Russian Revolution of 1917 By: Trey Longnecker
In 1917, the autocracy of Russia was overthrown. An autocracy is a government with one person at the head. The Bolshevik Party, also known as Bolshevik Communists, now had control of government.
Communism is an ideology whose goal to have an absence of classes, state, and money. Communism also means their is common ownership of the economy.
The Bolshevik party believed in Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism is a political ideology founded on ideas of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin that seeks to establish socialist states and then develop them.
According to Encyclopædia Britannica the government was structured as a dictatorship before the revolution. A parliament had joined the government after a previous revolution, but the Tsar took away its power.
Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky had the intentions of creating a totalitarian state. According to Encyclopædia Britannica they held a democratic election, but shut it down when they lost by 16%. Opponent parties were outlawed, non-Bolshevik newspapers were outlawed, the democratically elected legislature was dispersed, and a secret police was founded.
All power was placed in the heads of the Bolshevik Party. This essentially created an oligarchy.
Above is a physical and political map of modern day Russia and the Soviet Union in 1989. The physical map depicts Russia's highlands and lowlands. The political map depicts the Soviet Union and its cities. I can infer that most of Russia's population lives in the East European Plains. I believe this is because Europe is an important center for trade, so most people work near them.
Above is a map of all the countries that the Soviet union controlled. When the USSR broke apart, these countries all formed their own countries. Russia still had the largest area. I can infer that Russia wanted to keep a connection to the Black Sea for trade to Europe. The countries that left also wanted to be near Europe.
Credits:
Created with images by Free Grunge Textures - www.freestock.ca - "USSR Grunge Flag"