The Russian Revolution: Ten Things to Know.

Early 1900s

Ten things about the Russian Revolution.

a little bit of knowledge about the Russian Revolution

Being a Russian peasant in the early 20th century was a lifestyle choice, right?

That’s a tough question to answer, so I’ll provide the basic talking points: Russian nobles had most of the power. And most of the land. The upshot was that peasants worked very long hours for very little payoff with very little to eat on land they didn’t own.

Now that I think about it, it’s not such a tough question. The answer is no: peasants did not have it easy, and most likely did not choose to follow a ‘peasant lifestyle.’

Why didn’t they complain to the President?

The Romanov family was the dominant figure in politics, and Russian nobles had all - or almost all - of the power.

The Romanovs lived a very wealthy lifestyle. This was not popular with the peasants. And if peasants ever tried to complain, well…they would have to go through Rasputin.

Who is Rasputin again?

From a story-telling standpoint, Rasputin is a fantastic figure. From a good-human-being standpoint, he’s a devious, manipulative, mysterious, and horrific figure in history. He was a monk who came to exert a powerful influence on the Romanovs, and therefore 1900s Russia in general.

How did Rasputin gain this power?

The short version is that many Romanov men had a blood disorder known as hemophilia. It has to do with blood not clotting properly. A tiny cut isn’t a big deal for most people. But a tiny cut for someone with hemophilia means that you start bleeding…and bleeding and bleeding, because the blood won’t clot.

Rasputin, as a monk, claimed to have special powers that could help the family. The world back then was different in a lot of ways, but also, it was very similar to the world we know today in certain ways. For example, there are figures today who claim to have special powers, or special knowledge, or be the very best at something, when the evidence not only does not support that assertion, but in fact contradicts it. But rather than looking at the evidence, many people choose to look to the person themself. That is what many did with Rasputin. They simply believed him and his claims.

Except not everybody did. This is where things get really interesting. Some Russian nobleman finally decided to get rid of him, because remember, he had become very powerful. They decide to kill him. Except…it doesn’t seem to work. Seriously. They poison him, they shoot him, they shoot him again. Still, he doesn’t die. Eventually they throw him in the river, and at that point, he allegedly dies. Or…does he?

Back to the Romanovs

World War I is beginning. Czar Nicholas eagerly volunteers the Russian army into it. However, there’s more men than guns, and there’s way more men than there is food. Not good statistics. These are not numbers that make one popular.

Nicholas, like many in positions of power they shouldn’t be in, decided to share the blame. In fact, he decided to reject any blame, and to fire the General in charge. Who should take over? None other than Nicholas himself. This brings us to the beginning of a good conversation about how to place trust in people operating within the scope of their authority.

So Nicholas becomes General, and the problem is, when you take on something like this, then you also make it much more difficult to reject responsibility, or the finger pointing that comes when millions of men are dying and millions more are starving.

What’s a Czar-General to do?

At some point, the Michael Jordans and Tom Bradys of the world decide to retire. Technically, some of these guys do some version of retire, unretire, re-retire, et cetera. But at some point, even the non-superstars decide to retire for good. Czar-General Nicholas II decided to retire. To retire to the country. This actually seems like a pretty good idea. Maybe not exactly going out on top. But at least quitting before you’re dead.

So Russia’s back on track to greatness with the Romanovs out of the way?

No. A guy named Kerensky is in charge. The Romanovs are in Siberia, hopefully staying warm, and away from mobs of people wanting to murder them. However, things don’t totally go Kerensky’s way either. The Great War is still going. Remember, it was called The Great War because people couldn’t fathom that there could ever be a war bigger and worse than this one. It was only later on that it retroactively became known as World War I. At the time, it was The Great War. And it was still going.

At some point, things are so bad that consequences start to become meaningless. Perhaps that’s how many in the Russian Army felt. How much worse could things get if they deserted? Many took their weapons, headed home, and murdered who they felt like. Generally, they felt like murdering the people with the power who had sent them off to die. This would be the nobility. The landowners.

They killed them and took their land. This starts to create what we call ‘a power vacuum.’

I don’t know who to go for - who are the good guys here?

Remember, this is early in the 1900s. Specifically, 1917. Deep into The Great War. Looking back, there are are people now who might call these people who attacked and murdered the landowners ‘the bad guys.’

And that is a bad thing. Murdering people is not a good thing. Yet…it’s also complicated. These acts of violence were in reaction to many years of oppression and pent-up rage at how the serfs and peasants of Russia had been starved, bullied, beaten, coerced, controlled, silenced, and killed…over and over, and always expected to know their place and remember their lives were replaceable for Mother Russia. A person can start to understand where that rage might come from - and why it’s a good idea to have a sense of history before denouncing different groups in the present and demanding they sit down, shut up, and live with the way things are…which is fine, if you’re a landowner (past) or part of a system that benefits from the way things are (present).

So here comes the controversial part: the name of the group that seized the landowners’ lands? The Bolsheviks.

Who was leader of the Bolsheviks? Vladimir Illich Lenin.

Why is that so controversial now? Because Lenin is one of the big forefathers of Communism. And Communism, as an epithet and label, is a loaded word these days.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks felt justified in taking over landowners’ estates because they had spent centuries building them and getting wealthy on the backs of the poor; the peasants and serfs who worked hard for very little. They thought that land should be used by all. Not just the wealthy.

Perhaps it’s not a massive surprise that this idea was very popular with the poor and very non popular with the wealthy.

Okay, so Lenin and the Bolsheviks have some land now. Just a transfer of ownership though, no big deal, right?

Uh yeah. Big deal actually.

In October 1917, Lenin and some of his friends - 25,000 other angry folks - attacked St. Petersburg, which is where the government was based. They took over offices, the palace, everything. Now they’re in charge. All good.

They change their name of the party from Bolshevik to Communist, to reflect the communal idea that everyone worked together for the benefit of all.

And they exit Russia out of The Great War. Done. All good.

Fine, so Russia’s Communist now, as of October 1917. Next is the Cold War?

Nope. We’re a ways off from that. Russia’s out of The Great War. But the Bolsheviks/Communists want to make sure that the Czar and royal family can never take things back to the way they were. So they eliminate them. Remember, the Romanovs are tucked away in Siberia, away from the Revolution.

But the Revolution comes to them, on a dark and tragic night in July 1918. The Romanovs are murdered and their dynasty, ongoing since the early 1600s, is no more. The Communists are officially in charge.

Russia is still poor though. But the Communists have a solution: no more private property ownership.

All the land, all the property would belong to the government. Businesses would belong to the government. Everything - hospitals, gyms, bookstores, apartment complexes, utilities, everything would be owned by the government.

The idea was the government would make sure everybody had what they needed, and no one group would be in control and in power. Works in theory?

But in practice, it does not work. It did not work. Anytime you get a group of people together and try to share power, there will be an inequitable distribution of it.

This is exactly what happened. Russia no longer had Czars and landowners controlling their lives. They now had a small group of powerful men, within the Communist party, controlling their lives.

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