Questions about Russian Revolution
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What caused the Russian Revolution of 1917?
The Russian Revolution was caused by a combination of military defeats in World War I, food shortages driven by wartime inflation that pushed prices to four times their 1914 levels, deep inequality in land ownership (1.5% of the population owned 25% of the land), and Tsar Nicholas II's refusal to allow democratic reforms. The events of Bloody Sunday in January 1905, when hundreds of unarmed protesters were shot by the Tsar's troops, had already triggered a failed revolution and planted the seeds of later unrest.
What was the difference between the February Revolution and the October Revolution in Russia?
The February Revolution of 1917 resulted in Tsar Nicholas II's abdication and the creation of a Provisional Government led by the Duma, ending the Romanov monarchy. The October Revolution, organized by the Bolshevik Party, overthrew that Provisional Government and transferred power to the Soviets. The February Revolution was largely spontaneous; the October insurrection was a planned armed takeover organized by the Revolutionary Military Committee under Leon Trotsky.
Who led the October Revolution in Russia?
Vladimir Lenin led the Bolshevik Party that carried out the October Revolution, but it was Leon Trotsky who chaired the Revolutionary Military Committee and organized the actual insurrection. Bolshevik figures including Anatoly Lunacharsky, Moisei Uritsky, and Dmitry Manuilsky agreed that the October insurrection was carried out according to Trotsky's plan.
When was Tsar Nicholas II executed and who ordered it?
Tsar Nicholas II, his family, their physician, and several servants were shot in the basement of a house in Yekaterinburg during the early morning of the 16th of July 1918. Historians Edvard Radzinsky and Dmitrii Volkogonov attributed the order to Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov in Moscow, though this has never been definitively confirmed. The killing occurred as White Army troops were rapidly approaching Yekaterinburg.
How did the Russian Civil War end and who won?
The Russian Civil War ended in 1922 with a Bolshevik victory over the White Army and separatist factions. The last significant White Army holdout, the Ayano-Maysky District, fell when General Anatoly Pepelyayev capitulated in 1923. Despite facing international military support for the Whites from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and Japan, the Red Army, which numbered around five million soldiers at its peak, prevailed through domestic support and effective propaganda.
What happened to Leon Trotsky after the Russian Revolution?
Trotsky played a central role in the revolution as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee during the October insurrection and later as the organizer of the Red Army. After Lenin's death in 1924, he lost a power struggle to Joseph Stalin's anti-Trotsky bloc, was expelled from the Communist Party in 1927, lost his citizenship in 1929, and was sent into exile. He settled in Mexico City and published The Revolution Betrayed in 1937 before being assassinated on Stalin's orders in 1940.