The Russian Revolution – NDA History Notes

Introduction

Russia in the early twentieth century was a country of extreme contradictions. The Tsar ruled with absolute power. The peasants had almost nothing. A small industrial working class was growing in the cities, but it had no rights and no voice. This combination, poverty, autocracy, and rising awareness, made revolution almost inevitable.

The Russian Revolution did not happen in one moment. It happened in stages. There was a failed uprising in 1905. There were two revolutions in 1917, one in February and one in October. The February Revolution removed the Tsar. The October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power. Together, they created something entirely new in human history: the world’s first socialist state.

Russia became the first socialist state in the world after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. [NDA 2013-II]

This chapter covers what that state was, how it came to exist, who made it happen, and why it mattered. The single most important sentence for NDA in this chapter is the one above. Everything else explains why that fact matters.

Timeline

1894 CE      →  Nicholas II becomes Tsar: refuses all constitutional reform
1898 CE      →  Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) founded
1903 CE      →  RSDLP splits: Bolsheviks (Lenin) and Mensheviks (Martov)
22 Jan 1905  →  Bloody Sunday: guards fire on peaceful petitioners in St. Petersburg
1905 CE      →  First Soviet (workers’ council) formed in St. Petersburg
Oct 1905     →  October Manifesto: Tsar promises Duma (elected legislature)
1914 CE      →  Russia enters World War I: catastrophic losses follow
1915 CE      →  Nicholas II takes personal command of army: political mistake
Feb 1917     →  Bread riots → strikes → city-wide uprising in Petrograd
2 Mar 1917   →  Tsar Nicholas II abdicates: Romanov dynasty ends
                  Provisional Government formed under Alexander Kerensky
Apr 1917     →  Lenin returns from exile: issues April Theses
                  Slogans: “Peace, Land, Bread” and “All Power to the Soviets”
25–26 Oct 1917  →  Bolsheviks seize Petrograd: Provisional Government falls
                    Russia becomes world’s first socialist state [NDA 2013-II]
Mar 1918     →  Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: Russia exits WWI, surrenders vast territories
1918–21 CE   →  Civil War: Red Army (Bolsheviks) vs White Army (opponents)
1922 CE      →  USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) formally established
1924 CE      →  Lenin dies: Stalin eventually takes control

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1. Tsarist Russia: A Country Ready to Break

Russia in 1900 was one of the largest countries in the world, but also one of the most unequal. The Tsar, the emperor, held absolute power. Nicholas II, who came to the throne in 1894, believed that God had given him the right to rule without question. He refused to share power with any elected body. Below the Tsar, a small class of nobles and landowners controlled most of the land. The vast majority of Russians were peasants who lived in poverty, worked the land in backward conditions, and had no political rights.

In the cities, a new industrial working class was forming. These workers worked long hours in dangerous conditions for very low wages. They had no trade unions, no right to strike, and no representation in government. Russia was beginning to industrialise, but it was doing so without giving workers any of the protections that workers in Britain or Germany had slowly won. This gap between a modernising economy and an unreformed political system created enormous pressure.

The conditions that made revolution inevitable: Tsar Nicholas II held absolute power with no accountability to any parliament; Russia had no constitution and no elected national legislature until 1905; the peasantry made up over 80% of Russia’s population and faced poverty, food shortages, and high taxes; the industrial proletariat (urban working class) was small but growing rapidly, facing 12–14 hour working days with no rights; and Marxist ideas began spreading among Russian intellectuals and workers in the 1890s.

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2. The Social Democrats: Bolsheviks and Mensheviks

Marxist political activity in Russia led to the formation of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1898. The party quickly split into two factions at its 1903 congress. This split shaped the entire history of the revolution.

Vladimir Lenin led one faction. Lenin argued that revolution could not happen spontaneously. It required a small, tightly disciplined party of professional revolutionaries to lead the working class. His faction won a narrow vote at the 1903 congress and called themselves the Bolsheviks: from the Russian word bolshinstvo, meaning “majority.”

The other faction disagreed. They believed the party should be broad and democratic, open to mass membership. They were called the Mensheviks: from menshinstvo, meaning “minority.” The names stuck even though the actual numbers often reversed.

Group	Leader	Core Idea	Method
Bolsheviks	Vladimir Lenin	Small, disciplined vanguard party leads revolution	Immediate socialist revolution
Mensheviks	Julius Martov	Broad, democratic socialist party	Gradual reform through stages

NOT Mensheviks = majority. NOT Bolsheviks = minority. Bolsheviks (from bolshinstvo = majority) won the 1903 vote. Mensheviks (from menshinstvo = minority) lost it. The names appear to suggest the opposite of what they mean, the most common confusion in this chapter.

In 1917, this split determined who took power. The Bolsheviks acted decisively; the Mensheviks did not. Lenin’s concept of the vanguard party became the model for communist parties worldwide.

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3. The Revolution of 1905: The Dress Rehearsal

On 22 January 1905, a peaceful procession of workers marched to the Tsar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. They were led by a priest named Father Gapon. They carried a petition asking for better wages, shorter working hours, and an elected parliament. The Tsar’s guards opened fire on the crowd. Hundreds were killed. This day became known as Bloody Sunday.

Bloody Sunday triggered a wave of strikes, peasant uprisings, and mutinies across Russia. The mutiny on the battleship Potemkin became a famous symbol of military discontent. Workers in St. Petersburg formed the first Soviet: a council of elected workers’ representatives: to coordinate the strikes.

The Tsar’s government was shaken. Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto in 1905, promising a constitution and an elected national legislature called the Duma. The revolution was suppressed, but Russia was changed.

The 1905 revolution failed: the Tsar survived. It is called the “dress rehearsal” because it previewed the dynamics of 1917 but stopped short of toppling the regime. The Duma was established but the Tsar kept most of his power and repeatedly dissolved it when it challenged him.

NOT a successful revolution. NOT the fall of the Tsar. The Tsar survived 1905. The 1905 events were a rehearsal, not the performance.

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4. World War I: The Final Breaking Point

Russia entered World War I in 1914 on the side of Britain and France. The war was a disaster. The Russian army was poorly equipped and badly commanded. Millions of soldiers died. Russia suffered approximately 1.7 million military deaths. Estimates suggest nearly two million soldiers killed and millions more wounded or captured.

The war exposed every weakness of the Tsarist system. The transport network collapsed, causing food shortages in the cities. Prices rose sharply. The government could not manage the crisis. Nicholas II made the situation worse by personally taking command of the army in 1915, meaning every military defeat was now directly associated with the Tsar himself.

At home, the government fell under the influence of Grigori Rasputin, a mysterious faith healer who had gained the trust of the Tsarina by appearing to help her haemophiliac son. Conservative nobles eventually murdered Rasputin in 1916, but the damage to the regime’s credibility was done. By early 1917, even the conservative elite had lost faith in Nicholas II.

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5. The February Revolution: The Tsar Falls

By February 1917, Russia was at breaking point. Food queues in Petrograd (the renamed St. Petersburg) turned into protests. Protests turned into strikes. Strikes turned into a city-wide uprising. Crucially, when the Tsar ordered the army to suppress the protests, the soldiers refused. They joined the protesters instead.

Within days, the Tsarist government had collapsed. The Duma formed a Provisional Government under Alexander Kerensky to run the country. On 2 March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty had come to an end.

The February Revolution removed the Tsar. However, it did not end Russia’s problems. The Provisional Government made one fatal decision: it would continue fighting World War I. This decision destroyed its support among soldiers and peasants, who wanted peace above everything else.

NOT a Bolshevik revolution. NOT Lenin’s work. The February Revolution was a spontaneous popular uprising. Lenin was in exile in Switzerland when it happened. Lenin had no role in the February Revolution.

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6. Lenin Returns: The April Theses

When news of the February Revolution reached Lenin in exile, he negotiated with Germany, which wanted Russia out of the war, to travel across Europe in a sealed train. He arrived at Petrograd’s Finland Station in April 1917.

Lenin immediately rejected the Provisional Government. He issued his April Theses: a set of demands that shocked even many Bolsheviks with their boldness. He called for an immediate end to the war, transfer of land to the peasants, and transfer of power to the Soviets. His slogan was simple and powerful: “Peace, Land, Bread.” A second slogan followed: “All Power to the Soviets.”

These slogans spoke directly to what ordinary Russians wanted. The Bolsheviks began winning majorities in the Soviets of Petrograd and Moscow through the summer of 1917.

“Peace, Land, Bread” targeted three groups simultaneously: Peace for soldiers (tired of WWI), Land for peasants (wanted redistribution), Bread for urban workers (facing food shortages).

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7. The October Revolution: Bolsheviks Take Power

By October 1917, the Provisional Government was deeply unpopular. It had failed to end the war, failed to distribute land, and failed to address food shortages. Lenin was convinced the moment for revolution had arrived.

On the night of 25–26 October 1917 (by the old Russian calendar: 7–8 November by the modern calendar), the Bolsheviks acted. Armed workers and soldiers loyal to the Bolsheviks seized control of key points in Petrograd: the telegraph office, railway stations, bridges, and the State Bank. The battleship Aurora fired a blank shot as a signal for the assault on the Winter Palace, where the Provisional Government was meeting.

The Provisional Government fell almost without resistance. Power passed to the All-Russia Congress of Soviets, which the Bolsheviks now dominated. The world’s first socialist government had taken power.

Russia became the first socialist state in the world after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. [NDA 2013-II]

Event	Date	Key Detail
Bolsheviks seize Petrograd key points	Night of 25–26 Oct 1917	Telegraph, stations, bridges taken
Battleship Aurora fires signal shot	25 Oct 1917	Blank shot, not live fire
Winter Palace seized	25–26 Oct 1917	Provisional Government arrested
Congress of Soviets endorses Bolshevik power	26 Oct 1917	Lenin announces new government

NOT a popular mass uprising like the February Revolution. The October Revolution was a carefully planned seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, organised by Trotsky through the Military Revolutionary Committee. A small force of armed workers and soldiers seized key points in Petrograd overnight. NOT a democratic election. Power was taken by force.

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8. Key Personalities of the Revolution

Person	Role	Key Fact
Nicholas II	Last Tsar of Russia	Abdicated March 1917; executed with family July 1918
Vladimir Lenin	Bolshevik leader	Led October Revolution; founded Soviet state
Leon Trotsky	Military organiser	Organised the Red Army; led October insurrection in Petrograd
Alexander Kerensky	Head of Provisional Government	Chose to continue WWI; overthrown in October
Julius Martov	Menshevik leader	Opposed Lenin’s vanguard party model

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9. Aftermath: Civil War and the Formation of the USSR

The Bolshevik victory did not bring peace. A brutal Civil War broke out between the Red Army (Bolsheviks) and the White Army (opponents of the revolution, monarchists, liberals, and foreign-backed forces). Britain, France, the United States, and Japan sent troops to support the Whites. The Civil War lasted from 1918 to 1921.

To end the war with Germany, Lenin signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918). Russia gave up enormous territories, Ukraine, Finland, the Baltic states, and parts of Poland. It was a humiliating peace, but Lenin accepted it to free Russia from the war so the Bolsheviks could focus on the Civil War.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a humiliating defeat: NOT a victory or favourable settlement. Russia surrendered vast territories. Lenin called it a “breathing space.” Many Bolsheviks opposed it. It was a painful sacrifice, not a diplomatic achievement.

The Red Army, organised by Leon Trotsky, eventually won the Civil War. By 1921, the Bolsheviks controlled most of the former Russian Empire. In 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formally established.

NOT 1917 for the USSR. NOT 1922 for the revolution. Revolution = 1917. USSR = 1922. Five years separated the revolution from the formal establishment of the Soviet state.

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10. Why the Russian Revolution Mattered

The Russian Revolution changed the history of the world. For the first time, a government claimed to rule on behalf of workers and peasants, not kings or property owners. It proved that capitalism could be overthrown. It inspired socialist and communist movements in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe for the next half century.

It also frightened the capitalist powers deeply. The fear of communist revolution shaped British and American foreign policy for decades. That fear eventually produced the Cold War: the long confrontation between the USSR and the USA that defined the second half of the twentieth century.

The Russian Revolution was the first successful socialist revolution in history. It created the USSR, which became a global superpower by the mid-20th century. Lenin died in 1924 and Joseph Stalin took control of the Soviet state and transformed it further, through forced collectivisation, rapid industrialisation, and brutal political repression.

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