The Russian Revolution - OverSimplified (Part 1)

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0:15 Hey Jimmy, it's the 1800s, an exciting time to be alive.

0:20 Why don't you get out there and explore the world?

0:22 Gee whiz mum, thanks.

0:24 This place is amazing.

0:26 Where am I?

0:27 Why you're in France, my boy.

0:28 Here we come up with wacky new ways of running a country.

0:31 Liberty, egality, fraternity.

0:34 Whoa!

0:34 Welcome to the United Kingdom.

0:36 Here, we invented the train.

0:37 Alllllll aboard.

0:40 Holy smokes.

0:41 You're in a German factory, my friend.

0:43 Here, we harness fire and coal to create all these sexy lederhosen.

0:46 This is incredible.

0:48 I can't wait to see where I'll end up next.

0:52 Where am I?

0:55 You're in Russia.

0:57 Have I gone back in time?

0:59 No, this is just how it is.

1:00 Are you a farmer?

1:02 Worse, technically, my landlord owns me which makes me a serf.

1:07 I'm scared.

1:08 You should be because I haven't eaten in four days and you look pretty tasty.

1:12 Hey Jimmy, how were your travels?

1:14 I hate you.

1:16 (soft melodic music) Russia, in the 19th century.

1:22 Feudal, underdeveloped and stuck in the past.

1:25 While the rest of Europe had

1:26 been modernizing and improving their citizen's lives.

1:28 Russia's rulers were taking a different approach.

1:30 My Lord, we're falling behind the rest of Europe.

1:33 It's time to industrialize.

1:34 Give the people rights and share your power.

1:36 (loud bomb exploding) Russian Tsars had no time

1:39 for pathetic ideas like liberty and modernization because they were

1:42 too busy having the time of their lives while

1:45 the serfs were breaking their backs in the fields,

1:47 the Tsars held all the power and they didn't have to listen to anyone.

1:51 Wanna run the country like a backwards feudal kingdom while

1:53 the rest of your pack paces humanitarian and economically, go right ahead.

1:56 Wanna keep the people on educated so they don't get any ideas?

1:59 There's no one to stop you.

2:00 Wanna keep exporting grain even when there's

2:02 a massive famine causing hundreds of thousands to die?

2:05 That is your God given right.

2:08 While all of this was great for the Tsar.

2:09 If you were literally anybody else,

2:11 it probably sucked because Russia was falling behind.

2:14 If they were to keep up with Europe

2:16 they'd need a strong ruler with some big ideas.

2:19 Oh, look here comes one now.

2:20 Hey everyone, it's me Tsar Alexander the second and I've got some big news.

2:25 I'm releasing you all from your serfdom.

2:27 You're all free.

2:28 (crow cheering loudly) Yep, I'm the best.

2:32 Oh, there is one thing though.

2:33 I spoke to your local lords and they

2:35 weren't happy about losing all their free labor.

2:37 So as a compromise, you're all gonna have to pay them

2:39 back in near impossible amount of money for the next 49 years.

2:42 Expect your lives to barely change.

2:45 Okay, bye.

2:47 Now, I know what you're thinking.

2:48 This Tsar Alexander the second seems like a pretty cool guy.

2:51 He's trying to reform the country and get Russia on the right path.

2:54 Everyone must love this guy, right, wrong.

2:57 Why does one man get to decide fate of everyone in the country?

3:00 This whole system is dumped.

3:01 Somebody should do something.

3:03 Like what?

3:04 Like kill the Tsar.

3:05 You're gonna kill the Tsar?

3:06 Well me, no, I'm busy.

3:09 I was kind of hoping you'd do it, okay.

3:12 See the people love me.

3:14 They're throwing flowers, confetti and high-grade explosives.

3:17 (bomb exploding loudly) Okay Nicholas,

3:19 your grandfather has a mild case of being blown

3:21 up by a terrorist and he's not looking too hot.

3:23 So we're gonna go say our goodbyes, okay?

3:25 No, it'll be too scary for him.

3:27 Nonsense, it won't be scary at all.

3:28 We're just gonna say a quick goodbye, ready?

3:32 Boy, look at me.

3:35 The people did this to me and one day, they'll do it to you!

3:41 See it wasn't scary at all.

3:43 So Alexander the second was dead,

3:44 but luckily they had another Alexander lying around.

3:46 Alexander the third and he felt

3:48 his dad's reforms had weakened the Tsar's authority.

3:51 Russia was massive.

3:52 And as a result had many ethnic minorities.

3:55 Non Russians more interested in their own cultural

3:57 heritage than in loving me, isn't it great?

4:00 So much beautiful culture and diversity in our great nation.

4:02 (bomb exploding loudly) Alexander thought all these minorities should

4:05 be a little more Russian and thereby loyal to him.

4:08 So he repressed religious minorities.

4:10 He repressed non Russians.

4:11 He introduced the Okhrana.

4:12 A secret police force that repressed anybody who thought having a Tsar was dumb.

4:16 If Alexander the second was the great

4:18 reformer Alexander the third was the great repressor.

4:21 Now that's how you run a country.

4:22 Hey dad.

4:23 Oh great, it's my son Nicholas,

4:25 who I like to call a girly girl because he's so weak and pathetic.

4:28 When are you gonna grow up?

4:32 You still look like a girly girl to me.

4:33 But dad, I grew a beard.

4:35 Yeah, an ugly girly girl beard.

4:38 (crying loudly) If Nicholas was to one day be Tsar.

4:41 He needed his dad to teach him how to run the country.

4:43 But his dad instead suggested that Nicholas goes somewhere else.

4:46 So Nicholas went to Japan, got an edgy dragon tattoo.

4:49 Had his head sliced off by a policeman and then came home.

4:51 Now, will you teach me how to rule?

4:53 I suppose it's time.

4:54 Okay, there's a lot you need to know before becoming Tsar, uh oh, what?

4:59 I've got kidney inflammation.

5:04 Oh no.

5:05 Upon his father's death,

5:06 a totally unprepared Nicholas the second ascended to the Russian throne.

5:09 He wasn't a reformer like his grandfather nor was he a repressor like his dad.

5:13 Nicholas was Nicholas.

5:15 Timid, easily swayed and more interested in doing

5:17 whatever the hell this is or this or this.

5:21 He wasn't ready to rule.

5:22 And he himself admitted it saying I'm not yet ready to be Tsar.

5:25 I know nothing of the business of ruling.

5:29 Bit of an awkward time to bring it up.

5:30 However, Nicholas firmly believed that he was

5:32 chosen by God to be Russia's big daddy.

5:34 And while he doubted his ability to rule, he was gonna give it his best shot.

5:38 And hey, who knows?

5:39 Maybe he wouldn't be so bad after all.

5:41 To get things off to a good start.

5:42 Nicholas promised free pretzels and beer to a huge

5:44 crowd in Moscow to celebrate his coronation.

5:46 So enticing a proposition to starving peasants

5:49 that the ensuing stampede left nearly 1500 people dead.

5:52 What the hell happened?

5:53 We're not sure, but you're scheduled to go

5:55 party with the French at eight o'clock.

5:57 Shouldn't I stay here out of respect for the people?

5:59 When have Russian Tsars ever respected the people?

6:03 (upbeat music) Nicholas's decision to go party

6:06 with the French immediately tarnished his image.

6:08 Some were calling him Nicholas the bloody.

6:11 The Tsars had been partying hard at the expense of the people for long

6:14 enough that emancipated the serfs but failed to lift them out of poverty.

6:17 They used their secret police to crack down on anyone who might

6:20 criticize them and they had failed to modernize and give the people rights.

6:23 Something the rest of Europe had begun doing over a century ago.

6:26 The rule of the Tsars was quickly becoming outdated and more

6:29 and more Russians began wondering if there was a better way.

6:32 For many, the solution was simple.

6:34 Just look to the West,

6:35 republics, democracies and constitutional monarchies galore.

6:38 But a small growing group rejected that for an even better idea,

6:42 a little something they called communism.

6:44 Take Vladimir Lenin a intelligent member of Russia's

6:47 middle-class and also a massive ill tempered jerk.

6:50 If you disagreed with him about anything he wasn't afraid to call you out.

6:53 You fat headed simple-minded vapid cockeyed imbecile Tenderheart Bear

6:58 is a far superior care bear to Bedtime Bear.

7:01 (crying loudly) And he was no stranger to political unrest either.

7:05 His older brother was executed for plotting to kill the Tsar

7:07 and Lenin himself was expelled from university

7:09 for participating in a student protest.

7:11 But how did Lenin go from being

7:13 a middle-class nerd to the arbiter of socialist divinity?

7:16 Well, to tell that story,

7:18 we first need to go back a few decades to when a man named Karl Marx,

7:21 wrote a manifesto explaining how capitalism is a system where by the stinky

7:24 British oppressed and exploded the working

7:25 masses and that only through class warfare,

7:27 could the workers rise up and enstate a communist utopia.

7:30 Now go back forward a few decades to Lenin reading that manifesto and loving it.

7:35 But publicly admitting you loved Marx and not Russia's big

7:37 daddy would get you the cruelest punishment imaginable, exile to Siberia.

7:41 Enjoy exile where you'll live with your wife

7:44 chill around town and secretly write socialists newspapers.

7:47 Hey, that doesn't sound so bad.

7:49 And your mother-in-law's going to live with you, no!

7:53 Once Lenin finished his stint in Siberia.

7:55 He left Russia for Europe where he was free to hang

7:57 out with other Russian Marxists and talk about how great communism was.

8:00 Now today, you might hear the word communism and think of this.

8:04 (dramatic orchestral music) But that's not how

8:08 intellectuals living under a Tsarist regime saw it.

8:10 To them, communism promised the land where all were equal,

8:13 where workers weren't exploited and even people like you could get a girlfriend.

8:17 So Lenin joined a party of Russian communists living in Europe and he founded

8:21 a communist newsletter that was smuggled

8:22 into Russia to try to radicalize the people.

8:24 However, not everyone in the socialist party agreed with Lenin.

8:27 In fact, they disagreed with him on a lot of issues

8:30 and Lenin was so uncompromising that he caused a split in the party.

8:34 During one conference,

8:35 a heated debate broke out and Lenin was unwilling to give an inch.

8:38 You pig ignorant, half witted fatuous morons, cereal is a soup.

8:44 Listen, Lenin, you're a smart guy,

8:45 but you have no idea what you're talking about.

8:48 We're out of here.

8:50 All in favor of cereal being a soup.

8:53 Hey, would you look at that, we're in the majority.

8:55 So Lenin set up his own faction within the party.

8:57 He called the Majority or Bolshevik if you're speaking Russian

9:00 and the other faction became known as the Minority or Menshevik.

9:03 And oddly, the majority were often

9:04 in the Minority and the minority in the Majority.

9:07 The Mensheviks were less radical.

9:08 Whereas Lenin wanted the Bolsheviks to be

9:10 loyal to him and his uncompromising ideas.

9:12 And if you weren't loyal well then you're gonna get a big brain beat down.

9:15 Mensheviks worried that Lenin's attitude could lead to a one-man dictatorship,

9:19 but come up, does this guy look like a dictator to you?

9:23 For now Lenin remained in Europe,

9:24 writing his socialist newspaper and impatiently awaiting an opportunity

9:27 to overthrow the Tsar and bring communist utopia to Russia.

9:32 Cool, a free hat.

9:35 Who the heck are you?

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10:34 (speaking in foreign language) Now, where was I?

10:38 Oh yeah, a timid easily swayed Tsar,

10:40 a massive ill tempered jerk impatiently awaiting a communist revolution.

10:44 And revolution was coming, but not in the way Lenin thought.

10:48 Back in St.

10:49 Petersburg.

10:49 One of the Tsar's most skilled and influential advisors knew

10:52 the country finally needed to catch up with the rest of Europe.

10:54 Hey Nick, we really got to industrialize.

10:56 Get more factories and make some I don't know, textiles or something.

11:00 Won't that change the social fabric of Russia?

11:02 Maybe, hey isn't it past your bedtime?

11:04 But I haven't had my milk and snuggles yet.

11:07 Will you snuggle me?

11:10 Nicholas thought modernization was boring.

11:12 But he let Sergei do his thing and do his thing he did.

11:15 He borrowed some money and got Russia some sexy factories.

11:18 And you know what sexy factories means, sexy workers, dirt poor, sexy workers.

11:24 Long hours, low wages, filthy disease-ridden factories,

11:27 sleep in over crowded dormitories with all your stinky worker friends.

11:30 Get your arms ripped off in a freak

11:32 Russian dole accident conditions were terrible.

11:34 But this growing working class wasn't about to take it lying down.

11:37 They started to do what workers do best, strike.

11:41 Despite Sergei's efforts, people in Russia still weren't happy.

11:44 Peasants were still poor, liberals still wanted reform.

11:47 And now the workers wanted better working conditions.

11:49 And the problem with being an autocrat is

11:51 that when everyone's unhappy there's only person to blame, you.

11:55 The people hate me, what do I do?

11:57 Ooh, I know, why don't we find a weak and pathetic nation to go to war with.

12:00 We'll win easily and everyone will love me again.

12:02 Why don't we just try treating the people better?

12:07 As luck would have it.

12:08 An opportunity for war was forming in the far East.

12:10 Russia wanted to expand its sphere of influence

12:12 into Northern China and coincidentally, so did Japan.

12:15 But Japan didn't really want war.

12:17 So they proposed an idea to reduce the tension.

12:19 Hey man, we'll let you do your thing in Manchuria.

12:21 If you let us do our thing in Korea.

12:23 I don't think so.

12:24 We've got the largest army in the world, what do you have?

12:27 I'm the Emperor of Japan, I have a giant Mecha suit.

12:31 Whoa, cool.

12:32 Nicholas and the boys didn't see Japan as a threat.

12:35 So they felt they could push Japan around.

12:36 But little did they know Japan had been rapidly militarizing.

12:39 And when they launched a surprise attack on a Russian fleet at Port Arthur,

12:43 everyone was shocked.

12:43 Nicholas hoped it was an opportunity to win

12:45 a quick war and regain the support of the people.

12:48 Nobody seriously thought a puny Asian

12:50 country could defeat a European superpower.

12:52 And the Russian people were filled with patriotic spunk.

12:55 Hey everyone, we're at war with Japan.

12:57 (crowd cheering loudly) (whispering quietly) Hey everyone, we're losing the war.

13:03 (crowd booing loudly) The Japanese won,

13:06 an embarrassing defeat for Tsar Nicholas.

13:08 Russia had enough problems but now it had been internationally humiliated.

13:12 The public were outraged, unrest increased.

13:15 Nicholas needed snuggles now more than ever.

13:17 The tension was rising rapidly and Russia was on the verge of revolution.

13:22 All it needed was one disaster to push it over the edge.

13:25 And that disaster would come in January,

13:27 1905 from an unlikely source a handsome Orthodox priest named Father Gapon,

13:32 Father Gapon was leading workers and their families to the winter palace.

13:35 But this wasn't some violent uprising, it was a peaceful protest.

13:39 They wanted to deliver a petition to Nicholas which

13:41 simply asked for more freedom and better working conditions.

13:44 The protest was actually so peaceful and respectful

13:46 that the Marxist thought it was a big waste of time.

13:48 Hey Nicholas, some priest is leading a peaceful protest.

13:51 It says here they wanna give you a petition.

13:53 A peaceful petitioning priest, I better get out of here.

13:56 Nicholas had actually left the winter palace days earlier and in his place they

14:00 brought in a truckload of troops ordered

14:01 to stop Father Gapon from reaching the palace.

14:04 Hello good, sir and long lived the Tsar.

14:06 Please, allow me to pass this simple

14:08 petition towards our dear father Nicholas the second.

14:10 Good day to you to please, allow us to respond by opening fire.

14:14 (gun fired loudly) What began as a peaceful protest ended in tragedy.

14:20 Imperial soldiers opened fire on the crowd.

14:23 Around 200 civilians died 800 more were wounded.

14:27 All they wanted was the opportunity to ask Nicholas to improve their lives.

14:31 Instead they were met with bullets.

14:33 Nicholas didn't personally order the troops to fire,

14:36 but as an autocrat, he got the blame.

14:38 The event became known as Bloody Sunday and Nicholas's reputation plummeted.

14:42 Strikes erupted across the empire, workers demands increased,

14:46 liberals demanded political power, peasants demanded lamd.

14:49 The country was out of control and the 1905 revolution had begun.

14:54 Listen Nicholas peasants seizing my land and murdering my family,

14:57 I can tolerate, but illegally chopping my wood,

14:59 that's obscene and the worse I treat my workers,

15:02 the more they strike, I don't get it.

15:04 Everyone relax, as long as the military is

15:05 still on my side there's nothing to worry about.

15:07 Sir, the sailors are starting to mutiny.

15:09 Well, my life just sucks.

15:11 With Russia still losing to the Japanese unrest was growing in the military.

15:14 And some sailors had even taken to killing officers.

15:17 Having the people against you is bad enough,

15:19 but if the military joined in, it would be game over.

15:22 To make matters worse,

15:23 in October workers in Marxists including one Leon Trotsky began setting up

15:27 local elected councils called Soviets

15:28 that coordinated strikes and supplied the workers.

15:31 Sergei could see the writing on the wall.

15:33 Things were going south fast and he needed a big idea to save the Tsar.

15:37 And luckily he had just that.

15:39 You see all these angry people from different

15:41 parts of society weren't really working together.

15:43 Meaning there was a weakness to exploit.

15:45 Sergei wrote a manifesto that would give

15:47 the liberals an elected assembly called the Duma.

15:49 It took some convincing but eventually Nicholas agreed to share

15:52 power and have his laws approved by an elected assembly.

15:55 Hey liberals, here's your stupid manifesto, happy now?

15:58 We certainly are.

15:59 But what about these guys?

16:00 Aren't you gonna give them what they want?

16:02 Oh goodness no.

16:04 I was just gonna kill them.

16:05 With the liberal satisfied and after ending the war with Japan.

16:08 The Tsar thousands of troops home who then dismantled the Soviets,

16:11 arrested their leaders and crushed the peasant uprisings in the countryside.

16:14 And how about that pesky parliament Nicholas had agreed to share power with?

16:17 Well, he then wrote a bunch of new laws which basically said, hey,

16:20 remember that manifesto I wrote and how you guys were going to approve my laws?

16:24 Slight change of plan.

16:25 Actually, I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want.

16:28 And you guys are gonna shut up.

16:29 What, the people won't stand for this.

16:31 People, what people?

16:35 This is why people don't like you.

16:36 And just like that Nicholas had survived the 1905

16:39 revolution but wait a revolution in Russia, where was Lenin?

16:44 Well Lenin and his communist pals were still in exile.

16:47 He tried desperately to radicalize the uprising but all

16:50 he could do was watch as the movements

16:51 failed to organize the liberal sold out the poor and the Tsar played the people.

16:55 Furious, he believed Russia had missed a great chance for a real revolution.

17:00 From now on, he felt the only way left was an armed revolution by the workers.

17:04 Watching the events of 1905 unfold Lenin learnt a lot.

17:07 The Tsar however, would prove to have learned nothing.

17:11 After the 1905 revolution had failed.

17:13 The Tsars new top man was Pyotr Stolypin

17:15 and he had big ideas to prevent any more chaos.

17:18 Step one, reform agriculture this'll make the peasants love you.

17:22 And step two, we'll kill anyone who doesn't.

17:25 To discourage any more revolutionary ideas Stolypin began to crack down

17:29 even harder on the Tsar's opponents and thousands were sentenced to death.

17:32 The news even earned itself a new nickname, Stolypin's Necktie, I don't get it.

17:38 Oh, I see.

17:39 'Cause it goes around my neck and that's so funny.

17:43 But despite depression many positive reforms were also being

17:46 made and the Russian economy even began to improve.

17:48 This a problem for Lenin.

17:50 If the people weren't suffering then they wouldn't support a revolution.

17:53 Still in exile and lacking funds,

17:55 the Bolsheviks simply weren't in a position to do anything.

17:58 Luckily it was around this time that Lenin met an incredibly

18:01 handsome Georgian with your second favorite historical mustache, Joseph Stalin.

18:05 Lenin and Stalin met at a communist convention

18:08 in Finland and Lenin liked Stalin because he was

18:10 a real go getter and was great at fundraising

18:12 for the Bolsheviks and by fundraising I mean kidnapping,

18:15 robbing, extorting, bribing, ransoming, assassinating, prison breaking,

18:18 stealing, bank raiding, executioning and stealing again.

18:21 He's Stalin the Mensheviks aren't so hot in all this stealing,

18:24 but we still need money.

18:25 So the next time you do a big heist, just do it quietly.

18:28 Okay, quietly, got it.

18:31 (guns firing loudly) If this isn't quiet, I don't know what it is.

18:34 Stalin's wacky antics eventually got him exiled to Siberia

18:37 but he had established himself as a big balls Bolshevik.

18:40 However, no amount of Bolshevik balls could stop what was happening.

18:43 The Russian economy was making a recovery.

18:46 For the Tsar, things were looking up.

18:48 This is great.

18:49 All Nicholas has to do is sit back and not mess anything up.

18:51 Hey everyone, big news.

18:53 I'd like to introduce you to my new best friend.

18:56 He's a crazy, drunken, beardy, horny, scandal ridden magic wizard, man.

18:59 And he smells like a goat.

19:01 We're screwed.

19:02 Rasputin, a dirt poor peasant from dirt poor nowhere.

19:05 But un-like all the other dirt poor peasants, Rasputin had holy healing powers.

19:09 And when this holy mystic wandered into St.

19:12 Petersburg, people began to notice.

19:14 He quickly became famous and word this mystery man

19:16 and his healing hands made its way to the royal palace.

19:19 The appearance of a holy homeless healer was

19:21 of great interest to the Tsar and his wife.

19:23 As far as worlds go, they weren't that in bred but they were just in bred

19:27 enough for their son Alexe to get hemophilia or in layman's terms,

19:30 mama mia, that's a lot of blood.

19:32 Know Rasputin could heal people, in 1906,

19:35 Alexandra asked for Rasputin to come and see if he could

19:37 cure their son and crazy as it sounds Rasputin did heal Alexei,

19:41 possibly by taking him off his doctor prescribed aspirin.

19:44 Having seemingly done the impossible Rasputin became very,

19:47 very close to the royal family but having a crazy homeless wizard man

19:51 hanging around wasn't a good look for the Tsar because Rasputin was freaky.

19:55 Not only was he a big fan of alcohol

19:57 but he'd also throw these crazy parties with Russian nobility.

20:00 (beeping loudly) And nobody knew how the goat got on the roof.

20:09 Initially the press were banned from talking about Rasputin but eventually

20:12 the ban was lifted and the tabloids went to town.

20:15 The whole thing was a huge scandal and everyone was freaked

20:18 out that this guy was influencing the Tsar and his wife.

20:21 Nicholas could have spent this period of relative peace improving his image.

20:25 Instead he spent it doing this, but as weird as the whole Rasputin thing was

20:29 so long as the economy continued to improve

20:31 and the people's lives kept getting better, maybe Nick would be okay.

20:35 Maybe there would be no more revolutions.

20:37 Maybe this video could even end right here or maybe

20:40 things were about to get worse, a lot worse.

20:43 You see the years 1914, and that means it's for World War One.

20:50 (dramatic music)