Russian Revolution

Russian Revolution
Date 1925 - 1928 (3 years) Location Russia Result - Russian National Congress victory, establishment of the Russian National Republic
Belligerents
Parliament of the Republic Tricolour Army Finnish rebels	Russian National Congress Cossacks
Commanders and leaders
	General Mikhail Orlov Ozero

The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval across the territory of the Russian Empire, beginning with the abolition of the monarchy in 1925 and concluding in 1928 with the National Republicans establishing the Russian Republic at the end of the Russian Civil War.

Background

In 1922, a series of crop failures combined with poor financial decisions by the Russian imperial authorities caused a financial crisis known as the Russian Depression (part of the extended European Economic Crisis of 1922-1928). During the depression, massive famines in the Ukraine and the Don Kuban region sent thousands of refugees north towards urban centers such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev, leading to food riots, strikes, and crackdowns by imperial authorities.

Large shantytowns, informally known as "Czartowns," began appearing around every major city in Russia; these overcrowded shantytowns were prone to disease outbreaks.

During this period, anti-elite, anti-Czar, and pro-republican sentiments started to grow throughout the Russian Empire. By 1923, the Russian Republican Congress (R.R.C.), the largest republican organization in Russia at the time, had over a million members in the Muscovite region alone.

Storming of the Palace

By the winter of 1925, the situation in Russia had rapidly deteriorated, with most citizens believing that the Czar had mishandled the economic crisis and exacerbated the famines in the rural south through poor economic policy. Additionally, there was outrage at the continued opulence of the Czar, Czarina, and nobility while so many of the lower classes starved.

On December 3rd, a bread riot that swept through Moscow surrounded the Winter Palace. After six hours of rioting, protesters stormed the palace. The nobility had left for St. Petersburg the previous day but, upon hearing of the storming, fled to 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 regime.

Russian Civil War

Tensions between liberals and nationalists

For the first month of its existence, the new Republic was deadlocked between the two major factions in government: the liberal republicans and the national republicans.

Additionally, after the Czar fled, many non-Russian regions of the empire declared independence, while the Russian military acted mostly autonomously from the Republic's congress. In February 1926, after the first wave of elections was marred by controversy, the national republicans walked out of congress and began conspiring to overthrow the liberal-republican-dominated congress.

In February of 1926, the first elections were marred with controversy. The Vosstanists walked out of Parliament, declaring their formal opposition to the liberal republicans. After a series of negotiations with military and Cossack leaders, including General Mikhail Orlov, the national republicans formed the Russian National Congress, accusing the previously established Russian Republican Congress of being an illegitimate institution. On the nineteenth, the Congress elected the revolutionary author and politician Anastaze 'Ozero' Muromsky as Chairman of the National Republic.

The war

In response, Parliament gathered their sparse military regiments and militias into what became known as the Tricolor Army. Several regional leaders sided with Parliament, fearing that Congress would centralize the state and deprive the former viceroyalties of their autonomy. The Black Sea region, the Baltics, and several other regions populated by ethnic and religious minorities provided men for the Tricolor Army.

The Vossatanists consolidated their power by enacting several social, martial, and economic programs, alleviating the worst effects of the famine and the economic crisis. Using authoritarian methods against dissenters and insurgents, they managed to confine the Parliamentarians to southern Russia by the summer of 1926. The Parliamentarians appealed to the Ottomans and the United Kingdom for assistance, but were given no response except for Finnish revolutionaries in the far north. By the winter of 1927, notable figures of Parliament left the country. By March of 1928, all major insurgencies had ceased.

Over the next two years, the liberal and nationalist congresses, along with their respective loyalist militaries and militias, waged a brief civil war, with the national republicans eventually winning in the spring of 1928.