oh my goodness the Russian Revolution is upon us I don't think I'm overselling it when I say that this is a massive honking deal in European history a massive honking deal that's going to set us up for major consequences in the rest of this course so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked Bolshevik style then let's get to it so as with any Revolution we've considered in European history the Russian Revolution was preceded by a few glaring problems and it was Russia's participation in World War one that blew these problems up to massive proportions first there was the problem of political stagnation remember from unit six that Russia had experienced the revolution of 1905 because the people began demanding liberal reforms from the turd tsarist government I won't go into all that here but the short version is some liberal reforms were enacted and then they were taken away and then the revolution of 1905 was largely a failure now by the time World War one rolled around Nicholas II was the Tsar and in order to quell further discontent very much leaned on his military and bureaucracy to bolster his regime and since Russia had lost millions of men to the war effort by this point Nicholas made the really dumb decision to go into the field and Lead his armies personally I know that sounds heroic but he was pretty incompetent and that led to more discontent with his leadership the second problem in Russia was social inequality though surfton was abolished in 1861 the landed Elites in many places still maintained a great deal of power and then add to that the increasing gap between the wealthy and the poor and people were not happy and all of this as I mentioned was only worsened by Russia's involvement in World War one and then the third problem they were contending with was incomplete industrialization those significant gains had been made to industrialize Russia in Prior decades World War one showed how deficient they really were Russian troops didn't have enough guns like not enough ammunition and some of them lacked adequate clothing and Footwear and these are like the basics that any state is going to need to do well in a war and finally the fourth problem they were enduring in Russia was food and land distribution again despite the abolition of serfdom most peasants were landless and food shortages were common and it was food shortages that led to the first Rumblings of the Russian Revolution in March of 1917 in an event that became known as the March Revolution the March Revolution Factory workers many of whom were women took to the streets protesting the soaring cost of their staple food items most notably Czar Nicholas was in events that the domestic turmoil that was unfolding while he was busy commanding his own troops in the field of a global war so he commanded his troops at home to subdue the uprising and then told them to go ahead and start shooting if necessary but what Nicholas did not expect was for many of his troops to feel sympathetic to the cause of these women and actually join in their protest which many of them did and so with Nicholas rapidly losing control the Russian legislature known as the Duma gathered and took control of Russia and on the same day Nicholas abdicated the throne now while this provisional government had control they faced a lot of difficulties particularly from the lower class the provisional government was largely influenced by the interest of the middle class but they increasingly had to contend with councils that represented working-class interests known as Soviets who on the majority were made up of social now one of the major movers and shakers among the Soviets were the members of the Marxist Social Democratic party who were not surprisingly devoted to the Communist ideals of Karl Marx in 1903 the party effectively split into two facts the first known as the mensheviks wanted a socialist state but they were willing to install a parliamentary democracy in the meantime the more radical effects on the other hand devoted themselves to a violent overthrow not only of the tsarist regime but also of Western capitalist value the Bolsheviks were led by Marx devotee Vladimir Lenin who in 1917 saw an opportunity for the Bolsheviks to overthrow the provisional government he publishes April Theses which outlined the steps for revolution based on Marxist reason now to be clear these steps to Communism weren't pure marks but they were Marx's ideas filtered through Lenin's own brainful Lenin essentially thought that Marxist prescribed steps toward a socialist state would take too long and therefore Lenin thought Russia could you know skip a few steps anyway the three slogans of the April Theses summed up Lennon's program succinctly number one peace land in brain and by peace he meant Russia's withdrawal from World War One by land he meant equal redistribution of land to all and by Bread he meant you know bread number two worker control of production as opposed to Elite and Bourgeois control and then number three all power to the Soviet and so in November of 1917 Lenin saw his opportunity and led Bolshevik forces to overthrow the provisional government which turned out to be a surprisingly bloodless and easy task and at that point the Bolsheviks now renamed the Communists were in control of Russia which later became known as the Soviet Union and by March of 1918 Lenin had negotiated a settlement that would remove Russia from World War One by giving up a metric buttload of Russian territory in Eastern Europe but that didn't matter much to Lenin because the goal was for Soviet communism to spread over the entire world so you know a small setback so yes Lennon didn't make good on the promise for peace in the April Theses but that's about the time Russia itself got involved in the Civil War you didn't think everybody in Russia was going to welcome the social estate with fist in the air and smiles on their faces did you you're so crazy no remember this was a revolution of the working class and now their interests reign supreme but in case you forgot the working class wasn't the only class that existed and so because of the bitterness this new forced Arrangement caused among the aristocracy and the anti-leninists along with several other now marginalized groups Russia degenerated in the Civil War the anti-communist forces were aided by several Western Powers who were none too excited about seeing a communist government installed in Russia by all counts this was a force that probably should have overwhelmed the Bolshevik Army however under the leadership of London's right hand man Leon Trotsky the Communist Army became phenomenally disciplined and organized not only that Lennon and Trotsky were able to generate Russian nationalist sentiment against these Western Interlopers and that had a way of getting people to fight the war ended in 1922 with the victory going to London and the Communists and that's when we officially get the transformation of Russia into the Soviet Union however even before the war was over Lenin was smart enough to see that Russia was in a bad way economically so in order to correct these difficulties Lennon got down and dirty and engaged in some limited capitalistic policies which became known as the New Economic Policy in 1921. under this plan peasant farmers were no longer required to send their produce to the state but rather could sell them on the open Mark also Lennon permitted private ownership of small businesses and Farms even while he retained control of larger institutions in business okay now remember what I said before namely that linen wanted to skip steps in order to get a full on communist state and the New Economic Policy was a shining example he thought that by cutting corners and introducing only a smidge of capitalism in order to shore up the economy that afterward he could chuck it and move right along to Communism but that did not work and that's important to understand because when people say that communism has never worked where it has been tried the responses well you know it's never actually been tried and Lenin is the case in porn all right click here to grab my AP Euro review pack which is everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May and click here to keep reviewing Unit 8 of AP European History I'll catch you on the flip-flop I'm Laurent