Russian Revoltuion

* The Russian Revolution created the world's first communist state. Communism and socialism had existed as ideologies since the Industrial Revolution but no country had actually made an effort to apply the ideas of Karl Marx and others to create a state that redrew the lines of political, economic, and social authority. Under the Bolsheviks, the old power elites in Russia were dismantled and a new power structure was put in its place, hopefully to create a more egalitarian political and economic order.

* The Russian Revolution provided an alternative political and social model for societies that wished to undo the old monarchical regimes of the past, particularly in Eastern Europe, but were not sure how to enact such reforms without embracing the ideals of the West. This resistance to Western political and economic forms found expression in colonial resistance in places like Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba.

* The Russian Revolution established a new country, a new empire, and a new alliance system. The old Russian empire became the new Soviet Union and quickly this new Soviet Union worked to create its own sphere of influence against those ideologically opposed to communism as well as potential enemies from the West. The Soviet empire formed a ring of satellite or buffer states around its borders and eventually formed an alliance called the Warsaw Pact in 1957 designed to serve as a counterweight to the US-sponsored NATO.

* The creation of the Soviet Union led in part to a decades long struggle against communism on behalf of the Western democracies. This Cold War fostered alliances, defined conflicts and led to a series of proxy wars and an arms race that defined the post WW2 era. The Cold War and all of its consequences could not have taken place without the rise of the Soviet Union through the Russian Revolution.

* The Soviet Union provided a challenge and a check to rising US power in the post WW2 era. The two most significant states, with the most political and economic muscles in the post WW2 era, were the US and the USSR. Without the USSR the future development of the US might have been dramatically different. Certainly the US could have returned to its pre-war isolation and abdicated a global leadership position to another power.

The Russian Revolution shaped the 20th century in creating a Marxist experimental state that realigned the social, political, and economic order in Russia. In addition, the Russian Revolution created a Soviet state that shaped the rest of the 20th century as a challenge to Western concepts of capitalism and democracy.