The violent outbreak that was the Russian Revolution of 1917 was the result of an extended period of social unrest and repression by the autocratic czarist government from the time of Peter I (the Great: 1672–1725) through the reign of Nicholas II (1894–1917).  This atmosphere of repression came to a head with worker and peasant unrest in January 1905 in the Revolution of 1905 that forced some government concessions and increased worker representation, but led to widespread arrests of rebel leaders.  It was at this time that a Soviet, or workers’ council, was organized at St. Petersburg.  Moreover, the popularity of Anarchism, Marxism, and Nihilism  in the universities influenced calls for governmental reforms.  In the attempt to modernize (industrialize and expand, with foreign investment) Russia, the imperialist, czarist regimes enforced the “Russification” of its expanding borders, leading to, among other things, the Russo-Japanese War.

On the other hand, Russian intellectuals sought greater social equality as a means to bring Russia in line with democratic Western Europe that had long benefited from the Enlightenment period of the eighteenth century.  Russia’s promotion of Pan-Slavism, intended as a unifying and nationalizing force in the Balkans against the fragmenting Ottoman Empire, was also an expression of Russian imperial expansion.

With Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War (1853–56), a romanticized movement became a militant one of Russian expansion that led to the Russo–Turkish War (1877–78).  This movement put pro-Serb Russia into conflict with Austria in the Balkans in the decade preceding World War I.  In 1908 Russia reluctantly agreed to the Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in 1914 Russia backed Serbia in the crisis that became World War I.  With the Bolshevik Revolution (the Russian Revolution was precipitated by World War I) takeover of Russia in 1917, however, Pan-Slavism was renounced in Russia.  When World War I broke out, most political factions united in the war effort (the Bolsheviks opposed the war).

World War I: The “Great War” – the “War to End All Wars”:

European alliances (beginning in 1871) were shaky at best but sufficient to keep small conflicts from flaring up into large ones.  By 1907, two main alliance divisions emerged: the Triple Alliance involving Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary; and the Triple Entente (Allies) involving Great Britain, France, and Russia.  Economic and imperial competition between Great Britain and Germany heightened the tensions between these two great alliances.

The Achilles-heel of this alliance system was the potential for drawing many nations into small conflicts; this situation is what happened at Austro-Hungarian-controlled Sarajevo, Bosnia, on June 28, 1914, when the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist.  Austro-Hungary sought German assistance, while Serbia called on its ally, Great Britain.  By early August, declarations of war had been made on all sides, and Germany invaded Belgium, preparing for an invasion of France, but was halted in its advance at the Marne River.

Thus began an entrenched and lengthy stalemate situation in northern France, wherein 5 million persons would be killed over the following two-and-a-half years.  The United States remained neutral until the spring of 1918.  On November 11, 1918, the Armistice was signed, ending the war.

Losses in World War I:

Great Britain:  2,000,000 dead
France:           5,000,000 dead
Russia:           9,000,000 dead
Germany:       6,000,000 dead
Italy:              2,000,000 dead
United States:      52,000 dead from battle
                          60,000 dead from influenza and pneumonia
                                     (1/2 of these while still in training)

Moreover, World War I devastated Russia and cut it off from its allies in Western Europe.  Ill prepared for this conflict and isolated, Russia suffered severe setbacks by Austrian and German forces in the war.  Inflation and shortages of food staples and other supplies combined with bureaucratic ineptitude and low morale in the Russian military, setting the stage for rebellion.

The Stage Is Set for Revolution in Russia

The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was initiated by millions of Russian people in response to losses incurred in World War I.  The Russian people became discouraged with the losses sustained in the extended conflict; the country of Russia was ruined economically, making it ripe for revolution.

Csar Nicholas and the Csarina Alexadra Freodorovna

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin,
Russian "Holy Man" and adviser
to the Csarina

Provisional Government Established

During a mass demonstration of workers in February of 1917, Czar Nicholas II shut down the Duma and ordered the army to suppress the activities of the protesters.
However, the army supported the protesters leading to the capture and execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family in 1918 as part of this event known as the “February Revolution.”
 

The Romanov Princesses in 1906 (L-R ): Olga, Tatjana, Maria and Anastasia
 

The Romanov Princesses in prison in 1917, the year before their execution.

A provisional government was formed to replace the void left by the deposed czar.  This moderate transitional government was made up of bankers, lawyers, industrialists, and capitalists, but remained quite weak, failing to live up to its promise of ending Russia's involvement in the World War I.  Instead Russia remained in the war, which worsened social and political conditions in the nation.

The Rise of the Bolshevik Party

The provisional government was immediately opposed right by the soviets, or councils of workers and peasants who wanted the right to make their own decisions.  When Vladimir I. Lenin arrived from exile in the spring of 1917, he joined the Bolshevik Party in Russia whose goal was to overthrow the provisional government and set up a new one of the proletariat.

Vladimir I. Lenin (R) playing chess with A. A. Bogdanov (L), April 1908.

Vladimir Lenin:

Vladimir Lenin, one of the Marxist leaders of the Russian Revolution in 1917, condemned Western imperialism and the destructive wars that resulted as the inevitable and destructive consequences of late-stage capitalism.  From his perspective capitalist imperialism monopolized national economies and exploited underdeveloped nations, to prevent political unrest by meeting the demand of labor for increasing wages.  Lenin also asserted that as capitalist powerbrokers sought to ensure the protection of their investments and profits in foreign countries, the threat of war would increasingly result, as opposition to imperialistic capitalism spread within dependent, colonized nations.  Moreover, Lenin predicted that the imperial contest for empire would eventually lead to war between the great industrialist powers of Europe that would involve Europe’s colonies.

              Vladimir I. Lenin, 1920
Ultimately, when the Russian provisional government lost the support of the military, which joined Russian peasants in their call for land distribution, failing to fairly enact such reforms, the peasants, supported by the military and the Bolsheviks, took matters into their own hands by seizing the land themselves.

In July 1917 Russian workers unsuccessfully challenged the provisional government, resulting in the jailing of many rebel leaders and Lenin going into hiding.  With continued conflicts leading to considerable casualties on the part of the government’s forces, it lost the crucial and widespread support of the military that increasingly backed the Bolsheviks.  Meanwhile a General Kornilov proposed a coup in order to place himself as a "strong man," dictator of Russia.  He was, however, stopped from entering the capitol and was deposed.  Though no coup attempt ever actually happened, this affair became one of many causes to the eventual downfall of the provisional government and the rise of the Petrograd Soviet.

The October Revolution

In early October Lenin convinced the Bolshevik Party to form an immediate insurrection against the Provisional Government.  The Bolshevik leaders felt it was of the utmost importance to act quickly while they had the momentum to do so.  Led by Leon Trotsky, the armed workers known as Red Guards and the other revolutionary elements staged an armed coup on the night of Nov. 6-7 under the orders of the Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee.

Leon Trotsky, founder of the Red Army

The Red Guard forces seized post offices and telegraph offices, electric works, railroad stations, and the state bank, and with joined by thousands of peasants they stormed and occupied the Winter Palace.  This event brought about the fall of the provisional Russian government and the rise of the Bolshevik regime.  Bolshevik leader Vladimir I. Lenin then announced his plan to construct the socialist order in Russia, new government made up of Soviets, and led by the Bolsheviks.  By early November 1917, they succeeded in this plan, but not without resistance from anti-Bolsheviks, known as the “Whites.”

Civil War in Russia (1918–1920):

The Bolshevik Red Army continued its successful (if extended) struggle against the conservative anti-Bolshevik White Army, initially led by Kornilov (until his death in battle in 1918).  The Soviet Red Army initially controlled a region running roughly from Petrograd in the northwest, to Misk and Kiev in the southwest, to the Caspian Sea on the southeast, and running far to the north, expanding these perimeters until the end of the conflict in 1920.  Both the Red and White factions practiced the czarist tradition of political violence against opposition, which escalated terribly during the civil war and afterwards.