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Nicholas II succeeded to the Russian throne upon the death of his father, Czar Alexander III. He was the last Tsar because the royal family was held by the Bolsheviks and held in seclusion. -
The Russian government was confused and unrealistic in its policy leading up to the war with Japan and, indeed, in the conduct of the war itself. This fact, combined with the ineffective leadership of its troops, was more than any other factor, responsible for its defeat. -
Popular respect and affection for the tsar, already in decline beforehand, took a sudden turn for the worse. The 'Bloody Sunday' shootings triggered a wave of general strikes, peasant unrest, organised terrorism and political mobilisation that became known as the 1905 Revolution. -
Russia cautiously entered the Great War to preserve its status as a great power. However, once the fighting began, it was the first among the Allies to state its territorial requirement, which were to annex lands along the borders of Germany and Austria-Hungary. -
Bolshevik revolutionaries dropped the monarchy, ending the Romanov dynasty. Czar Nicholas II and his entire family, including his young children, were later killed by their troops. -
The March Revolution ended 3 centuries of Romanov rule with the retirement of the throne by Tsar Nicholas II. This was the beginning of events that would change the course of Russian and world history. With Nicholas II's retirement, a new force moved in to govern Russia. -
The army garrison at Petrograd joined striking workers in demanding socialist reforms, and Czar Nicholas II was forced to stand down. Nicholas and his family were first held at the Czarskoe Selo palace, then in the Yekaterinburg palace near Tobolsk. -
Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returns to Petrograd after 10 years of exile to take control of the Russian Revolution. -
The Red Army had fought for the Lenin's Bolshevik government. The White Army represented a large group of lightly dependent on allied forces, including monarchists, capitalists, and supporters of democratic socialists. -
In the city of Brest-Litovsk, Russia signed a treaty with the Central Powers ending its participation in World War I. -
The New Economic Policy, or NEP, was an exhaustive shift in Bolshevik economic strategy. It eased the harsh restrictions of war communism, the Bolshevik economic policy during the Civil War, and allowed the return of markets and insignificant trade. -
Stalin finally defeated his enemies within the party by 1928, ending the internal power struggles. From 1929 onwards Stalin's leadership over the party and state was firmly established and he remained the unchallenged leader of the USSR until his death.
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