The Clever Teens' Guide to The Russian Revolution: The Clever Teens’ Guides, #3

The Clever Teens’ Guide To

The Russian Revolution

By Felix Rhodes

© 2017 Felix Rhodes

Nineteenth Century Russia

The communist system unleashed by the Russian Revolution of 1917 was the greatest political experiment ever conducted. The revolution promised freedom from the shackles of imperialism, corruption and exploitation but until its collapse in 1991, the peoples of the vast Soviet empire endured 70 years of misguided socialism and totalitarianism.

The last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, ruled over a vast empire that was backward, impoverished and largely resentful of his autocratic rule. Its people demanded reform and change. It was the outbreak of war in 1914 and the strain of war that finally, in March 1917, brought down the tsar and the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty.

But the Provisional Government that overthrew the tsar proved equally ineffectual at addressing the needs of Russia’s major problems. Only the representatives of the workers, or ‘soviets’, seemed to understand the problems that lay at the heart of the empire. And from the various parties of the Soviets emerged one party and, at its helm, one man that promised a new socialist utopia. It was to this party, the Bolshevik party, and this man, Vladimir Lenin, that Russia staked its future. The consequences shaped the entire Twentieth Century and its ramifications were felt across the world. 

Alexander II

Between 1853 and 1856, Russia was embroiled in the Crimean War, fighting an alliance made up of Great Britain, France and Turkey. In March 1855, Alexander II succeeded his father as the tsar of Russia. Alexander, knowing his country was on the brink of total humiliation, helped bring the war to an end, signing the Treaty of Paris.

The war confirmed Russia’s military inferiority, its weak infrastructure and, based on serfdom, its backward economy. Alexander knew if Russia was to survive, he needed to modernize his empire.

Alexander instigated a vast improvement in communication, namely expanding Russia’s rail network from just 660 miles of track (linking Moscow and St Petersburg) in the 1850s to over 14,000 miles within thirty years, which, in turn, aided Russia’s industrial and economic expansion.

Alexander’s reformist zeal restructured the judicial system which included the introduction of trial by jury. Military reform saw the introduction of conscription, the reduction of military service from 25 years to six, and the establishment of military schools.

But reform only brought the demand for more. And so, on March 3, 1861, Alexander II issued what promised to be the most revolutionary reform in Russia’s history – his Manifesto on the Emancipation of the Serfs. Russia’s 25 million peasants had worked as virtual slaves for generations. Now, they were to be given ownership of 85 per cent of Russia’s land, thus freeing them from their bondage to the wealthy landowners. Serfs were given the right to