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Russian Revolution Notes RISE OF COMMUNISM AND THE SOVIET UNION 9th Grade World History STANDARDS • SSWH18 Examine the major political and economic factors that shaped world societies between World War I and World War II. • 18a. Determine the causes and results of the Russian Revolution from the rise of the Bolsheviks under Lenin to Stalin’s first Five Year Plan. THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION: AUTOCRACY OF THE CZARS • Alexander III & Nicholas II were suspicious of anyone of questioned the czar’s authority, worshiped outside Russian Orthodoxy, or spoke languages other than Russian. • Censorship of published materials (even private letters) • Secret police monitored schools (reports sent for all students) • Political prisoners sent to Siberia • Minor languages (such as Polish) forbidden • Organized persecution of Jews (pogroms) CZAR ALEXANDER III CZAR NICHOLAS II THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION: RUSSIA INDUSTRIALIZES • Number of factories doubles between 1863 & 1900 • Higher taxes & foreign investors financed industrial growth • Became world’s 4th-ranking steel producer by 1900 • Industrialization led to unhealthy working conditions, poor wages, child labor • These conditions caused workers to organize strikes THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION: INDUSTRIALIZATION TO REVOLUTION • Marxist Revolutionaries organized as a result of problems with industrialization • Marxists believed the proletariat (working class) would overthrow the czar & form a “dictatorship of the proletariat” (communism) • Two groups of Marxists: Mensheviks (moderate) & Bolsheviks (radical) • Bolsheviks led by Lenin who fled to western Europe to escape arrest by czarist authorities THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION: MORE PROBLEMS AT HOME & ABROAD • Russia defeated by Japan in Russo-Japanese War • Bloody Sunday (1/22/1905): workers approached czar’s winter palace in St. Petersburg to ask for better working conditions, elected legislature, & personal freedoms; Russian soldiers fired into the crowd killing/wounding over 1,000 • Bloody Sunday led to more strikes & violence all over Russia • Nicholas II agreed to create the Duma (legislature) but dissolved after 10 weeks BLOODY SUNDAY REVOLUTION-MARCH 1905 THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I • Joining war caused patriotism but Russia unprepared: • Weak leadership (promotions on connections/social rank not ability • Outdated equipment • Inadequate factory production • Poor transportation system • 4 million Russian soldiers killed, wounded or taken prisoner within 1 year • At home, citizens complained declining food & fuel supplies and inflation THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION: THE CZARINA & RASPUTIN • Nicholas II took command of the military & left Alexandra to rule • She allowed Rasputin (a self-proclaimed “holy man”) to help her rule because he seemed to have power to make her ill son feel better • He was murdered by nobles who thought he had too much power Czar Nicholas II & Family Grigory Rasputin 1917 REVOLUTIONS: MARCH TO OCTOBER • Citywide strike in Petrograd March 1917: rioting over food & fuel shortages; protested czarist rule & the war; soldiers sided with rioters; full scale revolution resulted • Nicholas II abdicated & was executed a year later • Provisional government of the Duma led by Kerensky; kept Russia in war • Peasants demanded land; local councils of socialist revolutionaries (soviets) formed • Lenin returns to Russia in April to lead Bolsheviks in October Revolution • He gives all farmland to peasants, gives factories to workers • V.I. Lenin CIVIL WAR • Bolsheviks sign treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) to pull Russia out of war • Many Russians object to Bolshevik policies & murder of the Royal Family leading to civil war • White Army (czarists, proponents of democracy, anti-Lenin socialists) vs. Red Army (Bolsheviks) • 14 million Russians died from fighting, hunger, & flu epidemic but the Bolsheviks maintained power • Lenin reformed economy with his New Economic Policy (NEP) allowing some private ownership, selling of crops, and foreign investment. POLITICAL REFORM • Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) was created in 1922 dividing Russia in to self-governing republics under the central government • The Communist Party was created to run state affairs & ensure that state goals were met. It became a dictatorship of the Communist party STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN STATE • Joseph Stalin became general secretary of the Communist Party and ruled Russia until 1953 • A totalitarian state: form of government in which the national government takes control of all aspects of public & private life • Police state-secret police used force, wire taps, read mail, informers, execution of millions of “traitors” • Great Purge: execution or imprisonment of anyone who threatened Stalin’s power; possibly 8 to 13 million deaths • Government control of all media • Writers, composers, artists had to conform to state views (no individual creativity) • Government control of all education to train future Party members • Communists worked to remove religion & the Russian Orthodox Church STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN STATE Socialist Realism: Joseph Stalin Steel Workers by V. Malagis 1950 Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian Roses for Stalin by Boris Vladimirski 1949 STALIN’S ECONOMIC PLANS • Established a command economy (government control of all economic decisions) • Five Year Plans: set impossible goals for production of steel, coal, oil, electricity • However, consumer goods were limited so citizens faced shortages of food, clothing, and shelter • Government seized over 25 million private farms beginning in 1928; between 5 and 10 million were executed for protesting government control; these farms became collective farms to produce food for the state.
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