0:03 1894 Nicholas II has just been coronated
0:05 as the Emperor of Russia before
0:06 continuing there's a technical matter
0:08 which needs to be resolved the calendar
0:10 to simplify the Russian calendar was 13
0:12 days behind the Gregorian calendar in
0:13 use today which is why some things like
0:15 the October Revolution are said to have
0:17 occurred in November for this episode
0:19 both calendars will be used so Nicholas
0:21 II was an absolute monarch which meant
0:23 that he had the final say on everything
0:25 concerning the Russian Empire which was
0:27 huge during the late 19th century Russia
0:30 had seen rapid industrialization along
0:31 alongside this came new ideas such as
0:33 the Communist ideals of a certain KL
0:35 Marx which led to the workingclass of
0:37 Russia demanding greater representation
0:39 so to grossly oversimplify communism is
0:41 a political ideology which argues that
0:43 the means of production such as Factory
0:45 should be collectively owned by everyone
0:47 as opposed to individuals it wanted to
0:49 abolish social classes and believed that
0:50 the economy should be entirely
0:52 controlled by the central government the
0:54 Imperial Russian government suffered
0:55 from being somewhat distant and
0:57 incompetent for example agriculture was
0:58 slow to industrialize and there were
1:00 numerous foreign policy fail failings
1:02 the most notable of these failings were
1:03 the ones which caused conflict with the
1:05 Japanese leading to the 1904 Russo
1:08 Japanese war so to simplify the reasons
1:09 for war can largely be chalked up to
1:11 Japan expanding its influence in Korea
1:13 and Russia refusing to accept it
1:14 Japanese decided that war would settle
1:16 it and so launched a sneak attack
1:17 against the Russian Fleet in Port Arthur
1:19 which Russia had leased from China the
1:21 Japanese would continue with a string of
1:22 Victories such as the Battle of mton and
1:24 the Battle of tsushima this embarrassed
1:25 the Russians and during peace
1:27 negotiations led by certain Sergey V
1:29 Russia lost Port Arthur in half of here
1:31 unfortunately for Russia military defeat
1:33 wasn't their only problem at this time
1:35 the most notable event was called Bloody
1:36 Sunday in which a priest called father
1:38 gapon LED A procession through Russia's
1:40 capital St Petersburg to present a
1:41 petition to the emperor the crowd was
1:43 fired upon leading to hundreds of deaths
1:45 which then caused riots across the
1:47 Empire V was tasked with ending the
1:49 rioting and presented a compromise the
1:51 formation of political parties and an
1:53 elected assembly called the Doomer for
1:55 the record this dumer was mostly useless
1:56 since it had no Authority and Nicholas
1:59 II could still do whatever he wanted
2:00 there were some ctions and the emperor
2:03 appointed a new prime minister Pi sppin
2:04 sppin would bring about much needed
2:06 agricultural reform before being
2:08 assassinated in a theater in 1911 in
2:11 front of the emperor 1914 was a big year
2:13 for Russia since St Petersburg was
2:14 renamed to petrograd because it sounded
2:16 more Russian another event which was
2:18 also probably important was the first
2:20 world war in which Russia had mixed
2:22 success to raise morale and against the
2:24 advice of literally everyone Nicholas
2:25 appointed himself as the head of the
2:27 army he left his wife Empress Alexandra
2:29 in charge of the capital with her
2:31 adviser gor Rasputin after Russia's
2:33 failings on the Eastern Front Rasputin
2:34 was blamed for corrupting the royal
2:36 family and was eventually assassinated
2:39 in 1916 Nicolas as the head of the army
2:40 was seen as responsible for the failings
2:42 of the war war fatigue and food
2:44 shortages led to protests which Nicholas
2:46 had hoped to put down with the Army well
2:47 the Army mutinied and joined the
2:49 protesters in order to calm the
2:50 situation some Russian generals met with
2:52 Nicholas and urged him to abdicate which
2:55 he did in 1917 Nicholas's abdication led
2:57 to certain exiled peoples most notably
2:59 Vladimir Lenin returning to Russia it
3:01 was people like Lenin who undermined the
3:02 new provisional government by forming a
3:05 rival one the petrograd Soviet Lenin
3:06 immediately began calling for the
3:08 overthrow of the provisional government
3:10 promising the Russian people land food
3:12 and an end to the war the provisional
3:13 government had decided not to end the
3:15 war and many people took to the streets
3:16 to protest and at the front of this
3:18 protest stood Lenin's communist faction
3:20 called the Bolsheviks the government
3:21 forces decided to open fire and many
3:23 prominent Bolshevik such as Leon trosky
3:25 were arrested and Lenin was forced to
3:27 flee to Finland trosky wouldn't spend
3:29 long in prison since the new Russian
3:30 Prime Minister Alexander kensky
3:32 appointed a new head of the army LV
3:34 cornov kensky and cornov quickly fell
3:36 out and cornov marched his troops on
3:38 petrograd kensky released many of the
3:39 Bolshevik since their military arm the
3:41 Red Guard were the only ones that could
3:43 stop cornov cornov never reached
3:45 petrograd due to Bolshevik sabotage and
3:47 was later arrested Lenin returned to
3:48 Russia and in a shocking turn of events
3:49 called for the overthrow of the
3:51 government this time the overthrow was
3:53 to be violent Lenin placed trosky in
3:55 command of the Revolution the Bolshevik
3:57 seized City infrastructure kensky fled
3:58 and shortly afterwards the Bolshevik
4:00 seized the winter the seat of the
4:02 Russian government Lenin then declared
4:03 to the petrograd Soviet that the
4:05 Bolsheviks were now in control and
4:06 trosky dismissed their opponents
4:08 immediately after the revolution Lenin
4:10 announced three decrees there was the
4:12 decree on peace which promised to put an
4:13 end to the war the decree on land which
4:15 abolished private land ownership and
4:17 allowed peasants to divide land amongst
4:18 themselves and the decree on workers
4:20 which introduced a minimum wage Lenin
4:22 also brought in universal healthcare and
4:24 education increased the rights of women
4:25 alongside accepting finland's
4:27 Declaration of Independence the
4:28 Bolsheviks announced that there would be
4:30 free and fair elections the next month
4:32 which the Bolsheviks lost this was not
4:33 what Lenin had planned so he ordered the
4:35 red card to shut down the elected
4:36 assembly and had himself placed in
4:38 charge mosco was declared Russia's new
4:40 capital and Lin switched to the
4:42 Gregorian calendar in the march of 1918
4:44 after some tough negotiations and an
4:45 invasion trosky and the team of
4:46 delegates managed to secure a
4:48 humiliating peace with the Central
4:50 Powers this treaty the Treaty of breast
4:52 lovs gave up all of this territory to
4:54 Germany in the austr Hungarian Empire
4:56 although they themselves would be forced
4:58 to give this up in the Treaty of Vera to
5:00 many in Russia this peace was long du to
5:01 others such as the Czechoslovakian
5:03 Legion it was a complete betrayal the
5:05 Czechoslovakian Legion had fought for
5:06 Russia in the first world war in return
5:08 for Czechoslovakian independence from
5:10 the austr Hungarian Empire after peace
5:12 was declared they revolted their initial
5:14 success spurred other enemies of the
5:16 Bolsheviks to take up arms as well thus
5:17 beginning the Russian Civil War in
5:19 Earnest in terms of the factions the
5:20 Bolsheviks and their supporters are
5:22 called the Reds those who opposed them
5:24 are known as the whites Britain France
5:26 Japan and the United States elected to
5:28 intervene on the side of the whites it
5:30 was mostly to reopen the Eastern Front
5:31 against Germany but there was also a
5:33 great worry about the spread of
5:35 Communism the whites were initially very
5:36 successful but it wasn't long before
5:38 their progress stalled this was because
5:39 they weren't very unified and many of
5:41 those fighting against the Bolsheviks
5:42 were fighting for their own independence
5:44 not to restore the Russian Empire the
5:46 white generals were also somewhat
5:48 useless for example Alexander kak
5:50 struggled to keep his officers sober
5:52 insulted his allies and executed tens of
5:53 thousands of people turning them to the
5:55 Bolshevik cause he did manage to capture
5:57 a cinberg where the former Emperor was
5:59 being held the Bolsheviks didn't want
6:01 the the emperor to fall into enemy hands
6:03 and so he and his family were executed
6:06 on July the 17th 1918 the Reds had the
6:08 advantage of geography their territory
6:09 was much more Compact and had greater
6:11 levels of industrialization it had
6:13 better infrastructure lines of
6:15 communication raw materials and a larger
6:17 population to maintain order in this
6:19 area the Bolsheviks began what is called
6:20 the Red Terror this involved sending
6:22 dissidents to work camps shooting
6:23 protesters and trosky holding the
6:25 families of generals hostage so they'd
6:27 stay loyal eventually it became clear to
6:28 the Allies that the Bolsheviks were
6:30 going to win the iies withdrew and the
6:31 Czechoslovakian Legion returned to
6:33 Czechoslovakia which was Independent by
6:35 then anyway the collapse of the Russian
6:37 and austr Hungarian Empires meant that
6:38 many peoples in Eastern Europe were
6:40 looking to establish their own Nations
6:42 and borders the Polish led by Yosef
6:44 pitsky wanted to expand the newly
6:46 independent Poland at the cost of Russia
6:48 at the same time the Bolsheviks were
6:49 also looking to spread communism to
6:51 their neighbors and reconquer Russia's
6:53 old territories the Bolsheviks also
6:54 believed that the turmoil in Germany and
6:56 the former austr Hungarian Empire meant
6:57 that Communist governments could be set
7:00 up there as well in 199 19 the Polish
7:02 invaded Ukraine and captured KB the
7:03 Bolsheviks counter attacked and forced
7:05 the Polish all the way back to Warsaw
7:07 the Polish repulsed the attack thus
7:08 maintaining their independence and
7:10 stopping Bolshevik forces from entering
7:12 Germany these borders were established
7:13 with Ukraine and Belarus becoming
7:15 socialist republics which were
7:17 essentially Russian puppet States having
7:18 failed to spread communism to Eastern
7:21 Europe for now the Bolsheviks moved to
7:22 secure their position in Russia Lenin
7:24 turned to fixing Russia's economic WS by
7:27 implementing the New Economic Policy
7:28 this allowed some private Enterprise a
7:30 distinctly non bevic ideal to help
7:33 Revitalize the economy in 1922 Russia
7:35 and its surrounding socialist republics
7:36 which were nothing more than puppet
7:38 States agreed to form the Union of
7:40 Soviet Socialist republics Lenin had
7:43 become unwell during the early 1920s and
7:44 after a series of Strokes was left
7:47 bedridden until his death in 1924
7:48 Lenin's death left the power vacuum
7:50 which only two men could fill the first
7:52 was trosky the second was a certain
7:54 Joseph Stalin Stalin had played a role
7:56 in the Russian Revolution prior to this
7:58 first as an editor of the bevic
7:59 newspaper and also as a commander in the
8:01 Red Army during the invasion of Poland
8:03 by the time of Lenin's death Stalin held
8:05 the position of General Secretary the
8:07 highest political post in the USSR
8:09 Stalin was able to forge alliances with
8:10 other prominent party members and
8:13 concealed Lenin's criticisms of him so
8:14 Trotsky and Stalin held two distinct
8:16 positions with how to proceed trotsky's
8:18 position is known as permanent
8:19 revolution trosky felt that unless
8:21 socialist Revolution was encouraged in
8:23 other countries the Bolshevik Revolution
8:24 would Hal and it would become impossible
8:26 for the Soviet Union to survive whereas
8:28 starling's belief known as socialism in
8:30 one country argued that socialism within
8:32 the USSR should be strengthened before
8:34 it could be exported anywhere else so
8:36 long story short Stalin was victorious
8:38 in the struggle for power and in 1929
8:40 trosky was exiled from the Soviet Union
8:41 he ended up in Mexico where he was
8:44 assassinated in 1940 after his victory
8:46 Stalin began to tighten his grip over
8:48 the Soviet Union he did this via purges
8:50 assassination censorship and a secret
8:53 police force the nkvd Stalin removed
8:54 many members of the Communist party and
8:56 famously purged the officers in the Red
8:58 Army Stalin's most famous Tools in
8:59 maintaining order were the goo LX the
9:02 successor to Lenin's work camps the
9:03 conditions in these camps were almost
9:05 unbearable and the mortality rates were
9:07 incredibly High Stalin wasn't just a
9:08 tyrant he also brought about many
9:10 domestic reforms such as the 5-year
9:12 plans which were designed to improve
9:13 industrial output which it did to a
9:16 miraculous degree another reform
9:17 introduced was collectivization whereby
9:19 farmers were forced to unite their farms
9:21 in order to increase crop yields and
9:23 speed up mechanization it should be
9:24 remembered that Stalin's reform has
9:26 changed Russia from an Empire struggling
9:28 to keep up to a political and economic
9:31 Powerhouse so in conclusion the legacy
9:32 of the Russian Revolution is hard to
9:34 measure in many respects all it did was
9:36 replace one authoritarian regime with
9:38 another it's worth noting that the
9:40 actions of Lenin trosky Stalin and many
9:41 others helped turn Russia into a
9:43 superpower one which was vital to
9:45 stopping the Nazis one area where it
9:47 definitely changed the world was that it
9:48 marks the last point in which Russia and
9:51 the West saw each other as allies I hope
9:52 you enjoyed this episode and thank you
