Fall of the Czars through the Cold War
The Fall of the Czars
Russia was becoming powerful, but the lives of its serfs had not improved. For hundreds of years, Russia had been divided into two groups - the very rich and the very poor. Tension between the two groups began to rise.
In 1855, a new czar, Alexander II, came to the throne. He, too, wanted Russia to be more like European nations. One way to do that, he believed, was to have the czars and the wealthy give up some of their powers. In 1861, a few years before Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in; the United States, Alexander freed the serfs and gave them their own land Towns were given more control over their own affairs However, Alexander’s son, Czar Alexander III, reversed many of his father’s reforms. The country again came under harsh rule.
In 1894, Nicholas II became czar. He would be the last. After Russia was badly beaten in a war with Japan in 1904 and 1905, unrest grew among serfs and workers. On January 22, 1905, thousands of workers in St. Petersburg marched on the WinterPalace to ask the czar for reforms. They were met by troops, who fired into the crowd, killing hundreds.
After this mass killing, known as Bloody Sunday, Czar Nicholas was forced to agree to establish the Duma, a kind of congress. Members were elected by the people. The Duma held power, along with the czar, until 1917. Progress toward reform had been made. Some people wanted more, however, as you will read in the next section.
Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union
On the afternoon of April 16, 1917, a small group of Russians gathered at a railroad station in a German town. Among them
was a man named Vladimir Lenin. Earlier, the Russian government had thrown Lenin out of Russia and told him not to return. He had been spreading ideas that the government thought were revolutionary— ideas that could cause a revolution, or the overthrow of a government
Now the Germans were supplying a train to take Lenin back to Russia. The Germans made two rules. No member of Lenin’s group could leave the train or talk to any Germans during their journey. The Germans, too, knew that ideas can be more powerful than any army. Germany was at war with Russia and hoped that Lenin would cause changes in Russia. And he did. Lenin led one of the most important revolutions in history.
The Russian Revolution
To understand why the Germans helped Lenin, you need to go back to 1914. That year, Russia entered World War I, fighting against Germany. It was a harsh war. Millions of Russian soldiers were killed or wounded. At home, people suffered severe food and fuel shortages. By March 1917, the Russian people began rioting. Troops were sent to put down the uprising. However, they joined the people instead. The czar was forced to give up his throne. A weak government took over.
In November 1917, Lenin and his supporters pushed the weak government aside. Lenin knew the Russians wanted peace more than anything else. In March 1918, Russia signed an agreement with Germany and withdrew from World War I. This was just what the Germans had hoped for.
As the new leader of Russia, Lenin wanted a communist government. Communism is a theory that says all the people should own the farms and factories. Everyone should share the work equally and receive an equal share of the rewards.
In theory, communism appealed greatly to many of the Russian people. Remember the deep split between Russia’s rich and poor? For hundreds of years, Russia’s poor had suffered terrible hardships while the rich lived in luxury. In a communist nation, everyone is supposed to be equal. Lenin told the workers and serfs that communism would bring fairness and equality to all Russians.
Building a CommunistState
The treaty with the Germans ended the war, but peace did not come. After the Communists came to power, there was a terrible civil war, a war between groups inside a country. On one side were the Communists. On the other were many groups opposed to them.
The Russian civil war lasted three years and cost millions of lives. Finally, the Communists won. In 1922, Lenin created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), also called the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was made up of Russia and smaller areas, or republics, under Russian control.
Lenin began taking steps to turn the Soviet Union into a communist country. He jailed and even killed people who opposed him. Such people were enemies of the revolution, he said. Lenin died in 1924. He was followed by Josef Stalin, whose rule would be even more harsh.
Stalin’s Dictatorship
Josef Stalin was a dictator, a leader who has absolute power. Stalin did not care about the suffering his decisions caused. For example, he wanted to build industry in the Soviet Union. He knew that factory workers would need plenty of food. Therefore, Stalin forced serfs to give their farm products to the government. When the serfs opposed the plan, Stalin sent millions of them to prison camps in Siberia. Most died there. And when people questioned him about other actions, Stalin simply got rid of them. He sent them to the camps, or had them executed. All of the Soviet Union lived in terror of Stalin.
World War II
IIn 1939, Stalin signed an agreement with the Germans. It stated that the two countries would not fight each other. But the Germans invaded anyway. In 1941, three million German soldiers, with tanks and airplanes, drove deep into the Soviet Union.
For a time, a German victory appeared likely. Soviet cities were destroyed, and millions of soldiers died or were captured. But the Soviet people, helped by the harsh Russian winter, fought bravely. In 1943, the Soviets began pushing the Germans back toward their own borders. By 1945, Soviet troops had captured Berlin, the capital of Germany.
The Cold War
After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were the world’s two strongest countries. They were so much stronger than other countries that people called them “superpowers.” Relations between the superpowers were very tense, though the two sides never fought each other. This time of tension without actual war, which lasted roughly from 1945 until 1991, is called the Cold Ware
Causes of the Cold War
Two things caused the tension. First was the problem of Eastern Europe. During World War II, the Soviet army moved westward all the way to Berlin. As the army advanced, it freed Eastern European countries the Germans had conquered. But after the war, Soviet troops did not leave. The Soviets forced these countries to become communist. Most contact with the West was cut off. British leader Winston Churchill said that it was as if an “iron curtain” had fallen across Eastern Europe, dividing East and West.
Second, the Soviets tried to expand their power beyond Eastern Europe. They encouraged rebels in other nations to turn to communism. The United States was determined to stop this. The superpowers often backed opposing sides in conflicts in Asia and Africa. The superpowers also built powerful weapons to use against one another. By the 1960s, they had enough nuclear bombs to destroy the entire world.
Collapse of an Empire
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s economy did not grow fast enough. The government invested most of its money in heavy industries, such as steel. It paid little attention to consumer goods, such as cars or blue jeans, that the common person might enjoy.
By the early 1980s, almost all of the Soviet people had lost faith in the communist system. They did not want the government to control almost every part of their lives. In the mid-1980s, one Soviet leader responded. Mikhail Gorbachev, who took power in 1985, made many changes in the Soviet system. He allowed more personal freedom. He also reduced government control of the economy.
Often, when people have a taste of freedom, it makes them want more. By the late 1980s, this happened across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Eastern European countries abandoned communism. And the Soviet republics demanded their independence. They wanted to decide their own futures. Finally, at the end of 1991, the Soviet Union broke apart. Russia and most of the former Soviet republics became independent nations.
Today, Russia faces a huge challenge. For hundreds of years, the Russian people have suffered hardships, under the czars and under communism. Now Russians control their own fate. It is up to them to build a new way of life.