A secondary spark came from the populist revolutionary intelligentsia, whose primary goal had always been to overthrow czarist rule. It was from these young idealists-men such as Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), and Joseph Stalin (1879- 1953)-that the Russian Social Democratic, or Marxist, Party grew. Of these men, it was Lenin who would inherit the role from the German philosopher Karl Marx as communism's leader.
In 1903 Russian Marxists split into two groups: the Bolsheviks ("majority men") were led by the hard-liner Lenin, who demanded a single party consisting of a small revolutionary elite, while the Mensheviks ("minority men") advocated a larger, more encompassing party.
The Bolshevik Revolution. In response to bitter labor unrest and widespread demands for representative government, Czar Nicholas II instituted a parliamentary body called the Duma in 1906.
The Duma's power, however, was largely superficial; any concessions of authority by the czar were designed merely to appease revolutionaries rather than effect real change. Nevertheless, the situation in Russia did stabilize, the economy began to expand, and revolutionary groups like the Bolsheviks declined in membership.
World War I, however, reversed this trend by driving a permanent wedge between the Russian government and its people.
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