the russian revolution changed life forever having replaced the rule by the monarchy the dawn of socialism promised peace and equality to all over the next few modules you will hear the story of the russian revolution the story of how people decided to get rid of privilege and class division and create a society made up of equals before we learn about the revolution itself it is important for us to understand how socialism came to europe the french revolution during the late 18th century was an important stepping stone for socialism as it propagated the ideas of freedom and equality it also gave hope to the people by showing them that it was possible to create a society where people could decide who controlled the economic and social power these revolutionary ideas spread quickly across all of europe even in india eminent people like raja ram mohan roy and derozio discussed the importance of the french revolution however people across the world were divided on the degree of change that needed to be made to society on a broad scale these people could be divided into three distinct groups liberals radicals and conservatives liberals dreamt of a nation where all religions could be considered equal they were against giving absolute powers to the monarchy instead they wanted an elected parliamentary government but on the other hand they believed that not everyone had the right to vote only property owners could be allowed to vote they did not support the suffragette movements either suffragette movements campaigned to give women the right to vote radicals too agreed with the liberals on religious tolerance and the removal of the absolute pass from the monarchy they however believed that all people had a right to vote irrespective of whether they were property owners or not they also supported the right for women to vote the third group of people the conservatives were supposed to change altogether in time they realized that some change was inevitable but they still felt that it needed to be a gradual process as you can see the views differed greatly between these three groups while these debates were going on change was happening on the economic front too the industrial revolution had started in britain and it slowly spread across europe it saw the replacement of manual labor with machines resulting in goods being manufactured at a much faster rate the industrial revolution saw the formation of new cities development of industrial regions and the expansion of the railways as a result more people went to work in factories however the working conditions were quite pitiable long hours coupled with low wages demoralized the workers sometimes the low demand for goods resulted in unemployment too all this left the workers yearning for change the solution was to stop the feudal system of privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy liberals and radicals rallied around the right of individual freedom the right of the poor to work and the right of people having money to operate without restraint revolutionaries across europe be it in france italy germany or russia all dreamt about change and worked to overthrow the existing monarchies as you will see in the modules to come the russian revolution 2 succeeded in enforcing change the price to pay for it however was quite heavy as you have already seen the working conditions of people across europe during the industrial revolution were pitiable this coupled with low wages acted as a perfect platform for the advent of socialism socialists felt that the private ownership of property was the root of all social evil although they agreed that property owners provided jobs they also felt that owners were not interested in the welfare of the workers considering this socialism propagated the idea of collective ownership of property some of the eminent socialist thinkers were robert owen louis blah karl marx and frederic engels robert owen believed in the idea of cooperatives and tried to build one in indiana louis blah however felt that an individual could not build a cooperative community instead he pushed for the governments to encourage cooperatives karl marx stated in his book da's capital that workers needed to overthrow capitalism and create a society where property was controlled collectively fredris engels too contributed to these thoughts through his book the communist manifesto though they had minor differences in their ideas they all agreed that socialism was the natural way forward as socialist ideas spread across europe the socialists formed the second international to act as a body to coordinate their efforts it was not until 1914 that socialists finally managed to form a government in europe in 1904 over 110 000 workers in saint petersburg went on strike demanding better working conditions and wages led by father gabon they marched to the winter palace the home of tsar nikolas ii ordered the dreaded cossacks to attack the people over a hundred were killed and many wounded this incident referred to as bloody sunday sparked off the russian revolution of 1905 so what led to the revolt by the people russia was in those days an autocracy ruled by tsar nicolas ii he ruled a vast territory that included current day countries such as finland latvia lithuania estonia parts of poland ukraine and belarus both saint petersburg and moscow were prominent industrial areas of that time most of the industries were privately owned by industrialists so although the government had rules regarding minimum wages and limited work hours in many factories and workshops these rules were broken this led to dissatisfaction amongst the workers across russia peasants too were unhappy comprising more than 85 percent of the population they earned their living from agriculture however they owned very little land majority of the land was owned by the nobility the tsar and the orthodox church and so peasants pooled their land regularly and divided it based on the needs of individual families as you can see both peasants and workers were unhappy across russia this saw the advent of two prominent political parties the russian social democratic workers party or rsdwp and the socialist revolutionary party the rsdwp followed mark's ideas and aimed to provide support to workers it consisted of two groups bolsheviks led by vladimir lenin and mensheviks led by julius martov the bolsheviks believed in discipline and controlling the quality of the party members whereas the manchurics believed that the party needed to be open to all while the rsdwp backed the workers the socialist revolutionary party on the other hand believed that peasants would be the driving force behind the revolution both these parties however agreed that things needed to change and to do this they needed to first topple the autocratic rule by the tsar and so finally in 1904 on bloody sunday a large group of workers and peasants marched to the winter palace to demand change following this strikes took place all over russia everyone demanded a constituent assembly tsar finally relented and agreed to the creation of the parliament or the doomer fearing a reduction in his past he dismissed the first duma and the second one as well finally in the third duma he succeeded in filling it up with conservatives and keeping out the liberals and the radicals za nicolas thought that this was the end of the revolution but larger revolutions were yet to come the first world war broke out in 1914 on one side were the ontand powers that comprised russia france uk italy japan australia canada america and on the other side were the central parts that comprised germany austria hungary the ottoman empire and the kingdom of bulgaria being a member of the anthone powers russia led by tsar nicholas ii got pulled into the first world war the russians hated the germans who were a member of the central pars so much so that they renamed saint petersburg a german name to petrograd the people despised the autocracy ii owing to the zarina's german roots and poor advisors such as the monk rasputin the war raged on and the tsar started taking decisions without consulting the duma although russia had the largest army biting from the eastern front they started leaving heavy casualties during the battle over seven million people died finally the russian army started retreating while retreating they destroyed crops and buildings this resulted in over 3 million refugees in russia the war had a severe impact on the industry as well as they were cut off from suppliers by germans who controlled the baltic sea labor shortages followed as all the able-bodied men had been called to take part in the war and this led to the shutting down of workshops food was a problem as well large supplies of grain were being sent to feed the army leaving very little for the people back home and by the winter of 1916 fighting and riots started breaking out at bread shops the world war crippled russia and as expected the tsar and the royal family became very unpopular the first world war was over and russia was still trying to recover from its effects in petrograd the situation was sternly serious strangely the river literally seemed to highlight the social and economic divide in the city to the left of the neva were the well-to-do areas such as the winter palace official buildings and the place where the duma met to the right of the neva were the workers quarters and factories in february of 1917 workers from around 50 factories on the right bank of neva called a strike in many places the women led the strike did you know that in order to commemorate this event 22nd february is today celebrated world over as international women's day workers moved to the left side of the riverbank and by the end of the day the fashionable quarters and official buildings were surrounded by workers the government responded by calling in troops to control the situation it then suspended the duma this was the last straw the protests became louder and more violent the soldiers refused to fire at the protesters instead they joined them the striking workers and the soldiers got together and formed the petrograd soviet the tsar was finally forced to abdicate russia was finally free from the monarchy and a provincial government was formed lenin saw this as the apt time to return to russia from his exile he propagated the three key points from his april theses bringing the war to an end transferring land to the peasants and the nationalization of banks in addition he wanted the bolshevik party to rename itself as the communist party the provincial government headed by karensky saw lenin as a threat and started arresting the bolsheviks and resisting the spread of their ideas lenin feared that karensky was setting up a dictatorship and he convinced the bolsheviks to stage an uprising he appointed a military revolutionary committee under leon trotsky to organize the uprising in october 1917 the bolsheviks with the help of leon trotsky successfully ceased power from the provincial government so the year 1917 was very eventful for russia as it saw the fall of the monarchy the rise and fall of the karensky government and finally the rise of lenin and the bolsheviks lenin and the bolsheviks seized control of russia after the october revolution of 1917 the bolsheviks immediately started work on the agenda prescribed by lenin's april theses they first nationalized all the banks and brought them under government management they then declared land as social property and returned it to the peasants and they ended the war and brought in changes to the army uniforms so as to assert the change one of the changes was the new soviet hat called the budio novka to match their new ideals the bolshevik party renamed itself as the russian communist party the next step was to conduct the elections where they failed to gain a majority lenin disregarded the results dismissed the assembly and subsequently began to rule the russian communist party ruled with an iron hand they created the secret police called the checker to control possible anti-bolsheviks all these decisions led to resistance among the people and paved way for the civil war in russia the bolsheviks referred to as the reds had two primary opponents one was the socialist revolutionists called the greens the other was the pro czarists called the whites supporting the whites and the greens were france america britain and japan as they were worried seeing the growth of socialism in russia the civil war between the bolsheviks and the anti-bolsheviks had a lot of casualties on both sides looting and banditry coupled with famine became a common occurrence finally by january 1920 with the help of non-russian nationalities and muslim jadidists the bolsheviks finally managed to win the war in return on december 1922 when the soviet union was created the non-russian nationals were given political autonomy and thus the bolsheviks managed to retain control of the soviet union through the civil war however they were not able to win over the different nationalities because of unpopular policies such as the discouragement of nomadism while the civil war was going on the bolsheviks kept both banks and industries nationalized they made five-year plans centered on economic growth this included the fixing of prices to promote industrial growth for the next few years under lenin the soviet union saw both industrial and economic growth the first world war was over and russia was still trying to recover from its effects in petrograd the situation was sternly serious strangely the river neva literally seemed to highlight the social and economic divide in the city to the left of the neva were the well-to-do areas such as the winter palace official buildings and the place where the duma met to the right of the neva were the workers quarters and factories in february of 1917 workers from around 50 factories on the right bank of neva called a strike in many places the women led the strike did you know that in order to commemorate this event 22nd february is today celebrated world over as international women's day workers moved to the left side of the riverbank and by the end of the day the fashionable quarters and official buildings were surrounded by workers the government responded by calling in troops to control the situation it then suspended the duma this was the last straw the protests became louder and more violent the soldiers refused to fire at the protesters instead they joined them the striking workers and the soldiers got together and formed the petrograd soviet the tsar was finally forced to abdicate russia was finally free from the monarchy and a provincial government was formed lenin saw this as the aptime to return to russia from his exile he propagated the three key points from his april theses bringing the war to an end transferring land to the peasants and the nationalization of banks in addition he wanted the bolshevik party to rename itself as the communist party a provincial government headed by karensky saw lenin as a threat and started arresting the bolsheviks and resisting the spread of their ideas lenin feared that karensky was setting up a dictatorship and he convinced the bolsheviks to stage an uprising he appointed a military revolutionary committee under leon trotsky to organize the uprising october 1917 the bolsheviks with the help of leon trotsky successfully ceased par from the provincial government so the year 1917 was very eventful for russia as it saw the fall of the monarchy the rise and fall of the karensky government and finally the rise of lenin and the bolsheviks lennon headed the soviet union till his death in 1924 after this joseph stalin took over the reigns from him one of the problems that stalin faced towards the beginning of his tenure was the acute shortage of grain as part of the five-year plan implemented by lenin the government had fixed the price of grain however the peasants did not want to sell to the government at these prices to counter this party members rated kulaks or well-to-do peasants for grains as a solution to the grain shortage stalin decided to enforce collectivization of farms peasants were forced to work in collective farms called kolkos and the profits were shared equally anyone who resisted was caught and punished and sometimes deported or exiled stalin was not entirely successful as the production of grain did not increase immediately in fact in 1930 the soviet union faced one of the worst famines in history leaving over four million people dead [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you