The Russian Revolution, 1917

1. The Russian Revolution, 1917 Like the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution sought not only to overthrow a government but to remake an entire society.Unlike the French Revolution, it succeeded.

2. INTRODUCTION • This mighty nation covered one-sixth of the land surface of the globe, and was populated by almost 150 million people of more than a hundred different nationalities. The Symbol for Imperial Russia

3. 19th Century Russia was….. • Only 40% ethnic Russians • 80% were peasants – subsistence farmers • 60%+ = illiterate • Life expectancy = 40 • Low tech and low investment • Land ownership rare • Land owned by OBSCHINA (Commune)

4. …still a feudal country. • Peasants could not leave the commune without the consent of the elders • Drought and crop failure common • 1891 = famine + cholera and typhus = 400,000 dead • 1890 – 64 % of peasants called up for military service were declared unfit.

5. 19th Century Russian Social Hierarchy

6. Russian Krestyanin (Peasant)

7. Cause 1:Suffering under Autocracy The people suffer under the cruel Czars, who use their secret police to kill or arrest anyone who dares to oppose his autocracy (=total power).

8. The oppressive rule of most 19th-century czars caused widespread social unrest for decades. Anger over social inequalities & the ruthless treatment of peasants grew. The czar’s unfair governing sparked many violent reactions.

9. Nevertheless, many Russians worshipped the Tsar as God’s representative on earth. Peasants typically had a picture of the Tsar on a wall of their hut.

10. An engraving depicting the assassination of Czar Alexander II on March 13th, 1881.

11. Alexander’s son witnesses his father’s assassination and becomes Czar Alexander III

12. Alexander III: The “Russian Bear” (1881-94) “The Russians need the whip”

13. “Russification” under Alexander III Mandatory Russian language in a multi-national empire Persecution (pogroms) of Jews

14. The victims, mostly Jewish children, of a 1905 pogrom in Dnipropetrovsk

15. Alexander’s Policies (Cont.) Elimination of zemstvos Secret police generate mass arrests, deportations, executions Here’s a typical secret police file

16. One radical hung in 1887 was this 17-year-old’s brother: He is Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, whom Alexander should have hung…

17. In 1894, when Nicholas II became czar, he announced, “The principle of autocracy will be maintained by me as firmly & unswervingly as by my father (Alexander III)” He Refused to surrender any of his power.

18. Czar Nicholas II

19. Cause 2:Suffering from Industrialization Factory workers suffer from: low wages, long hours, and brutal working conditions.

20. Broom Factory, 1910

21. Putilov Machine Works

22. Russian Steel Workers

23. Cause 3:Spread of Marxism With the help of revolutionaries like Lenin and Trotsky, Karl Marx’s idea of a proletariat (worker’s) revolution becomes increasingly popular.

24. Karl Marx, from Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844) The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion to the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity -- and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally.

25. Lenin

26. Leon Trotsky

27. Cause 4:Loss in Russo-Japanese War (1905) This humiliating defeat makes the Czar look weak and leads to widespread protests.

28. 1904: How Russia expected to beat Japan

29. Russo-Japanese War [1904-1905]

30. The Battle of Tsushima, May 1905: Japanese Navy sinks Russian fleet

31. Russia Is Humiliated

32. Cause 5:Bloody Sunday (1905) The massacre of unarmed protesters outside the Czar’s palace leads to strikes throughout Russia.

33. Unrest Among the Peasants & Urban Working Poor Father Georgi Gapon:Leader of the People OR Police Informer?

34. January 9th, 1905: 200 killed, 800 wounded, the first victims of the Russian revolution

35. Bloody SundayJanuary 22, 1905 The Czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg

36. “Bloody Sunday” (9 Jan. 1905)

37. 3 months later: “Bloody Sunday”

38. Potemkin Mutiny, 1905

39. 1905 Protests

40. General Strike (17 October 1905)

41. Cause 6:Suffering from WWI Millions of Russians die from battle, hunger, and disease. The economy is in ruins. People are desperate for change.

42. Russia cannot wage an industrial war

43. MAP: The Eastern Front

44. World War I: “The Last Straw” • War revealed the ineptitude and arrogance of the country’s aristocratic elite • The Russian “Steam Roller” • Corrupt military leadership and contempt for ordinary Russian people • Average peasant has very little invested in the War

45. World War I (cont) • Poorly supplied troops • Result: Chaos and Disintegration of the Russian Army --Battle of Tannenberg (August, 1914) • Spreading Discontent

46. World War I • Russia unprepared for war • Not enough supplies (food, weapons, clothing) • Army poorly organized • Soldiers didn’t understand why they were fighting • Tsar Nicholas II and his ministers provided poor leadership and organization

47. Devastation of War – Ukraine

48. In 1915, the Tsar will take personal command of the army And that means leaving a Russia ruled by Alexandra and her closest adviser, Rasputin

49. The Collapse of the Imperial Government • Nicholas left for the Front—September, 1915 • Alexandra and Rasputin throw the government into chaos • Alexandra and other high government officials accused of treason

50. Alexis: The Tsarevich, or heir to the throne Only Rasputin can stop the boy’s hemorrhaging, the product of the hemophilia inherited from his great-grandmother, Victoria