---
title: "The Russian Revolution and the Soviet Experiment"
description: "The Soviet experiment ran from the 1917 February and October Revolutions through War Communism, the NEP, Stalinist industrialization and the Terror, as exam"
url: "https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/lessons/exam-world-history-the-russian-revolution-the-soviet-experiment"
---

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The Russian Revolution & the Soviet experiment

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# The Russian Revolution & the Soviet experiment

From the 1917 February and October Revolutions through War Communism, the NEP, Stalinist industrialization and the Terror—the Soviet experiment as exam canon.

## The collapse of the Romanov autocracy

The Russian Revolution unfolded in two distinct phases in 1917, both dated by the Julian (Old Style) calendar Russia used until February 1918. The **February Revolution** (8–15 March 1917 New Style) erupted from bread riots and strikes in Petrograd, compounded by catastrophic losses in the First World War and the discrediting of the court through the Rasputin scandal. When the Petrograd garrison mutinied, Tsar **Nicholas II abdicated on 15 March 1917**, ending the 304-year Romanov dynasty. Power passed to a **Provisional Government** under Prince Lvov and later **Alexander Kerensky**, which coexisted uneasily with the **Petrograd Soviet** of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies—the condition Lenin termed *dvoevlastie* (dual power).

The Provisional Government made the fatal error of continuing the war (the June 1917 Kerensky Offensive failed) and delaying land redistribution. **Vladimir Lenin**, returned from Swiss exile in April 1917 via a sealed German train, issued his **April Theses** demanding "All power to the Soviets," "Peace, Land, and Bread," and no support for the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks—a faction since the 1903 split of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks—gained majorities in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets by September.

## October and the seizure of power

The **October Revolution** (6–7 November 1917 NS) was an organized insurrection directed by Lenin and **Leon Trotsky**, who chaired the Petrograd Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee. Red Guards seized the Winter Palace and arrested the Provisional Government. The **Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets** ratified the coup and adopted the **Decree on Peace** and **Decree on Land** on 8 November 1917.

The Bolsheviks lost the November 1917 elections to the Constituent Assembly (the Socialist Revolutionaries won) and so dissolved it by force on 6 January 1918. The **Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918)** exited the war at the cost of Poland, the Baltics, Ukraine, and Finland—territory later partly recovered. Civil war (1918–1921) then pitted the Bolshevik **Reds** against the **Whites** and Allied interventionists; **War Communism** requisitioned grain and nationalized industry, while the **Cheka** under Felix Dzerzhinsky launched the Red Terror. The Reds won through Trotsky's Red Army, interior lines, and White disunity. The **USSR was formally constituted on 30 December 1922**.

Retain these dated anchors: abdication (March 1917), April Theses, October seizure (November 1917), Brest-Litovsk (March 1918), and the founding of the USSR (December 1922). The two-phase structure—spontaneous February collapse versus engineered October coup—is the single most tested analytical distinction.

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