The Russian Revolutions of 1917 By 1917, the people of Russia were heartily sick of World War I, with its terrible casualties at the front, economic hardships at home and no military successes to speak of. The mismanagement of the war effort had utterly undermined confidence in the tsar and his government. Mutinies were spreading […]
Communism
Imperial Russia
Origins The Russian nation began to take shape in the 8th and 9th centuries CE, when Norse traders established settlements along the great rivers of Russia. In the 10th and 11th centuries these gave rise to a state, the Grand Principality of Kiev, which converted to Christianity at the start of the 11th century. This […]
Modern China
The Late Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty reached its height in the late 18th century, at which time the government of China controlled a larger portion of the Earth’s surface than ever before or since. The Opium Wars By the end of that century, however, trouble was brewing. Large-scale peasant uprisings were beginning to break […]