Russia

Revolution (1917), Soviet Union, collapse (1991)

20th Century · 1914 – 2000

Russia is the largest country in the world, stretching from the Baltic region to the Pacific. In the twentieth century it passed through one of the most dramatic transformations in modern history. In 1917 the Russian Empire, already strained by war, saw the fall of the tsar and then the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin, an event known as the October Revolution. A civil war followed, and in 1922 the Bolsheviks founded the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union became a one-party communist state with a planned economy. Under Joseph Stalin it industrialised rapidly, at terrible human cost, and it was a main victor in the Second World War. After 1945 it led one side in the Cold War against the United States. Reforms begun by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s loosened the system, and in December 1991 the Soviet Union was dissolved into fifteen independent states, with the Russian Federation the largest of them.

Things happened, and the rest is history

The Russo-Japanese War and the 1905 Revolution
Event
What happened
In 1904 Russia goes to war with Japan over rival claims in Manchuria and Korea, and suffers defeats at Port Arthur, Mukden and Tsushima. On 22 January 1905 troops fire on a peaceful procession of workers in St Petersburg, an event called Bloody Sunday. Strikes, peasant unrest and mutinies spread across the empire through 1905.
The rest is history
In October 1905 Tsar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, which promised civil liberties and an elected parliament, the Duma. The regime survived by combining concessions with repression. The year showed how fragile tsarist authority was, and it gave revolutionaries experience of organising workers' councils, called soviets. Many historians see it as a rehearsal for 1917.
Sources
1. BookAscher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905: A Short History. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.
2. PrimaryOctober Manifesto. Imperial manifesto of Nicholas II, 17 (30) October 1905.
The First World War and the fall of the tsar
Event
What happened
Russia enters the First World War in August 1914 and suffers heavy defeats, beginning with Tannenberg. By 1916 the army has lost millions of men, and shortages of food and fuel afflict the cities. In late February 1917 (old style) strikes and bread protests in Petrograd turn into a mutiny of the garrison, and on 2 (15) March Nicholas II abdicates.
The rest is history
Power passed to a Provisional Government, while the Petrograd Soviet claimed a rival authority, a situation often called dual power. The government chose to continue the war, and this cost it support as defeats and hardship continued. The monarchy, which had ruled for over three centuries under the Romanovs, was gone. This opened the way for the more radical events of the same year.
Sources
1. BookFiges, Orlando. A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924. London: Jonathan Cape, 1996.
2. BookFitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
The October Revolution of 1917
Event
What happened
Lenin returns to Russia in April 1917 and calls for an end to the war and for power to the soviets. After a failed July uprising and a failed attempt by General Kornilov to march on Petrograd in August, the Bolsheviks gain support in the soviets. On the night of 24 to 25 October (old style), 6 to 7 November in the modern calendar, Bolshevik forces take key points in Petrograd and arrest the ministers of the Provisional Government in the Winter Palace.
The rest is history
The Bolsheviks formed a government led by Lenin and issued decrees on peace and on land. In January 1918 they dispersed the Constituent Assembly, in which they were a minority. In March 1918 they signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, giving up large territories. Historians still debate whether October was a popular revolution or a coup, though most agree it was carried out by a well-organised minority in favourable conditions.
Sources
1. BookRabinowitch, Alexander. The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976.
2. BookService, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. London: Macmillan, 2000.
The Civil War and the founding of the USSR
Event
What happened
From 1918 the Bolshevik Red Army fights the anti-Bolshevik White armies and various nationalist and peasant forces, while foreign powers intervene on a limited scale. The war ends in Bolshevik victory in most of the old empire by about 1921, with a severe famine in 1921 to 1922. In December 1922 Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasian republics sign the treaty creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The rest is history
The war and the harshness of wartime measures, including requisitioning of grain, shaped the new state. The Kronstadt rising of 1921 led Lenin to introduce the New Economic Policy, which allowed limited private trade. The Communist Party kept a monopoly of power. The Cheka, the secret police, was set up in December 1917 and was the first of a line of security agencies. The Soviet Union lasted from 1922 to 1991.
Sources
1. BookMawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987.
2. BookPipes, Richard. The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954.
Stalin's rise and the transformation of the economy
Event
What happened
Lenin dies in January 1924, and a struggle for succession follows. By the late 1920s Joseph Stalin has defeated rivals such as Trotsky and Bukharin. In 1928 the first Five-Year Plan begins rapid industrialisation, and from 1929 the state forces peasants into collective farms.
The rest is history
Industry grew quickly, but collectivisation was followed by a major famine in 1932 to 1933, in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other regions, which killed millions. In 1936 to 1938 the Great Terror brought mass arrests and executions, and many people were sent to the Gulag labour camps. Historians differ on exact numbers but agree they were very large. Stalin's personal rule lasted until his death in March 1953.
Sources
1. BookFitzpatrick, Sheila. Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
2. BookKotkin, Stephen. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928. New York: Penguin Press, 2014.
The Great Patriotic War
Event
What happened
On 22 June 1941 Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, breaking the non-aggression pact of August 1939. German forces advance to the outskirts of Moscow, and Leningrad is besieged for about 900 days from September 1941. The Red Army wins at Stalingrad in 1942 to 1943 and pushes west, reaching Berlin in May 1945.
The rest is history
Soviet losses were enormous, with estimates of the dead commonly placed at over twenty million, military and civilian. The victory made the Soviet Union a superpower and brought Eastern Europe under its influence. It also became a central source of pride and legitimacy for the state. The Cold War rivalry with the United States followed within a few years.
Sources
1. BookOvery, Richard. Russia's War. London: Allen Lane, 1997.
2. BookGlantz, David M., and Jonathan M. House. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.
Stagnation and Gorbachev's reforms
Event
What happened
After Stalin's death, Khrushchev denounces his crimes in a secret speech in 1956, and the system eases somewhat. Under Brezhnev, from 1964 to 1982, economic growth slows and the Soviet Union becomes bogged down in the war in Afghanistan from 1979. In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary and launches perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness).
The rest is history
Reforms freed the press and allowed partly competitive elections in 1989, but did not fix the economy. Nationalist movements grew in the Baltic states, the Caucasus and elsewhere. The Chernobyl disaster of April 1986 damaged trust in the authorities. Gorbachev's decisions not to use force to hold Eastern Europe in 1989 allowed the communist governments there to fall.
Sources
1. BookBrown, Archie. The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
2. BookTaubman, William. Gorbachev: His Life and Times. New York: W. W. Norton, 2017.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, 1991
Event
What happened
In August 1991 hardline officials try to remove Gorbachev in a coup, but it fails after three days, with Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, leading the resistance in Moscow. Ukraine votes for independence in a referendum on 1 December. On 8 December the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declare that the Soviet Union has ceased to exist, and on 25 December Gorbachev resigns.
The rest is history
Fifteen independent states emerged, with the Russian Federation taking the Soviet seat at the United Nations. The 1990s in Russia brought painful market reforms, a sharp fall in output and political conflict, including the armed clash between Yeltsin and parliament in October 1993. Yeltsin resigned on 31 December 1999 and Vladimir Putin took over as acting president.
Sources
1. BookPlokhy, Serhii. The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union. New York: Basic Books, 2014.
2. BookKotkin, Stephen. Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
The storming of the Winter Palace
Popular belief
The legend
On the night of the October Revolution, crowds of revolutionaries charge across the square and storm the Winter Palace in a great battle after the cruiser Aurora fires a signal shot. The assault is shown as a mass heroic action in which many fall.
The rest is history
The real events were far less dramatic. The Aurora did fire a blank shot, and the palace was defended by few troops, some of whom had already left. Bolshevik forces entered through unguarded doors during the night and arrested ministers, with few deaths. The vivid scenes come largely from Sergei Eisenstein's 1928 film October, and from the 1920 mass re-enactment staged in Petrograd, which involved thousands of performers. John Reed's eyewitness book Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) gives a contemporary account.
Sources
1. PrimaryReed, John. Ten Days That Shook the World. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919.
2. BookFiges, Orlando. A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924. London: Jonathan Cape, 1996.
Anastasia survived the shooting
Popular belief
The legend
After the Romanov family is shot at Yekaterinburg, the youngest daughter, Grand Duchess Anastasia, is said to have escaped. Several women claim to be her, the best known being Anna Anderson, who appears in Berlin in 1920.
The rest is history
Nicholas II, his wife, their five children and four attendants were killed by Bolshevik guards on the night of 16 to 17 July 1918. A grave with most of the remains was found near Yekaterinburg in 1979 and opened in 1991. The remains of the two missing children, a son and a daughter, were found in 2007 nearby. DNA tests identified Anna Anderson, who died in 1984, as Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish factory worker. The tests also matched the remains to the Romanov family.
Sources
1. BookMassie, Robert K. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. New York: Random House, 1995.
2. ArticleCoble, Michael D., et al. "Mystery Solved: The Identification of the Two Missing Romanov Children Using DNA Analysis." PLoS ONE 4, no. 3 (2009): e4838.
The sealed train and German gold
Popular belief
The legend
Lenin is said to have been sent back to Russia in 1917 by Germany in a sealed train, as a paid German agent whose job was to knock Russia out of the war.
The rest is history
The journey itself was real. In April 1917 Lenin and about thirty other exiles travelled from Switzerland through Germany to Sweden and then Petrograd, with German permission. The carriage was not literally sealed, but it was given extraterritorial status. The German government did hope the Bolsheviks would weaken Russia, and it funded some revolutionary propaganda. However, historians have found no proof that Lenin was a paid agent, and he built support on his own programme of peace, land and soviets.
Sources
1. BookService, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. London: Macmillan, 2000.
2. BookPearson, Michael. The Sealed Train. New York: Putnam, 1975.
Rasputin, the mad monk who ruled Russia
Popular belief
The legend
Grigori Rasputin, a mystic monk, is said to have controlled the empress and ruled Russia in secret. His murderers poisoned, shot and drowned him, and he refused to die.
The rest is history
Rasputin was a real peasant holy man who gained access to the royal family because he seemed able to ease the suffering of the heir Alexei, who had haemophilia. He was not a monk, and his political influence has been exaggerated, though his closeness to the court did damage its reputation during the war. He was killed on the night of 16 to 17 December 1916 (old style) by a group of nobles, including Prince Felix Yusupov. The autopsy report, which does not survive in full, is reported to have found no poison, and that he died from gunshot wounds.
Sources
1. BookFuhrmann, Joseph T. Rasputin: The Untold Story. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
2. BookMassie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. New York: Atheneum, 1967.

← Back to the outline

Things happened, and the rest is history

The Russo-Japanese War and the 1905 Revolution

The First World War and the fall of the tsar

The October Revolution of 1917

The Civil War and the founding of the USSR

Stalin's rise and the transformation of the economy

The Great Patriotic War

Stagnation and Gorbachev's reforms

The collapse of the Soviet Union, 1991

The storming of the Winter Palace

Anastasia survived the shooting

The sealed train and German gold

Rasputin, the mad monk who ruled Russia