Chapter 27, Sec. 3

By: Taylor Jones

12/16/08

Map of Russia

The Russian Revolution

Russia in World War I• World War I showed Russia’s economic weaknesses• Even though it is so huge, it still didn’t have enough food

to supply its needs and when the Ottoman empire entered the war for the Central powers things got worse

• Russia’s army was not only poorly equipped but also poorly led

• Along with that The Russian government was corrupt, and could not deal with the problems of the modern warfare

• The elected legislative body known as the Duma had little power to help the people

• By the spring of 1917 the Russian people had lost faith in their government and Czar

Continued• In the past the government had always been

able to use the army against disturbances• However the army was on the side of the people

who had started to protest• The Duma then refused to disband and in March

the czar abdicated the throne• The royal family was imprisoned and the rule of

the Russian aristocracy had come to an end

The Russian Revolution 1917

Lenin and the Bolsheviks

• With the overthrow of the czar, a temporary government was set up to rule Russia until a constitutional assembly could be elected

• At this time the Petrograd Soviet (council) of workers radicals called for peace and land reforms

• The provisional government had pledged to continue the war

• Two factions fought for control of the soviets, the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks

Lenin and the Bolsheviks

Continued• {The moderate Mensheviks (pink) lost out to

the more radical Bolsheviks (reds).• The leader of the Bolsheviks was Valdimir

Lenin a revolutionary socialist and Marxist}• The Bolsheviks slogan of “peace, bread, and land”

appealed to the war weary and hungry people• Lenin’s vision of Marxism formed the basis of

communism

• {On November 17, 1917 Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government and controlled Russia in 1918 renamed themselves the Communist party}

Lenin and the Bolsheviks

Peace and Civil War

• {Lenin’s new government soon signed the peace treaty of Breast Litovsk with the Central Powers in March 1918

• This allowed the Germans to mobilize troops against France}

• They were desperate for peace and accepted the terms of the Germans Russia agreed to give up a lot of territory

• The communists faced great oppositions and {civil war was forced by those that wanted to restore the monarchy}

• To prevent any chance of the monarchy coming back to power, the communists executed the imprisoned czar and his entire family in July 1918

Continued• The communists forces were called the Red Army,

adopted from the symbolic color of the European socialist revolutionaries

• Their counter revolutionary opponents were known as the whites

• The allies were angered by the separate peace treaty Communist Russia had signed with the central powers.

• The allies contributed arms, money, and even troops to the white forces by 1921 however the Communists had won

• Communists renamed the land they ruled the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the Soviet Union

What you might not know

• The Russian revolution was the time of Rasputin the mad monk, and Anastasia

• The book Animal Farm was an allegory for the Russian Revolution

Rasputin

Anastasia

Review Questions• What were the moderates called?

• What were the radicals called?

• Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government and controlled Russia in 1918 What was their new name?

• What did the peace treaty of Breast Litovsk allow the Germans to do?

• Civil war in Russia was forced by who?