Increasing governmental corruption, the reactionary policies of Tsar Nicholas II, and catastrophic Russian losses in World War I contributed to widespread dissatisfaction and economic hardship.
Often referred to as the October Revolution, leftist revolutionaries led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin launched a nearly bloodless coup d’état against the Duma’s provisional government. It was happened on November 6 and 7, 1917.
The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in the Russian capital of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and within two days had formed a new government. The Bolsheviks seized power and destroyed the tradition of czarist rule.
After the revolution, Vladimir Lenin headed the new Soviet government that formed in Russia. The Bolsheviks would later become the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin became the leader of the USSR upon its founding in 1922.
The Romanov Dynasty, which had ruled Russia for three centuries, came to an abrupt and bloody end in July 1918, when Nicholas and his family, who had been held under house arrest for more than a year, were brutally executed by Bolshevik soldiers.
Bolshevik Revolution
