The Tsar’s Secret Police and the Seeds of Revolution
By the late 19th century, Russia was playing catch-up with the Industrial Revolution, finally modernizing a century after much of Europe. Peasants poured into grimy, overcrowded cities for factory jobs, while a small middle class of educated professionals began questioning why their country still seemed stuck in the Middle Ages. Inspired by Western ideas of democracy and socialism, these reformers secretly organized to discuss change, risking exile to Siberia if caught by the Tsar’s secret police, the Okhrana. Printing pamphlets and debating how to reform Russia, some revolutionaries favored peaceful solutions like a constitutional monarchy, while others pushed for radical socialism or even terrorism. For Tsar Nicholas II, all of them were a threat to his absolute rule.
Nicholas responded with brute force, sending police to crush strikes and deploying Okhrana spies to universities and coffeehouses to sniff out dissidents. Yet the reformers knew their numbers were too small to change Russia alone; they needed the support of the peasants, who made up 95% of the population. These peasants, however, were often illiterate, politically uninvolved, and confined to their isolated villages. Revolutionaries ventured into the countryside to teach them to read and expose them to ideas about freedom and modernization.
Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and his family.
Life Under the Tsar: Poverty and Protest
Most Russian peasants lived in poverty, toiling on small plots of rented land while paying high rents to wealthy landlords—many of whom were tied to the royal family. For those seeking an alternative, the factories weren’t much better. Factory bosses ignored laws limiting workdays to 11½ hours, and bribed police to look the other way. Workers lived in filthy barracks so cramped they made city tenements look luxurious. Despite these conditions, strikes and protests began to grow as workers demanded better wages and living standards.
In 1905, Russia’s frustrations boiled over. Facing an economic crisis, Nicholas decided that what the country really needed was a morale-boosting war. But instead of an easy victory, the Russo-Japanese War ended in a humiliating defeat, leaving the population angrier than ever. Protesters, led by Father Gapon, marched to the Winter Palace in January 1905, hoping to present their grievances directly to the Tsar. Instead, they were met with bullets. The massacre, later called Bloody Sunday, left hundreds dead and shattered the people’s belief that the Tsar cared for them. It was a tipping point, setting Russia on a path toward revolution.
The Bloody Sunday Massacre
The fallout from Bloody Sunday was huge. The people’s faith in their Tsar was finally shaken; “God Save the Tsar” gave way to angry cries of “The Tsar Will Not Help Us.” The number of terrorist attacks surged. In 1905, more than fifteen hundred government officials were assassinated.
Lenin, a revolutionary leader and the driving force behind Russia's future Bolshevik Party, was living in exile at the time but closely monitoring events back home. A fierce advocate for socialism and the overthrow of the Tsar, Lenin saw Bloody Sunday and the growing unrest as a golden opportunity to fuel the flames of revolution.
He urged his followers to step up the attacks. Even the soldiers began to sympathize with the people by joining in on the strikes. But this is only 1905; we still have twelve more years of strikes and protests before the real revolution begins.
The Bloody Sunday massacre created something of a public relations nightmare to say the least. The Tsar and the whole concept of absolute monarchy seemed to be coming down faster than a snowstorm in Moscow.
Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto where he agreed to Russia’s first written constitution and (begrudgingly) gave up some of his power to the Duma. He even agreed to ease up on restriction against speech, the press, and labor unions. The Duma was to be Russia’s version of Parliament with its members elected by the people. But the Duma was far from democratic. Most of its members came from the upper class and tended to make laws that favored their own wants and needs over the majority of the people.
But Nicholas had no intention of giving up any power to the people. He was an old fashioned kind of autocrat that honestly believed that God had put him in charge. No sooner had the protestors went back to work that Tsar Nicholas disbanded the Duma and refused to reform the hated censorship laws. Strike leaders–many of whom like Lenin and Trotsky who would play a part in the revolution of 1917– were rounded up, beaten, and exiled to Siberia.
Bloody Sunday Massacre - 1905
The number of people killed in the 1905 Russian event known as Bloody Sunday is unclear, but is generally estimated to be between 96 and over 200
The February Revolution
It all began on February 23, 1917, when 90,000 textile workers in Petrograd went on strike, chanting “We Want Bread.” Food shortages had been worsening across Russia, and people were starving. The next day, more factory workers joined the strike, and the unrest spread quickly. Troops were called in to break up the protests, but to everyone’s surprise, the soldiers refused to fire on the crowds. A full-blown revolution was unfolding.
By March 8, tens of thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Petrograd shouting slogans like “Give us bread,” “Down with the Tsar,” and “Down with the war.” The crowds swelled to over 100,000 as workers, sailors, and even soldiers joined the demonstrations. Storefronts and bakeries were looted, and some police officers were attacked.
The next day, the protests escalated further, with angry demonstrators targeting government offices. In response, Tsar Nicholas II banned all public meetings and gatherings, but it was too late. The President of the Duma, Russia’s legislative assembly, sent an urgent telegram to the Tsar, warning that action was needed immediately. Nicholas replied with a curt order to dissolve the Duma. This time, the Duma refused to obey. With soldiers refusing to fire on protesters and more joining the demonstrations each day, it became clear that the Tsar had lost all control.
On March 13, thousands of common soldiers outright disobeyed orders and joined the revolutionaries in the streets. Many soldiers were fed up with the war, where millions of Russian troops had died in brutal conditions with little to no supplies. Starving, exhausted, and demoralized, they began siding with the people they were supposed to suppress. Soldiers who had witnessed the suffering of their families back home now stood shoulder to shoulder with the protesters. By the end of the day, the red flag of revolution was flying over the Winter Palace. Nicholas II abdicated his throne, ending the Romanov dynasty's 300-year rule.
The revolution was celebrated across the country, and remarkably, it had been relatively bloodless. Hopeful for the future, many Russians dreamed of building a democratic country. Even U.S. President Woodrow Wilson welcomed the news with enthusiasm. The ex-Tsar and his family prepared to leave for England as ordinary citizens, but the revolutionaries placed them under house arrest instead.
"Situation serious. Anarchy in the capital. Government paralyzed. Transport of food and fuel in full disorder. Popular discontent growing. Disorderly firing in the streets. Some military units fire on one another, Essential immediately to order persons having the confidence of the country to form new government. Delay impossible. Any delay deadly. I pray to God that in this hour the blame does not fall on the crown."
The Tsar is Gone but the Problems Remain
While the Tsar was gone, Russia’s deeper issues remained. The country was still at war, and the German army was overwhelming Russian forces, capturing territory like Ukraine and threatening Petrograd itself. The new Provisional Government, led by the Social Democrats, faced the daunting challenge of governing a divided and chaotic nation.
The Provisional Government struggled with internal disagreements. Conservatives wanted to maintain as much of the old system as possible, liberals aimed for a Western-style democracy, and socialists like the Bolsheviks dreamed of a communist utopia inspired by Karl Marx, where class divisions would disappear, and everyone would live as equals.
For now, an uneasy arrangement emerged: the Provisional Government ruled alongside the soviets, grassroots assemblies of workers and soldiers that sprang up across the country. Factories ousted their owners and were managed by elected councils. Even the army formed its own soviets, rejecting tyrannical officers in favor of elected leaders. Lenin and the Bolsheviks encouraged these changes, issuing Order No. 1, which called on soldiers to remove their commanders and take control of their own units.
Across Russia, two competing visions of the future vied for control: the Social Democrats’ representative democracy, modeled after the United States, and the Bolsheviks’ radical dream of a communist revolution. The February Revolution had toppled the Tsar, but the battle for Russia’s soul was far from over.
People celebrating on the streets after news of Tsar Nicholas's abdication.
Smile for the Murder Camera: The Execution of the Romanovs
On March 22, 1917 Tsar Nicholas II became just Nicholas Alexandrovich, an average Russian citizen. He and his family were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace where they continued to live a life of comfort with most their servants still on staff to attend to their needs. (prison life can be so hard).
In August, the ex-royal family was moved to the former governor’s mansion to keep them safe from the rising tide of Bolsheviks. But when the Bolshevik’s took control of Petrograd and Moscow in October 1917 they took over care of their Romanov prisoners.
The pampered patriarchs were moved to a more modest location (known as the House for Special Purpose) just east of the Ural Mountains to the city of Yketerainberg. Most of their servants (except for their doctor, cook, and personal maid) were dismissed and the family was now expected to eat on rationed food like the rest of Russia.
Under the watch of the Red Guard, the plan was to put the Tsar on trial for crimes against humanity. But things didn’t work out that way. The White Army were closing in on the town. Artillery fire could be heard pounding the Red Army defending nearby. A hasty decision was made by Soviet commanders in Moscow to execute the family rather than to allow them to fall into enemy hands. The recapture of the Romanovs would have been a disaster for the Reds. The royal family would have boosted morale for the Whites, but even worse they might have been able to convince other European countries to join the war against the communists.
Around midnight on July 16, 1918 the family doctor was ordered to wake the Romanovs and move them into the cellar “for better safety”. The family of seven along with three servants and the family dog, Jemmy, were herded into a small cell and told to wait. To avoid causing a panic, the Royals were told they were going to have their photo taken as proof that they were still alive. A short while later the commander of the house entered and read a pronouncement:
‘Nikolai Aleksandrovich, in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you..’
The Tsar said his final words “what?” and was executed. He, his wife, son, and the servants died instantly. Despite being shot, the four Romanov daughters: Tatiana, Olga, Maria, and Anastasia did not even fall. In fact, the bullets bounced off them in sparks. The soldiers were confused but kept shooting until the girls finally died. Sewn into their dresses were over a pound of gems that protected them from the first round of gunfire. Sadly, they even killed the dog.
The bodies were then loaded onto a truck and taken miles into the Siberian forest along the Koptyaki Road. The corpses were doused with acid to hide their identities, burned and then buried in an unmarked grave. After the fall of the USSR in 1991, the bodies were exhumed and made reburied at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.
The Murder Room
The Russian Civil War
In November 1917, the revolution became an all-out Civil War. The Bolsheviks were gaining support from across Russian society by promising land to the peasants, peace to the soldiers, and food to the workers. The Bolsheviks called their version of democracy the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Under Lenin’s vision the government would be necessary only until the people were ready to take control of their own lives. Private property that existed under the rich landowners who had greedily hogged so much at the expense of the poor would be swept away and replaced by peasants who owned land collectively. Under this new communist utopia the common soldiers would be given control of the military and workers would be given control of the factories, the peasants would own the fields. No one would be better than anyone else.
The Revolution that seemed to end so peacefully in the spring was turning into a nightmare by the winter. Russia was in open civil war from 1918-1922 as the Bolsheviks (“The Reds”) sought to extend their control over the entire country. Those who opposing the Bolshevik takeover were known as “The Whites”, although Whites could mean anyone from the Mensheviks or even those who supported a return to Tsarist rule. The only thing that the Whites had in common was that they hated the Bolsheviks. When the election results came in from the November elections, the Bolsheviks had won less than a 25% of the seats in the Duma. Lenin, not letting a little thing like voting stand in the way, ordered the Red Guard to prevent the elected representatives from entering the Tauride Palace where the Duma met. Democracy in Russia only lasted one day and would not return until 1991.
Throughout 1918 until 1922 a reign of terror known as the Great Fear spread throughout Russia. The Red Army, led by Leon Trotsky, recruited workers and soldiers loyal to the communists to fight but it needed trained officers to whip this ragtag group into an effective fighting machine. Most of the generals were loyal to the whites and so Trotsky used kidnapping as a recruiting tool. Families of officers were held hostage to ensure that these men stayed loyal to the Red cause. Wherever the Reds won control they were followed by their army of secret police–the Cheka– which was more brutal than the Tsar’s police force had ever been.
Thousands were rounded up and shot if they were even suspected of being loyal to the Whites. Some estimates put the number of people murdered during the civil war by the Cheka at 50,000. Property and food was confiscated for the use of the Red Army which led to mass starvation. This time became known as the Red Terror. But, it was equally as bad as the White Terror which was being carried out by the White Army who did the same things to suspected communists. One of the most chilling examples of White brutality was against the Jews. Russia has had a pathetic record for tolerance of its religious minorities and Jewish communities have fared the worst. Many of the communists were also Jews and so Jewish towns were terrorized by the Whites who stereotyped all Jews as being communists. Ironically, the communists under Josef Stalin would target the Jews for terror.
Russian "Whites" pose for a quick photo over the bodies of executed communist "Reds"
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