• Russian Revolution of 1917 and its success is a watershed moment in the history of the modern world. This revolution changed the course of history in a way that not many events can claim. After the revolution, Russia emerged as a superpower within a short duration of three decades.
• It also resulted in an international competition between capitalist and communist ideology.
• Russia was an autocracy ruled by Romanov dynasty and Czar was Nicholas II (1894-1917). In the second decade of twentieth century Russia was the only major European power which was still ruled by an absolute monarchy. Since the success of French revolution, Europe had witnessed many revolutions against the monarchies. In that sense, Russian revolution was not a break from the past but a continuation of events which took place in Europe. Although the character of Revolution was a bit different from earlier revolutions of Europe.

Early Society

• In the early 1900s, Russia was one of the most impoverished countries in Europe with an enormous peasantry and a growing minority of poor industrial workers.
• Much of Western Europe viewed Russia as an undeveloped, backward society. The Russian Empire practiced serfdom – a form of feudalism in which landless peasants were forced to serve the land-owning nobility – well into the nineteenth century. In contrast, the practice had disappeared in most of Western Europe by the end of the Middle Ages.
• In 1861, the Russian Empire finally abolished serfdom. The emancipation of serfs would influence the events leading up to the Russian Revolution by giving peasants more freedom to organize.

Russian Revolution of 1905

• Russia got industrialized much later than Western Europe and the United States. When it finally did, around the turn of the 20th century, it brought with it immense social and political changes.
  
  • Between 1890 and 1910, for example, the population of major Russian cities such as St. Petersburg and Moscow nearly doubled, resulting in overcrowding and destitute living conditions for a new class of Russian industrial workers.
• When the workers’ organizations were set up after industrialization began, they were dominated by the ideas of socialism. In 1883, the Russian Social Democratic Party was formed by George Plekhanov, a follower of Marx. This party along with many other socialist groups was united into the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898 .
• However, the party was soon split over questions of organization and policy.
  
  • One group which was in minority (hence known as the Mensheviks) favoured a party of the type that existed in countries like France and Germany and participated in elections to the parliaments of their countries.
  • The majority, known as the Bolsheviks, were convinced that in a country where no democratic rights existed and where there was no parliament, a party organized on parliamentary lines would not be effective.
    
    • They favoured a party of those who would abide by the discipline of the party and work for revolution. The leader of the Bolsheviks was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, popularly known as Lenin.
• A population boom at the end of the nineteenth century, a harsh growing season due to Russia’s northern climate, and a series of costly wars—starting with the Crimean War (1854-1856)—meant frequent food shortages across the vast empire. In 1904, a war had broken out between Russia and Japan. The Russian armies had suffered reverses in the war. This had further strengthened the revolutionary movement in Russia.
• Large protests by Russian workers against the monarchy led to the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1905. Hundreds of unarmed protesters were killed or wounded by the Czar’s troops. The massacre sparked the Russian revolution of 1905, during which angry workers responded with a series of crippling strikes throughout the country. After the bloodshed of 1905, Czar Nicholas II promised the formation of a series of representative assemblies, or Dumas, to work towards reforms.