended hundreds of years of oppression from the
Czarist Regimes.
•It paved the way for the totalitarian communist
regimes to exist for the next 70 years and created
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (U.S.S.R.)
Pre-Revolution
• Russia had been oppressed for centuries by
autocratic czarist regimes.
• Ended with Nicholas II. From the beginning of
Nicholas’ reign he failed;
– Coronation-- hundreds were killed because of poor
crowd control.
– Poor harvest in the late 1890’s led to civil unrest,
Many without adequate food or wages.
– Ill-equipped for the Japan-Russo war 1904-05.
The Royal Family
Marxism:
Due to Russia’s
economic problems,
the lower classes
looked for an answer.
No classes!
Bloody Sunday
January 5 1905
• A workers protest led by a priest
at the Winter Palace in St
Petersburg turned violent and
left some 200 people killed
when the czar’s guards opened
fire on the crowd.
• Led to a general strike in which
400,000 went on to strike in the
following months, brought
economy to a halt.
• Small mutinies in the army and
navy.
• Result was the October
Manifesto and the creation of
the Duma (Russian Parliament).
Bloody Sunday
Newspaper January 9, 1905
• Czar Nicholas II was
actually out of town at
the time and his troops
mismanaged the whole
protest.
Bloody Sunday:
Jan. 1905, workers in St. Petersburg marched
on the royal palace, the royal guards opened
fire killing hundreds.
• Grigory Rasputin(Street bumb)
manipulated his way into the
lives of Nicholas and Alexandra.
• Rasputin was a self proclaimed
faith healer.
• To find a cure for the son Alexia
who suffered from hemophilia
Nicholas and Alexandra became
desperate.
• This poor judgement of
Nicholas and Alexandra led to
the disintegration of support
among the Russian people,
especially from upper classes.
Rasputin Affair
Rasputin goes in for a checkup.
WWI Problems:
Russia was getting beaten by Germany,
food was running out, jobs were few,
and the people were mad.
• 3 main causes for
overthrow:
– Economic collapse - increase
in strikes shut down
economy,. Sale of Vodka
was banned.
– Military collapse --failures in
WWI.
– Political collapse- series of
errors and growing civil
unrest finally led to the Czar
being abdicated.
The Czar was overthrown on
February 26, 1917 and forces
Nicholas and his family to
flee the country; later to be
executed.
February
Revolution 1917
The Duma:
Russia’s parliament or governing
body, like a congress.
Duma ---> Provisional Government
• Power struggle existed in the political anarchy for the next 6
months.
• Lenin and Trotsky both jockeying for power of
revolutionary groups.
• Alexander Kerensky became the leader of the Provisional
Government.
• WWI trudged on, Death toll continued to rise.
• Economy still in shambles.
• Peasants still without land.
• Workers were unhappy strikes persisted.
• Appeared as though it was democracy, yet still much civil
unrest to take hold.
October Revolution October 25 1917
• In a military coup Trotsky’s
“red army” staged a military
take-over of the winter palace in
St Petersburg thus ending the
Provisional government.
• Lenin seized power immediately
with Trotsky and Joseph Stalin
by his side.
• First 2 acts:
1. to end Russian involvement in
WWI.
2. Give peasants land. “private
ownership shall be abolished
forever”.
• Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov or
Lenin,.
• Spent time in jail and exile
1895-1917 for preaching
against the czar and pro
Marx (Marxism or
Communism) and plotting to
overthrow the Czar.
• Weak Provisional
Government (Duma) paved
the way for Lenin to rise to
power.
• Lenin appealed to the masses
“ Peace, Land, Bread ”
Lenin
Lenin Cont.,
• Led group known as the
Bolsheviks (Social Democrats)
in the revolution.
• Person mainly responsible for
communism being established
in Russia
• “Red Terror”- Lenin was a
radical and ruthless
revolutionary calling for the
execution of the Czar and his
family as well as anyone else
opposed to the revolution.
• He had a stroke in 1922 and was
bed -ridden until his death in
1924.
Bolshevik Revolution (Nov. 7, 1917):
Lenin’s popular support from antiCzarists let his people seize gov.
buildings and arrest officials, taking
power in Russia.
Lenin’s Body Preserved
• Leon Trotsky founded “Red
Army”, or MRC (military
revolutionary council) in 1917.
This supplied the force to the
revolution.
• MRC was the group that actually
facilitated the removal of the
Duma thus completing the
revolution.
• Trotsky allowed Lenin to seize
power in the following years but
was an vital member of the
communist government.
• Later he would battle for power
with Stalin after Lenin’s death.
Leon Trotsky
The Czar could not be allowed to rule again.
So, the Bolsheviks took them to the
basement of their palace, where they
were prisoners, and shot them all.
Civil War 19181920
• “Reds Vs. Whites”
• Reds = Bolsheviks (majority)
• Whites = Anti-Bolsheviks or
people against the communist
regime. Actually supported
by Western powers including
the U.S.
• Whites were concerned with
the creation of the Communist
elite and return to the old
order.
• Civil War was eventually won
by Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the
“red army”.
• Communist Gov’t, seized
church lands and property.
• NEP (New Economic Policy)
allowed peasants to grow crop
for profit.
Vs.
Civil War:
Reds- The communists & Whites -moderate
socialists, Duma supporters and western
nations: U.S., England, France and Japan.
The reds win.
Propaganda:
Designed to influence
and control peoples
beliefs and information
flow. The Bolsheviks
used it and when they
took over they forced it
on people everywhere.
Propaganda Trains
Lenin’s Communist state
• Mass executions used to eliminate opposition to the
communist state.
• Government assumed full control except for the NEP of
industry, banks, and foreign trade.
• All political parties were banned, and the government
controlled all districts within Russia.
• Union of Soviet Socialists Republic (U.S.S.R)
• All Church land and property was seized. Church schools
were closed. State schools taught that God did not exist
• Government used censorship to silence any unfavorable
foreign views. Also used propaganda to teach the Marxists
philosophy.
The Secret Police:
Terror police whose job it was to kill
and eliminate all people thought to
oppose the Communists.
Poster
showing
Lenin as the
great leader.
The U.S.S.R. :
1922, The Union of Soviet Socialists
Republic was formed to unite all
Russian people under one government.
Propaganda cable cars
Traveling propaganda acting troop
mocking the Czar and Rasputin.
&
Religious Persecution:
Your
heart should be given to Lenin and the
Party not God. God did not exist. Many
religious leaders were imprisoned.
Two old
“friends”
Joseph Stalin:
Lenin dies in 1924
and Stalin fights for
power. Lenin
warns Trotsky to
not let him rule. He
takes power
anyway.
• Upon Lenin’s death in 1924 Joseph
Stalin assumed power over Leon
Trotsky. Lenin biggest fear was that
Stalin and not Trotsky would assume
power.
• Stalin was popular with the people and
his views that it would not take a global
communists state for communism to
succeed in the Soviet Union
• Stalin’s first policies were his Five Year
plans and the Collective farms.
Appeared to be successful from outside
but failed, people realized that no matter
how hard they worked they would all
benefit the same
Joseph Stalin
“Man of Steel”
“Great Wise
Father”
Five Year Plans:
Modernize the Soviet
Union in five years no
matter what the cost.
It caused massive
shortages and
suffering for all.
Collective Farming:
All farmers are forced to give up their
own farms and work and farm in groups.
It was a huge failure.
Kulaks:
The prosperous farmers of Russia
became Stalin’s target. “Liquidate them
as a class” he said. Thousands were shot
or sent to work camps.
The New Economic Policy:
A policy of gov. control mixed with
private industry to ease Russia into total
gov. economic control (Communism).
Gulags:
The prison work camps in Siberia
that Stalin’s enemies were sent. Few
ever returned.
The Great Purge:
1935-1939 Stalin killed
off any and all political
rivals. All of the “old
Communists” were
eliminated. Thousands
were arrested, tried and
executed.
Trotsky in Mexico:
Leon Trotsky was hunted
down by Stalin’s agents
and killed in his hotel
room in Mexico City
with an ice pick.
Totalitarianism:
Total and absolute
rule, total
domination of a
people. By 1953
estimates are that
Stalin killed 80
million of his own
people.
Centralized Government:
The Communists moved the capital from
Petrograd to Moscow, The Kremlin. The
leaders were called the Politburo.
Stalin
Purges
• He proved to be even more
ruthless than Lenin with his
famous “purges”.
• Between 1934 an 1938
some 8 million people were
convicted of crimes they
possibly could not have
committed. Many of the
convicted were loyal party
members and 50% were his
own officers.
• People were executed or
worked to death in labor
camps.
Eric Blair,
(George Orwell)
Animal Farm
1945