Unit 5A: Age of Anxiety: Russian Revolution

Unit 5A: Age of Anxiety: Russian Revolution Say-Mean-Matter What does it say? (Read the definition and underline important phrases.) What does it mean? (Put definition into your own words.) Why does it matter? (Explain why principle is important in modern political thought or modern democratic states.) What does it Say? What does it Mean? Significance: Why it mattered?

Czar Alexander III: Czar or emperor of Russia from 1881 to 1894, supporter of Russian nationalism. He adopted autocracy, and the Russification of national minorities in the Russian Empire as well as persecution of the non-Orthodox religious groups. Czar Nicholas II: Last Russian Czar or emperor (1894–1917), whom, with his wife, Alexandra, and their children, was killed by the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. autocratic rule: A country or state that is governed by a single person with unlimited power.

Proletariat: the economic and social class consisting of industrial workers who derive income solely from their labor

Bolsheviks: extreme radical member of Russian Marxists elite, which, led by Lenin, seized control of the government in Russia (October 1917) and became the dominant political power. Lenin: One of the leading political figures and revolutionary thinkers of the 20th century, who masterminded the Bolshevik take-over of power in Russia in 1917, and was the architect and first head of the USSR. Bloody Sunday: 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia, where unarmed, peaceful demonstrators marching to present a petition to the Tsar Nicholas II were gunned down by the Imperial Guard while approaching the city center and the Winter Palace. Duma: A Russian national parliament established by Tsar Nicholas II in 1905.

March Revolution: During WW1. 90,000 workers went on strike in Russia protesting about the shortage of fuel and bread. By the end of the week 400,000 people joined the cause. The Tsar (or czar) had banned protesting so he sent out the military to shoot the protesters. Instead the army shot their officers and joined the cause. Czar Nicholas II abdicated. What does it Say? What does it Mean? Significance: Why it mattered? provisional government: Short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917.

Soviets: elected legislative assemblies (councils) that existed at local, regional, and national levels in the former Soviet Union.

Bolshevik Revolution: was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd. Led by the Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd Soviet to organize the armed forces headed by Vladimir Lenin. Red Army: started out as the Soviet Russia's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918–1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s, it was among the largest armies in history. White Russians: was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces who fought the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War (1917–1923).

Stalin: rose to power as General Secretary of the Communist Party, becoming a Soviet dictator upon Vladimir Lenin's death. He forced rapid industrialization and the collectivization of agricultural land, resulting in millions dying from famine while others were sent to camps. The Lost Generation: post-World War I generation, but specifically a group of U.S. writers who came of age during the war and established their literary reputations in the 1920s such as Stein, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Fitzgerald.

Mensheviks: formed the minority of the Socialist Democrat Party when they split in 1903. Lenin had called for a small tightly knit elite who would lead the revolution on behalf of the people. The majority of Socialist Democrats went with Lenin and were called the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks wanted to make their movement less elitist than the Bolsheviks in the belief that it would attract the support of the uneducated workers and peasants.