In 1904, Nicholas II lost the war with Japan, which lead to the undermine of his authority. In a way to gain his authority back, The Russian Revolution was born. It all started in St. Petersburg, with a peaceful demonstration of workers wanting to improve living and working conditions, being lead by the priest, Father Gapon. In an attempt to stop and force Tsar’s authority, the Cossacks (troops of Tsar Nicholas II) opened fired on the crowed of people, which is now known as Bloody Sunday. Leading to widespread rioting, burning manor houses and mutinies in the military (notably on the Battleship Potemkin) followed leading to Nicholas recalling Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte to draught a constitution and opening a parliament - the State Duma.
On the International Women's Day Festival in St. Petersburg turned into a city-wide demonstration, as upset women and later men workers left factories to protest against food shortages. And On the following day - encouraged by political and social activists - the crowds had swelled and virtually every industry, shop and enterprise had ceased to function as almost the entire populace went on strike. Nicholas ordered the police and military to intervene, however the military was no longer loyal to the Tsar and many mutinied or joined the people in demonstrations. Fights broke out and the whole city was in chaos. On October 28th over 80,000 troops mutinied from the army and looting and rioting was widespread. Faced with this untenable situation Tsar Nicholas abdicated his throne, handing power to his brother Michael. However Michael would not accept leadership unless he was elected by the Duma. He resigned the following day, leaving Russia without a head of state.
When the tsar's government collapsed, the members of the Duma set up the Provisional Government, led by Alexander Kerensky. But instead of the Provisional Government having control over Russia, it had to share power with the Petrograd Soviet. With a rule that its members only obey the Provisional Government if the Soviet agreed with it. But since the Provisional Government was a temporary government to begin with it really never made of carried out any major reforms. All it did was abolish the Okhrana and press censorship, and allow political freedom. This gave the government's opponents, like Lenin's Bolsheviks, the freedom to attack the government for the problems it was not solving. But the main problem of the Provisional government was that it tired very hard to continue the war, and slowly after the failed attack on Austria, people turned their backs to the government and started to follow Lenin.
After the February Revolution happened, the October Revolution occurred, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution. The power was shared between the weak provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet. Then, on November 6 and 7, 1917 (or October 24 and 25 on the Julian calendar, which is why this event is also referred to as the October Revolution), leftist revolutionaries led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin launched a nearly bloodless coup d’état against the provisional government. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in Petrograd, and soon formed a new government with Lenin as its head. Lenin became the new dictator of the first ever Marxist state in the world.
The Bolshevik takeover angered many Russians who had been prepared to accept the Provisional Government. It alarmed the US, Britain and France because the Bolsheviks had declared that they wanted to cause revolutions all over the world. All these Whites now united to try to destroy the Bolsheviks. The war lasted three years. Atrocities were committed on both sides and captured soldiers were usually executed.
War Communism or some know it as wartime communism was an economic policy adopted by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. Is aim was keeping towns and the Red Army supplied with good weapons and food, in harsh conditions when all those things and much more were being destroyed by the war. When War Communism first began it was enforced by the Supreme Economic Council, known as the Vesenkha. It ended though with the beginning of the New Economic Policy (NEP).
The Kronstadt sailors mutinied, demanding an end to War Communism. Trotsky put down the rebellion, but Lenin was worried about what the Kronstadt sailors might do. So, Lenin brought in what he called the New Economic Policy. Peasants who had been forced to hand over all their produce to the war effort were allowed to keep some to sell for profit. Some of the kulaks became quite rich. Small traders called Nepmen were allowed to set up businesses. At the same time, local nationalities that had been forced to follow a strict Communist line were allowed to bring back their own language and customs. Churches, mosques and bazaars were re-opened. The economy picked up, and people were much happier. But many old Bolsheviks said Lenin had sold out to capitalism, and left the party.
Lenin was trying to get as much support as possible, but that wasnt working out that well. He was beginning to bring communism into Russia.
Stalin's chief aim was to expand industrial production. For this, he developed three Five-year Plans between 1928 and 1938. Gosplan, the state-planning agency, drew up targets for production for each factory. The first two plans concentrated on improving heavy industry - coal, oil, steel and electricity. Some keen young Communists, called Pioneers, went into barren areas and set up new towns and industries from nothing. There were champion workers called Stakhanovisms, named after a coal miner who broke the record for the amount of coal dug up in a single shift. Education schemes were introduced to train skilled, literate workers.At the same time, many of the workers were slave workers and kulaks from the gulag. Strikers were shot, and wreckers (slow workers) could be executed or imprisoned. Thousands died from accidents, starvation or cold. Housing and wages were terrible, and no consumer goods were produced for people.
After the murder of Kirov, the leader of the Leningrad Communist Party, which was most likely done by Stalin's orders. Stalin started a massive purge of which anybody suspected of disloyalty would be murdered, sent to prison camps, or put on public show trials at which they pleaded guilty to incredible crimes they could never have done.
When Stalin found out about Hitler’s goal was to attack Russia he thought of the best way to solve the problem. Which was an agreement was made between Adolf Hitler’s, Germany and Joesf Stalin’s Soviet Union (Russia) when they signed a “non-aggression pact” that promised each other that neither would attack the other for 10 years. But with the agreement of “friendship” There was also an economic agreement that was attached to it that said Germany would exchange manufactured goods for Russia's raw materials. But the pact only lasted 2 years before Germany invaded Russia. It was said that from the beginning Hitler considered the agreement a very tactical, temporary movement.
Put a pistol to his head and committed suicide because the Soviet troops were coming into Berlin, and he didn't want to be taken alive.
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