The Russian Revolution (1855–1924)

A system where the ruler holds total, unchecked power, answerable to no parliament or constitution.

Freed around 23 million serfs from legal bondage to landowners, but tied many to decades of redemption payments and the village commune.

It happened the day he approved a modest plan for consultative assemblies, and convinced his son Alexander III that reform was dangerous — triggering decades of repression instead.

Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality — used to justify repression and Russification of non-Russian peoples.

Finance minister who drove Russian industrialization from 1892 (railways, factories, foreign investment) and later negotiated the October Manifesto.

Liberals (educated middle class/nobles) wanted a constitution via legal means; revolutionaries (peasants, workers, radicals) wanted land reform or full social revolution, often through direct action.

Troops fired on a peaceful worker march to the Winter Palace led by Father Gapon, killing over 100 — it destroyed the tsar's image as a protective 'Little Father'.

Nicholas II wanted a 'short victorious war' to boost patriotism, but humiliating defeats (Port Arthur, Mukden, Tsushima) shattered the myth of tsarist military strength.

A declaration by Nicholas II promising civil liberties and an elected Duma with legislative power, issued to end the general strike of October 1905.

Reasserted most of the tsar's autocratic power (control of army, foreign policy, decree powers) just before the first Duma met, undercutting the October Manifesto.

Witte's industrialization created a large, concentrated, poorly-paid urban working class with no legal right to unions or strikes — this group became central to the strikes and Soviets of 1905.

One view: decades of reform-then-repression made major unrest highly probable. Opposing view: 1905's survival (via the October Manifesto) shows collapse was not guaranteed — later contingent events (WWI) were still needed for 1917.

Nicholas II's promise of civil liberties and an elected Duma, issued to end the 1905 Revolution.

Four Dumas. The first two (1906, 1907) were dissolved quickly by the Tsar for being too critical/radical.

Stolypin illegally changed the electoral law to reduce peasant/worker representation, producing a compliant Third Duma.

Agrarian reform — let peasants leave the mir and own private land, creating a loyal 'class of proprietors'; and continued industrial growth.

The Tsar's secret police, which infiltrated revolutionary groups, censored the press, and exiled or executed opponents.

A nickname for the hangman's noose, referring to the field court-martials Stolypin used to execute suspected revolutionaries quickly.

After the February/March Revolution, the Provisional Government (formal authority) and the Petrograd Soviet (real power over workers/soldiers) governed side by side.

A Petrograd Soviet decree telling soldiers to obey only orders that the Soviet also approved, undermining the Provisional Government's control of the army.

It kept Russia in WWI, delayed land reform and elections, and could not fix food shortages — leaving peasants, soldiers and workers angrier by the month.

'Peace, Land, Bread' and 'All Power to the Soviets' — no cooperation with the Provisional Government, immediate peace and land redistribution.

As chair of the Petrograd Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee, he organised the armed seizure of key buildings that actually carried out the revolution.

February: spontaneous mass uprising (bread shortages, war exhaustion) that toppled the Tsar with no single leader. October: a planned Bolshevik-organised coup against the weak Provisional Government.

March 1918 peace treaty between Soviet Russia and Germany, ending WWI for Russia at the cost of a third of its population and farmland.

The Russian army had collapsed and could not keep fighting; Lenin judged buying time to save the revolution was worth the territorial losses.

Reds = Bolshevik government and Red Army (led by Trotsky). Whites = a loose, disunited alliance of monarchists, liberals, and former tsarist generals.

They controlled the central industrial core (factories, railways), had unified command under Trotsky, and used ruthless discipline — while the Whites were scattered and divided.

The Bolshevik secret police, founded December 1917, with sweeping powers to arrest, imprison and execute suspected enemies of the revolution.

Campaign of mass repression launched August 1918 after an assassination attempt on Lenin, targeting class enemies, clergy and rival socialists.

Emergency economic policy during the Civil War: forced grain requisitioning, nationalised industry, and banned private trade.

Collapsed grain production plus drought led to a catastrophic famine in 1921-1922 that killed an estimated 5 million people.

Uprising by sailors who had once supported the Bolsheviks, demanding free elections; crushed by the Red Army, showing coercion outlasted the Civil War itself.

Introduced March 1921: ended grain requisitioning (replaced by a tax), allowed small private trade, but kept heavy industry and banking state-controlled.

Land confiscated, schools closed, clergy persecuted — intensified during the Civil War and the 1921-22 famine when church valuables were seized.

Some Bolsheviks saw it as betraying communist principles; others see it as pragmatic genius that saved the economy and bought the Party time to consolidate power.