Storming of the Winter PalaceIn November 1917, without warning, Bolshevik Red Guards made up of armed factory workers stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd. They took over government offices and arrested the leaders of the provisional government. The Bolsheviks Revolution was over in a matter of hours. Kerensky and his colleagues disappeared almost as quickly as the Tsarist regime they had replaced.
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Bolsheviks in Power |
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Lenin's next step was tackling the problems he inherited from Tsarist rule. Within days after the Bolshevik takeover, Lenin ordered that all farmland be distributed among the peasants Lenin and the Bolsheviks gave control of factories to the workers. The Bolsheviks government also signed a truce with Germany to stop all fighting on the eastern war front and began peace talks.
In March 1918, Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The price of peace was costly. Russia surrendered a large chunk of its territory to Germany and its allies. The humiliating terms of this treaty triggered widespread anger among many Russians. They objected to the Bolsheviks and their policies. |
Russian Civil War
The opponents to the Bolsheviks formed their own army called- The White Army. While the Bolsheviks formed the Red Army commanded by revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky. From 1918 to 1920, civil war raged in Russia. Several Western nations, including the United States, sent military aid and forces to Russia to help the White Army.
(Image is of a U.S. soldier training Russian soldiers on a Machine Gun.) Russia's civil war proved far more deadly than the earlier revolutions. Around 15 million Russians died in the three-year struggle and in the famine that followed. In the end the Red Army triumphed and finally crushed all oppositions to Bolshevik rule. The victory showed that the Bolsheviks were able both to seize power and to maintain it. |