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Change from Nicholas I to Alexander II
During this time, the Russian position in the Crimean War was hopeless. The war lasted from October 1853 to February 1856. -
Abolition of Serfdom (Part 1)
At first it seemed to be a good idea but it was not. Firstly because they were used to their lifesyles, and if from one day to another they gave them rights and changed their lives completely they could not adapt. Also, their lifestyle consisted in working in lord's lands, and in exchange they received food and shelter. But then, they had no money, nor food or shelter, and so many died. Most of them,went back to work on lord's lands.Others tried to buy lands, but they were given the worst ones. -
Abolition of Serfdom (Part 2)
This was law was created during Alexander II's reign. He and his father, Nicholas I, agreed that slavery, like that from America, was inhumane. So consequently, he changed things, with the Main Terms of Emancipation, in 1861. However, in Russia, since the seventeenth century, thre was not slavery as that in America, where it was much more serious (in here, it was abolished by presidencial order, four years later). During this time, it was also the beggining of expansion of schools. -
Universities were given significant autonomy and importance
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The press started to have more freedom
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First Assassination Attempt on Alexander II
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Second Assassination Attempt on Alexander II
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Lenin
He was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1917, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. His political theories, Lenisim, are based on Marxism. He led the Bolsheviks.
He died in 1922 due to a stroke. -
First women admitted to Moscow University
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Stalin
He was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. After Lenin's death, Stalin, secretary of the Communist Party, increased the power of the party and banned the other parties. By 1930, he was more powerful than the tsar had been. His rule was based on fear, and killed millions of people, or sent to prision camps in Siberia.
VIDEO: http://www.history.com/topics/joseph-stalin -
Alexander III
He was known as the peacemaker. -
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Alexander III's Reign
He came to the thrown after the assasination of his father, Alexander II, by Narodnya Volya. As he feared being killed as well, he made some changes. His main ideas were:
1. Repression of opponents.
2. Undoing the reforms of his father.
3. Restore Russia’s position internationally and also her national identity, which he believed had been diluted throughout the 19th Century. -
The Trans-Siberian
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Trans-Siberian
The world’s longest railway, of 5,772 miles (9289 km) from Moscow to Vladivostok. There are connecting branch lines into Mongolia, China and North Korea. It takes a week to do the journey and it has connected Moscow with Vladivostok since 1916, and is still being expanded.The Trans-Siberian was the most spectacular achievement of a period in which the Russian rail network grew from 1,000 miles in 1860 to 45,000 miles by 1917. The project was officially announced by Tsar Alexander III in 1891. -
Nicholas II (Part 2)
Their parents, desperate to cure their child, even let Rasputin, a Monk, to hypnotize him. Russians did not like him.
Overall, for Nicholas II his main worries were his family, and not Russia. http://www.biography.com/people/nicholas-ii-21032713#coronation-and-marriage -
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Nicholas II's Reign (Part 1)
He was the last tsar of Russia, under the Romanov rule.His poor handling of Bloody Sunday, and in WW1, let to his abdication and execution.
When he came to throne, because of his father's death due to a kidney disease, I felt he was not prepared, and he did not truly wanted to be the ruller. He and his wife, Alexandra had 5 children: Olga (1895), Tatiana (1897), Maria (1899), Anastasia (1901) and Alexei (1904), the heir, who was diagnose with haemophilia. -
Divisiom of Marxists into two groups (Part 3)
Lenin wanted socialism to be put in immediate place with only one revolution, but the Mensheviks wanted to work with the middle class and bourgeois groups to create a liberal and capitalist regime in Russia as a first step to a later socialist revolution. The official split of the party was made in 1912, by Lenin, who formed his own Bolshevik Party. -
Division of Marxists into two groups (Part 1)
The Menshevik and Bolsheviks were factions within the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. They aimed to bring revolution to Russia by following the ideas of the socialist theoretician Karl Marx. In the end, the Bolsheviks, successfully seized power in the Russian Revolution of 1917.Talking about the origins of these divisions in 1898, Russian Marxists had organised the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (although political parties were illegal in Russia). -
Divisiom of Marxists into two groups (Part 2)
A congress was organised, but with only 9 socialist attendants, who were quickly arrested. In 1903, a second congress was hold, where they debated events and actions, now with about 50 people. Here, arguments and different ideas arose between Lenin and L. Martov. Lenin and his supporters gained a majority on the central committee (even though it was only a temporary majority) They were called the Bolshevik.The ones led by Martov, became known as Mensheviks (the ones of the "minority"). -
Russo-Japanese War
It started on February 8, 1904 and finished on September 5, 1905. Both countries wanted to increase their power and influence in Manchuria. a Chinese province, and control the Corean Peninsula. This equal interests caused the Russo-Japanese War. Finally Japan, a rising military and economic power defeated Russia, and even destroyed their Baltic and Pacific fleets. This defeat caused a strong social movement in demand of reforms. -
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Russo-Japanese War
The Trans-Siberian Railway was seen as one of the reasons Russia lost the war. -
Bloody Sunday (Part 1)
It was a massacre made by the Imperial Russian Guards against peaceful protestants. That day there were around 200000 workers at the doors of the Winter Palace of Nicholas II, guided by Gapon, who wanted to make some petitions. People were claiming for better job conditions and salaries. They had been doin strikes since the end of 1904. They were absolutely pacific, and they were even carrying portraits of the tzar. However, that day, instead of being there the tzar, there was his uncle. -
Bloody Sunday (Part 2)
His uncle was the duque Vladimir Aleksándrovich.He ordered putting fire againts the crowd.More than 1000 people died that day and many people were seriously wounded, among men, women and children, not only workers. This new got all around the country, and people were not the same anymore, because they believed it was something unfair. Nicholas II, for trying to calm down the people created the Duma, the Russian Parliament, in 1906. -
The Fist Duma
It was hold in the Tauris Palace. The First Duma was dominated by the Kadets (Constitutional Democratic Party) who wanted Russia to have a parliament based on the British model with legislative powers.
It was made to calm down the furious people of that, that happened in the Bloody Sunday. However people got very radical.Socialists boycotted the Duma and it finally ended its activity in 1917, because of the economic depression origined in WW1 and the success of Bolchevique Revolution. -
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World War 1
It was also known as The Great War or the First War. The main causes were militarism, the alliances, nationalism and imperialism. Its spark was the Assasination in Sarajevo. We had the Triple Entente with Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy, and the Central Powers with the Austro-Hungary Empire, Germany, Bulgary and the Ottoman Empire.Russia left the war in 1917. The consequences of WW1 were the creation of the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles. -
Murder of Rasputin (Part 2)
Moreover, when Soviets came to power, most of the documents that formed part of the official secret investigation have either been destroyed, or have disappeared. So we do not know the exact details of what happened. Here is a video about what most possibly happpened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zz0sHu-m7s -
Murder of Rasputin (Part 1)
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a Russian peasant, mystical faith healer and a trusted friend to the Tsar's family. His influence increased during the reign of Nicholas II. His murder is said to be someting like a legend, because there are no clear evidence or facts that proves what it really happened. When the Police came to investigate about his death, they were not able to ask, because they did not have that right in the palace. -
March (February) revolution (Part 1)
Lenin, long before, alerted that entering WW1 would only make things worse and a revolution may start. Firstly because it would mean a tension source and a wastage. Other things that contributed to the happening of this revolution were the economic and social crisis they were living, their poor and desmoralized troops (by the Bolchevik's posters, their bad equipment, sometimes people who did not know how to fight were forced to enter the war...), the state crisis... -
March (February) Revolution (Part 2)
The Revolution started on February, 23. after a demonstration in Saint Petersburg. On the 25th, there was a general strike that soon extended to other cities. During the 26th riots broke out in the barracks and troops refused to fire on strikers.
The 27th it was constructed a Provisional Government ruled by the Prince Luov with Kerensky as Minister of War and Justice. Nicholas II, who went to the front to guide the troops, abdicated on March 3, as he had no support from the army. -
March (February) Revolution (Part 3)
After his abdication, a Republic was established showing the end of the Romanov Dynasty that had been rulling for longer than 300 years.Then, the Provisional Government took control of the state. It try to make Russia a more democratic country, however, the Revolution of october interrupted it. -
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Provisional Government
It was hold in the Tauride Palace.By July it was led by Alexander Kerensky, who had informed the Duma on March 11th that 25,000 troops were on the way to support them.
Their leaders were associated to the middle class, and poor people didn't support them. Also, the Provisional Government did not want to give poor people rural lands and wanted to continue in WW1, a very bad time for them.
The Provisional Government overcame two challenges to its authority : the July Days and the Kornilov Affair. -
October Revolution (Part 2)
This incrising importance in the soviets made that the power was divided among the Provisional Governmetn and the Soviets, guided by Lenin. These last ones, after the constitution of a Revolutionary Military Comitee, planned the armed insurrection against Kerensky's Government. It took place during the night on October 24. Soviets took control of strategic points in the capital, like government buildings and railway stations. The Aurora Cruise, anchored in the harbor, bombed the palace. Ev -
October Revolution (Part 3)
The Aurora Cruise, anchored in the harbor, bombed the palace. Everyone was arrested except Kerensky, who managed to escape. Inmediatly, the Council of People's Commissars was formed, by Bolsheviks and guided by Lenin. Finally, the Russian Revolution succeded. -
October Revolution (Part 1)
It was also referred to as Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution. It was the second phase of the Russian Revolution, after the March (February) Revolution. Soviets became more important. They were groups of Russian workers, soldiers and peasants that first emerged during the Revolution of 1905 in opposition to tzarism, constituing a fundamental force during 1917, that managed to bring it down. -
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Civil War In Russia
After the Revolution, the Bolsheviks made peace with Germany.But as there was no peace inside the Soviet Union, Anti-Bolshevik forces (White Army), with help from abroad, fought for 3 years against the Red Army (organised by Trotsky, Lenin's associate).
The Bolsheviks expected communist revolutions across Europe, but there was only a small one in Germany. -
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
It is a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the new Bolshevik Government and the Central Powers. It marked the end of Russia's participation in WW1. It was signed at Brest-Litovsk, and in there, Russia ceded the Baltic States to Germany and its province of Kars Oblast in teh south Caucasus to teh Ottoman Empire. It also recognized the independence of Ukraine and agreed to pay for reparations to the Germans. -
Fanny Kaplan and Vladimir Lenin
Kaplan attempted to assasinate Lenin. -
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NEP
The New Economic Policy (NEP) was based around a tax called prodnalog, which was a tax on food. It was introduced to replace the failed policy of War Communism. It is not exactly capitalist, neither communist, it is in the middle. Its main characteristics were that peasants could sell tehir surplus (they established a minimum), and up to there, was considered surplus), the government controlled key sectors, foreign investment, private small business...
In 1922, the USSR was formed. -
USSR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sxTbfeYdO0
Here there is a video of the USSR anthem. -
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USSR
Once Bolsheviks were firmly in power, they changed their name to Communist Party. Russia became known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922, or shortened, Soviet Union. It was governed as a single-party state by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital. A union of multiple subnational Soviet republics, including Ukraine, Belarus, Transcaucasi, by 1924 also Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan and in 1929 joined Tadžikistan.Its government and economy were centralised. -
Trotsky into exile (Part 1)
Trotsky became involved in underground activities as a teenager. He was soon arrested, jailed and exiled to Siberia where he joined the Social Democratic Party. Eventually, he escaped Siberia and spent the majority of the next 15 years abroad, including a spell in London. Trotsky became a member of the 'Menshevik' faction and developed his theory of 'permanent revolution'. After the outbreak of revolution in Petrograd in February 1917, he made his way back to Russia. -
Trotsky into exile (Part 2)
Despite previous disagreements with Lenin, Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks and played a decisive role in the communist take-over of power in the same year. His first post in the new government was as foreign commissar, where he found himself negotiating peace terms with Germany. He was then made war commissar and built up the Red Army which prevailed against the White Russian forces in the civil war. Thus Trotsky played a crucial role in keeping the Bolshevik regime alive. -
Trotsky into exile (Part 2)
He saw himself as Lenin's heir-apparent, but his arrogance made him a few friends person and his Jewish heritage may also have worked against him. When Lenin fell ill and died, Trotsky was easily outmanoeuvred by Stalin. In 1927, he was thrown out of the party. Internal and then foreign exile followed, but Trotsky continued tcriticising Stalin. Trotsky settled in Mexico in 1936. On August 20 1940, an assassin called Ramon Mercader, acting on Stalin's orders, stabbed him and died on the next day.
