Alexander I
- The
Russian tsar, or emperor,
whose death in 1825 prompted a mild secession crisis that created an
appearance of weakness in the Russian monarchy.
- A
group of 3,000 soldiers
who termed themselves Decembrists took
advantage of the chaos to demand reforms, such as a written constitution
for Russia.
- Later
revolutionaries such as Lenin saw the Decembrists as heroes.
Alexander II
- The
Tsar who formally abolished serfdom in 1861, freeing
Russia’s serfs from indentured servitude to their landowners.
- Though
reformers hailed the move, it engendered a severe economic crisis, angered
landowners, and prompted a number of revolutionary groups to agitate for a
constitution.
- In 1881,
Alexander II was assassinated by a member of one of these groups,
prompting his successor, son Alexander III,
to implement a harsh crackdown on public resistance.
Alexander III
- The
son of and successor to the assassinated Tsar Alexander
II.
- Upon
taking power in 1881, Alexander III cracked down severely on reform and
revolutionary groups, prompting growing unrest.
- Alexander
III’s son, Nicholas II,
was the tsar in power during the Russian Revolution in 1917.
Felix Dzerzhinsky
- A
Polish-born revolutionary who joined the Bolshevik
Party after getting out of prison
in 1917.
- Following
the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin appointed Dzerzhinsky head of
the Cheka, the first
Soviet secret police force and an early forerunner of the KGB.
Lev Kamenev (a.k.a. Lev Rosenfeld)
- A
prominent member of the Bolshevik Party who
initially resisted Lenin’s call to hold a revolution sooner rather than
later.
- After
the revolution, Kamenev went on to serve in the Soviet government but was
executed during Josef Stalin’s
purges of the 1930s.
Alexander Kerensky
- A
member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and an active participant in
both the provisional government and
the Petrograd Soviet.
- At
first, Kerensky acted as a liaison between the two governing bodies.
Within the provisional government, he served as minister of justice,
minister of war, and later as prime minister.
- After
the October Revolution, Kerensky fled the country and eventually
immigrated to the United States, where he taught Russian history at
Stanford University.
Vladimir Lenin (a.k.a. Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov)
- The
founder of the Bolshevik Party,
organizer of the October Revolution,
and the first leader of the Soviet Union.
- Lenin
spent most of the early twentieth century living in exile in Europe
(primarily Britain and Switzerland).
- He
was a devout follower of Marxism and
believed that once a Communist revolution took place in Russia, Communism
would spread rapidly around the world.
- Though
not involved in the February Revolution, he returned to Russia in
April 1917 and
orchestrated the October Revolution that turned Russia into a Communist
state.
Nicholas I
- The
younger brother of and successor to Tsar Alexander
I.
- This
unorthodox succession from older to younger brother caused a small public
scandal in 1825 and
enabled the Decembrist Revolt to
take place.
- Nicholas
I was succeeded by his son, Alexander II.
Nicholas II
- The
last Russian tsar, who ruled from 1894 until 1917.
- Nicholas
II, who assumed the throne with trepidation upon his father Alexander
III’s death, was a clumsy and
ineffective leader whose avoidance of direct involvement in government
caused resentment among the Russian people and resulted in violence
in 1905.
- Nicholas
II abdicated on March 2, 1917, as a result of the February
Revolution. In July 1918,
the Bolsheviks executed
Nicholas along with his wife, Alexandra,
and their children.
Grigory Rasputin
- A
Russian peasant and self-proclaimed mystic who gained significant
influence over Tsar Nicholas II’s
wife, Alexandra,
in the years immediately prior to the revolutions of 1917.
- Rasputin’s
sexual escapades in the Russian capital of Petrograd caused
scandal, and the Russian people began to believe that the tsar himself was
under Rasputin’s influence.
- Aware
that Rasputin’s presence was damaging Nicholas II’s credibility,
supporters of the tsar had Rasputin killed in late 1916.
Joseph Stalin (a.k.a. Joseph Dzhugashvili)
- A Bolshevik leader
who became prominent only after Lenin’s return to Petrograd in April 1917.
- Although
Stalin was very much a secondary figure during the October
Revolution, he did gain Lenin’s attention as
a useful ally, and following the October coup, Lenin gave him a position
in the government as commissar of nationalities.
- As
Stalin was a member of an ethnic minority—he was from the central Asian
region of Georgia, not Russia proper—Lenin felt he would be an effective
ambassador of sorts to the many ethnic minorities within the former
Russian Empire.
- After
the revolution, Stalin became increasingly powerful and eventually
succeeded Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union upon Lenin’s death in 1924.
Petr Stolypin
- The
prime minister under Nicholas II.
- Stolypin
was renowned for his heavy crackdown on revolutionaries and dissidents, in
which thousands of suspects were given quick martial trials and promptly
executed.
- A
hangman’s noose was often referred to at the time as a “Stolypin
necktie.”
- Stolypin
himself was assassinated in 1911 by a revolutionary activist.
Leon Trotsky (a.k.a. Leon Bronstein)
- A
Bolshevik leader and one of the most prominent figures of the October
Revolution.
- Trotsky,
who was in exile abroad during the February Revolution, returned to Russia
in May 1917,
closely aligned himself with Lenin, and joined the Bolshevik Party during
the summer.
- Trotsky
headed the Revolutionary Military Committee, which provided the military
muscle for the October Revolution.
- After
the revolution, he was appointed commissar
of foreign affairs and led
Russia’s negotiations with Germany and Austria for the armistice and
subsequent peace treaty that made possible Russia’s exit from World War I.
Grigory Zinoviev (a.k.a. Osvel Radomyslsky)
- A
prominent member of the Bolshevik Party, closely associated with Lev
Kamenev and a close friend of Lenin
during Lenin’s years in exile.
- Initially
resisting Lenin’s call to hold a revolution sooner rather than later,
Zinoviev played virtually no role in the October Revolution and
temporarily receded from party activities after the revolution.
- However,
he became a member of the Politburo in1919 and went on to serve in the Soviet
government until he was arrested and executed during Stalin’s purges in
the 1930s.