Russian Revolution Key People/Groups

Pre-Rev Peasants, Intellectuals, Clergy, & Nobility

(Look at: "Pre Revolutionary Russian Social Stratification" WS)

Grigori Rasputin

A Siberian preacher who became friends of the Tsars, but hated by the public, twisted and cheated and exploited Alexandra.

Trotsky

A brilliant strategist who served as commander of the victorious Reds in the civil war and Lenin's advisor until Lenin's death. He was very persuasive and had charisma; he was very good at propaganda. He fought Stalin for the head job after Lenin's death in 1924, but lost.

Communist Manifesto

A socialist manifesto written by Marx and Engels (1842) describing the history of the working-class movement according to their views

V.I. Lenin

Believed in Marxist Socialism: 1) Believed capitalism must be destroyed. 2) A social revolution was possible in backward Russia. 3) The need for highly trained workers partly controlled by revolutionaries like himself.

Karl Marx

German philosopher, economist, and revolutionary. With the help and support of Friedrich Engels he wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867-1894). These works explain historical development in terms of the interaction of contradictory economic forces, form the basis of all communist theory, and have had a profound influence on the social sciences.

Alexander Kerensky

Headed the Provisional Government in 1917. Refused to redistribute confiscated landholdings to the peasants. Thought fighting the war was a national duty.

Czar Nicholas II

Russian Czar during WWI; unpopular with Russian people; overthrown in March 1917; executed by Bolsheviks after November Revolution (1917)

Joseph Stalin

Russian leader who succeeded Lenin as head of the Communist Party and created a totalitarian state by purging all opposition (1879-1953)

White Army

Russians who opposed Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Red Army

The Soviet Army during the Russian Civil War.

Czarina Alexandra

german wife of Nicholas, distrusted by russian people, Czar Nicholas II's wife, believed anything Rasputin would say because she believed he was healing her son

Czar Alexander III

son of Alexander II who was czar of Russia (1845-1894)