Russian Revolution

In 1917, two revolutions in Russia toppled a centuries-old monarchy and then brought the Bolsheviks, a radical socialist party led by Vladimir Lenin, to power. The upheaval ended the Romanov dynasty, launched the world's first state governed under Marxist principles, and set the stage for the Soviet Union, which would shape global politics for most of the twentieth century.

The roots of the crisis lay in the late Russian Empire. Tsar Nicholas II ruled as an autocrat over a vast, largely agrarian country where peasants had little land, industrial workers faced harsh conditions, and political reform moved slowly. The 1905 Revolution had forced the creation of an elected parliament, the Duma, but the tsar kept most of his power. When Russia entered the First World War in 1914, military defeats, heavy casualties, food and fuel shortages, and inflation steadily eroded support for the regime.

The first revolution came in February 1917 (March by the Western calendar, since Russia then used the older Julian calendar). Strikes and bread protests in Petrograd, the capital, grew into mass demonstrations, and soldiers sent to suppress them joined the crowds. Nicholas abdicated within days. A Provisional Government, drawn largely from liberal and moderate socialist politicians, took charge, but it shared authority uneasily with the Petrograd Soviet, a council of workers' and soldiers' deputies. The government chose to continue the war, a decision that proved deeply unpopular, and it struggled to address land reform and economic collapse.

The Bolsheviks gained ground by promising "peace, land, and bread" and by winning majorities in key soviets, especially in Petrograd and Moscow. Lenin returned from exile in April and argued for transferring power to the soviets. After a failed uprising in July and an attempted right-wing move against the government by General Lavr Kornilov in late summer, Bolshevik influence rose sharply. In late October (early November in the modern calendar), Bolshevik forces, organized through the Petrograd Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee, took control of key points in the capital and arrested members of the Provisional Government. Historians still debate how popular the seizure was: some stress broad support among workers and soldiers, while others emphasize the role of a disciplined minority acting decisively.

The consequences were immense. The new government withdrew Russia from the war through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918, then fought a brutal civil war against anti-Bolshevik forces that lasted until about 1922 and cost millions of lives through combat, famine, and disease. The Bolsheviks, soon renamed the Communist Party, consolidated one-party rule, and in 1922 the Soviet Union was formally established. The revolution inspired socialist movements worldwide and provoked fierce opposition, laying groundwork for the ideological rivalries of the century that followed.