Tsarist Russia
This percentage of Russia's population were peasants according to the 1897 census.
What is 82%?
On 2 March 1917, this leader gave up the Russian imperial crown after army generals and Duma members persuaded him to abdicate at Pskov.
Who is Tsar Nicholas II?
On 9 January 1905, Cossack soldiers dispersed peaceful petitioners at the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, killing an estimated 130 people in this event.
What is Bloody Sunday?
This Bolshevik secret police force, formed in December 1917 and led by Felix Dzerzhinsky, was modelled on the tsarist Okhrana and used to crush all opposition to the new state.
What is the Cheka?
This self-professed healer gained enormous influence over Tsarina Alexandra by apparently helping her haemophiliac son Alexei, seriously damaging the reputation of the tsarist regime.
Who is Grigori Rasputin?
Tsar Nicholas II belonged to this royal dynasty which had governed Russia since the early 17th century.
What is the Romanov dynasty?
Lenin's powerful 1917 slogan directly addressed the three main grievances of soldiers, peasants and workers.
What is "Peace, Land and Bread"?
The October Manifesto promised the creation of this elected assembly, whose agreement would be required before any laws could pass.
What is the Duma?
Despite winning only this share of the vote in the November 1917 elections, the Bolsheviks dissolved the Constituent Assembly after just one day when it refused to approve their policies.
What is 24%?
Described by historians as "the chief organiser of the Bolshevik seizure of power," this man chaired the Petrograd Soviet from September 1917 and led the Red Guards in October.
Who is Leon Trotsky?
This 1890s policy of enforcing the Russian language, Orthodox Christianity and Russian laws throughout the empire alienated many ethnic minorities.
What is Russification?
The Provisional Government's most fatal decision, continuing this, cost it the loyalty of the army, deepened food shortages and made the Bolsheviks' message irresistible.
What is the First World War?
In April 1906, Nicholas revealed his insincerity about reform by issuing these laws, which reasserted his full autocratic power and contradicted the spirit of the October Manifesto.
What are the Fundamental Laws?
This economic policy, introduced in 1918, nationalised large-scale industry, abolished private markets and forcibly requisitioned surplus grain from peasants to supply the cities and Red Army.
What is War Communism?
During the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, this commissar for foreign affairs argued for a policy of "neither war nor peace", dragging out talks in the hope that Germany would collapse from within.
Who is Leon Trotsky?
This Finance Minister (1892–1903) pursued rapid industrialization through foreign loans, tariffs and railway expansion, one historian called it the "great spurt."
Who is Sergei Witte?
This body, formed by Trotsky within the Petrograd Soviet in October 1917, was supposedly created for defence but its real purpose was armed insurrection against the Provisional Government.
What is the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC)?
Stolypin's agricultural reforms aimed to create a wealthier class of independent peasant property owners, known by this term, who would have a stake in maintaining the existing system.
What are kulaks?
This 1921 uprising at a naval base outside Petrograd, by sailors Trotsky had once called "the pride and glory of the revolution", convinced Lenin to introduce the New Economic Policy.
What is the Kronstadt Uprising?
Appointed prime minister in 1906, this statesman believed Russia should "bet on the strong" but said his reforms would need 20 years, he was assassinated at the Kiev Opera in September 1911.
Who is Pyotr Stolypin?
These local councils, set up after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, provided limited self-government in rural areas but could be overruled by governors who opposed reform.
What are zemstvos?
Lenin returned from Swiss exile to Russia in April 1917 via this, provided by the Germans who hoped his revolutionary activities would knock Russia out of the war.
What is the sealed train?
Though not mainly responsible for the 1905 Revolution, this worker institution — first appearing in St Petersburg and Moscow in 1905 — became a key feature of the 1917 October Revolution.
What are soviets?
Lenin described the New Economic Policy as "a peasant" version of this 1918 treaty, an unpleasant concession necessary to survive and advance his longer-term goals.
What is the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk?
The second prime minister of the Provisional Government, this man fatally chose to continue the war and postpone land reform, ordering the disastrous June 1917 offensive before fleeing Russia after the October Revolution.
Who is Alexander Kerensky?