The Romanovs and the Russian Revolution
Lecture 19 from John Merriman’s course HIST 202: European Civilization, 1648-1945 on Yale University’s Open Courses.
The period between the Russian Revolution of February 1917, which resulted in the overthrow of the autocracy and the establishment of a provisional government, and the Bolshevik Revolution in October of that same year, offers an instructive example of revolutionary processes at work. During this interval, the fate of Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, was bound up in the struggle for power amongst competing political factions in Russia. Until his death, Nicholas was convinced that the Russian people would rescue him from his captors. Such a belief would prove to be delusional, and the efforts on the part of liberals, socialists, and some Bolsheviks to arrange for a trial would fail to save the czar from the verdict of history.
Vladimir Lenin’s Rolls Royce
Was this a Communist contradiction or a hand-me-down hot wheel? Vladimir Lenin was preaching the evils of bourgeois tendencies, while cruising around town in his fine automobile.