9 Jan 2012 - Russian Revolution not as simple as I thought

I am currently reading a book called 'Fall of Giants', it is written by Ken Follett and set in the early 1900's. He is an author who researches his books in great detail and so I knew whilst reading this book that the historical setting would be very accurate. During one of the chapters he retold from the eyes of one of the characters the events of Bloody Sunday in Russia in 1905. This event seemed shocking to me as basically a large group of about 300,000 workers were staging a peaceful protest regarding their rights and the army opened fire upon them, killing many and injuring hundreds. I say killing many because depending on the source the number killed varies, the official version was less than 100, however anti government sources say 4,000. It is generally agreed that at least 1,000 were killed. The book didn't go into this level of details , it was written as a narrative, today however I Googled, as I am want to do, and read some further articles. 

I actually read about Bloody Sunday yesterday in 'Fall of Giants', but I was giving you the background as to how I came to discover my fact for today! What I learnt from further searching about the time frame and details of Bloody Sunday was that the Russian Revolution of 1917 (I always thought the revolution was earlier in history, so I learnt two things) actually ended in a provisional government being created with the long term view of transitioning the country to a liberal republic. The provisional government failed to perform the tasks set out when it took power from the Tsar and the Communist Bolshevik party took the opportunity presented, by the failure of the provisional government, to seize power and create a communist state.

I had always thought the the Russian people chose a communist government after overthrowing the Tsar, I didn't realise that they had actually wanted a Republic, which they didn't get until many years later.

If you are interested in this period of history, I recommend 'Fall of Giants' as a great way to get historical information whilst reading an engaging story. Otherwise I read more detailed articles on New World Encyclopedia and Wikipedia.

Another new fact!