The Russian Revolution

Feb.24, 2011

    Russia during World War one was, in one word, pathetic. During this time, the country was controlled by tsar Nicholas II and tsarina Alexandra who were too caught up in their own lives to care about their own countries people. While they spent lavishly on themselves, the variety of their people starved and suffered in poverty. They both were happy with their power, and anything or anyone that threatened that power was their enemy. For this reason, Russia was weak and unorganized.
    The Russian Revolution began on a Sunday in July during the year 1905 when a Russian Orthodox priest organized a petition which was meant to be showed to tsar Nicholas II. He led 200,000 workers in a march to protest their poor working conditions, held  at the winter palace in St. Petersburg. The crowd, unarmed, was fired at by the soldiers. This event was called Bloody Sunday, and it sparked many more protests around the nation. Perhaps if Nicholas had listened to these protesters, and given them the rights they were asking for, the following revolution wouldn’t have begun.
    As a result of this 1905 revolution (Bloody Sunday), the tsar was forced to create the Duma by universal male suffrage. The Duma, by the October Manifesto, was a parliament promising certain civil rights and liberties aimed toward the serfs and middle working class. This pleased the people greatly, and they immediately demanded the release of political prisoners, land reforms, and trade union rights. After hearing this, the tsar ignored these demands and disbanded the Duma.
    By this time, the serfs had already observed the corruption within the autocracy with the involvement of Gregory Rasputin into the royal influence through tsarina Alexandra. He was a ‘sorcer’, and was believed to be a holy man by the tsarina who contained the powers of curing her son from hemophilia. Although he did not make dramatic changes, he did give power to his personal friends in jobs for the government. Weakness was evident, adding to the corruption, after the loss of the Russo-Japanese war from 1904-1905. It was a humiliating defeat for Russia, as no Asian country had ever won in battle against a European nation.
    Russia did not play much threat during World War One. It was part of an alliance called the Triple Alliance consisting of Great Britain, France and themselves. Their enemies were called the Triple Entente which was made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire. The peasants and middle class of Russia disliked Nicholas II greatly, as he showed strong carelessness for their needs. They blamed him for the involvement in the war, after he joined this Triple Entente.
    During the Russian revolution, people wanted change. They mainly asked for better working conditions, more stability, liberties and rights. Nicholas II opposed these reforms as they threatened his own power. The whole country was asking for these through strikes, riots, and revolts. In the March of 1917, because of all these riots and strikes, Nicholas II attempted to disband the again brought-up Duma. The members of the Duma created their own provisional government, to which Nicholas II responded by quitting his place as tsar of Russia. The provisional government declared a republic, replacing Nicholas’ monarchy.
    A man named Vladimir Lenin appeared in Russia, and used the disruption and confusion to appeal to the peasants, and grow into power. He was the leader of a group called the Bolsheviks, which consisted mainly of peasants who wanted a Democratic Socialist government, so they could destroy capitalism, hopefully raising the quality of their lives. In May, the government re-organized, under a socialist named Alexandar Krensky. Krensky wanted to keep Russia involved in WWI, but the Bolshevik party opposed it. In July of 1917, Lenin attempted to overthrow the government, to which he failed and was forced to flee the country. The Bolshevik party was left without a leader for about a month, and they also went into hiding in Russia. Krensky disagreed with a military commander about military policy, general Kornilov, and fired him. Kornilov then responded by capturing the city of Petrograd, and freed the captured Bolsheviks. Lenin returned back to Russia and resumed leadership to the freed and hiding Bolsheviks along with a man named Leon Trotsky. The Bolsheviks supported Krensky and turned on Kornilov, who later becomes the leader of the White Russians.
    On Nov.1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Trotsky stormed Petrograd and took over Russia as the new government, now called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Lenin was put in charge of this new government with Trotsky as the foreign commissar. This was called the November 1917 Revolution. On March 1918, Lenin made Russia quit World War One by signing the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which gave up Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Russian-Poland and the Ukraine to Germany. Much of Russia was still in chaos, even after the withdrawal. A group made up of people from the old army and well-to-do peasants formed a group called the Whites , which opposed the Bolsheviks, which were known as the Reds. The Reds killed Nicholas II and his family without hesitation and killed any resistance. Lenin nationalized industries under the name of war communism and used a  new secret police, known as the Checka to kill anyone who disagreed with the Reds’ control. In 1922, Russia officially became known as the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, or the U.S.S.R. which ended the Russian civil war.