RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONWORLD WAR I WAS INITIALLY

GREETED WITH ENTHUSIASM IN RUSSIA

Tsar Nicholas was dominated by his wife, AlexandriaShe was born in Germany but raised in England

she hated democratic government

their son was a hemophiliac and could only be helped by a travelling preacher named Gregori who's nickname was Rasputin---the Depraved

there were rumour that the Tsarina and Rasputin were having an affairRasputin became a fixture in the Romanov court

any wrongs that Rasputin committed, the Tsarina would deny

September 1915, Tsar Nicholas made two critical errors that were to prove fatal to the Romanov Dynasty: he assumed personal command of the army and he dismissed the Duma (Russian Parliament)

With Nicholas in charge of the army, political authority came to be dominated by the Tsarina and Rasputin; only those most loyal to the monarchy were appointed to government positions

The Russian military was poorly led, ill equipped and suffered staggering losses on the battlefieldBetween 1914 and 1916, two million Russian soldiers died

In December 1916, with Russia in deep crisis and increased suspicion on the German born Tsarina, a group of conspirators had Rasputin murdered to save the monarchy

In March 1917, strikes broke out in Petrograd and Nicholas ordered the army to disperse the crowds by shooting if necessary; soon many of the troops went over to the civilian side

The Duma, which had been dissolved, met anyway on March 12, 1917 establishing a provisional government and called on the Tsar to abdicate; Tsar Nicholas abdicated on March 15; as he was not deliberately overthrown, there was no real revolution

Czar Nicholas speaking to the Duma

Moderate Constitutional Democrats established the Provisional Government that represented a middle class and liberal aristocratic minority

Their agenda was based on 19th century liberalism: freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and civil libertiesThat this Provisional Government wanted to carry on the war was its own undoing

The Western Allies put tremendous pressure on Russia to stay in the war, even promising a warm water port if they remained in the fight

The Provisional Government also had to deal with the councils of peasants, workers, and soldiers deputies or SOVIETSThe soviets represented the more radical interests of the lower classes

The socialists in Russia were also divided into the more moderate Mensheviks who espoused western style democracy and the more radical Bolsheviks led by Lenin who advocated the implementation of the political philosophy of Karl Marx

The Bolsheviks became the party of violent revolutionWhen the Provisional Government gained power in Russia, Lenin was returned to Russia from his German exile with the assistance of the German High Command—he was sent back deliberately to cause revolution and to destabilize

the government

Lenin 1896

Forged Travel Documents

Lenin realized that the soviets were ready made to implement his plan and so ordered his people to infiltrate their ranks

With the Bolsheviks firmly in control of the soviets by July 1917, it is little wonder that the Russian army disintegrated when a new offensive was planned

On the night of November 6-7, 1917 Bolshevik forces seized the Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional Government

Lenin quickly proclaimed his program of an immediate end to the war, redistribution of land to the peasants, the transfer of factories from the owners to the workers, and the control of government by the Soviets

Lenin’s slogans were ‘Peace, Land, Bread’ and ‘All Power to the Soviets’

‘All power to the Soviets’

Once in power, Lenin quickly declared land nationalized and turned it over to the local soviets; this immediately increased peasant support for the party

Lenin also agreed to the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to get out of the war; Lenin had no army to fight the war and any attempt to continue the war would topple his government

Treaty of Brest Litovsk

There was great opposition to his communist regime both inside Russia and without

In the summer of 1918, Allied forces occupied Archangel and Vladivostok purportedly to protect war supplies kept there, but their real purpose was to help topple the communist government and bring Russia back into the war

In the civil war that ensued, the opposition Whites had little support from the West and had little cause to fight and was not united in its efforts

The communist Red Army had a single purpose and the added support of nationalism on their side owing to the Allied invasionThrough the secret police or Cheka, the communists were able to use terror against their enemies

The Russian Civil War devastated Russia

By 1920, the Reds had won the war and regained control of the country largely through the organizational genius of Leon Trotsky

Lenin rallying the crowd with Trotsky at his side

Stalin had Trotsky airbrushed out of the image

Trotsky was removed once Stalin achieve power in Russia

Trotsky had reinstated the draft and execution for any soldier who refused to fight

The Red Army also controlled the major cities and the interior lines of support and communication

Patriotism also played a key role in supporting the Reds; with over 100 000 foreign troops in their country there was substantial support for the Bolshevik cause

Allied troops were eventually withdrawn as it became evident that the Bolsheviks could not be dislodged from power

Russia was not permitted to attend the Versailles peace conference

The Allies imposed a settlement between the Poles and the Russians known as the Curzon Line

The gray area was annexed by Poland during Polish Russian War

the Poles demanded their historic national boundaries of 1772; the Russians refused to cede any more land which resulted in war between the two countries in 1920

weak from the civil war, the Russians and Poles reached an agreement on a new boundary that was east of the Curzon Line but not as far as the 1772 boundary