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Food and fuel shortages on the home front, mixed with tradegy in war, brought the collapse on the monarchy. In Petrograd, many workers (mostly women) went on strike, and marched around shouting, "bread." They were sick of being at war and the famine.
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After Germany helped Vladimir Lenin return from exile, he got off a train in Petrograd, and was greeted by fellow exiles and activists.
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Lenin sought for peace with Germany, so after the Bolsheviks' Revolution, he got Russia to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, having Russia to give up a large piece of land and of their population.
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St. Petersburg is no longer the Capitol of Russia. Moscow replaces St, Petersburg as the capitol of Russia.
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The Communists organized a Cheka, a secret police force. The Cheka started killing ordinary people, even if they were just suspected to uprise against the revolution.
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The Cilvil War broke out, and was between the Reds (Communists) and the Whites (Counterrevolutionaries). The Whites were loyal to the czar, so also National groups that the czars had conquered were against the Reds.
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Czar Nicholas II, his wife, and their five kids were assassinated, for the Communists didn't want the czar or the family to be a symbol for counterrevolutionaries to reassemble into groups against them (Communists).
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The Communists had victory in the end of the 3 year civil war against their enemies, but it was very costly. Lenin was stuck having to pick up Russia from the dust, since after the war, Russia was in chaos.
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Lenin embraced the New Economic Policy (NEP). NEP replaced war communism since war communism didn't seem to work well. The NEP allowed small businesses to open and make personal profit, and it allowed the peasants to keep their grain instead of giving it up to the government.
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The Communists set up a Supreme Soviet , that let all citizens 18 or old have the right to vote.
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Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik/Communists dies, and his body ended up being on display in the Red Square for 65 years.
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After Lenin's death, Trotsky and Joseph Stalin were the chief contenders, they both wanted Lenin's spot. For Stalin to get the spot, Stalin put his advocates in top jobs, and totally isolated Trotsky from the party.
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Stalin's 5 year plan brought up high production goals mostly for heavy industry and transportation. During the 5 year plan, the workers who worked had low wages and there was a lack in consumer goods. His 5 year plan caused refrigerators, clothing, and cars to go down in the consumor goods industry, but it did well in the heavy industry, like brown coal, oil, and steel.
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Stalin didn't like the NEP, so he forced the peasants to give up their small plots of land, and they had to live on government owned lands or on collectives. Even though peasants were allowed to keep their homes and personal belongings, they had to give up their farm animals and tools to the collective.
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Peasants didn't like the collectivization, so to express their anger they killed farm animals, damaged tools, and burned crops. That angered Stalin a lot, so he wanted to destroy all the weathly peasants, so he confiscated all the kulaks' land, and then the kulaks were either killed or sent to labor camps, where many of them died due to overwork. The peasants didn't like working in collectives, so they started growing just enough food to feed them, but the government seemed to have caught up w
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The peasants didn't like working in collectives, so they started growing just enough food to feed them, but the government seemed to have caught up with them so the governement took all the grain and left the peasants to starve. The ruthless policy made for bad harvests, led to a famine, and 5-8 milloin people died in Ukraine alone.
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Stalin made sure that everyone was obidient to him, so to do that he used secret police, censorship, violent purges, and terror.
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Atheism means you don't believe in a god, and was the official policy in Russia along with Marixst ideas. Since that happend. the Russian Orthodox Church, the Catholic, Jewish, and Islam chruches, had to seize their land. Those churches were formed into offices and museums. Since Russia didn't have a religion then, the Communists made their own "sacred texts" using Marx and Lenin writings.
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Under the Communists, women had equality, Kollontai was a big part of this revolution, and by the 1930s, Soviet women had jobs in the fields of medicine, engineering, and the sciences.
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The Great Purge is also known as the Great Terror. Stalin used his secret police carry out his commandds, so first hey arrested old Bolsheviks and party activists from the old government of Russia. Then they arrested army heroes, industrial managers, writers, and ordinary citizens. MAny people started confessing to crimes at "show trials" after being beat up or having threats places on their relatives or friends. Those who didn't get a trial were sent to labor camps.
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Stalin enfored socialist realism (Stalin forced writers and artists to do this). It's goal was to promote hope in the communists by displaying socialism in a positive way.
