History of Russia: Difference between revisions

== Double O period (1923-1944) ==

====The Russian Revolution====

In the 1920s, the [[European Economic Crisis]] and its effects hit Russia especially hard. In 1922, a series of crop failures and poor financial decisions by the Russian imperial authorities caused a financial crisis known as the Russian depression. During the depression, massive famines in Ukraine and the Don Kuban region sent thousands of refugees north towards urban centers such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev. This led to food riots, strikes, and crackdowns by imperial authorities.

Around every large city in Russia, large shantytowns started popping up; these shantytowns were overcrowded, and disease outbreaks were common in them. During this period, anti-elite, anti-tsar, and pro-republican sentiments grew throughout the Russian empire. In 1923, the Russian Republican Congress (the largest republican organization in Russia at the time, also known as the R.R.C.) had over a million members in the Muscovite region alone. By the winter of 1925, the situation in Russia rapidly deteriorated, with most citizens believing that the Tsar mishandled the economic crisis and exacerbated the famines in the rural south through poor economic policy. Additionally, there was an outrage at the continued opulence of the Tzar, Tsarina, and nobilities lifestyles the peasantry starved.

=====Storming of the Winter Palace=====

On December 3rd, the winter palace was surrounded by a bread riot that swept through Moscow, and after 6 hours of rioting, the protestors stormed the Winter Palace. The nobility left the previous day to St. Petersburg (but upon hearing of the storming of the palace, left for Britain). After two days of further agitation and the breakdown of imperial civil control in Russia, the Russian Republican Congress declared the first Russian Republic and the end of imperial rule. After a week of tension with the new government, the imperial military reluctantly agreed to back the new government.

For the first month of its existence, the new Republic was stuck in a deadlock between the two major factions in government, the liberal republicans and the nationalist republicans (more commonly known as the Vosstanists (from Russian восстановление, vosstanovlenie) . Additionally, after the Tsar fled, many non-Russian regions of the empire declared independence, while the Russian military acted mostly autonomously from the Republics congress. In February of 1926, after the first wave of elections was marred with controversy. The Vosstanists walked out of congress and started to conspire to overthrow the liberal-republican-dominated congress. The following week after a series of negotiations with the military (led by General Mikhail Orlov) and the leaders of the Cossacks, the newly reformed Nationalist Republican or Vosstanist faction now known as the 'Russian National Congress' declared the Russian Republican Congress illegitimate. On Feburary 19th the breakaway Russian National Congress elected the writer and revolutionary Anastaze "Ozero" Muromsky as the chairman of the Republic.

====Russian Civil War====

The Russian Republican Congress reacted harshly to the National Congresses declaration and raised militias from loyalist cities and regions. By March of 1926, the Liberal Russian Republic relied only on a decentralized system of militias with dubious loyalties and often recruited from rebellious national interest groups who feared that the Vosstanists would destroy the local autonomy given to them by the Tsar's Viceroy system. This faction was often known collectively on the battlefield as the Tricolor Army due to their use of the Russian white, blue & red tricolor flag. Initially, the Tricolor Army was able to hold on to land in southern Russian, the Baltics and regions in Northern Russia.

In contrast, the Vosstanists were able to rapidly take control of the core of Russian ethnic and industrial land in the Muscovite region. They consolidated their rule with a variety of social and work programs, which alleviated the worst of the effects of the famines and economic crisis and the use of harsh authoritarian crackdowns on dissenters. The Vosstanists were able to push the Tricolor Republic Army out of North Russia by the summer of 1926. They then slowly turned their attention to their core region of support in south Russia. Throughout 1927, opponents from the Liberal Republic would try desperately to gain a foreign backer, first from the British and then the Ottomans, but as the European Economic Crisis raged, there was little desire from the other powers of Europe to get involved in a civil war that seemed to be already lost. However, they were able to find an ally in the Finnish Nationalist Republican insurgents that launched the Finnish revolution a year prior (1925).

By the winter of 1927, the Liberals realized their plight was doomed and so used their resources to provide an exodus route for the leaders, military, and businesspeople of the ill-fated republic. By February of 1928, there were only pockets of isolated fighting as the Vosstanists swept into Southern Russia and gained control. By March, the last battle of the Russian Civil War was over.

== Kiselev family rule (1944-) ==