Russia As One Of The World s Superpowers - 1545 Words

Russia stands as one of the world’s superpowers. The same ideals and strength of a people that spawned the Russian Revolution continue to persist nearly a hundred years later and have served in turning the once underdog into a world leader as the second half of the 21st century approached. Revolution: The start of Russia as we know it begins with the fall of the Romanovs. Russia entered the 20th century under the rule of Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs. Eventually, his incompetency as a leader caught up to him as a series of massive blunders, including the likes of and the Russo-Japanese War. Russia’s poor performance in this conflict, along with general public unrest, led to Bloody Sunday which marks the beginning of the 1905†¦show more content†¦Marxism and communism became commonplace amongst the people of Russia and the once marginalized Bolsheviks and Mensheviks rose to power and prominence. The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were two Marxist political parties that arose from a split in the Russian Social-Democratic Worker’s Party. The two, despite their differences pushed for many of the sentiments that fueled the Revolution. However, while they began holding large scale conferences as early as 1903 they remained largely uninvolved in the prompting of the 1905 Revolution as they were so estranged they that they had to have their conferences outside of the country. It was the switch from imperialism that started the fire that would soon manifest itself as the February Revolution. The revolution, as much as it was a manifestation of nearly 20 years of tension, above all was jump-started by an overall massive failure in World War I. Russia joined the war after Austria declared war on its ally, Serbia. Food and fuel shortages followed all the while inflation and casualties rose. This ws the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. The first strikes on St. Petersburg hit in 1917 and eventually prompted the February Revolution. The longstanding Romanov dynasty ended when Nicholas II was forced to resign. No time was wasted in seizing up control of the country. The Petrograd Soviet promptly issued Order No.1 claiming control of the armed forces. The order stated that the Soviet had to approve