By VOA Special English
...That event changed the war...and the history of the Twentieth Century. It was the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Its leader was Vladimir Lenin.
The Russian Revolution began in the spring of nineteen seventeen. The people of that country were tired of fighting Germany. And they were tired of their ruler, Czar Nicholas. The Czar was overthrown. A temporary government was established. It was headed by Alexander Kerenski.
President Woodrow Wilson sent a team of American officials to Russia to help Kerenski's new government. The officials urged Russia to remain in the war.
Under Kerenski, Russia did keep fighting. But it continued to suffer terrible losses. Many Russians demanded an end to the war.
Lenin saw this opposition as a way to gain control of the government. So he went to the city of Petrograd. There, he led the opposition to the war and to Kerenski. Night after night, he spoke to big crowds. "What do you get from war." He shouted. "Only wounds, hunger, and death!"
Lenin promised peace under Bolshevik Communism. Within a few months, he won control of the Petrograd Soviet. That was an organization of workers and soldiers. Another Bolshevik Communist, lLon Trotsky, controlled the Soviet in Moscow.
Kerenski's government continued to do badly in the war. More and more Russian soldiers lost hope. Many fled the army. Others stayed. But they refused to fight.
The end came in November, nineteen seventeen. Soldiers in Petrograd turned against Kerenski. Lenin ordered them to rebel. And he took control of the government within forty-eight hours. Russia was now a Communist nation.
As promised, Lenin called for peace. So Russia signed its own peace treaty with Germany. The treaty forced Russia to pay a high price for its part in the war. It had to give up a third of its farmland, half of its industry, and ninety percent of its coal mines. It also lost a third of its population. Still, it did not have real peace with Germany.
