Causes and Consequences of The Russian Revolution
Causes and Consequences of The Russian Revolution
Causes and Consequences of The Russian Revolution
REVIEW
Causes
• Widespread suffering under autocracy—a form of government in which one
person, in this case the czar, has absolute power
• Weak leadership of Czar Nicholas II—clung to autocracy despite changing times
• Poor working conditions, low wages, and hazards of industrialization
• New revolutionary movements that believed a worker-run government should
replace czarist rule
• Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1905), which led to rising unrest
• Bloody Sunday, the massacre of unarmed protestors outside the palace, in 1905
• Devastation of World War I—high casualties, economic ruin, widespread hunger
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• The March Revolution in 1917, in which soldiers who were brought in for crowd
control ultimately joined labor activists in calling “Down with the autocracy!”
Consequences
• The government is taken over by the Bolshevik Party, led by V. I. Lenin; later, it
will be known as the Communist Party.
• Farmland is distributed among farmers, and factories are given to workers.
• Banks are nationalized and a national council is assembled to run the economy.
• Russia pulls out of World War I, signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, conceding
much land to Germany.
• Czarist rule ends. Nicholas II, his wife and five children are executed.
• Civil war, between Bolshevik (“red”) and anti-Bolshevik (“white”) forces, sweeps
Russia from 1918 to 1920. Around 15 million die in conflict and the famine
• The Russian economy is in shambles. Industrial production drops, trade all but
ceases, and skilled workers flee the country.
• Lenin asserts his control by cruel methods such as the Gulag, a vast and brutal
network of prison camps for both criminals and political prisoners.
PRACTICE
1 One factor that led to the Russian 4 The Gulag was a network of
Revolution was
A labor activists.
A problems associated with
B revolutionaries.
industrialization.
C prison camps.
B civil war between “red” and “white”
forces. D worker-owned factories.
C nationalization of the banking
industry.
D the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
5 Which event was a direct result of
the Russian Revolution?
A The Russian economy rebounded.
2 Who was the leader of the B Factory workers began to demand
Bolsheviks? their rights.
A Nicholas II C Russia was defeated in the
Russo-Japanese War.
B Karl Marx
D Russia pulled out of World War I.
C V. I. Lenin
D Joseph Stalin