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| Ruled 1881 to 1894. Reacted to the assasination of his predecessor by radical socialists by instituting a reactionary policy of "Russification, orthodoxy, and autocracy." |
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| Constitutional Democrats (Kadet) |
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| Political party formed in the 1890s. Reflected the aims of the new middle class and some liberal landowners for parliamentary government and gradual reform. |
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| Leader of the Bolshevik party. |
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| Resulted from the loss of the Russo- Japanese War. Tsar Nicholas II comissioned a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Gapon, to organize a conservative union to conteract the radical Marxists. Gapon, horrified by conditions in St. Petersburg, led a peaceful protest march. ("Bloody Sunday.) Troops fired on the crowd, provoking strikes and uprisings. Liberals demanded reforms. |
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| Successor to Alexander III. |
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| A promise for reform issued by the tsar after the Soviet of Petersburg called a general strike. Major provisions: a constitution, civil liberties, and a Duma (legislature) to represent all classes. |
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| "The mad monk." Influenced Tsarina Alexander by treating her son's hemophilia. |
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| Occured in 1917. Food riots broke out in Petrograd (St. Petersburg.) When the tsar ordered the Duma to dissolve and troops to surpress the disorder, neither obeyed. Workers and soldiers in Petrograd organized radical legislative bodies called soviets. The rebellion spread, the tsar abdicated, and Russia was proclaimed a republic, with a provincial government under Alexander Kerensky. |
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| Dictatorship of the Proletariat |
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| Proclaimed in 1918. The Bolsheviks renamed their party Communist; important industries were nationalized; Russian Orthodox Church lands were seized; and Russia pulled out of World War I, surrendering land to Germany in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. |
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| 1928. Promoted rapid industrialization by centralized planning. Coal and steel production were accelerated, and a modern transportation system was developed, using the domestic resources of the U.S.S.R. since foreign nations were hostile to the new government. |
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| 1933. Increased production of steel and heavy industry, modernized Soviet factories, created a boom when the West was in the depth of the Great Depression, and made Russia a leading industrial power. |
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| Consolidated small farms into communes, modernizing agriculture but displacing many peasant farmers. The kulaks, the most sucessful peasant farmers, were destroyed as a class. Between 5 and 12 million people, mostly in the Ukraine, perished by murder and famine. |
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| 1936- 1937. Stalin's paranoid tendencies convinced him of plots to unseat him. Many Bolsheviks and military officers were tried on trumped-up charges. As many as 1 million people were executed, and 5 to 7 million people were sent to the gulags (Siberian labor camps.) Stalin strengthened his hold over Russia and became one of the century's most powerful dictators. |
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