Russian Revolution

The Lenin comrade wash up the world of rubbish

Antonio RodrigoI.E.S. Llanes (Sevilla)

Russian Revolution

Economic causes: . Peasant’ desire for land. . Poor and hungry

Political causes: . Autocracy (Tsar). World War I. Charismatic leaders such

as Lenin and Trotsky

The Romanov Family

• Ruled Russia for 300 years• Tsar Nicholas II• Wife of Nicholas II (Alexandra) was German born

Russo-Japanese War (1904-05)

Is the result of the Russian expansionist in the East; but resulted in a humiliating defeat for Russia. This war marked the first time any Asian power had defeated a European power in a real war. With the defeat, Japan emerged as a major power in the east and, in Russia, people lost confidence in the old regime.

Bloody Sunday. (1905) Czarist troops open fire on a peaceful demonstration of workers in St Petersburg. January 9, 1905; marchers carried a petition to Tsar Nicholas II asking for higher wages, a shorter work day, better working conditions, a legislative assembly, and universal manhood suffrage. In reaction, Nicholas II ordered his guard to fire into the unarmed crowd; when news of one hundred dead and hundreds more wounded escaped, public opinion almost universally turned against the old regime.

The World War I• Nicholas II goes to the front to personally take charge• 1915 over 2 million Russians die on the front• Soldiers do not sufficient rifles, ammunition or medical care

March Revolution

• Marchers through the streets shouting “Bread, bread, bread”• Troops refused to fire on demonstrators• Duma set up provisional government (Kerensky)• Russia continued in WWI• Czar abdicated

Wladimir Ilich Lenin• Vladimir Ilyich Lenin adapts Marxist

ideas to Russian conditions.

He was exiled and Germany helped Lenin return to Russia.

• Lenin was a revolutionary Russian politician, founder of the Soviet Union and the first President after the Russian revolution of 1917.

Bolsheviks – November Revolution

• Bolshevik means “majority”• “Peace, land, and bread”• Red Guards – armed factory workers joined munitions

sailors from the Russian fleet in attacking provisional government

• Overthrew provisional government of Kerensky• New symbol of government – Red flag with entwined

hammer and sickle symbolized union between peasants and workers

• Bolsheviks renamed communists

Soviet Union

After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin and Trotsky fought for power. Stalin ordered his death and was as only the new Soviet Union leader

Leon Trotsky

The New Soviet Union (1922-1989)A Federal State

consisting of many republics with Russia as a Center.

Concentration of power in the hands of the Communist Party, in its general Secretary, and the Supreme Soviet, equivalent to a Parliament.

A centrally-planned economy. Most companies were State-owned