The USSR at 100

There were two revolutions in Russia in 1917. In March, tens of thousands of striking workers, peasants, and soldiers -- exhausted by the privations of the First World War -- took to the streets of Petrograd (St Petersburg) in protest. This set in motion a chain of events that within days would lead to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, and bring an end to the Romanov dynasty, which had ruled Russia since 1613. Months later, as the country’s economy worsened still further amid the chaos, the Bolsheviks, one of several socialist groups demanding radical change, stepped into the void that followed the old regime’s collapse. Under the leadership of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870-1924) -- be