2. DEFINITION OF REVOLUTION?
the usually violent attempt by many people to end the rule of one government and start a new one
a sudden, extreme, or complete change in the way people live, work, etc.
the action of moving around something in a path that is similar to a circle
CAN THE TERM BE DEFINED?
ARE THERE COMMON PATTERNS?

3. DEFINITION OF REVOLUTION?
Term in one of the most used and misused words
Variety of meanings adaptable to personal purpose
It can invoke both a sense of danger and hope (paradox)
Working definition:
“A radical change, caused by irresistible forces that overturns an established order.”
Revolution be political, economic, social, religious, technological

4. PATTERNS OF REVOLUTION?
Crane Brinton Anatomy of a Revolution (1968)
Comparative analysis = French (1789), English (1689), American (1775) and Russia (1917)

5. IMPACT OF WWI WWI unleashes change in Russia- THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION
US – emerges out of isolations – gradual role as “worlds policeman”
Japan – militarism / imperialism
Italy – Mussolini – Fascism
Germany – Hitler – Nazism
Britain – decolonization
France – a vanquished victor
Austria – reduced to a pigmy state

6. Nicholas Riasnovsky
“ It has been said that revolutions occur not when the people are utterly destitute and oppressed beyond all measure and deprived of hope----crushing conditions lead to blind and fruitless rebellions----but when there is growth, advancement, and higher expectations, hampered, however, by an archaic and rigid established order.”

7. PATTERN FOR A REVOLUTION HOPE / DASHED HOPE

8. CRIMEAN WAR (1854)
Russia = food shortages, overpopulation, civil disorder, industrial backwardness, military incompetence
Crimean war fundamentally alter the balance of power in Europe and set the stage for World War I

9. PRECURSOR FOR HOPE Czar Alexander II (1855-1881)
GREAT REFORM PERIOD( )
(1)Emancipation of the Serfs
(2)Local administrative reform
(3) Judicial Reforms
(4) Reorganization of the military

10. EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS 1861
HOPE – serfdom abolished
Serfs would become free peasants & receive land
DASHED HOPE – redemption payment for land, not enough land for 23 million peasants, taxes

11. ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM 1864
HOPE – peasants would have representation
Local Class system = towns, peasant villages, gentry
ZEMSTOV – education, public medical service, ways of transportation
DASHED HOPE – representation was proportional to land ownership
Grigoriy Myasoyedov

12. JUDICIAL REFORM 1864 HOPE (1) trial by jury
(2) equality before the law
(3) public legal proceedings
(4) educated legal profession
DASHED HOPE – government officials could influence judges and outcome of court cases
1850s, Grigoriants

13. MILITARY REFORM 1874 HOPE service reduce from 25-6 years
Educated received shorter enlistments
Obligation to serve was extended to all
Corporal punishment was abolished
Lottery system replaced landlord’s decision
DASHED HOPE - military ill-trained, poorly equipped = defeat WWI

14. SOCIAL CLASS STRUCTURE
Upper classes: Royalty, nobility, higher clergy: 12.5 %
Middle classes: merchants, bureaucrats, professionals: 1.5 %
Working classes: Factory workers, artisans, soldiers, sailors: 4 %
Peasants: Landed and landless farmers: 82 %

15. INDUSTRIALIZATION Progress? 1880s Sergei Witte (b. 1849-1915)
Trans Siberian Railway
1,250 miles of railroad track in 1860
35,000+ of railroad track in 1900
Factories, mines, steel, petroleum
Unintended consequences – Urban growth – “proletariat”
1900 – 2M by 1914 – 3M out of 120 M

16. History of Russia Riasnovsky
“Poorly paid, desperately overcrowded, and with very little education or other advantages, the proletariat of Imperial Russia represented in effect an excellent example of a destitute and exploited labor force, characteristic of the early stages of capitalist development and described so powerfully by Marx in Das Kapital.”

17. NICHOLAS II Romanov (r. 1894-1917) Khodynka Tragedy (May 30, 1896)
Russo-Japanese War ( )
Bloody Sunday (Jan 22, 1905)
Attempted Revolution 1905

18. NICHOLAS II (r. 1894-1917) Last Russian Emperor, Tsar, Romanov
Two Wars = Russo-Japanese War
WWI –
Despite the loss of territory, massive casualties, stubborn supporter of the right of the sovereign

20. REVOLUTION 1905 Military disaster = domestic upheaval
Century of autocratic rule
Massive demonstration – 200,000 unarmed
Father Gapon = “God Save the Tsar”
Workers – general strike, reduction of work day, increase in wages, end to War
Police and Cossacks open fired – 100 killed, 300 wounded = BLOODY SUNDAY
Dress rehearsal for the Revolutions of 1917

21. OCTOBER MANIFESTO General Strike – October 20-30
Manifesto – 1st attempted constitution
Guaranteed civil liberties – press, speech, assembly, religion
Duma – legislative body
1st Duma 1906 – dismissed
2nd Duma 1907 – dismissed
3rd Duma consultative body – Peter Stolypin – Minister of Finance – assassinated 1911
4th Duma – many members = provisional gov’t

22. WORLD WAR I
Russia’s political / social and economic problems were exacerbated by war
Lack of adequate supplies – 25% of Russian soldiers were without guns
Lost key battles – Tanneburg and Masurian Lakes
Tsar Nicholas II – goes to the military front to rally troops

23. RASPUTIN (c. 1869 – 1916) “Mad Monk”
Russian mystic, psychic, faith healer, prophet, visionary, debauched religious charlatan
Fateful friend of the Romanov family
Nicholas II decision to move to the front lines WWI Sept. 1915

28. Bones secretly discovered in 1976
FAMILY TRAGEDY
Bones secretly discovered in 1976
Formally dug up in 1991 – DNA test results provide proof
9 of the 11 bodies
2007 – last of the remains discovered
Alexei and Maria or Anastasia?

29. FEBRUARY / MARCH REVOLUTION
PROVISIONAL GOV’T
Abdication of Czar Nicholas II
March 17, 1917 – Russia Republic
Constituent Assembly
Universal Male Suffrage
Promised a Constitution
Promised redistribution of land to the peasants but took no action

30. Provisional Government
Lasted only eight month
Major errors
Continued fighting in World War I despite defeats
Believed that the peasants should own land but did not initiate a land policy
The Russian economy continued to go downhill and nothing was done
*They never legitimized the government with a constitutional assembly

31. POLITICAL PARTIES
TWO MAIN ISSUES – WAR, REDISTRIBUTION OF LAND

32. “LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIKS DID NOT BRING ABOUT THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
“LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIKS DID NOT BRING ABOUT THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. THEY CAPTURED IT AFTER IT HAD BEGUN.” – RR Palmer

33. OCTOBER/NOVEMBER REVOLUTION
Bolshevik Revolution 1917
Bolsheviks with the support of the army seize key communication, transportation, and utilities
Provisional Government fled for lack of support
Timed takeover coincide with the election of the Congress of Soviets
Lenin = head of the Council of People’s Commissars (Executive Committee)
Bolsheviks disbanded the Constituent Assembly

34. LENIN
“PEACE, LAND, BREAD” Immediate peace with the Central Powers – WWI
Redistribution of land to the peasants
Transfer of factories, mines, industrial plants from capitalists to committees of workers
Recognition of the soviets as supreme power instead of the Provisional Government

35. Marxist-Leninism Lenin’s amendments to Marxism
Small group - intellectual revolutionaries with military discipline should run the country
He believed in staging a worldwide revolution (Comintern)
Emphasized a “conspiracy of intellectuals”
The peasants could be a revolutionary force
Capitalism was the enemy of communism