101 EVENTS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about 

Russian Revolution 1917

Trotsky (left) Lenin (centre)

25 October 1917 – Start of October Uprising by Bolsheviks

Since the publication of Marx’s Communist Manifesto, there had been sporadic Communist revolutions in European countries, but nothing had really succeeded. But in October 1917, the Bolshevik revolution, led by Lenin, brought about a radical new form of government with worldwide implications. Lenin was a fervent Marxist and wasted little time in implementing his version of a ‘dictatorship of the Proletariat’. Communist Russia divided the world. It was seen by some as an alternative to the inequities of Capitalism and by others as an embodiment of totalitarianism and lack of freedom. The Soviet Union transformed the lives of Russian people – it led to economic growth, but also increased political repression. The ideology of the Soviet Union also led to a prolonged ‘Cold War’ – with an ideological divide between western democracy and Soviet Communism.

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