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Tsar Nicholas II
Due to their over eagerness to expand into Asia, Russia ended up losing the Russo-Japanese war to a resource starved Japan after years of embargo stopped them from becoming militarily efficient. After this Tsar Nicholas II transformed Russia into a constitutional monarchy with his "October Manifesto" where he attempted to win back the peoples favor with promises of civil liberties. -
World War 1
This war was vastly unpopular among Russians, especially after their defeat in the Manchuria region in the Russo-Japanese war took many resources from them. This war was about Tsar Nicholas II chasing glory instead of actually making good decisions for the people of his country, the first mistake he made that led to his downfall. -
Grigori Rasputin
Grigori Rasputin was a big thing that helped discredit the Russian government as he was heavily opposed to the war. The Romanovs and especially Nicholas' wife were heavily under the influence of Rasputin however he was murdered after several previous attempts failed on December 30th 1916. -
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin returned from exile in Switzerland, he had always been a Marxist supporter but this time he was to make something of it. Vladimir returning from exile started a massive chain of events that led to everything in Russia from the October revolution to the end of world war 1. -
Government flees to Moscow
In October 1917, the government fled to Moscow out of fear the Germans could menace the current capital of Petrograd due to them taking the Estonian island of Saaremaa. Seizing the chance Lenin declared the government as traitors and rallied support for the Bolsheviks. -
October revolution
The October/Bolshevik revolution was a key point in the communist takeover of Russia. Led by Vladimir Lenin it was arguably the biggest event in the entire Russian revolution and the catalyst to splitting the world into two separate blocs, the west and east, communist and capitalist. This was also the last hope for Russia being part of the Triple Entente, as after this the alliance in between Russia, Great Britain and France was terminated. -
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky had a long history of Marxism and getting exiled and in 1917 he was a chairman for the Bolsheviks and played an important role in overthrowing the tsarist regime with Lenin. -
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk put an end to Russia, or the soviet unions participation in the first world war. However this was unpopular due to the fact they gave away too much land in the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) as well as plenty in the Belarus-Ukraine area which took away a lot of their agricultural superiority over other countries. -
Death of the Romanovs
The Romanovs were executed on July 17th, 1918 symbolizing the last memories of the old Tsarist regime of Russia being put down, brutally. -
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin was next in line for power over the newly formed USSR after the death of the founder, Vladimir Lenin. He was the most infamous leader of the Soviet Union with his extremely harsh policies and iron fist rule over the country.