Cruel, oppressive rule of the Czars for almost

100 years

Social unrest for decades

Ruthless treatment of peasants

Small revolts amongst students and soldiers

that resulted in secret revolutionary groups

Assassination of Czar Alexander II who tried

to institute reforms

1881 came to the throne after the assassination of his father Alexander II

Halted all reforms of his father!!

Ruled as an autocratic leader- one in which the government has total power

Anyone who spoke against the autocratic rule, the orthodox church, or spoke any language other than Russian was deemed dangerous

Too keep control he

Used harsh measures-

censorship, secret police,

students were watched and

political prisoners were

exiled to Siberia

Desired a uniform culture

Jews became the target of

persecution

Pogroms- organized violence

against the Jewish people

Police and government officials

stood by and watched as

Russian citizens destroyed and

looted Jewish homes and

businesses

Son of Alexander III, 1894 became czar

Kept the tradition of autocratic rule

Lagged behind Europe’s industrializednations

Accomplishments under Nicholas:

Russia became the world’s 4th ranking steel producer

Sergey Witte- 1890’s czar’s minister who pushed industry forward through taxes & foreign investments

Trans-Siberian Railway was built- the world’s largest continuous railway completed in 1904. Connected European Russia in the West with Russian ports on the Pacific in the East

Problems in factories

Grueling work conditions

Low wages

Child Labor

Labor Unions Banned

Set forth the idea that industrial class of

workers would eventually overthrow the Czar

They would form a “dictatorship of the

Proletariat” where the workers would rule

the state

Mensheviks

Wanted a broad base of support for the

revolution (more people across all of

Russia)

Bolsheviks

Supported a small number of committed

revolutionaries willing to sacrifice

everything for change

Lead by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov: aka

Lenin (fled to western Europe to avoid

arrest)

A series of events would unfold between

1904 and 1917 that would show the weakness

of the Czar and fuel the fire for revolution

1. Russo-Japanese War- (1904-1905)

Russia and Japan both imperialist powers fighting

over control of Korea and Manchuria

2. Bloody Sunday- January 22, 1905

200,000 workers and their families approached

the Czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg

Demanded better working conditions and wages

The palace soldiers opened fire on the crowd

killing between 500-1,000 unarmed citizens

1905

Nicholas II reluctantly approves the Duma-

Russia’s first Parliament

It was dissolved after 10 weeks due to the fear of

the Czar losing his power

World War I

1914 Nicholas II joins the war

Russia was no match for Germany

In 1 year more than 4 million Russian Soldiers had

died

World War I

While Nicholas was away at the war front, his

wife was influenced by Rasputin

He was allowed to make many political decisions for

Alexandra

He opposed reform and spread corruption

He was assassinated in 1916

strikes flared up around

Petrograd over

shortages of bread and

fuel

Russian soldiers joined

in

“Down with the

autocracy”

“Down with the war”

Czar Nicholas II was forced to

abdicate the throne

He and his family were

imprisoned by the Bolsheviks

A provisional (or temporary)

government was established

People were still unhappy

and began to form Soviets-

local councils of workers,

peasants and soldiers who

were competing for power

Lenin returns to Russia to lead the Bolsheviks

Bolsheviks storm and take over the provisional government at the Winter Palace in Petrograd

The Revolution was over in a matter of hours

Reforms under Lenin

All farmland is distributed amongst the peasants

Control of factories was handed over to the

workers

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk- 1918

Ended Russia’s involvement in World War I

Gave up a large chunk of territory to Germany

Russians upset and begin objecting to the Bolsheviks

and their policies

June 1918- Bolsheviks murder the former

Czar and his family

Country split between:

The red army- the Bolsheviks

The white army- supporters of the Czar

Were supported by many Western states including the

U.S.A

Red army eventually crushed all who opposed

the Bolsheviks.

The War and Revolution had destroyed the

country

Lenin shifts his focus to rebuilding the

economy of Russia

Small-scale form of capitalism

Peasants could sell their surplus crops rather

than turning them over to the government

Individuals could buy/ sell goods for profit

Divided the country into several self-

governing republics

1922- renamed the country Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics (USSR)

Bolsheviks became the Communist Party

Lenin actually established a dictatorship of the

Communist Party; not a “dictatorship of the

proletariat” as promised

Lenin’s death in 1924 lead to a struggle over

power in Russia

Lenin’s body

remains on

display in a

bullet proof glass

case in Russia’s

famed Red

Square

Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin were

supporters of Lenin and helped create

the Soviet State

Both became bitter rivals and struggled

for control of the Communist Party

1922-1927: Stalin placed his followers

in key government positions

1928 Stalin controlled the Communist

Party and in 1929 Trotsky was forced

into exile.

Changed his name from Dzhugashivili to Stalin which means “man of steel”

He was cold, hard and impersonal

Worked as the general secretary of the Communist Party under Lenin (even Lenin didn’t trust him)

By 1928 Stalin was in total control of the Communist Party

Totalitarianism- a government with TOTAL

control over public and private life

Other Totalitarian states emerging at the

same time included Germany under Hitler,

Italy under Mussolini, China under Mao

Zedong, and Kim Il Sung in North Korea

Lenin had established the NEP which

included a mixture of free enterprise and

state control

Stalin’s new plan called for a Command

Economy

A system in which the government made all

economic decisions

The Five Year Plan Set impossibly high quotas for the

output of steel, coal , oil, and electricity

Because of this, production of consumer goods were limited leading to shortages of housing, food, clothing and other necessities

Government chose the workers, assigned them jobs, determined working hours and imprisoned or executed those who did not contribute to the economy

1928

Government seizes over 25 million privately

owned farms and combined them into collective

farms

Large government owned farms

Peasants tried to resist being forced to work on

the farms

They were herded onto farms and forced to work at

the point of a bayonet

The Kulaks- a class of wealthy peasants who opposed

the collective farms

They were executed or sent to work

The Secret Police

Used armored cars and tanks to stop riots

Monitored phone lines, read mail, planted

informers everywhere

Used children to spy on adults in their homes

Stalin’s plan to eliminate anyone who

opposed his rule or threatened his power

Many Bolsheviks were executed for “crimes

against the Soviet state”

Even the director of the Moscow Zoo was

arrested because his monkeys contracted

tuberculosis

Stalin was responsible for between 8-13

million deaths in the Great Purge