Revolutions in Russia Part II: The Revolutions of 1917

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Revolutions in Russia Part II The Revolutions of
1917

• Global II Spiconardi

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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 doesnt listen to advisors, but a mystic
  monk named Rasputin

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March Revolution

• Rasputin
• Claimed to have magic healing powers
• Czarina Alexandra believed he eased her sons
  hemophilia
• Alexandra allowed him to make key political
  decisions
• Russian people furious
• We dont have any say in government, but this
  crazy holy man does?

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Spiconardi Rasputin gettin frisky in Buenos
Aries La Bocca neighborhood
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Rasputins Death

• Russian nobles plot to assassinate Rasputin
• Poisoned with enough cyanide to kill five men
• Shot onceDidnt die
• Shot three more timesdidnt die
• Clubbed to death.nahstill didnt die
• Drowned in the Neva Riverfinally died

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!

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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

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Lenins Mausoleum