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Czar Alexander II
- Czar finally freed the serfs and started to introduce liberal reforms
- Abolished capital punishment and created local governments that included representitives from all classes
- Representitives made decisions on such things as taxation and education -The reforms did not go far enough for a small group of revolutionary socialist groups. Members of one radical group, the People's Will, attempted to assassinate Czar several times and succeeded in 1881.
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Period: to
Russia to Soviet Union
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Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP)
-SDLP was formed in1898 but Czar banned the political group. The members were forced into exile in other European countries but kept up their revolutionary spirit by working on the Iskra (illigal newspaper).
-Members of the SDLP indluded: Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin. -
First Russian Revolution (Bloody Sunday)
-Janurary 1905, workers marched on Czar Nicholas's royal winter palace to deliver a petition calling for improved working conditions. Soldiers opened up fire on the crowd, leaving over 90 people dead in what later became known as Bloody Sunday. Later, under the pressure of the revolutionary forces, Czar Nicholas II signed the October Manifesto, giving Russians rights such as freedom of speech, assembly, association, and religion.
-These events increased the popularity of socialism. -
Russia Enters WWI
-Russian army is large but unprepared for war
-Suffered devistating losses against the German forces
-During spring/summer of 1915, approximately 1 400 000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded
-War was unpopular with Russian people, fueling feelings of hostility towards the czar. -
Second Russian Revolution
-Russians take to the streets, desparate for food and demobilized by war.
-Russian soldiers join the revolution, and Czar Nicholas II is forced to adbicate.
-Temporary liberal democratic government is put into place, lead by Alexander Kerensky, but was over thrown by communist Bolsheviks.
-Bolsheviks were lead by Vladimir Lenin
-Czar Nicholas II and his family were murdered one year later by the Bolsheviks. -
Russian Civil War
-Between the Bolshevik Red Army and the Anti-Bolshevik White Army, approximately 15 000 000 soldiers and civilians died.
-Red Army defeated the White Army
-The Anti-Bolshevik White Army was supported by other countries whose leaders feared and disapproved of Russian Communism.
-White Army supporters included liberal democratic and capitalist countries such as U.S, Canada, and Britain. -
Creation of the Soviet Union
-Bolshevik governments in several republics, including the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, join the forn the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
-USSR was lead by Vladimir Lenin
-Brought forth changes such as: redistribution of land, factories were given back to the workers, equality of men and women, and no more restrictions on what one can create (art and music)
-Lenin applied Marxist ideas and gave poor and working class people much more power
-Lenin died due to a stroke (1924) -
Death of Vladimir Lenin
-After Lenin's death, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin competed for the right to rule.
-Stalin's victory saw Trotsky exiled and later assassinated in Mexico. -
Stalinism
-Stalin uses violence and fear to force rapid industrealization of the country and the consolidation of private land into collective farms.
-Goal was to maintail absolute power and control.
-Rejected almost all liberal values, believing they could not help the USSR achieve its goals.
-Stalin's policies include: creation of Gulags, use of secret police, rewriting of history, and rapid industrealization of the country. -
Holodomor
-Ukraine experienced both severe drought and a planned famine by Stalin.
-The Holodomor resulted fron Stalin's collectivization policies, which were designed to suppress Ukrainian nationalism.
-Stalin starved 7 to 10 million Ukrainians in order to remove resistance to his plans for collectivism.
-in 2008, the government saw the Holodomor as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.
-Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a Dictatorship and one of the most powerful forces in the world. -
Views of Stalinism
-One of Joseph Stalin's policies included the purges of 1936 and 1939.
-In these purges, he elimininated his opponents within the Communist Party and the Soviet armed forces.
