The Russian Revolution - OverSimplified (Part 2)

while nicholas had been busy playing with his new best friend tensions in europe had been rising it just so happened that in 1914 one archduke franz ferdinand of austria-hungary went for a drive with the top down in sarajevo one thing leads to another and suddenly russia found itself at war with half of europe a wave of patriotism swept through russia the capital was renamed to petrograd because saint petersburg sounded a bit too german even revolutionaries were getting on board to them world war one was a big stinky imperialist war but they didn't want their big stinky imperialist replaced by a foreign one so pretty much everyone wanted russia to win i hope russia loses geez read the room lennon london hoped russia would lose because that would help him overthrow the czar as long as he did that who cares if germany blows up half the country and blow up half the country they did an inefficient czarist government meant there were shortages of just about everything you need to fight a war and if losing a teensy-weensy war with japan upset the people losing a giant wyatt war like this was much worse soldiers were deserting the economy was imploding and in no time russia was starving the peasants were getting more peasanting the workers were getting more mercury all the while germany was getting more germinary dimitri we need to win this war i need someone with a great military mind to step in and take control you're right how about general hickalooper how about me you can't run the war who'll be in charge of the country while you're gone obviously my german wife in a homeless wizard duh nicholas declared himself commander-in-chief and went to the front lines leaving his german wife in charge while they were fighting the germans it wasn't a good look and because alexander was so close to rasputin people believed that he was actually calling the shots and secretly destroying russia and maybe even blinking her an even worser look at this point a bunch of nobles just couldn't take it anymore rasputin is destroying the country we have to break his magic spell over the tsar but how he's magic dude very cool hey it's rasputin the sexy party is running a little late but in the meantime why don't you try one of these totally not poisoned cakes dude why'd you say it like that he's totally gonna know they're poisoned now shut up i said they're not poisoned [Music] dude he just ate so much poison how is he still alive it must be the magic go with plan b is he dead sea boris i told you he was the antichrist and you didn't believe me can you shut up for one minute and help me roll him up are you sure he's dead i don't know but i'm supposed to be hosting a charity auction right now can we get this over with [Music] okay now he's dead the murder of rasputin just like his life is shrouded in mystery and speculation he probably didn't really die like that but he also probably didn't really heal people he probably didn't influence czar as much as people thought he probably wasn't secretly destroying the country but what he definitely did do even in his death was ruin the tsar's reputation russia's autocracy looked more outdated than ever and the russian people were taking notice come on men remember what we're fighting for yeah no we're out world war one left russia broke hungry and exhausted and with nicholas acting as commander-in-chief he was getting even more blame for the second time russia was on the brink of revolution by 1917 russia had been fighting a war it couldn't afford for three years they were running out of many things most worryingly food on international women's day 1917 thousands of hungry women in petrograd were so sick of being hungry that they took to the streets and it turns out it's not just women who experience hunger but men too so the next day they joined in as well gatherings on the streets were forbidden but i'm not sure how you'd arrest 250 000 people the crowds demanded an end to the war and into food rationing and even an end to the tsar's autocracy now normally the troops would deal with this kind of thing but as it turns out soldiers get hungry too and they were also tired of having to kill their fellow russians so much so entire regiments mutinied in the capital and they joined the crowd as well trashing symbols of the czar and his autocratic regime things were escalating very quickly liberal politicians watching the rights in the streets had long been dissatisfied with the czar since he would shut their parliament down anytime they did something he didn't like they believed the only way to bring stability back to the streets was for nicholas ii to abdicate the riots continued the police fired on soldiers soldiers fired on soldiers the workers reestablished the petrograd soviet politicians began arresting the tsar's ministers he may have been an autocrat but he just lost complete control of his capital city talk about embarrassing nicholas the troops have turned against us the people have taken over the city they've even cut my phone line hello hello hmm the phones are down things must be bad i'd better go back there nicholas hopped on the next train back to petrograd but he never made it to the city his train was met by military generals and other politicians what's going on nicholas look man we need to talk it's not you it's us ah who am i kidding no it's definitely you during the whole crisis in petrograd the liberals convinced the generals that if nicholas abdicated the people would calm down and the generals were on board they didn't have time to quell the chaos because don't forget they were still losing a global all-encompassing war against the germans and with the military no longer on his side nicholas had no choice but to step down throughout his entire reign he had done everything he could to keep all the power for himself and in the end that's exactly what left him with none but then there was a big question who would replace nicholas well his son alexi was next in line hey buddy daddy couldn't handle the complex socio-economic problems of a giant multinational multi-ethnic empire that's engaged in total war with all of europe you think you could give it a shot alexi just wasn't ready to be czar nicholas did have a brother but given the state of the empire he wasn't keen either and so 300 years of romanov rule in russia just kind of came to an end the earlier 1905 revolution hadn't changed much but this new revolution had left russia without a czar and still before the year was over there would be one more revolution left to come nicholas's failure as commander of the armed forces was the final straw that broke the camel's back do you think maybe you could have done any better well guess what it's time to find out in rise of kingdoms rise of kingdoms is an epic massive multiplayer free-to-play real-time strategy game choose from 11 historical civilizations including rome china or france you can form alliances with other players or conquer 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kingdoms now for free by clicking on the link in the description below join me and 50 million other online players and guide your civilization from a lowly clan into a great empire now where was i oh yeah hungry woman absolute chaos and the end of the czar oh hey guys says here there's been a revolution and the reign of the czars has ended oh come on i missed another one why am i even in this video well it's not like you could have done anything as long as there's a world war you can't get back to russia who wants to start a rebel i mean a rebel despite getting rid of nick russia was still at war with half of europe the germans however had an idea they thought that if they helped lenin get back he would cause trouble for the new russian government so they put him on a train destination petrograd it was a long journey and while lenin was cooped up in his train things in russia were changing workers were taking control of their factories soldiers were stalking it to their main old officers without a czar a big old power vacuum had opened up and someone needed to fill it the liberals proposed they'd be in charge and they set up the provisional government the workers however had already begun establishing local soviets largely controlled by the social revolutionaries and the mensheviks and since neither felt like they had the power to oust the other russia ended up in a classic jewel power conundrum the two co-existed with the provisional government becoming the official government and the elected soviets issuing orders to the workers and soldiers this power balance was delicate and all it would take is one bold revolutionary to come along and give everyone a big brained beatdown oh boy lenin's coming home i can't wait for him to see all the great things we've accomplished and i'm gonna show him my fan art oh look here he comes now shut up shut up you all suck the provisional government sucks the soviet sucks even your fan art sucks why does he have to be so mad in case you couldn't tell lena wasn't a fan of everything that had been happening in his april theses he called the provisional government and the soviets a bunch of big bourgeois bozos and he kind of had a point there was still a lot for the russian people to be mad about the provisional government hadn't got rush out of the war the people were still hungry and the peasants were still hoping to get more land meanwhile the soviets hadn't done much to change things either but even though they weren't perfect a lot of people did like what the new government had been doing there was progress the secret police were disbanded the death penalty abolished they even planned to hold elections meaning for the first time ever the russian people could choose their own government to many lenin seemed like some out of touch weirdo if lenin wanted to go from whiny relevant zero to hunky communist hero he'd need to shake things up a bit so he and the bolsheviks came up with a hot new slogan that promised to give the people what the provisional government wouldn't peace don't like war we'll end it land you want land we'll give it to you bread hungry scooby dooby doo lennon also called for all power to the soviets which meant getting rid of the provisional government and having the soviets run the place a communist dream the people liked these slogans and bit by bit the bolsheviks became more popular some mensheviks even began switching sides but even though the people thought lenin's slogans rocked as long as the provisional government didn't mess up they'd continue to support it so let's check in on the provisional government oh provisional government you've made a big mess the provisional government lasted for just nine months but those nine months were chaos the people wanted russia out of world war one but minister of war alexander karinsky thought instead of doing that why not do the exact opposite if the people saw more russian victories they'd have to support the new government and that went just about as well as you might expect these heavy defeats worsened the russian economy and made the hungry people hungrier and by now i think you know what comes next they trash the place more looting more rioting more violence it was like the czar had never abdicated tens of thousands of armed workers took to the streets during some of the worst violence petrograd had seen yet and in response karensky called in the troops who opened fire on the demonstrators for now lenin and other bolshevik leaders wanted to distance themselves from the violence but the crowds marched under bolshevik's slogans and as a result karensky now the prime minister took the opportunity to stamp down on the bolsheviks their leaders were arrested lenin was accused of being a german agent and he was forced to flee to finland in disguise this sucks now i'll never get to have my revolution why are you wearing a dress it's a disguise idiot and it makes me feel pretty karinsky had successfully dealt with the violence but he just couldn't catch a break this increasing support for more extreme forms of socialism along with the poor handling of the war alarmed traditional liberals and bougie business boys to appease them korinsky decided to promote a military legend to supreme commander of the armed forces someone who hated the revolution loved the death penalty and was devoutly anti-socialist general kornilov hey man thanks for the promotion that was real swell of you of course with you by my side who would dare try to overthrow me how about me i did not see this coming unfortunately for karinsky kornilov hated the liberal and socialist reforms of the new government particularly the dumb socialist soldiers committees the army was no place for undisciplined left-wing snowflakes fearing a bolshevik takeover was imminent kornilov ordered his men towards petrograd to ask the soviet and take over karinsky freaked out and he needed help since he knew trotsky was finger-licking good at organizing he and other bolshevik leaders were released and they along with the soviet organized the defense of petrograd kornilov had the power of soldiers but the soviet had the power of workers and they did what workers do best railroad workers diverted chronolog's men away telegraph workers messed with his communications they even infiltrated his forces and encouraged the demoralized men to desert they were also armed on mass but in the end no fighting was necessary because konolov's coup just fell apart and cornulov was sent straight to prison everything was coming up korinsky hey thanks for the help boys couldn't have done it without you now that there's no longer any threat how about you uh return all those guns i gave you hmm no oh no in order to kill a rat karinsky had just given a gun to a bear a bolshevik bear the whole affair was a huge propaganda win for them they had defended the revolution and their popularity skyrocketed they found themselves elected to the petrograd moscow soviets with trotsky even becoming chairman in petrograd they were now in a very powerful position almost powerful enough for lennon to return home from finland and finally stages a long-awaited communist revolution the bolsheviks began planning their takeover of the russian government some got cold feet and began arguing against lenin's armed revolution in favor of a more peaceful approach and they even wrote newspaper articles about it which kind of gave the whole scheme away the bolsheviks are planning an armed revolution i did not see this coming korinsky began arresting bolsheviks and as a result lenin and the boys felt they had no choice but to commence the revolution right now lennon was back in petrograd but was still in hiding so trotsky got the ball rolling using his position as soviet chairman to organize the bolshevik militias now if you were to ask soviet artists the revolution went something like this [Music] as much as they would like you to think it was a glorious violent heroic takeover the truth seems to be a little more underwhelming the bolsheviks just kind of walked into key buildings in the city and took control bolshevik supporting sailors even brought in a huge battleship but there wasn't really any fighting nobody really tried to stop them in just one day they took control of the city next korenski just managed to escape before the bolsheviks surrounded the winter palace placing the provisional government under siege inside is it safe to come out yet i think so fear my revolutionary might give me that that night lenin came out of hiding to play a bigger role in the revolution with him back at the helm they had one more job to do storm the winter palace and arrest the provisional government and here comes the final showdown the palace was defended by a force known as the battalion of death who immediately gave up and just like that lenin had won as far as violent bloody revolutionary uprisings go this wasn't really one of them but lenin was finally in charge of russia he had spent his whole life dreaming of this moment he set up the first council of people's commissars his own cabinet with him in charge this was it his chance to finally make his communist utopia with equality and freedoms beyond compare hey lenin before we took power they were planning on holding elections shall we go ahead with those of course you can't have a communist utopia without high levels of political participation the proletariat should be free to what the social revolutionaries won we lost those don't count lenin claimed the elections were unfair and the constituent assembly they created was counter-revolutionary he presented the new assembly with a motion that basically said sign here and give up your power and when the assembly was like no lenin said see they're disobeying me proof they're counter-revolutionary shut it down boys moderate socialists and others weren't happy when lenin had the assembly closed by force and when campaigners began taking to the streets they were fired upon for lenin setting up a communist utopia was looking suspiciously like setting up a dictatorship while he was implementing many of the communist policies you'd expect he was also refusing to work with other political parties and cracking down in opposition hey lennon are you setting up a dictatorship i'll shoot you if you are of course not what a crazy theory anyway i'm pleased to announce i'm setting up a secret police force to repress and kill traitors and by traitors i of course mean anyone not loyal to me the assassination attempt made on lenin's life in august 1918 failed but in response the bolsheviks ramped up their oppression but while all this chaos was erupting back home lenin and the boys were also distracted by another problem they were still at war with the germans and they had promised to give the people peace so lenin made trotsky kamazar for foreign affairs and sent him off to negotiate a peace deal with the germans the germans offered trotsky really harsh terms you know because they were winning the war they demanded russia give up a butt ton of land something that would be devastating to the economy look i know it's not great but i think we have to accept it are you insane this will ruin us hey trotsky you got a big brain what do you think how about no war no peace what's that mr trotsky sir it's simple no warnings will stop fighting the germans but no peace means we won't sign the peace treaty either then when the germans say we've just stopped fighting they'll have to leave us alone or something trotsky that's genius i could kiss you do you want me to kiss you stop asking me that trotsky's no war no peace plan was a huge success oh wait no just kidding it went exactly as you'd imagine when the german saw the russians had stopped fighting they slammed 700 thousand troops deep into russian territory with no resistance now the new peace treaty offered by the germans was way worse with russia losing a huge amount of territory population and resources the bolsheviks had no choice but to accept and russia was humiliated with petrograd now in an exposed position lennon moved the capital to moscow just in case things really weren't going well for lenin and many many people were extremely unhappy with the bolshevik government and its actions lenin you've pissed off so many people that they've united against you we're under attack relax we always expected some counter-revolutionary pushback i think we can handle a few angry monopoly men but lenin it's not just the monopoly man okay who are we up against well the liberals the social revolutionaries national separatists in poland fill in the ukraine independent warlord setting up chieftains anarchist rebels the green peasant armies the cossacks the caucasian states the baltic states the british the french the americans and the japanese oh and a legion of czechoslovakian soldiers seem to have taken over the trans-siberian railway and stolen all the imperial gold reserves what how could this get any worse oh and it says here your mother-in-law is coming to stay a variety of anti-bolshevik forces had united together to topple lenin's government and russia descended into a full-blown civil war now the russian civil war was extremely intricate and would really need its own video but essentially the anti-bolshevik white movement gained control of vast underdeveloped areas while the bolshevik reds controlled the industrial heartland using this to their advantage along with the surprising military genius of trotsky and the shocking disorganization of the white army the fortified red army gradually came out on top it was an absolutely brutal conflict with both sides committing horrendous atrocities to maintain order at home the bolsheviks began the red terror and the secret police would execute tens of thousands of suspected traders no one was safe from the violence not even nicholas himself you've probably been wondering what nicholas has been up to this whole time well after his abdication he and his family were placed under house arrest at first they were allowed to live in their usual luxury but after lenin took over their conditions worsened the bolsheviks were just holding on to nick until they could work out what to do with him but the civil war complicated things the last thing they wanted was for nick to be freed by the white armies and so to stop this from happening nicholas's bolshevik guards decided to act it's not entirely certain whether lenin ordered it or if the guards were acting on their own volition but on july 17 1918 with white armies approaching they woke nicholas and his family in the middle of the night and brought them into the basement there a drunken squad of bolsheviks murdered the entire family nicholas the last tsar once one of the most powerful men alive had met a brutal end but after years of fighting and millions of deaths trotsky and his red army came out victorious wow that was a close one okay back to creating a communist utopia how are we doing on that well the civil war helped create a massive famine and about 5 million people starved to death there's massive inflation in the ruble is worthless hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of railway track have been destroyed disease and epidemics have killed three million the population of moscow and petrograd has collapsed life expectancy is plummeted sailors and crunch dad are rebelling people are freezing to death in their own apartments and life has been reduced to a constant search for food and shelter whoa well this just means i'll have to work twice as hard day and night to save the country nothing will stop me short of a couple sudden strokes get the doctor one thing you have to keep in mind is that everything i've been talking about the civil war the assassination attempt and lenin's struggle to maintain control at home were all happening around the same time and it must have been extremely stressful lenin began getting headaches insomnia and in 1922 he suffered two separate strokes as the soviet union was officially declared under a strict one-party system lenin's health continued to decline and his ability to lead the communist party went with it everybody assumed trotsky would succeed him he was a great speaker he'd won the civil war and he had a dope ass train the last person anyone expected to take over was stalin stalin wasn't a great intellectual like lenin or a charismatic war hero like trotsky he was as one menshevik described him a gray blur someone who operated in the background someone who you might not even notice but it was in the background that stalin would rise to power here's how it happened after the revolution all the bolsheviks hoped to get a cool job in the new government what did you get commas are for war sweet what'd you get secretary stalin was made general secretary for the communist party it wasn't what he wanted but stalin quickly realized that even though it wasn't fancy it was a powerful position as secretary he had the power to give people jobs within the party so he would give jobs to all of his pals who in turn would give him their support the more piles he gave jobs the more power he got the more power he got the more pounds he got lenin may have been having wall-to-wall strokes but he was still involved in the party and he was taking notice he wasn't a fan of stalin abusing his position or insulting his wife to her face lennon knew he couldn't let stalin take over but by this stage he was just too sick to fight it hey man tell whoever's in charge of giving people jobs not to let that jerk stalin become the next leader by the way who did i put in charge of giving people jobs that would be stalin sir well deja vu lennon's last wish was to not let stalin take over but by the time he died stalin was too powerful to remove he had his remaining opponents arrested or killed trotsky was banished and fled to europe eventually he would be assassinated by soviet spies in 1940. our dear comrade lenin has died we should have a state funeral no let's mummify him and put him on display so people can look at his dead body forever that's gross you're gross guards kill him lenin had waited so long to take control in russia but he never got to see his communist utopia his short time in charge was spent dealing with the destroyed russian economy world war one and the civil war he was cruel and merciless but he really did seem to believe communism would make russia a better place stalin on the other hand would take the soviet union down a different path if you thought lenin was a tyrant well you ain't seen nothing yet girl a secret police state a rapidly militarizing superpower led by a paranoid man who deeply distrusted the west would see the world come to the brink of nuclear annihilation that's right i'm talking about remember to click the link in the description below to download rise of kingdoms for free fight alongside allies conquer other players and use superior tactics to emerge victorious in a strategic battle royale again click on the link in the description below and i'll see you there [Music] you

Channel: OverSimplified

Views: 5,593,827

Rating: 4.9315329 out of 5

Keywords: russian revolution, rasputin, tsar nicholas, romanov

Id: b1reY72ktEc

Length: 24min 21sec (1461 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ss_368]

Don’t really think that this video is glorifying Lenin in anysorts. It’s just the style of Oversimplified’s videos.

[u/BanjoWalrus]

Maybe a little too over"simp"lified? It's always that story with them. "If only "X" didn't happen it would have worked." Well "X" seems to be inevitable when it comes to communism throughout all of recorded history of it being attempted.

[u/senlahe]

i honestly got the opposite depiction from this

[u/oh_no_the_claw]

Typical "if only Stalin hadn't taken over" revisionist bullshit. Lenin ethnically cleansed the Cossacks, empowered the Cheka to murder tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of political dissidents, as well as put thousands of Orthodox Jews and Eastern Orthodox priests to death.

Lenin was an unabashed terrorist and said so in his speeches and writings.

e:spelling

[u/DeaththeEternal]

To be fair if you're really drunk, really stupid, or just really Keyboard Revolutionary Lenin seems like a hero, not a terrorist who piggybacked off a truly successful popular revolution on the German payroll and betrayed his country on behalf of Hindenburg and Ludendorff.

[u/TheBigOof96]

They mentioned him being cruel quite a few times, but the video is supposed talk about the revolution and it's causes and they did a great job at that.

[u/SnapshillBot]

Snapshots:

1. Lenin, a mass murderer and a terror... - archive.org, archive.today

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[u/magbybaby]

Yeah hard disagree Lenin comes off as a power hungry ass in that short.