Russian Revolution 1905 Revolution - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Russian Revolution Slide2

1905 Revolution

What happened?

What was the Tsar’s response?Slide3
Slide4

Impact of WWI

For Russia, WWI devastating

Nicholas II distrusted the Duma and resisted popular involvement in government

Complete control over the bureaucracy and army

Excluded from power the middle classes and masses became critical of tsar’s leadership

September 1915

 Progressive bloc – called for a completely new government responsible to Duma instead of Tsar

Nicholas called off the Duma

Left to the front to rally troops and left government in his wife’s hands (Alexandra)

Disastrous mistake Slide5

Alexandra and Rasputin

While the tsar was gone, Alexandra turned to Rasputin

Russia continued to struggle economically

Controversy over influence of Rasputin

Three members of the high aristocracy murdered Rasputin in December 1916

Hoped to save the monarchy but it was too late

Further undermined support for the tsarist government Slide6

According

to legend:

Enough

cyanide to kill five menShot through the backFought

back and was shot 3 more times

After

struggling to get up they clubbed him into submission

After binding his body and wrapping him in a carpet, they threw him into the icy Neva River. He broke out of his bonds and the carpet wrapping him, but drowned in the river.Slide7

February/March Revolution- 1917

Russia entered a terminal crisis

Increase in soldiers deserting

Extreme food shortages and heating fuel in short supply- economy breaking down

In March, violent protests broke out in Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg)

The tsar ordered the army to open fire on the protestors, but they refused and joined the crowds

The Duma declared a provisional government on March 12, 1917

The tsar abdicated three days later Slide8

Results

Nicholas abdicates

Provisional Government led by Alexander Kerensky

Did not take Russia out of WWI

Western style parliamentary government

People unhappy because still in the war and economic problems not being solved Slide9

Petrograd Soviet

Provisional government had to share power with a rival



Petrograd Soviet

made up of 2-3,000 workers, soldiers, and socialist intellectuals

Acted as a parallel government issuing own radical orders- weakening the authority of the provisional government

Favored withdrawal from WWI

Favored radical social reform for workers and peasants Slide10

Three Government Choices

Parliamentary government – order through democratic reform (Provisional Government)

Military Dictatorship- restore order by armed force

Rule by workers’ and soldiers’ soviets

Petrograd Soviet controlled by Lenin and Trotsky

Offered land, food, and self-determination for non-Russians

People wanted real change- who would they favor?Slide11

Monarchy

Nicholas II

Provisional

Gov’t

Kerensky

SovietsSlide12

Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution

Three interrelated concepts central for Lenin:

First, he stressed only a violent revolution could destroy capitalism (peaceful evolution to socialism was a betrayal of Marx’s message of violent class conflict)

Second, Lenin argued that under certain conditions a communist revolution was possible even in a predominantly agrarian country like Russia

Peasants who were exploited and poor could take the place of Marx’s traditional working class

Third, Lenin believed that the possibility of revolution was determined more by human leadership than by historical laws Slide13

Challenges to Lenin

Other Russian Marxists challenged Lenin’s ideas

Lenin demanded a small, disciplined, elitist party dedicated to Communist revolution

Opponents wanted a more democratic, reformist party with mass membership

Lenin called his group- Bolsheviks (majority)

Opponents- Mensheviks (minority)Slide14

Return of Lenin

Had been observing events from neutral Switzerland, where he lived in exile to avoid persecution by the tsar

Lenin saw the war as an opportunity for a socialist revolution

Saw the February Revolution as a sign of hope

The German government provided Lenin, his wife, and about 20 followers safe passage into Russia

Germans hoped Lenin would undermine the sagging war effort of the provisional government and take the Russians out of the war Slide15

Arrived at Petrograd’s Finland Station on April 3, 1917

Lenin started immediately

“Peace, Land, Bread”

“All land to the peasants”

“Stop the war now”Slide16

Trotsky and Seizure of Power

In October 1917, Bolsheviks gained a fragile majority in the Petrograd Soviet

Trotsky said there was a German counter-revolutionary plot and convinced the Petrograd Soviet to form a special military- revolutionary committee and put him in charge

Military power in the capital passed into Bolshevik hands

On November 6, 1917- militants from Trotsky’s committee joined with Bolshevik soldiers to seize government buildings in Petrograd and arrest members of the provisional government

Declared that all power had passed to the soviets and named Lenin the head of the new government Slide17

John Reed, a sympathetic American journalist, described the enthusiasm that greeted Lenin:

Now Lenin, gripping the edge of the reading stand….stood there waiting, apparently oblivious to the long-rolling ovation, which lasted several minutes. When it finished, he said simply, “We shall now proceed to construct the Socialist order!” Again that overwhelming human roar. Slide18

The Bolsheviks came to power for three key reasons

First, by late 1917 democracy had given way to anarchy- power was there for those to take it

Second, in Lenin and Trotsky the Bolsheviks had an utterly determined and superior leadership, which both the tsarist and the provisional governments lacked

Third, Bolshevik policies appealed to ordinary Russians. Exhausted by war and weary of the tsarist autocracy that were eager for radical changes. Slide19

Civil War

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk-

signed March 1918 – Lenin recognized that Russia had effectively lost the war with Germany

 peace at any price

Price very high Germany demanded the Soviet government give up all its western territories, areas inhabited by Poles, Finns, Lithuanians, and other non-Russians

A third of the old Russia’s population was sliced away with the treaty

With peace, Lenin could pursue his goal of absolute power for the Bolsheviks, now called Communists Slide20

Civil War

The peace treaty and the abolition of the Constituent Assembly inspired armed opposition to the Bolshevik regime

People saw that they were once again getting a dictatorship

The officers of the old army organized the “White "opposition to the Bolsheviks in southern Russia, Ukraine, Siberia, and the area west of Petrograd

The Whites came from many different social groups and were united only by their hatred of communism and the Bolsheviks- the Reds

By summer 1918 Russia in a civil war Slide21

Tsar and family Murdered

In exile in Yekaterinburg

Shot July 17, 1918

Nicholas, Alexandra, and children (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) Slide22

18 self-proclaimed regional governments challenged Lenin’s government in Moscow

In October 1919, it looked like the White armies might triumph, but they did not

Lenin and the Red Army beat back the counter revolutionary White army

The Bolsheviks had developed a better army

Trotsky’s leadership was decisive

Became head commissar of the newly formed Red Army

Strict discipline and draft

Soldiers who deserted or disobeyed were shot

Reds controlled central Russia and crucial cities of Petrograd and Moscow

Whites had to attack from the fringes Slide23

War Communism

Soviet regime established a policy known as War Communism

Leadership nationalized banks and industries and outlawed private enterprise

Seized grain from was peasants to feed cities and maintained strict workplace discipline

Although economic breakdown, maintained labor discipline and supplied the Red Army with men and material Slide24

Revolutionary Terror

Terror also contributed to the Communist victory

Secret police set up by Lenin and the Bolsheviks

 Cheka

During the civil war the Cheka imprisoned and executed without trial tens of thousands of “class enemies”

The “Red Terror” of 1918 to 1920 helped establish the secret police as a central tool of the new Communist government

By spring of 1920, White armies completely defeated