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Home , Hammer and Sickle, Vladimir Lenin

The Russian of 1917

During World I, fought on the side of the ‘allies.’ The allies consisted of Great

Britain (England), France, and in 1917 The United States. Although the allies eventually won the war in 1918, Russia dropped out of in 1917 at about the same time The United States joined.

Before 1917 Russia had a monarchy style of with powerful kings called Czars ​ (Russian for Caesar). For hundreds of years czars had absolute power over Russia. Often times they would suppress and expression through imprisonment, torture, or death. Russian Czars often used ‘’ to find people the czars didn’t like. While most

Russians were poor farmers, Czars lived in luxury off of the taxes they took from the Russian people.

During World War I Russia lost more men in the fighting than any other country.

About 1.7 million died fighting in The Great War (1914 - 1918). Not only did almost 2 million

Russians die in the fighting, but during the war Russian citizens were suffering immensely. There were food shortages, and the Czar’s troops suppressed people from demanding more food or speaking out against the war.

In 1917, a group of communists led by a man named Vladimir took over the Russian ​ ​ government from the Czar. They promised the people of Russia “bread, , and land.” They immediately took Russia out of World War I, giving the people the peace the promised. and the people who helped him take over the Russian government from the Czar believed in a

communist , or set ​ ​ of ideas, put by Karl ​ Marx in the 1800’s. ​

Karl Marx Came Up With Ideas About in the 1800’s (Pictured Left)

Vladimir Lenin Lead a to Overthrow the Czar’s Government in Russia in 1917 (Pictured Right)

Remember that ‘communism’ is a social and economic ideology(set of ideas) that claims that ​ ​ all businesses and everything produced by those businesses should be owned by everyone

(community owned). The idea was that instead of private individual people owning businesses, all working people should share them together. wrote that people, called

Proletariats, were oppressed and taken advantage of by business owners called Bourgeois or ​ ​ ​

Capitalists. In Karl Marx’s view of the world, working class would eventually rise up and ​ overthrow the oppressive ‘Bourgeois’ business owners. The of 1917 attempted to put Karl Marx’s ideas into practice.

After Vladimir Lenin and the Communists took over, they exiled (kicked out) the Czar and his family to a place in Russia called Siberia. Not long after, Vladimir Lenin ordered the execution of the

Czar and his entire family. This event was symbolic of the violent dictatorship that Vladimir Lenin and later communist Russian Dictators would run.

(Left) Russian Czar Nicholas and his family. Nicholas would be the last of the Russian Czars.

(Below) First Communist dictator of Russia Vladimir Lenin

The Russian Revolution of 1917 led to Russia being renamed the

USSR. USSR stood for ‘United Socialist Republic’ and was called ​ The ‘’ for short. Their flag and symbol became the ‘ ​ ​ and .’ The was supposed to represent the teaming up of factory workers

(proletariats) and farmers.

While the oppressive history of Czars in Russia was over with the revolution of 1917, things didn’t get better for the Russian people. In fact, Lenin and later Communist dictators set up forced labor and prisons camps called . ​ ​ The ‘’ prison camps held people that were seen as a threat to the new communist Soviet Union.

Many millions of people were forcibly sent to these camps, often on made up charges. If a neighbor turned you in for not being enthusiastic enough about the Communist revolution and government, you could be ripped out of your home in the middle of the night, often to never be seen again. While many people did make it out of the camps, many others starved, were worked to death, or were simply executed by guards while being held captive.

Summary

Russia fought on the side of the allies during World War I up until 1917. In 1917 the communist Vladimir

Lenin lead a revolution that overthrew the Czar and turned Russia into a new communist country called the

Soviet Union (USSR). Lenin and his new communist government immediately took Russia out of the war.

Hundreds of thousands of people within the Soviet Union were soon sent to prison camps for being seen as a threat to the revolution.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 would become one of the most important events in world history. We will continue to discuss this and the history surrounding communism and the Soviet Union’s history another day!

Questions…

1) What style of government did Russia have before 1917? What were their leaders called?

2) Which country lost the most men in WWI?

3) What did Communist Leader Vladimir Lenin promise the people of Russia?

4) Explain the idea of ‘communism’ in your own words…

5) After the Communist Revolution of 1917, what was Russia called as a country?

6) What were the prison camps set up within the Soviet Union called?