1905-1916 : THE PATH TO REVOLUTION

On January 22, 1905, a day later known as "Bloody Sunday", hundreds of peaceful demonstrators were massacred by the czar's troops. Vladimir Lenin and another famous Bolshevik, Leon Trotsky, returned from exile to lead the Revolution of 1905. Although both the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks participated, it was not enough. When the war ended and the czar's troops returned home, the revolutionaries were forced into flight (Kort, 1993).

Both parties realized that the proletariat, the worker class, was still too small to support a revolution. The solution of the Mensheviks was simply to wait until Russia became more industrialized. Lenin took a more active approach. He decided that the peasantry, a much larger group than the proletariat, must be allied with the cause. This idea was contrary to true Marxism, but it would prove to be very effective (Kort, 1993).

After the revolution, Czar Nicholas II granted limited reforms and although conditions were still poor, his empire survived. Then, in 1914, World War I began. At first the Russians were united in the cause, but they proved as unprepared for war with the Germans as they had been with the Japanese. Troops fought bravely, but they suffered many losses. To make the situation worse, the war caused shortages of supplies at home. It was these shortages that would trigger the first successful Russian revolution (Savage, 1968).