Why was the revolution of 1917 so successful?

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Why was the Revolution of 1917 successful?

Most of the population in Russia during 20th century were peasants. These peasants lived in dreadful conditions and most worked as Serfs on nobles land. They had no rights, they were treated as slaves, and all lived in terrible poverty. They wanted change so desperately they revolted for the first time in 1905 and then again in 1917, at which Tsardom was finally overthrown.

A hundred years ago, deep discontent was mounting in Europe’s most conservative state. As an unpopular war with Japan led to a series of crushing military reverses, opposition was spreading across the Russian Empire to the autocratic dictatorship of the Tsar.

Up to the end of the 19th century, Russia was an aristocracy. It was ruled by a Tsar, similar to a head of the monarchy in Britain back in the 1500s. He ruled as he liked. His will was the sole source of law, of taxation and justice. He controlled the army and all the officials and even religious affairs. His autocratic rule was supported by the privileged nobles, who possessed land and serfs, and held all the chief offices in the Tsar's administration.

The mass of people were serfs. Serfs were peasants, ‘slaves’. They worked on the estates of the nobles. They could be punished in any form by the nobles and could even be sold as chattels. Besides the serfs, there was a very small middle class in the towns. There was significant discontent with the backward  nature of Russia’s ruling class.

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The main theme of the Russian history in the late 19th century to the early 20th century is that the non-noble classes asked for an improvement in their wretched and poor conditions of life in the main event known as the ‘bloody Sunday’ in 1905.

A huge peaceful gathering of ordinary people marched to the Tsar’s winter palace in St Petersburg. They trusted the Tsar and carried a petition calling upon him to make their lives better. Troops guarding the palace panicked and opened fire on the marchers, killing and injuring hundreds. The Tsar was not there, but the Russian writer ...

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