World War I was very hard on the Russian Empire. So hard, in fact, that it led to the end of the Russian Empire. As the global conflict ground on, Tsar Nicholas II faced increasing unrest at home. Today we'll learn about the Revolutions of 1917, the rise of Lenin, Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks, and the Reussian Civil War and the creation of the Soviet Union. 

Sources
Engelstein, Laura. Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, and Civil War, 19141922. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Kivelson, Valerie A. and Ronald Grigor Suny. Russia’s Empires. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Sanborn, Joshua A. Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Smith, Bonnie G. Europe in the Contemporary World since 1900. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2020.

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