Imagine this …
"Imagine being a Russian peasant woman in 1916 and watching the crops rot into the ground. So many men are fighting in the Great War that there aren't enough hands to harvest the crops—even with women like you working hard in the fields. Imagine that your cousin lives in Russia's capital city of Petrograd and works with other women in the factories. Every day, she lines up outside the grocery store at dawn before she has to be at the factory for her shift. But she always leaves without enough fuel to keep her house warm and with too little food to feed her family. Imagine hearing reports from the battlefield, where both your husband and brother are hopefully still alive and fighting. You hear the men are running out of basic supplies too—even ammunition. They are ordered to fight unarmed or by taking rifles from their comrades when they die in battle. Imagine that you and your neighbours have been living like this for a few years. And then the winter of 1916–1917 arrives—and it proves to be a bitterly cold one.
Now imagine hearing about the death of the tsar (the emperor of Russia) in 1918 and the rise of a new leader. This leader proposes an immediate plan to not only establish peace and bring the men home but also to provide necessities for families like yours. He also creates a long-term plan to shift the power from the ruling upper class. He will shift that power to poor but hard-working people like you and your family, who are labouring in the factories and the fields. This man, Vladimir Lenin, has written about his ideas for years. But now his socialist political party—the Bolsheviks^11start superscript, 1, end superscript—has taken leadership of the collapsed Russian Empire. Can you understand why Lenin brought hope that your desperate world could one day have peace and order?"
From The Russian Revolution of 1917: What happened? Why does it matter?
1825 Alexander I dies; succession crisis prompts Decembrist Revolt
1861 Alexander II abolishes serfdom
1881 Alexander II assassinated; Alexander III cracks down on dissenters
1894 Nicholas II becomes Tsar
1905 Troops fire on Russian civilians during a demonstration in St. Petersburg; Russia loses Russo-Japanese War; Nicholas II concedes to the creation of Russian constitution and Duma
1914 Russia enters World War I
The Russian Revolution of 1917 centres around two primary events: the February Revolution and the October Revolution. The February Revolution, which removed Tsar Nicholas II from power, developed spontaneously out of a series of increasingly violent demonstrations and riots on the streets of Petrograd (present-day St. Petersburg), during a time when the tsar was away from the capital visiting troops on the World War I front. Though the February Revolution was a popular uprising, it did not necessarily express the wishes of the majority of the Russian population, as the event was primarily limited to the city of Petrograd. However, most of those who took power. read more...
Events leading to the October Revolution
The Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks were a revolutionary party, committed to the ideas of Karl Marx. They believed that the working classes would, at some point, liberate themselves from the economic and political control of the ruling classes. Once they had achieved this, a genuine socialist society based on equality could be established. In their view, this process was bound to take place, sooner or later.
The Bolsheviks were formed and led by the Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov - known simply as Lenin. Ruthless and single-minded, Lenin decided that the conditions in Russia in 1917 were ripe for revolution.
At the beginning of 1917, however, the Bolsheviks were still a minority organisation within Russia. Most of their leaders, including Lenin, were in exile in Switzerland and the chances of the Bolsheviks ever attaining power in Russia seemed pretty remote more
ALEXANDER I
The Russian tsar, or emperor, whose death in 1825 prompted a mild secession crisis that created an appearance of weakness in the Russian monarchy. A group of 3,000 soldiers who termed themselves Decembrists took advantage of the chaos to demand reforms, such as a written constitution for Russia. Later revolutionaries such as Lenin saw the Decembrists as heroes.
ALEXANDER II
The Tsar who formally abolished serfdom in 1861, freeing Russia’s serfs from indentured servitude to their landowners. Though reformers hailed the move, it engendered a severe economic crisis, angered landowners, and prompted a number of revolutionary groups to agitate for a constitution. In 1881, Alexander II was assassinated by a member of one of these groups, prompting his successor, son Alexander III, to implement a harsh crackdown on public resistance more...