Transition from Czarism/Feudalism to Communism lasts some 50 years
 

Why does Czarism last so long in Russia?
“external threats”
– lots of fighting with Swedes, Poles, Lithuanians, Mongols, Turks, Germans
serfdom
kept peasants ignorant, servile,
powerless – didn’t press for democracy
 entrepreneurial middle class
  money for industrialization came from Czars
  didn’t offer anything to the peasants
  didn’t team up with them to overthrow Czar
 landed aristocracy/nobility
  sided with the Czarist regime to maintain
  their feudal privileges
 
Orthodox Church
  preached subordination, collectivity
  suffering, passivity on Earth in exchange
  for life after death
 
 

1861 – Emancipation of the serfs
peasants “sold” land on long term mortgage
 still paying landlords
narodniki (nationalists) try to turn peasants against Czar
but they were more against the landlords than the Czar

October 1905 Revolution –
Bloody Sunday Jan 22, 1905 workers’ protest led by Orthodox priest, Father Gapon, massacred

Social Democrats/workers wage general strike
in October – to improve working conditions

Czar Nicholas II – instead grants reforms desired by middle class
creates Duma, constitution, ministerial accountability

WWI – intense hardship for the Russian people
 food shortages, harsh winter
 large numbers of soldiers desert

March 1917 general strike – Czar abdicates

New govt under Aleksandr Kerensky (PM)
refuses to end war, to redistribute land to peasants, alleviate food shortages

 
Bolsheviks/Lenin seize power October (November) 1917

Lenin in power 1917-1924 (dies)
 first radical then pulls back
 New Economic Program (NEP) – mixed economy
successful in establishing new political institutions – the party, the secret police, the soviets

Period of vying for power ends with Stalin’s victory at the 15th Party Congress in December 1927
 
Lenin’s opposition to Stalin suppressed for 30 years