Russian Revolution: From Tsarist Rule to Bolshevik Rise
The Growth of Political Opposition
Reforms of Tsar Alexander II were paralyzed after his death in a terrorist attack. The new Tsar, Alexander III, imposed a harsh political reaction, concentrated in an attempt to standardize an empire characterized by cultural and ethnic diversity. The revolutionaries of 1905 forced his successor, Nicholas II, to make minor concessions.
- The Social Democratic Party was a Russian Marxist party founded by Plekhanov in the late nineteenth century. It joined the Second International.
- The Bolsheviks, a new trend within the Social Democratic Party led by Lenin, aimed to impose a regime of workers and peasants, based on a party system dominated by the Soviets.
- The Mensheviks, another trend within the Social Democratic Party, believed that a bourgeois revolution in Russia was favorable and that the establishment of liberalism and capitalism would lead to a socialist revolution.
Participation in the First World War
In 1914, when the Great War broke out, Russia was an empire increasingly westernized and linked to the European powers, especially France. These reasons, and their aspirations in the Balkans, led to Russia’s participation in the war.
The Soviets were assemblies of workers and peasants led by the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary parties. They supported Kerensky, a moderate Socialist leader who served as Minister of Justice in the first Provisional Government and was later named Prime Minister. He chaired the government, which represented the majority of liberals in Russia and aimed to establish a democracy with a significant social component of popular character.
The Soviet Revolution
On October 25, 1917, Bolshevik soldiers, sailors, and armed supporters seized the Winter Palace, where the Kerensky government resided, and overthrew the government. Kerensky fled. A new executive was formed, consisting only of Bolsheviks: the Council of People’s Commissars, headed by Lenin, with Trotsky and Stalin.
The new government quickly took its first steps: enacting the decree of peace, the decree of land, and a decree on businesses.
Withdrawal from the war led to the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany. There was more resistance in Moscow. Thereafter began the expansion of the Bolshevik revolution across the entire Russian territory.
The October Revolution and the New Bolshevik Government Measures
The Bolsheviks established a Military Revolutionary Committee against the government. They took control of telegraph and telephone central offices, railway stations, bridges, banks, official buildings, and electrical installations. On October 25, they seized the Winter Palace, where the Kerensky government was located. The government lacked support and was dismissed. Kerensky fled. The Council of People’s Commissars, headed by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, was immediately created, and it took the first steps: enacting decrees on peace, land, and nationalities.
Civil War
Withdrawal from the war led to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in which Russia lost a quarter of its territory to Germany. Soon after, a major expansion of the Bolsheviks began throughout the Russian territory, as they monopolized power and marginalized other political forces.