The Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War, and the Formation of the Soviet Union
Overview
The Russian Revolution: October 1917
On October 25, 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a successful revolt against the ineffective Provisional Government, an event known as the October Revolution. The Revolution resulted not only in the dissolution of Russia’s Provisional Government but also the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and members of the royal family. The monarchy was then replaced with a communist government that ruled with an intolerant, and often violent, fist for over seventy years. This event remains the seminal turning point in Russian history and for much of Eastern Europe in the twentieth century.
Learning Objectives
- Explain the key events and people of the Russian Revolution of October 1917
- Examine the long-term consequences and legacies of the Russian Revolution
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Vladimir Lenin: lead revolutionary and head of the Bolshevik party during the October Russian Revolution in 1917
Leon Trotsky: head of the Petrograd Soviet; an intellectual socialist and eventual righthand man to Lenin
soviets: small, locally-elected councils of men with ties to socialist ideas supporting workers, soldiers, and peasantry
Bolsheviks: political party of Vladimir Lenin that was considered extreme, and later became the basis of the Russian communist party
July Days: four to five days in mid-July 1917 when soldiers, sailors, and workers held armed protests against the Provisional Government
“Peace, Land, Bread!”: Lenin’s famous slogan that won the heart and support of the Russian peasantry during his “April Theses” speech in April 1917
October Revolution: successful Russian Revolution that overthrew the democratic Provisional Government and established the Bolsheviks as a military dictatorship
Execution of the royal family: plan hatched by Lenin and the Bolsheviks to eliminate any chance of a restoration of the imperial family in Russia
Ipatiev House: site where the tsar and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks
Background: Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, forever remembered by his pseudonym, Lenin, was born some four-hundred miles southeast of Moscow in 1870 in the city of Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), Russia. Lenin grew up in a middle-class home and excelled in school. Before reaching adulthood, though, his comfortable lifestyle endured two personal catastrophes that, perhaps, shaped his future career. His father died unexpectedly from a brain bleed when Lenin was a teenager. Not long after, Lenin’s older brother, Alexander, was arrested and later executed for conspiring to assassinate the Tsar.
Historians often cite these events as decisive turning points in young Lenin’s life. Ones that inspired the increasing revolutionary attitude that materialized during his time at Kazan University. Exceedingly intelligent, Lenin eventually attended law school. His passion, however, resided in the words of communism’s founder, Karl Marx.
Lenin’s revolutionary activity began in earnest around the turn of the century. He moved to Saint Petersburg, married a Marxist schoolteacher, and began writing anti-monarchist, Marxist pieces. Notably, he wrote for the Marxist paper, Iskra (Spark in English). During his time writing for Iskra he adopted the pseudonym, “N. Lenin.” His activities ultimately resulted in several temporary exiles, notably to Zurich, Switzerland. But by the time of his exile, Lenin had recruited a strong group of supporters in Russia. One that would continue throughout his exile, and grow stronger during World War I.
The February Revolution
In many ways, February Revolution of 1917 was the opening act in the larger Russian Revolution that would occur in October 1917. For over two years, Russian urban populations had suffered from reduced to meager food and fuel rations because of Russian participation in World War I. In February 1917, women in Saint Petersburg led a protest for increased rations and government reform. The protests quickly gained momentum as people from all walks of life joined the revolt. Saint Petersburg’s streets filled with demonstrators. With the tsar at the front, Tsarina Alexandra was left to handle the growing crisis. Instead of confronting or comforting the crowd, Alexandra remained inside her palace with her children.
Enormous strikes of hundreds of thousands of workers erupted across the city. From afar, Nicholas attempted to send his guards and policemen to quell the rebellion. Instead, most of his forces sided with the peasants. On March 15, 1917, Nicholas II abdicated. By doing so, the power in Russia fell from the hands of an imperial dynasty to a shaky Provisional Government.
Importantly, while the Provisional Government under Alexander Kerensky initially acted as the governing body responsible for foreign affairs, a smaller group was gaining momentum in Russia: the soviets. These groups were small, usually local councils comprised of elected officials. These officials were characterized as anti-monarchal socialists who represented the goals of the people. Notably, Saint Petersburg was home to the Petrograd Soviet. At its head was a man who later became a close ally of Lenin—Leon Trotsky. As the Revolution gained momentum, so too did the power and popularity of the Soviets, as well as the most radical of the socialist movements, which was led by the Bolsheviks and headed by Vladimir Lenin.
Vladimir Lenin’s return to Russia from his exile in Zurich, Switzerland is one of legend. News of the February Revolution had reached him, and he deemed it the right moment for a socialist state to take hold in Russia. But the question remained: how could he return to Russia from Switzerland?
After several failed efforts, Lenin found an unlikely solution in the form of the German government. Eager to see Russia knocked out of the war and correctly believing that Lenin could help churn up the revolution in Russia, the Germans proposed a deal. They offered him safe passage from Zurich through Germany in a sealed train car that carried other Russian revolutionaries. The train passed into Sweden and Finland. Then Lenin slipped back into Russia in disguise. The German gamble would soon pay off as Lenin and his associates stirred up far more discontent and rebellion than the thousands of mutinying Russian soldiers at the front.
On April 16, 1917, Lenin delivered a speech from Finland Station in Saint Petersburg titled the “April Theses.” In this speech, he highlighted the goals for his political party, the Bolsheviks. Among his demands was the claim that all power be handed over to the Soviets. He emerged as a champion of the workers, farmers, sailors, and soldiers by declaring, “Peace, Land, and Bread!" Neither he, nor his party, supported Russian war efforts. Instead, they supported peace, a redistribution of land among the working class, and improved diets for Russia’s suffering population. Unsurprisingly, as support for Lenin’s party grew, the popularity of the Provisional Government quickly diminished.
The July Days
The summer of 1917 proved far more challenging for Russia than anyone expected. With the tsar’s abdication, three-hundred years of imperial rule had ended overnight. The shaky Provisional Government made attempts to implement democratic rule, but they also chose to remain a committed ally in World War I. This decision likely caused their ultimate downfall.
Russians across the country were exhausted and tired of the costs of World War I. Historians have since estimated that nearly two million Russian soldiers were killed in the war, while nearly five million were wounded. Combined these figures suggest that over half of Russia’s army was a casualty in World War I—a far higher figure than any other army in the war. Moreover, the war had exhausted Russia’s natural resources.
In July, mobs of sailors, soldiers, and workers banded together to protest the Provisional Government’s decision to remain in the war. These armed demonstrations were known later as the July Days.
The goal of demonstrators was to overthrow the Provisional Government—which the working class feared would still put too much government power in the hands of a few, educated elites. But due to disorganization among political factions, the coup failed. Lenin, the head of the Bolshevik Party, was temporarily forced to flee over the border into Finland.
The October Revolution
By the fall of 1917, Russian food and fuel scarcity ravaged St. Petersburg. Exhaustion and anger permeated every walk of society. For Lenin and the Bolsheviks, it was a perfect recipe for a revolution.
Lenin slipped across the border from Finland and met with the man who would become his righthand—Leon Trotsky. As head of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky knew more about the city and its people than Lenin did. Together, they organized the foundation of the Russian Revolution.
On October 25, 1917, the Bolsheviks organized forces and led an attack on the Provisional Government. Alexander Kerensky tried to organize forces to counter the attack but failed to find enough soldiers. Confronted by superior numbers, Kerensky was forced to flee for his life. The Provisional Government collapsed. Bolshevik forces stormed the tsar’s former residence, the Winter Palace, and seized innumerable priceless treasures, while simultaneously destroying all symbols associated with the imperial rule of the Romanovs. In a climactic moment, Lenin delivered a speech to a crowd that “all rule had passed to the Soviets.” Almost overnight, Russia had transformed from a fledgling democracy to a communist, military dictatorship unseen before (or since) in history. This dictatorship would later be revealed to the world as the Soviet Union.
On October 26, the Bolsheviks presented The Decree on Land. It allowed peasants to seize private land from the nobility and redistribute it among themselves. The Bolsheviks viewed themselves as representing an alliance of workers and peasants and memorialized that understanding with the hammer and sickle on the red flag of the Soviet Union. Other decrees resulted in the following:
- All private property was seized by the state.
- All Russian banks were nationalized.
- Private bank accounts were confiscated.
- The Church’s properties (including bank accounts) were seized.
- All foreign debts were repudiated.
- Control of the factories was given to the Soviets.
- Wages were fixed at higher rates than during the war, and a shorter, eight-hour working day was introduced.
The success of the October Revolution transformed the Russian state into a soviet republic. A coalition of anti-Bolshevik groups attempted to unseat the new government in the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1922, but they would prove horribly unsuccessful.
The Last Days of the Romanovs
In March 1917, the last Romanov tsar, Nicholas II, abdicated not only on behalf of himself, but also on behalf of his ailing, hemophiliac son, Alexei. His younger brother, Michael, also quickly refused the throne and was later murdered by Bolshevik supporters in the woods outside of Perm, near the Ural Mountains.
Nicholas remained under house arrest with his wife, children, and a handful of servants at their home—Tsarskoe Selo—for six months. In August 1917, Alexander Kerensky decided to move the family to a more secure location, far removed from the capital city. With effort, the Romanovs were transported to a former governor’s palace in Tobolsk, Siberia. For nearly nine months, the family enjoyed relative peace. The tsar and his children enjoyed short walks, reading, music, and even such menial chores as sawing wood. However, conditions for the royal family took a turn for the worse in late 1917 after the Bolsheviks seized power in Saint Petersburg.
Throughout all of this, the royal family remained steadfast in their Orthodox faith. Believing that their prayers would be answered and help would soon arrive. Their hopes were destined to be ill-founded. In April 1918, a seasoned Bolshevik guard prepared the family for a final relocation. This time, they would be moved right into the heart of Bolshevik territory. Though they did not know it, plans were made for the execution of the royal family.
In April 1918, the family arrived at what would be their final location, the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Secretly nicknamed the “House of Special Purpose,” the grandiose home was designated as the future execution site of the royal family. Indeed, the final days of the Romanov family were, as one historian described, a “living Hell.” Bolshevik guards painted over the family’s windows, restricting their view to the outside world. Walks were limited to half-an-hour in a courtyard, once a day. Dinners were served to the royal family after they’d been spat into. And lewd drawings and innuendos were presented to the Romanov daughters. Moreover, the family remained under the constant guard of their Bolshevik captors who restricted their every action.
In the early hours of July 17, 1918, Yakov Yurovsky, the chief Bolshevik guard, awoke the family and ordered them to get dressed. To quell their fears, he said the family was being transferred to a new location for their safety. The family was then led into the house cellar. Alexei, unable to walk due to a previous, severe hemophilia bleed, was carried by his father. The seven Romanovs then sat or stood with their servants and waited for instructions. Nearly an hour passed before the Bolshevik guards returned. This time, armed. Yakov Yurovsky said,
“Your friends have tried to save you. They have failed you. We now must shoot you.”
Reports indicate that the tsar, naïve to the end of his life, had only time to exclaim, “What? What?” before numerous shots were fired upon him. Nicholas and Alexandra died instantly. However, many of the untrained Bolshevik guards, little more than thugs, were uncomfortable executing the tsar’s children.
An almost mystical charm initially seemed to protect the daughters. Reports of the events indicate that bullets ricocheted off their dresses, and the executioners resorted to using bayonets and the butt-ends of their rifles to attempt to murder Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia. When that failed, Yurovsky and his lieutenant shot the daughters in the back of the head. Later, the executioners discovered the young women had sewn jewels into their dresses in such numbers that they had acted as bullet-proof vests. Yurovsky saw too, that amazingly Alexei had survived the execution. He walked to the “heir of all the Russias,” who still lay in his father’s arms, and savagely kicked the boy before shooting him twice in the back of the head. Similarly, each of the servants were brutally beaten and shot to death. The execution of the royal family had lasted far longer than planned. And the subsequent destruction and burial of the bodies in the Ural Mountains proved disorganized.
Almost immediately, rumors circulated that one of the children, likely Anastasia, had survived the massacre and escaped. The rumors escalated in 1988 when the remains of the tsar, his wife, and three of their daughters were excavated and positively identified through DNA analysis. In 2007, though, the rumors were definitively quashed when the remains of Alexei, and his sister (likely Marie) were discovered and positively identified through DNA analysis. In recognition for their devout faith, the Russian Orthodox Church has proclaimed the seven Romanovs, “passion bearers” or members of the faith who remain devout in the hour of their death. This was based on accounts of the family trying to make the sign of the cross as they met their brutal deaths.
Impact
The Russian Revolution is a pivotal event in modern history. It not only extinguished imperial rule in Russia but also experiments in democracy. The Bolshevik party would reorganize themselves and become the backbone of Soviet communism during the 1920s. Today, the legacies of the Russian Revolution remained mixed. While the rights of workers and the lower classes were touted as the future backbone of Russia, enacting those measures proved difficult. The country erupted into a violent civil war at the end of World War I, as well as engaged in equally brutal wars across parts of Eastern Europe, notably Poland and Ukraine. Moreover, the largest communist and military dictatorship in history would emerge in the shape of the Soviet Union.
The Russian Civil War and the Formation of the Soviet Union
The Russian Civil War, which erupted 1918 shortly after the October Revolution, was fought mainly between the “Reds,” led by the Bolsheviks, and the “Whites,” a politically diverse coalition of anti-Bolsheviks. An excessively brutal and bloody conflict, it ended in a Bolshevik victory in 1921. By the end of 1922, a pair of treaties had been signed between Russia and territories from present-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia. Thus, the Soviet Union was born.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the course of the Russian Civil War and its legacies.
- Examine the reasons for the formation of the Soviet Union.
- Evaluate the pros and cons of the building of the Soviet Union.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Red Army: fighting force that supported Lenin, the Russian Revolution, and Bolshevism during the Russian Civil War
White Army: fighting force that did not support the Russian Revolution, Lenin, or Bolshevism during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War: excessively bloody civil war in Russia (1918 – 1921) between the Bolshevik Red Army and the anti-Bolshevik forces, known as the White Army
The Red Terror: brutal campaign of elimination and suppression carried out by the Bolsheviks against political enemies during the Russian Civil War
The White Terror: brutal campaign of elimination of Bolshevik forces during the Russian Civil War by the White Army, which included mass-murders
Soviet Union (USSR): formed in 1922, the union of the communist Russian state with territory from present-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia, that expanded through the subsequent decades
Communism: a political, social, and economic movement and philosophy in which there are ideally no economic or social classes or private property and resources are owned equally by the people
Cheka: secret police of the Soviet Union that was infamous for its use of violence in the suppression of dissenters and political enemies during the Russian Civil War and after
New Economic Plan (NEP): Soviet economic program in which the Russian state would control all significant industry and financial agencies, while individuals could own small plots of land and engage in low-level trade for personal benefit
Kulaks: Russian peasant farmers who were considered “wealthy” by the Bolsheviks and targeted as enemies of the communist state
war communism: Bolshevik economic practice in the Civil War that allowed the state to seize grain and crop yields to feed the Red Army
The Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War (1917 – 1922) was a multi-party war in the former Russian Empire fought immediately after the Russian Revolution of 1917 during which many groups vied to determine Russia’s future. The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army, fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which included groups with diverse interests. Some favored monarchism, while others favored capitalism or alternative forms of socialism. The White Army had support from Great Britain, France, the U.S., and Japan, while the Red Army possessed internal support, which ultimately proved much more effective.
Background
In 1917, Russia was a massive, multi-ethnic country that struggled to prosper under tsarist rule; additionally, it suffered enormously in World War I. It is perhaps, no wonder that the country would quickly dissolve into civil war following the chaos of the October Revolution, as agendas and vying viewpoints clashed.
Lenin won support of the workers and small-time farmers by declaring, “Peace, Land, Bread!” And in 1918, Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which ceded significant Russian territory over to Germany, including the Baltic states. Many Russians who had supported the Revolution of 1917 turned against the Bolsheviks following the ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This division sparked the Russian Civil War.
For Lenin and his associates, “civil war” was an inevitable step in constructing a communist state, just as class-conflict was a critical step of Marxist theory. For Lenin and the Bolsheviks, it was a step that would inflict mass suffering and casualties, but one that was essential in securing their state. In Bolshevik theory, civil war would root-out the “enemies of the people,” such as monarchists, foreigners, and capitalists. When the war ended, only true people of the communist state would remain. Only then could the state operate in harmony.
At the heart of their conflict was the war on the kulaks—Russian farmers who were considered “wealthy” because the had larger farms than their neighbors. Many of Lenin’s inner circle believed the kulaks should be eradicated. To the Bolsheviks, these were people who triumphed over their neighbors for personal profit and supported capitalism. In reality, the kulaks typically were not much better off than many of their neighbors. While most Russian farmers worked on a farm for survival and subsistence, the kulaks might own their own farm of ten or twelve acres and have a few more cows or pigs than the average peasant. But that did not stop the Bolsheviks from waging war on them.
War on the Battlefield
War erupted in Russia between the “Reds” and “Whites” almost immediately following the October Revolution and escalated after the ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Each side had specific advantages.
For the White Army, their strongest advantage was the (limited) support from abroad. Western nations such as England and the United States were democratic and anxious that the Bolshevik’s communist revolution could spread across Europe if it proved successful in Russia. Possibly, it could even spread to the United States were socialism had a small but strong following, thus upending democratic and capitalist values. American, English, and Japanese troops fought on the side of the White Army along Russia’s periphery borders, most notably in far eastern Russia near Vladivostok. But while well-intentioned, the Allies were exhausted from fighting the Germans in World War I. As a result, their military efforts were minimal and had the ultimate effect of leaving the White Army to fight on its own.
The Red Army, by contrast, had limited outside support. However, under the careful Organization of Leon Trotsky, the Red Army was exceedingly disciplined and organized. Moreover, it largely was supported by the Russian peasantry. Volunteers and conscripted soldiers swelled the size of the Red Army to over five million at the end of the war.
For over three years, the two sides clashed across the Russian landscape, notably in present-day Ukraine and Belarus, the Baltic states, Georgia, and far-eastern Russia. Mass casualties resulted among soldiers and civilians alike as the rules of warfare dissolved and terror raged on both sides.
The Red Terror
Civil war engulfed Russia immediately following the October Revolution. The two dominant sides of the war were the Red and White Armies. But Lenin had to worry about more than winning a war against a rival army on the battlefield. He also worried about political dissenters among the civilians. Internal, political enemies constituted a significant threat for him. To combat this threat, Lenin created secret police—the Cheka.
In August 1918, Lenin narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. This close call gave him the pretext he needed to increase the power of the Cheka. In fact, the agency operated with almost unlimited power. Lenin advocated openly for the agency to use terror and violence to destroy enemies of Bolshevism indiscriminately. His telegram to fellow Bolshevik leaders instructed, “Hang no fewer than one-hundred well-known kulaks, rich-bags, blood-suckers (and make sure the hanging takes place in full view of the people).”
By the end of 1918 alone, the Cheka officially reported the execution of nearly 13,000 people. Historians suspect the number to be significantly higher, possibly in the hundreds of thousands.
Headed by Lenin’s close associate, Felix Dzerzhinsky, the Cheka acted with brutal force. Not restricted to simply identifying anti-Bolsheviks, the organization waged war against all “enemies of the people.” This included enemies on and off the battlefield. They carried out mass executions, arrests, and imprisonments. Anyone who could potentially be classified as anti-Bolshevik (or anti-communism) was targeted, including intellectuals, church clergy, the middle class, and monarchists. The agency increased its activity and persecution of the opposition as the Russian Civil War continued.
The White Terror
While the “Red Terror” is remembered because of the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War, there was also a “White Terror” on the battlefield. The “White Terror” were wartime atrocities perpetrated by soldiers in the White Army against the Red Army, civilians, socialists, and revolutionaries; particularly in Eastern Russia.
Estimates vary widely on the casualties inflicted on Red Army soldiers and civilians during the White Terror. Some figures suggest twenty-thousand perished, while other numbers suggest the casualties were in the hundreds of thousands. Most of these deaths resulted from mass executions and indiscriminate killings.
Notably, the White Army targeted Jews as part of the White Terror. Seen as the natural allies of the Bolsheviks because of communist ideology, the White Army carried out mass executions and killings of Jews in the regions of present-day Ukraine and Georgia.
The Effects of "War Communism"
In 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks introduced a method for sustaining their war effort known as “war communism.” This allowed the Bolsheviks to seize grain and farm yields to feed the Red Army. But it had the unintended, negative effect of forcing urban workers to the countryside to help farm and feed the growing army. As a result, production of industrial goods decreased dramatically. And while the Red Army remained fed, Russian and Ukrainian civilians and farmers starved. In 1921, a massive famine broke out and killed an estimated five million people, mostly civilians. It would not be the last famine wrought by Soviet economic planning. Resistance emerged among the working class, but with his powerful Cheka at his beckoning call, Lenin brutally suppressed all dissent. By the end of the Civil War, between 7 and 12 million people had perished due to the fighting and famine. And the casualties were mostly civilians.
Conclusion of the Civil War
The Red Army defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine in 1919. The remains of the White forces were beaten at the island of Crimea in the Black Sea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser battles of the war continued for two more years. Minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued into 1923.
Formation of the Soviet Union
The government of the Soviet Union was formed in 1922 with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian republics. It was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks), who increasingly developed a totalitarian regime, especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin (1924 – 1953).
Creation of the USSR and Early Years
On December 29, 1922, a conference of delegations from Russia, Transcaucasia, Ukraine, and Byelorussia (Belarus) approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). On February 1, 1924, the USSR was recognized by the British Empire. The same year, a Soviet Constitution was approved, legitimizing the union.
An intensive restructuring of the economy, industry, and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this was done according to the Bolshevik Initial Decrees—government documents signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was a plan that envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. The plan was developed in 1920 and covered a 10- to 15-year period. It included the construction of a network of 30 regional power stations, including ten large hydroelectric power plants and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises. The plan became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was fulfilled by 1931.
In 1921, the Bolsheviks had abandoned their war communism economic plan. In its place emerged the New Economic Policy (NEP). The peasants were freed from wholesale levies of grain and allowed to sell their surplus produce in the open market. Commerce was stimulated by permitting private retail trading. However, the state continued to be responsible for all major business ventures, including banking, transportation, heavy industry, and public utilities.
Although the left opposition among the Communists criticized the rich peasants, or kulaks, who benefited from the NEP, the program proved highly beneficial, reviving the economy. The NEP would later come under increasing opposition from within the party following Lenin’s death in early 1924.
Significance
From 1917 – 1922, Russia was in complete turmoil. The tsarist regime was forever destroyed, exercises in democracy eliminated, and strongman Vladimir Lenin became the face of the Bolshevik effort to establish a communist nation. The Russian Civil War erupted and produced excessive and extreme violence wherever the Red and White Armies waged war; and civilians bore the brunt of the violence on both sides of the conflict. The war marked an ominous start for a new government that claimed to be representing the interests of the peasants. For Lenin and his inner circle though, excessive violence was a necessary step to secure a true, communist nation. While Lenin is responsible for many of the agencies and policies that perpetrated such violence, the Soviet Union would experience a far more ruthless military dictator under Lenin’s successor—Joseph Stalin.
Attributions
All images from Wikimedia Commons
Cole, Joshua and Carol Symes. Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture. 3rd Ed. W.W. Norton & Company, New York: 2020. 862-4; 879-881.
Service, Robert. A History of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Vladimir Putin. Harvard University Press, Cambridge: 2003. 101-122.
Boundless World History, “The Russian Revolution”
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-russian-revolution/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/