Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Empire has been in a permanent socio-economic crisis, the first expression of which was the revolution of 1905.
The crisis deepened during the First World War (1914 - 1918) and became the occasion for the emergence of a revolutionary situation and the fall of tsarism. The war exacerbated the problems with feeding the population and the army. Declining incomes could not compensate for the galloping inflation, which reduced the value of the pre-revolutionary ruble to 7 kopecks. Speculation and corruption became widespread.
Despite the constitutional form of government announced in the Tsar's manifesto of 1905, the possibilities of citizens to control power were limited. In practice, the imperial power retained its absolutist rights in a time of European constitutionalism and parliamentarism.
Tsar Nicholas II lost the trust of all layers of Russian society, including the Russian Orthodox Church. The royal family fell into isolation.
At the beginning of 1917, the political opposition to tsarism began to unite, which provoked a strengthening of the regime and its repressive apparatus, recalls Club Historian.
The lack of democratic rights and freedoms through which citizens could express their will was a prerequisite for their discontent to acquire the dimensions of a revolution.
The revolution began on February 23 in St. Petersburg with a women's demonstration against hunger and war, which grew into a strike. 30,000 people joined it, raising slogans such as "Down with tsarism", "Down with war". Demonstrations of many thousands were also held in other Russian cities. The deputies of the State Duma opposed the order of Nicholas II to suppress the rebellion militarily and, together with representatives of the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, formed a Provisional Coalition Government of liberals and socialists (Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries). The government was headed by Prince Lvov, and later by the socialist Kerensky.
Part of the armed forces in the capital sided with the new government. On February 28, they seized the Winter Palace and arrested the tsarist government. On March 2, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne. The royal family was placed under arrest. After the revolution, a kind of dual power was established in Russia - on the one hand, the Provisional Government, on the other - the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The government adopted a Declaration of Civil Liberties, a general political amnesty, the abolition of restrictions on national and religious grounds, freedom of association, the abolition of censorship, and freedom of speech and the press. A monopoly on bread prices and a coupon system were introduced to solve the issue of hunger, but attempts in this direction were unsuccessful. At the initiative of the Petrograd Soviet, self-governing factory committees were created in the factories, which elected factory management from among the workers. An 8-hour working day was introduced.
The Provisional Government declared the implementation of agrarian reform - one of the painful issues in Russia, but no real policy in this area was carried out. The government entered into a sharp conflict with the public with its declared position that Russia would continue its participation in the war, which was taking on 80% of state expenses. By the autumn of 1917, industrial production had fallen by over 35%, the bread coupon ration had been reduced to 200 grams per day, and the price of bread had increased 16 times compared to the pre-war period, that of potatoes by 20 times, that of sugar by 27 times. The enormous costs of the war, the difficult situation in the underdeveloped Russian industry compared to European ones, which was unable to withstand the trials of war, the increase in indirect taxes, and inflation led to a deepening of the economic crisis, which inevitably grew into a political one - democracy was put to the test. In September and October, the number of those extremely dissatisfied with the rule of the Provisional Government increased to 2.5 million people - almost 8 times more than in February.
In the villages, clashes began between peasants and landowners - landowners. The situation at the front was also critical. The disobedience of soldiers and desertion are increasing, which makes the state's participation in the war ineffective. In large Russian cities, anti-war protest rallies of many thousands begin to be held, organized by the Bolsheviks. Their influence is growing in factory committees, in city councils, and among the army.
On April 3, a group of Bolsheviks headed by their leader Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov - Lenin - arrived in St. Petersburg from Zurich through German territory in a special sealed wagon. In a speech at the Finnish station, he set out a new program of action, the main goal of which was to seize power in the country. Later, from here - Finland, hiding from power, Lenin led the organization of the October Revolution with directives and regulations. On April 4, he officially presented the so-called "April Theses", in which he noted that the policy of the Provisional Government did not correspond to the expectations of the Russian people.
It could not provide the country with immediate peace and provide land for the peasants - peace and land. According to Lenin, acute socio-economic problems can be solved, but only on condition that the dual power in the country is liquidated and all power is transferred to the Soviets (the Soviets were created during the 1905 revolution as urban self-governing municipalities - communes, of the working people. They resumed their active activity during the February Revolution). At this stage, the "April Theses" do not appeal to direct revolution. They are a program for a peaceful transition to Bolshevik power, as the second stage of the revolutionary changes that began in February 1917 - a socialist stage, in which all power is to pass into the hands of the workers and poor peasants, represented in power only by the Bolshevik Party.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) was born in the village of Simbirsk in the family of a school inspector. He was accepted to study law at Kazan University, but was expelled for participating in student anti-government unrest. It was here that he became acquainted with Marxist philosophy. His older brother Alexander was sentenced to death for participating in an assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander III. In 1890, Lenin continued his legal education at St. Petersburg University. In 1895, he went to Switzerland, where he met Plekhanov and prominent figures of the socialist movement. Returning to Russia, he founded the organization Union of the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class. Because of this political activity, he was arrested and sent into exile in Siberia, where he wrote his first scientific works. After his release, he went into exile, where he began publishing the newspaper "Iskra" with the aim of propagating Marxism.
The newspaper became a platform for the emerging illegal Bolshevik organizations in Russia. In his book "What is to be Done?" Lenin presents his concept for building a Bolshevik party - a small, strictly centralized party, called to be the vanguard of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Lenin presented this concept at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1903. The party program he proposed consists of two parts - a minimum program and a maximum program. The first proposes the overthrow of tsarism and the establishment of a democratic republic, while the maximum program defines the ultimate goal - the construction of a socialist society through the Dictatorship of the proletariat.
The party program proposed by Lenin leads to a split in the party between "hard" (his supporters) and "soft" parties, who reject Lenin's radical proposals. His followers at the congress are the majority - Bolsheviks, while the rest, the minority, are called Mensheviks. In 1912, the split between the two factions became complete and Lenin began publishing the entirely revolutionary newspaper "Pravda". He did not expect a revolution in 1917, but after its outbreak in February, he returned to Russia and began preparing a new - socialist revolution.