Russia, having entered the Great War as part of the Triple Alliance with Great Britain and France in August 1914, suffered a catastrophic series of defeats as the war progressed and the first signs of collapse of the Triple Alliance occurred on this day, with the first Russian Revolution.
The revolution commenced with widespread strikes and riots as workers and peasants sought to overthrow the Czarist autocracy, which led to the eventual abdication of Czar Nicholas II. The provisional government that was formed, was unable to address the main issues of land reform, ownership and the ongoing war. This created a vacuum at the head of government that the Bolshevik element was able to exploit. Lenin’s demand for a second revolution culminated in the October Revolution of 1917, where the Bolsheviks seized power and began, despite the ongoing civil war, to implement their vision of a socialist state, which accelerated in February 1918, when Trotsky announced that Russia was no longer at war with Germany, culminating in the signing of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk on March 2nd 1918.
Czar Nicholas (above) and Lenin.
