The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution, or October Coup, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917–1923. It was the second revolutionary change of government in Russia in 1917. It took place through an armed insurrection in Petrograd on 7 November 1917 [O.S. 25 October]. It was the precipitating event of the Russian Civil War.
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social change in the Russian Empire, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government following two successive revolutions and a bloody civil war. The Russian Revolution can also be seen as the precursor for the other European revolutions that occurred during or in the aftermath of World War I, such as the German Revolution of 1918–1919.
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the Russian Revolution, which was one of the key events of the 20th century.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers, by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, which followed months of negotiations after the armistice on the Eastern Front in December 1917, was signed at Brest-Litovsk.
The ten years 1917–1927 saw a radical transformation of the Russian Empire into a socialist state, the Soviet Union. Soviet Russia covers 1917–1922 and Soviet Union covers the years 1922 to 1991. After the Russian Civil War (1917–1923), the Bolsheviks took control. They were dedicated to a version of Marxism developed by Vladimir Lenin. It promised the workers would rise, destroy capitalism, and create a socialist society under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The awkward problem, regarding Marxist revolutionary theory, was the small proletariat, in an overwhelmingly peasant society with limited industry and a very small middle class. Following the February Revolution in 1917 that deposed Nicholas II of Russia, a short-lived provisional government gave way to Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian Communist Party (RCP).
A government bond or sovereign bond is a form of bond issued by a government to support public spending. It generally includes a commitment to pay periodic interest, called coupon payments, and to repay the face value on the maturity date.
War bonds are debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war without raising taxes to an unpopular level. They are also a means to control inflation by removing money from circulation in a stimulated wartime economy. War bonds are either retail bonds marketed directly to the public or wholesale bonds traded on a stock market. Exhortations to buy war bonds have often been accompanied by appeals to patriotism and conscience. Retail war bonds, like other retail bonds, tend to have a yield which is below that offered by the market and are often made available in a wide range of denominations to make them affordable for all citizens.
The debt of developing countries usually refers to the external debt incurred by governments of developing countries.
A country's gross government debt is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit occurs when a government's expenditures exceed revenues. Government debt may be owed to domestic residents, as well as to foreign residents. If owed to foreign residents, that quantity is included in the country's external debt.
Under Tsar Nicholas II, the Russian Empire slowly industrialized while repressing opposition from the center and the far-left. During the 1890s Russia's industrial development led to a large increase in the size of the urban middle class and of the working class, which gave rise to a more dynamic political atmosphere. Because the state and foreigners owned much of Russia's industry, the Russian working class was comparatively stronger and the Russian bourgeoisie comparatively weaker than in the West.
Various factions fought over Ukrainian territory after the collapse of the Russian Empire following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and after the First World War ended in 1918, resulting in the collapse of Austria-Hungary, which had ruled Ukrainian Galicia. The crumbling of the empires had a great effect on the Ukrainian nationalist movement, and in a short period of four years a number of Ukrainian governments sprang up. This period was characterized by optimism and by nation-building, as well as by chaos and civil war. Matters stabilized somewhat in 1921 with the territory of modern-day Ukraine divided between Soviet Ukraine and Poland, and with small ethnic-Ukrainian regions belonging to Czechoslovakia and to Romania.
Relations between the Soviet Union and the United States were fully established in 1933 as the succeeding bilateral ties to those between the Russian Empire and the United States, which lasted from 1776 until 1917; they were also the predecessor to the current bilateral ties between the Russian Federation and the United States that began in 1992 after the end of the Cold War. The relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States was largely defined by mistrust and tense hostility. The invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany as well as the attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan marked the Soviet and American entries into World War II on the side of the Allies in June and December 1941, respectively. As the Soviet–American alliance against the Axis came to an end following the Allied victory in 1945, the first signs of post-war mistrust and hostility began to immediately appear between the two countries, as the Soviet Union militarily occupied Eastern European countries and turned them into satellite states, forming the Eastern Bloc. These bilateral tensions escalated into the Cold War, a decades-long period of tense hostile relations with short phases of détente that ended after the collapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of the present-day Russian Federation at the end of 1991.
A sovereign default is the failure or refusal of the government of a sovereign state to pay back its debt in full when due. Cessation of due payments may either be accompanied by that government's formal declaration that it will not pay its debts (repudiation), or it may be unannounced. A credit rating agency will take into account in its gradings capital, interest, extraneous and procedural defaults, and failures to abide by the terms of bonds or other debt instruments.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of its centrally-planned economy, the Russian Federation succeeded it under president Boris Yeltsin. The Russian government used policies of shock therapy to liberalize the economy as part of the transition to a market economy, causing a sustained economic recession. GDP per capita levels returned to their 1991 levels by the mid-2000s. The economy of Russia is much more stable today than in the early 1990s, but inflation still remains an issue. Historically and currently, the Russian economy has differed sharply from major developed economies because of its weak legal system, underdevelopment of modern economic activities, technological backwardness, and lower living standards.
Hyperinflation in early Soviet Russia connotes a seven-year period of uncontrollable spiraling inflation in the early Soviet Union, running from the earliest days of the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 to the reestablishment of the gold standard with the introduction of the chervonets as part of the New Economic Policy. The inflationary crisis effectively ended in March 1924 with the introduction of the so-called "gold ruble" as the country's standard currency.
War communism or military communism was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921. War communism began in June 1918, enforced by the Supreme Economic Council, known as the Vesenkha. It ended on 21 March 1921, with the beginning of the New Economic Policy, which lasted until 1928. The system has often been described as simple authoritarian control by the ruling and military castes to maintain power and control in the Soviet regions, rather than any coherent political ideology. The Soviet propaganda justified it by claiming that the Bolsheviks adopted this policy with the goal of keeping towns and the Red Army stocked with food and weapons since circumstances dictated new economic measures. The deadly Russian famine of 1921–22, which killed about five million people, was in large part triggered by Vladimir Lenin's war communism policies, especially food requisitioning.
The economic history of World War I covers the methods used by the First World War (1914–1918), as well as related postwar issues such as war debts and reparations. It also covers the economic mobilization of labour, industry, and agriculture leading to economic failure. It deals with economic warfare such as the blockade of Germany, and with some issues closely related to the economy, such as military issues of transportation. For a broader perspective see Home front during World War I.
The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy was characterized by state control of investment, prices, a dependence on natural resources, lack of consumer goods, little foreign trade, public ownership of industrial assets, macroeconomic stability, low unemployment and high job security.
The diplomatic history of World War I covers the non-military interactions among the major players during World War I. For the domestic histories of participants see home front during World War I. For a longer-term perspective see international relations (1814–1919) and causes of World War I. For the following (post-war) era see international relations (1919–1939). The major "Allies" grouping included Great Britain and its empire, France, Russia, Italy and the United States. Opposing the Allies, the major Central Powers included Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and Bulgaria. Other countries also joined the Allies. For a detailed chronology see timeline of World War I.
Russia defaulted on part of its foreign currency denominated debt on June 27, 2022, its first such default since 1918. Before that, on 2 June, Russia defaulted on the 30-day interest, incorrectly not counting interest for the grace period, but a failure to pay $1.9 million was not sufficient to trigger a cross-default across other instruments, because the minimum threshold is an amount of at least $75 million, according to documents for other Russian eurobonds. The default occurred due to technicalities as the payment in dollars was impossible due to the sanctions by US and EU authorities, but did not mark an actual lack of capability to pay its debts.
