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Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom, but imperfectly. The newly freed serfs had to pay the government for their land and instead wanted communal land ownership. -
Hundreds of thousands moved to the city after emancipation to escape poverty, looking for better opportunities.
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Discontent with the progress of the war led to mass uprisings in Russia, sparking Bloody Sunday in which the government shot protesters. -
Russia suffers catastrophic losses of life and territory in the Russo-Japanese War, exacerbating discontent against the government. -
After the 1905 Revolution, Tsar Nicholas consented to some reforms including those by Prime Minister Stolypin regarding agriculture, as well as the founding of a representative body - the State Duma. However, the Tsar still had veto power over the Duma. -
Russia entered the war to support Serbia, which received an ultimatum from Austria. Poor leadership and mounting losses cut Russian involvement short.
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The first, bourgeois or liberal, revolution in 1917 toppled the Tsar and the Romanov family and eventually led to Alexander Kerensky taking power under a Provisional Government. Kerensky was a social democrat, not a socialist, and kept Russia in WW1 - a deeply unpopular move. -
The February Revolution saw workers in Petrograd/St. Petersburg establish a council (a "soviet"), which became a parallel power structure to the Provisional Government. -
Soldiers, sailors, and workers all over Russia, such as at the Kronstadt naval base, mutiny against their officers and commanders to demand a stop to Russia's engagement in the war. The Provisional Government under Kerensky puts down the mutiny with armed force. -
Inspired by the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, promising "Land, Peace, and Bread", overthrow the unpopular (as demonstrated by the July Days uprisings) Provisional Government with the help of the Petrograd Soviet and establish the first socialist state in the world.