THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

PAGES 107-109

“SIMILAR” TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

CAUSES OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

• Economic causes:

• Medieval (rural) economy.

• Social causes:

• The ruler, an absolute monarch, Tsar.

• Political causes:

• The common people had no representation at all in the government.

• The people were sick and tired of WW1, and their situation.

FEBRUARY & OCTOBER

TWO REVOLUTIONS

• February Revolution 1917:

• Tsar and his family overthrown; people tired of not being listen.

• Russia becomes a republic; the execution of the Tsar and family.

• But, the new leaders kept Russia involved in WW1.

• October Revolution 1917:

• Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, started a civil war.

• Ideas based on Karl Marx and The Communist Manifesto.

THE FIRST COMMUNIST STATE

UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

• By 1920, L. Trotsky with the Red Army won the civil war.

• Lenin was the state’s leader.

• Leadership based on the Soviets.

• The Communist Party was the only legal party.

• From the theory (Marx) to the practice (Lenin): the Communist System in political form.

• Total opposition to the capitalism.

THE BASIC CHARACTERISTICS

COMMUNISM 101

• An ideology based on Karl Marx text, The Communist Manifesto.

• Communism = community versus Capitalism = individualism.

• Inversion of the social pyramid. (the power for the commoners).

• The profits of labor (production) would be distributed fairly by the state. (Everybody is going to have the basics, but the same basics).

• Opposing the exploitation system brought by capitalism, where the profit is only for the bourgeois factory owners.

WHO IS WHO IN THE COMMUNISM?