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In 1861, the Russian Empire finally abolished serfdom. The emancipation of serfs would influence the events leading up to the Russian Revolution by giving peasants more freedom to organize.
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Large protests by Russian workers against the monarchy led to the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1905.
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Russia entered into World War I in August 1914 in support of the Serbs and their French and British allies.
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In 1917, two revolutions swept through Russia, ending centuries of imperial rule and setting into motion political and social changes that would lead to the formation of the Soviet Union.
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Civil War broke out in Russia in late 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution. The warring factions included the Red and White Armies.
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Russia is officially declared a republic.
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The Decree on the Press, the first Bolshevik censorship decree, abolishes the ‘bourgeois’ press.
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Elections to the Constituent Assembly take place. The Socialist Revolutionaries win the largest number of seats, while the Bolsheviks win less than one-quarter of the vote.
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The Constituent Assembly meets but is dissolved by the Bolsheviks.
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On July 16, 1918, the Romanovs were executed by the Bolsheviks.
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The Red Army invades and occupies Crimea and the White Army is forced to withdraw.
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The Russian Civil War ended in 1923 with Lenin’s Red Army claiming victory and establishing the Soviet Union.