1917 - Russian Revolution

The October Revolution, led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin launched a nearly bloodless coup d’état against the provisional government which had been assembled by a group of leaders from Russia’s bourgeois capitalist class. Lenin called for a Soviet government that would be ruled directly by councils of soldiers, peasants and workers.

The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in Petrograd, and soon formed a new government with Lenin as its head. Lenin became the dictator of the world’s first communist state.

Civil War broke out in Russia in late 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution. The warring factions included the Red and White Armies. The Red Army fought for the Lenin’s Bolshevik government. The White Army represented a large group of loosely allied forces, including monarchists, capitalists and supporters of democratic socialism.

The Russian Civil War ended in 1923 with Lenin’s Red Army claiming victory and establishing the Soviet Union.

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