The Russian Revolution comprises the two political upheavals that took place in Russia in 1917 and the civil war period that ensued. This long civil unrest and fratricidal armed conflict finally ended on October 25, 1922. The first major political change of this period is known as the February Revolution, which began on March 8, 1917. During this process, the Czar Nicholas II (Romanov dynasty) was forced to abdicate and a Provisional Government was established; the leaders of this new government were Georgy Lvov and Alexander Kerensky, who did away with the monarchy once and for all and set up a republican system. The second political upheaval of 1917 was the October Revolution, which toppled the Provisional Government.
The February Revolution was brought about by a democratic progressive movement supported by the bourgeoisie (upper middle class) and the Mensheviks, who were moderate socialists and reformists. However, on October 25, 1917, a second and more radical political turmoil would take place, overthrowing the republican Provisional Government headed by Kerensky. This is called the October Revolution, which was a political cataclysm in the history of mankind. This new revolution was carried out by the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. The Bolsheviks were the Marxist left-wing group of the Russian Socialist Democratic Workers's Party, which was led by Lenin. They proceeded to nationalized all private firms and private property, establishing a communist government and a new political organization. Thus, Russia would be called Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or simply, the ''Soviet Union.''
As soon as the Bolsheviks took power in Moscow in October 1917, a violent civil war broke out. During this vicious armed struggle, the communist forces fought against the White Army, which was composed of a portion of the Imperial Russian Army, democratic politicians, and foreign volunteers. The White Army, led by Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, strove hard to overthrow the communist government and reestablish the monarchy. In this violent process, Czar Nicholas II and his whole family were executed in July 1918 by the Bolsheviks to discourage the Whites from fighting and avoid a return of the Czar to power, just like the rationale for the execution of Louis XVI during the French Revolution. There were also famines, during which many peasants died of starvation. The war ended in victory for the Bolsheviks in October 1922, when Vladivostok, the last pocket of resistance, was captured by the Red Army.
Creation of the Soviet Socialist State
Their victory in the Russian Revolution gave the Communist Party overwhelming power to become the only ruling party. Therefore, the working class, hitherto oppressed and exploited, became the dominant class. As a result, a new State was established—the State of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The first task of the socialist revolution was to smash the old state machinery and construct a new one, the Soviet State.
After destroying the bourgeois-landlord State, with its army, procurator’s office, courts, police, and bureaucratic-official apparatus, the socialist revolution deprived the exploiting classes and their parties of their most powerful means of fighting to restore the old system. The new Soviet State was the primary weapon for the defense of the conquests of the revolution against domestic and external counterrevolution and an instrument in the struggle for the construction of a socialist society.
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| Vladimir Lenin, an iconic symbol of the Russian Revolution. |
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| Lenin delivering a speech in May 1917. |