1. Bolshevik Revolution
Mr. Samuelson
26.5

2. Russia in the early 1900s. Just seen a revolution in 1905
Tsar Nicholas II
Absolutist
Duma
Made attempts to create a constitution and limit the tsar’s power were blocked by Nicholas.
World War I
Disastrous like Crimean War and Russo-Japanese War
Many soldiers didn’t even have rifles or ammunition.
Nicholas II even went to the front to lead but proved to be as ineffective as his generals.
Gregory Rasputin- illiterate peasant, self-proclaimed “holy man”.
Tremendous influence on tsar and his wife
“Miraculously” healed their son from hemophilia

3. Condition of Russia Major unrest Feudalist Model
History of revolutions
World War I
Casualties reached 2 million
Discontent proletariats – working class
Instability in the government
Rasputin killed by nobles fearing his influence.
Food shortages
St. Petersburg – citizens marched the marched through the street showing “Bread! Bread!”.
Troops ordered to fire on the crowd but refuse
Losing control of the government, Nicholas II steps down.

4. Communism will solve everything!!
Provisional government is established.
Socialists plot a take over.
Karl Marx
Three part process – Feudalism → Capitalism → Socialism
Mensheviks favor this gradual approach.
More moderate.
Bolsheviks
Led by Vladimir Lenin
Revolution needed to make changes – skip capitalism!

5. November Revolution – 1917
Lenin teamed up with Leon Trotsky to push revolution forward.
“Peace, Land, and Bread.”
Red Guards (armed factory workers) & mutinous sailors from the Russian fleet overthrow the provisional government.
Bolsheviks take control of other cities, including Moscow.
Bolsheviks sign the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in March 1918.
Civil War breaks out – “Reds” v. “Whites”
Allies supported “Whites” and intervened hoping to keep Russia involved in the War.
Hurt allies in the long-run by damaging Russian relations.

6. Joseph Stalin Lenin died in 1924 setting of a power struggle.
Trotsky and Stalin
Lenin’s testament:
Suggested Joseph Stalin be removed from his position as General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party's Central Committee.
Isolated Trotsky in the party and stripped him of membership.
Stalin would use ruthless tactics to win power.

7. Lenin’s Testament
“Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People's Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work. These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present C.C. can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to avert this, the split may come unexpectedly.”

8. Lenin’s Testament
“Stalin is too coarse and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a [minor] detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.”