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Alexander III succeeded his father, Alexander II, and halted all reforms in Russia. He also clung to the principles of autocracy.
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Nicholas II became czar in 1894, he continued the tradition of Russian autocracy. But it would soon blind him to changing conditions of his time.
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In 1903, Russian Marxists split into two groups over revolutionary tactics.
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On January 22, 1905, about 200,000 workers and their families approached the czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. They carried a petition asking for better working conditions. Nicholas II’s generals ordered soldiers to fire on the crowd. More than 1,000 were wounded and several hundred were killed. Russians quickly named the event “Bloody Sunday.”
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Nicolas promised more freedom to his people, and approved the creation of Russia's first parliament. The name of the parliament was Duma.
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The first Duma met in May 1906. Its leaders were moderates who wanted Russia to become a constitutional monarchy similar to Britain. But because he was hesitant to share his power, then czar dissolved the Duma after ten weeks.
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Nicholas II made the fateful decision to drag Russia into World War I. Russia was unprepared to handle the military and economic costs. Its weak generals and poorly equipped troops were no match for the German army.
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In 1916, a group of nobles murdered Rasputin. They did this because they feared his increasing role in government affairs.
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When women textile workers in Petrograd led a citywide strike. In the next five days, riots flared up over shortages of bread and fuel. Nearly 200,000 workers swarmed the streets shouting, “Down with the autocracy!” and “Down with the war!”
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Without warning, armed factory workers stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd. Calling themselves the Bolshevik Red Guards, they took over government offices and arrested the leaders of the provisional government.
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In March 1918, Russia and Germanysigned the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Russiasurrendered a large part of its territory toGermany and its allies.
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From 1918 to 1920, civil war raged in Russia. Several Western nations, in- cluding the United States, sent military aid and forces to Russia to help the White Army. Russia’s civil war proved more deadly than the earlier revolutions. Around 14 million Russians died in the three-year struggle and in the famine that followed.
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Lenin temporarily put aside his plan for a state-controlled economy. Instead, he resorted to a small-scale version of capital- ism called the New Economic Policy (NEP). The reforms under the NEP allowed peasants to sell their surplus crops instead of turning them over to the government.
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Lenin suffered a stroke in 1922. He survived, but the incident set in motion cometition for heading up the Communist Party. Two of the most notable men were Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. Stalin was cold, hard, and impersonal. During his early days as a Bolshevik, he changed his name to Stalin, which means “man of steel” in Russian.
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By 1928, Stalin was in total command of the Communist Party. Trotsky, forced into exile in 1929, was no longer a threat.
