10.3 The Russian Revolution

Notes

War losses and long-standing problems led to revolution in Russia in 1917.

• Causes: an autocratic tsar, poor peasants and workers, defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the Revolution of 1905 (Bloody Sunday), and huge losses and food shortages in World War I.
• March 1917 (February in Russia's old calendar): protests forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. A Provisional Government kept fighting the war.
• November 1917 (October revolution): Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power, promising "Peace, Land and Bread."
• Russia left the war in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918), giving up large territories.
• The Bolshevik Reds defeated the Whites in a civil war (1918 to 1921). The Soviet Union (USSR) was formed in 1922.
• Lenin's New Economic Policy allowed some private trade to rebuild the economy.