During the First World War, the Russian Empire's military difficulties led to internal political instability and increased popular unrest. It was in March 1917 (February in the Julian calendar) that the February Revolution broke out, and the revolutionaries overthrew the Romanov dynasty and established the **Temporary**. However, this was only the beginning of the revolution.
In November of the same year (October in the Julian calendar), the October Revolution took place. The revolution was led by the Bolsheviks, who overthrew the newly established Provisional ** and established the Soviets**. Soon after, the Soviets** signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the German Empire, ending the war with Germany.
However, the flame of revolution was not extinguished, and the civil war broke out. The White Army and the Soviet Workers' and Peasants' Red Army engaged in a fierce confrontation, and other political factions took advantage of the opportunity to raise troops. The whole of Russia became a battlefield of war. At the same time, the peoples within the borders of the old empire also began to move for independence, and the ** rule of the empire finally collapsed.
From the beginning of the first revolution in 1905, Russia has experienced a series of challenges and solutions. The revolution, which was caused by the suppression of peaceful demonstrations by Russian forces and demands for reform of the social and political system, provoked popular anger and triggered a series of strikes. Although the revolution failed in the end, it became a major factor in the 1917 revolution.
By the beginning of 1917, the time was ripe for revolution in Russia. This revolution brought opportunities for change in society, but also great unknowns. Poor peasants and rural dwellers began to move frequently between rural and industrial environments, and even chose to move to cities, resulting in an increasing number of urban laborers. The status of middle-class white-collar workers, businessmen and professionals, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, journalists and engineers, has gradually increased. Even the aristocracy had to find new ways to survive in this ever-changing economic system. At the same time, new classes such as the proletariat and capitalists also emerged, and differences emerged between people of different statuses.
Social groups and social boundaries in Russia are becoming more and more difficult to define. Not only are different ethnic groups in various ways**, but their identities have also been blurred by the migration of peasants, intellectuals, experts, etc. The expanded commercial culture changed people's lives and reshaped the face of material life, including architecture, shops, advertising, fashion, clocks, and machinery, cultivating new material desires.
By 1917, political consciousness was high, revolutionary ideas were far-reaching, and the system was weak and incompetent (especially after his participation in World War I), which should have made Tsar Nicholas II of Russia aware of the need for reform. In fact, in January 1917, Sir George Buchanan, the British envoy to the country, advised the Tsar to break down the barriers between him and the people and regain their trust. However, Nikolai rejected Buchanan's proposal.
Many Russians are outraged by the **rule of Nicholas II and the corruption and backwardness. They believed that the emperor did not understand the needs and wishes of the Russian people, and most of them were victims of poor socio-economic conditions. From a social point of view, agriculture and industry in Tsarist Russia were in a difficult situation relative to other European countries, and peasants and workers still had a small number of opportunities to improve their lives. From an economic point of view, widespread inflation and food shortages prompted the formation of the revolution. On the military front, the inadequacy of rations, logistics, and armaments led to huge losses in Russia during World War I, which further strengthened the Russian people's perception of the incompetent rule of Nicholas II. Eventually, these factors, together with the flourishing of revolutionary ideas and movements, especially after the Bloody Sunday of 1905, led to the outbreak of the Russian Revolution.
In the minds of many peasants, the basic principle of property ownership was that the land should belong to those who cultivated it. At the same time, however, peasant life and culture are constantly changing. The change was brought about by the natural growth of the number of rural peasants who switched to industry and moved to the cities, but the introduction of urban culture into the countryside through the improvement of material life, the pressure of survival, and word of mouth also played a non-negligible role.
The peasants and workers also had good reasons for feeling unjustified: overcrowded housing, poor sanitary conditions, long working hours (on the eve of the war, an average of 10 hours a day, six days a week, and 11 12 hours a day in 1916), the constant risk of poor safety and sanitation, the harsh discipline (not only rules and punishments, but also the foreman's fist), and low wages (exacerbated by the sharp increase in the cost of living during the war after 1914).
On the other hand, industrial life in the city is full of profits, although, from the point of view of social and political stability, urban life can be as dangerous as the hardships of the countryside. However, there is a strong desire for a better life among the peasants and workers. The acquisition of new livelihood skills has given the peasants and workers self-esteem and confidence, and created more hope and desire. In the cities, peasant workers experienced a material life that they had never seen in the countryside. Most importantly, in the city, they are exposed to novel concepts of social and political structures.
The social factors that triggered the revolution were mainly due to the oppression of the lower classes by the imperial regime for centuries and the defeat of Nicholas II in the First World War. In 1861, when the peasants of the countryside were freed from the yoke of serfdom, they were still indignant at the payment of ransom to the state and insisted on the establishment of a system of communal bidding for the land they cultivated. The problem worsened after the failure of Sergei Witt's agrarian reform in the early 1890s. Peasant riots, and even rebellions, were becoming more and more frequent, with the aim of gaining ownership of the land they cultivated. ** Mainly made up of poor peasants, who occupy 15% of the population, 25% of the land.
Between 1890 and 1910, Russia experienced a rapid process of industrialization, which caused overpopulation and overcrowding in the cities, as well as poor working conditions and conditions for workers. The population of the capital, St. Petersburg, increased dramatically from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600 during this time, while Moscow's population grew at a similar rate. A new social class was created, the proletariat. The crowded living conditions in the cities made them more inclined to protest and strike, and were more active than the peasant class before them.
In a census in 1904, the results showed that in St. Petersburg there were an average of sixteen people living together in one apartment, six in each room. There is no running water in these shelters, and mountains of garbage pose a threat to workers' health. Adverse conditions have led to a deterioration of the situation, with strikes and unrest increasing rapidly.
The Great War further exacerbated the level of chaos. Conscription set off a wave of reluctance across the country. Factories needed to produce war materials, and the workers' demand was increasing, which led to more labor riots and strikes. Conscription took away the skilled workers in the cities and replaced them with unskilled peasants, and when the famine struck due to the imperfection of the railway system, the workers left the cities in spite of the factories in the hope of finding a source of food and clothing.
Eventually, the military, who lacked equipment and environmental protection, also began to oppose the emperor. This was mainly due to the fact that as the war expanded, many ** loyal to the emperor were killed, and conscripts from major cities took their place, and their loyalty to the emperor was relatively low.
The February Revolution broke out suddenly without a clear leader and a formal plan. This may be because Russians are tired of the current system. The capital, Petrograd, became the center of attention. On February 23 (March 8), 1917, people queuing up to receive food suddenly launched a demonstration**. Soon, thousands of women textile workers walked out of the factory and joined them. Partly to celebrate International Women's Day, but mainly to the problem of the severe shortage of bread. There had already been a large number of people on strike, and the women had stopped all factory operations and called in workers to stop their work and join the demonstrations. The crowd walked through the streets, chanting "Bread!"."Give us bread!slogan.
Over the next two days, the strike, inspired by hundreds of socialist radicals, spread to factories and shops throughout the capital. By 25 February, almost all of Petrograd's industrial plants, businesses and services had shut down. Students, white-collar workers and teachers also took to the streets**, and together with the public meetings of the Duma, which was still functioning at the time, representatives of liberals and socialists gathered to try to solve a potentially big problem. They fiercely criticized the present and demanded the creation of a responsible cabinet. The Duma was made up mainly of the middle class, and in order to prevent a revolution from happening, they passed a resolution to force Emperor Nicholas II to abdicate.
On the evening of Saturday, February 25, when ** could not control the situation, Nicholas II, refusing to heed warnings about the gravity of the situation, sent a fatal telegram to the head of the Petrograd Military District, General Sergei Khabarov: "I order you to suspend the chaos in the capital tomorrow, which is unacceptable in the moment of war with Germany and Austria. "Most of the soldiers complied with orders on the 26th, but there were also some mutinies, which were usually led by lower-ranking officers, which quickly spread throughout the city. On the morning of the 27th, many of the workers in the streets were armed and joined by soldiers who had been sent to quell the riot. However, many of these soldiers chose to rebel, they joined the crowd and even tied small red ribbons to their bayonets. The smaller ** then joined the ranks of the unrest by the army and civilians. Thus, the military power of the capital collapsed almost completely, effectively forcing the collapse of the defense line of the **.
On the evening of the 27th, a storm was brewing on the Russian political scene. The cabinet submitted its resignation to the contemplative Emperor Nicholas and proposed a temporary military ** rule. However, this plan was firmly rejected by the leaders of the Russian military.
At the same time, Nikolai fought with his soldiers on the front line and witnessed the defeat of the Russian army at Tannenberg. All this frustrated him so much that he began to realize the scale of the demonstrations. He even feared his political career and didn't know what the future would bring. In addition, his son's health was deteriorating day by day and he was suffering from hemophilia, which put him in an even more difficult situation.
Nikolai finally accepted the defeat and abdicated on March 13. He left silently as his last dedication to the country. In his declaration, he expressed the hope that the riots would end and bring unity and harmony to Russia.
With Nikolai's abdication, the three-hundred-year rule of the Romanov dynasty collapsed. Nikolai's younger brother was supposed to inherit the crown, but he refused to take over the throne of emperor unless it was decided by popular election**. Soon after, a minority of deputies in the Duma announced the formation of a provisional **, chaired by the moderate reformist Li Vov. However, over time, Alexander Kerensky of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party gradually became the core of the leadership.
On November 7, 1917, an important moment in history arrived. The Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, launched the October Revolution on the basis of the ideas of Karl Marx and the Marxist-Leninist political consciousness expounded by Lenin.
On this day, Lenin led his Left Revolutionary Army in a rebellion against the Provisional **. The goal of this rebellion was to overthrow the temporary ** who had temporarily held power, and to gain power for the people. Although the date is historically recorded as November 7, the date is October 25 in modern literature, as the Julian calendar was still used at the time.
In the following days, from 12 to 15 November, elections to the Constituent Assembly were held. However, by 6 January, the Bolshevik army had dissolved the Constituent Assembly by force. This marked the completion of the October Revolution in February, when the Soviets, elected by the labour and peasant organisations, replaced the short-lived provisional parliament.
However, the path of revolution was not smooth. The army, which consisted of the Liberals and the monarchists, known as the White Army, quickly organized itself against the Red Army of the Bolsheviks. The members of the Soviets were initially freely elected, but later many members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, non-a** and other leftists carried out their boycott of the Bolsheviks through the Soviets.
Over time, the Bolsheviks gradually gained some support outside St. Petersburg and the industrial regions of Moscow. Seeing this, they forbade non-Bolsheviks from joining the Soviets. This caused discontent among other socialists, who instead sought to establish a system known as:"The third faction is revolutionary"of organizations.
The most striking examples of this period are the Tambov rebellion of 1919-1921 and the Kronsta events of March 1921. These rebellions, faced many difficulties and a lack of effective cooperation, and eventually ended with the collapse of the White Army during the Civil War.
In 1918, shortly after the revolution, a civil war broke out, and the spread of the civil war plunged the whole country into chaos and misery. The people had to endure the death and suffering of the war, and their lives were completely disrupted. The civil war broke out shortly after the revolution, and people were drawn into this brutal battle just after the new political system.
The Red Army was the most important force in the civil war, and they consisted of radical communist revolutionaries. They rose up against monarchists, conservatives, reformers, and moderate socialists, known as the "White Fang." The Belarusian side was supported by countries such as Britain, France, the United States, and Japan, making the war more intense and complicated.
However, there are other forces present in this civil war. Ukraine's non-a** army, the Black Army, led by Néstor Makhno, was allied with the Bolsheviks, but the cooperation ended in failure each time. When Makhno's army refused to merge with the Red Army, the Bolshevik army, led by Mikhail Frunze, defeated them. In addition, during the war there were peasant organizations known as the "Green Army", which resisted enemy troops, protected their property, and were mainly active in the regions of Ukraine.