Socialism in Europe and The Russian Revolution Class 9 Notes History - Chapter 2

Chapter: 2

What are Socialism In Europe And The Russian Revolution ?

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Important Dates

Some nationalists, liberals and radicals wanted revolution to put an end to the kind of governments established in Europe in 1815.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) added other ideas to this body of arguments.
Robert Owen (1771-1858), a leading English manufacturer, sought to build a cooperative community called New Harmony in Indiana (USA).
During the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar allowed the creation of an elected consultative Parliament or Duma.
All political parties were illegal in Russia before 1914.
Till 1914, socialists never succeeded in forming a government in Europe.
Socialists took over the government in Russia through the October Revolution of 1917.
Russia’s armies lost badly in Germany and Austria between 1914 and 1916.
By 1916, railway lines began to break down. Able-bodied men were called up to the war.
In 1914, war broke out between two European alliances – Germany, Austria and Turkey (the Central powers) and France, Britain and Russia (later Italy and Romania). This was first World War.
In the winter of 1917, conditions in the capital, Petrograd, were grim.
On Sunday, 25 February 1917, the government suspended the Duma.
In February 1917, food shortages were deeply felt in the workers’ quarters.
Demonstrators returned in force to the streets of the left bank on the 26th. On the 27th, the Police Headquarters were ransacked.
Petrograd had led the February Revolution that brought down the monarchy in February 1917.
Encouraged by the Socialist Revolutionaries, peasants seized land between July and September 1917.
In April 1917, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from his exile.
On 16 October 1917, Lenin persuaded the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Party to agree to a socialist seizure of power.
The uprising began on 24 October 1917.
In November 1917, the Bolsheviks conducted the elections to the Constituent Assembly, but they failed to gain majority support.
Most industry and banks were nationalised in November 1917.
By January 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled most of the former Russian empire.
By 1927- 1928, the towns in Soviet Russia were facing an acute problem of grain supplies.
December 1922, The USSR was formed.
In 1928, Party members toured the grain-producing areas, supervising enforced grain collections, and raiding ‘kulaks’
The bad harvests of 1930-1933 led to one of most devastating famines in Soviet history when over 4 million died.
Between 1929 and 1931, the number of cattle fell by one-third.

Important Personalities

Lenin: The leader of the Bolshevik Party who led the Russian Revolution in 1917. As a result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, he withdrew Russia from the First World War and took various measures to make Russia a socialist state.
Nicholas II: The Tsar of Russia whose policies precipitated the Russian Revolution.
Kerenskii: The leader of the Mensheviks party who wanted to establish a parliamentary form of government in Russia.
Leon Trotsky: He headed the Petrograd Soviet and played a leading role in the Russian Revolution and was later assassinated by Stalin.
Rasputin: An unscrupulous monk whose influence over the royal family was resented by the Russian people.
Engels: Friedrich Engels in association with Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto that was the guiding spirit of the Russian Revolution.
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht: Leaders of the German revolutionary movement, they tried to foment a revolution in 1919. But the army crushed the revolution. Both were captured and shot.
Joseph Stalin: He emerged as the leader of the Communist Party after the death of Lenin in 1924. He assumed complete control of Russian government and its policies till his death in 1953.