Changes

Losses and hardship of the war had weakened Russian [[Czar Nicholas II]].  He abdicated the throne in March 1917 in favor of a provisional government headed by [[Alexander Kerensky]].  Hopes for a democratic revolution still existed at this time.  But in October 1917, [[Vladimir Ilyich Lenin]], and the [[Communist Party]], which was never strong enough to challenge the Czar, overthrew the fledgling provisional government.  The Communists later executed every member of the Czar's family including the children.

Losses and hardship of the war had weakened Russian [[Czar Nicholas II]].  He abdicated the throne in March 1917 in favor of a provisional government headed by [[Alexander Kerensky]].  Hopes for a democratic revolution still existed at this time.  But in October 1917, [[Vladimir Ilyich Lenin]], and the [[Communist Party]], which was never strong enough to challenge the Czar, overthrew the fledgling provisional government.  The Communists later executed every member of the Czar's family including the children.

Lenin became the founder of the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] state.  He was both a writer and a revolutionary, a rare combination.  He was the brother of the "bomb thrower" [[Alexander Ulyanov]] who was hanged for his involvement in terrorist activity and an assassination attempt on Czar Alexander III in 1887. An atheist, he became a [[Marxism|Marxist]] in 1889. He obtained a law degree shortly afterwards, and by 1895 was a subversive who was arrested and sent to the Tsarist gulag along the Lena River in frigid [[Siberia]] where he adopted the name Lenin after the place of his internment.  Once he served his time he left for [[Zurich]], where he developed his ideas further and became a leader of the [[Bolsheviks]].  He was returned to Russia by the Germans in the wake of chaos during the [[Kerensky]] regime with the hope to led the Bolsheviks to power and negotiate a peace settlement with the Germans.  After the [[Treaty of Versailles]] failed to recognize the settlement between Germany and the Soviet Union in the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], he then ruled the Soviet Union and imposed a system of [[Marxism-Leninism]] (communism) that remained in force there until the [[Stalin]]'s rise to power.

Lenin became the founder of the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] state.  He was both a writer and a revolutionary, a rare combination.  He was the brother of the "bomb thrower" [[Alexander Ulyanov]] who was hanged for his involvement in terrorist activity and an assassination attempt on Czar Alexander III in 1887. An atheist, he became a [[Marxism|Marxist]] in 1889. He obtained a law degree shortly afterwards, and by 1895 was a subversive who was arrested and sent to the Tsarist gulag along the Lena River in frigid [[Siberia]] where he adopted the name Lenin after the place of his internment.  Once he served his time he left for [[Zurich]], where he developed his ideas further and became a leader of the [[Bolsheviks]].  He was returned to Russia by the Germans in the wake of chaos during the [[Kerensky]] regime with the hope to led the Bolsheviks to power and negotiate a peace settlement with the Germans.  After the [[Treaty of Versailles]] failed to recognize the settlement between Germany and the Soviet Union in the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], he then ruled the Soviet Union and imposed a system of [[Marxism-Leninism]] (communism) that remained in force there until [[Stalin]]'s rise to power.

=== The Western Front ===

=== The Western Front ===