What led Russia withdraw from World War 1?

Answer 1

The short answer is that Russia had a pair of revolutions in 1917, which led to a civil war and the withdrawal of Russia from the war.

The significantly longer answer:

In the early 1900s, Russia was (and still is) a huge country, the largest on the planet. It was very backwards, and did not have a fully modern military or infrastructure. It was ruled by an old-fashioned, autocratic Tsar (emperor), who did not believe in modern political concepts like democracy or elections. There was a major rebellion in 1905, and in order to end it, the Tsar allowed the formation of a Duma (parliament). But he never really gave the Duma any power, so in reality, he didn't actually do anything for his people, and they were not happy about it. The Tsar was somewhat deluded, however- he saw himself as a sort of father figure to his people, and assumed that they would simply trust his judgement and obey him.

When Russia got involved in World War I, it was very unsuccessful in its fight against Germany (although it did do well against Austria-Hungary); in the first few months of the war, one German army nearly destroyed two much larger Russian armies in turn, at Tannenburg and then Masurian Lakes. This poor showing, along with shortages of food and fuel, quickly made the war wildly unpopular among the common people. Communists took advantage of this to further upset the population, portraying the war as just a bunch of old kings, emperors, and wealthy capitalists using poor people to fight and die over resources and colonies (which, to be fair, isn't terribly far from the truth). Eventually, the Tsar went off to personally command his armies in the hope that his presence would inspire his soldiers to fight better (it didn't work). He left behind his Tsarina (empress) to rule, and she was not well-liked by the Russian people.

So in mid-February 1917, riots broke out in St. Petersburg, the capital at the time. Workers in the city were upset at food shortages, and went on strike. When the furious Tsar ordered soldiers to kill them, most of the soldiers chose instead to mutiny and joined the protesters, and the protests grew. Within a few weeks, the government had fallen and the Tsar abdicated his throne. A republic was set up, but already there were signs of a trouble- Communists (who usually called themselves "Socialists" at the time) were trying to set up their own government while a more Western-style republic was put in place. So there were in effect two governments- the many Communist-style "Soviets" (workers' councils) in the cities, and the parliamentary "Provisional Government", which tried to rule the whole country.

The Provisional Government decided to keep fighting the war, despite its unpopularity. Additionally, Vladimir Lenin, the fiery leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Communists, returned from exile and began working with the Soviets to bring down the government. There were more protests in the spring and summer of 1917, which were brutally crushed by the government. The last straw was when the government accused the commander in chief of the Russian military of trying to take over the country, which of course, led him to actually try rather than be arrested. The government asked the Communists and the Soviets to help stop him, which they did, and the commander was defeated- but the Communists and Soviets had become very powerful in the process.

In early November 1917, the Communists finally overthrew the Provisional Government in the October Revolution, or "Red October" (Russia used a different kind of calendar at the time, and for them, it was still October; also, red is the color of Communism). The Red Guards, the volunteer soldiers of the Bolshevik party, assaulted the palace where the government worked, thereby ending it. A terrible civil war began, fought primarily by the following factions (all named after colors), especially the first two:

• the Reds - Communists, especially the ruling Bolsheviks
• the Whites - conservatives and anti-Communists, especially those who wanted to restore the Tsar
• the Blacks - Ukrainian anarchists
• the Greens - Communist-leaning farmers who disliked the Bolsheviks.

Lenin's Bolsheviks took control and tried to set up a new government based on the Soviets. With the Russian army severely weakened by the two revolutions, the civil war, and Communist efforts to disband it (since it was loyal to the Tsar and not to them), the Bolsheviks sought to end Russia's involvement in the war, but could not agree on exactly how to go about it. While the Bolsheviks stalled, the Central Powers took advantage and began occupying large chunks of western Russia. Eventually, in March 1918, the Bolsheviks agreed to peace with the Central Powers; Russia would officially give up the territory that the Central Powers had occupied, and in return, Russia would be allowed to peacefully exit the war.

Side notes to end the story- the Civil War continued for several years after 1917. When World War I ended, the Allies, including the United States, briefly sent troops to help the Whites- the Tsar and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks in summer 1918 because the Bolsheviks were afraid that a nearby Czech army was about to free them. Anyway... because the Whites had a lot of leaders, and these leaders usually refused to work together, the well-organized and motivated Reds were eventually able to crush them. At the end of 1922, the civil war was pretty much over (except for some rogue White leaders way out in Siberia and Mongolia), and the victorious Bolsheviks officially created the Soviet Union, the world's first Communist country, with Lenin as its leader.