Timeline from World War 1 Up Until Russian Revolution

Finally, as a result of all this the Soviet Union has been converted from a weak country, unprepared for defense, into a country mighty in defense, a country prepared for every contingency, a country capable of producing on a mass scale all modern weapons of defense and of equipping its army with them in the event of an attack from without….

November, 7, 1941, The anniversary of the October Revolution, Joseph Stalin is the Supreme Dictator of Soviet Russia. The germans have captured large portions of Russia and are marching on stalingrad. In an attempt to inspire his Red Army Stalin gives a speech to the people of Russia. The speech that was never given a name, was preformed atop of Lenin's Mousoleum an served as a battle cry to the people of russia. In his speech Stalin used Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to inspire the people of Russia.

There were four elected Duma which were all dispersed by the Tsar who would find an excuse to not trust them. Once the October Manifesto and the Fundamental Laws were passed, the Tsar Nicholas II ordered the army to shoot at protestors but the army refused and took the side of the revolutionaries. These Fundamental Laws re-established the autocracy as the Tsar became more reactionary. After the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar was able to regain control the uprisings in his country. He sent the police to arrest the leader of the St. Petersburg Soviet, a Worker’s Council, Trotsky and exiled him to Siberia. The army crushed a strike in Moscow which caused 1000 deaths. The Black Hundred who were the official strikebreakers, stopped riots in different parts of Russia and murders approximately 500 Jews. Eventually, the workers lost the will to fight and started working again in order to feed their families. The split of the opposition parties turned out to be an advantage for the Tsar who was able to use this against them.

Politically, Russia was in a lot of danger as a result of the 1905 revolutions, and there were strong divisions. This put major stress of the government to stabilise and calm down strong revolutionary groups. One of the major ways in which this was done, was through the introduction of the ‘Dumas’s’ the first was in 1906. The problem with this was having elected

In October 1905 he published the October Manifesto, accepting the creation of a legislative parliament or duma, which pleased the liberals. However, then in April 1906, he published the fundamental laws which stated that he still had overall control over Russia. Also, throughout the years 1905-1917 there were a number of dumas, all set up and subsequently dissolved by the Tsar when he believed they were getting to powerful. Also, in early 1917 236 of the duma's 422 deputies formed the 'Progressive Bloc' along with other supporters of the Tsar, such as the Kadets, Octobrists, Nationalists. The Bloc tried to persuade the Tsar to make concessions in order to retain his power but typically he was unwilling to listen. Listening to the Bloc at this point could have saved Nicholas and therefore the rule of Tsarism but his inability to trust his ministers and take their advice meant he his supporters quickly became opposers, weakening his rule at this crucial time.

of 1917 - 1920, following the Bolshevik Russian Revolution in the year of 1917 and all of the

On November 7th the Red Guards continued on taking important buildings in Petrograd that included the telephone and telegram buildings, as well as the power buildings. Then, they decided to get to the Winter Palace, the place where the provisional Government met and the old home of the czar. Nevertheless, the Palace was left in charge of the Women’s Battalion. The sign received by the Red Guards to attack the Palace was a shell fired a naval ship named “Aurora”. The taking over did not last, even though there were 1000 rooms in the place and caused the government to surrender

17. After the Romanovs and their servants were dead, the Bolsheviks took their bodies to an abandoned mine (Bones found).

A power struggle within the Soviet Communist Party was triggered by Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924, and shortly after, Joseph Stalin seized control of the party, quashing all potential opposition to his leadership. Thereafter, the late 1920’s and early 1930’s saw fundamental changes to the Soviet Union. It was during this period that Joseph Stalin consolidated his authority and was allowed to rule without opposition, becoming the clear ‘vozhd’ and introducing his “revolution from above” (McKay 903) on the Soviet population. In 1931, with the first 5 year plan well underway, Stalin made a pivotal speech to the First Conference of Soviet Industrial Managers titled ‘No Slowdown in Tempo!’, speaking to them “in terms of hard-line Russian nationalism”

Petersburg. Barricades were necessary in the Vyborg district as well as Vasilievskii Island. Trams were upturned, and strikers managed to break through the cordons of troops, penetrating the city center onto Nevskii Prospect [19]. When war was declared the following day, July 20, 1914, Nicholas II appeared at Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. While attending a religious service, he echoed his father, “Alexander I’s vow that he could not make peace as long as one of the enemy remained on the soil of the fatherland” [20]. Patriotic demonstration took to the streets of the capital where they challenged foreigners, however as reservists were call into the ranks from the peasants and workers and they mobilized in protest, burning and plundering estates. During the first few months of the war, defeats and immense losses served to dispel the initial elation of the Russian people. Soon the “provisioning of the troops and of the cities became increasingly difficult. Prices soared, but grain prices lagged behind industrial products, and the peasants began holding back their crops. Each year a diminishing percentage of the harvest reached the cities, whose populations were growing rapidly. By the spring of 1915, the strike movement had resumed as workers lost patience with spiraling inflation and the bleak prospects in the war” [21]. By 1916, the social and governmental problems that

In his late years, Lenin made attempts in vain to prevent Stalin’s rise to power, expressing his great disappointment in what Stalin had become (“Vladimir Lenin” Bio). However, Stalin managed to bury the Lenin’s writings underneath a gargantuan pile of lies and deceit once Lenin died. With that, a once quixotically concocted dream Stalin once had as a child had become

Ten years in exile had not swayed Lenin?s determination to create and direct a powerful revolution. Lenin returned to Russia from exclusion in February 1917, believing that the time was ripe to seize power. The Russian economy was in ruin after the army was nearly defeated and the people exhausted as a result of the First World War. The country was in an unstable state, suitable for a revolution (Levinthal 119). Around October 20, Lenin, in disguise and at considerable personal risk, slipped into Petrograd and attended a secret meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee held on the evening of October 23. Not until after a heated 10-hour debate did he finally win a majority in favour of preparing an armed takeover. Now steps to enlist the support of soldiers and sailors and to train the Red Guards, the Bolshevik-led workers' militia, for an armed takeover proceeded openly under the guise of self-defense of the Petrograd Soviet. Even at great personal risk, Lenin was adamant in spurring a successful revolution.

The First World War became the Tsars worst nightmare. Russia joined the war in many ways to keep peoples minds of Russia’s backwardness and badly run government, and onto the war effort itself. But within the first year of the war people’s minds began to wander away from troop moral and toward the Tsar and his control.

Account For the Success of the Bolsheviks in October 1917 At the beginning of 1917 most of the Bolsheviks were in exile but by the end of 1917 the Bolshevik party had not only consolidated control of Moscow and Petrograd, but they were also advancing on the rest of the country. This success was due to several linked factors; the Bolshevik policy of non-cooperation, weakness of the Provisional Government, division of alternative opposition, Lenin's leadership skills, the power of the Petrograd Soviet and Trotsky as its leader, failure on deliver of land reform and the oppressed, armed workers in Petrograd. Bolshevik success is dictated by whether they met their aims; these included the

Union fell apart, Russia’s output plunged 5%. In the autumn of that year, in the midst of