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No So far we've focused a lot of our intention

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on world war one as it was experienced by western

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europe Well buckle up because today we're going to move

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east to the land of the cold cold More cold

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and revolution That's right today V goto lasha czar nicholas

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the second was the man in charge of russia at

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the beginning of the war He had the job for

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about twenty years having taken over when his dad czar

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alexander the third kicked the bucket in eighteen Ninety four

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Now alexander had been a czar's Zare Yeah He took

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the idea of having his absolute power and ran with

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it stomping out every hint of non russian culture he

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came across he rolled his empire with an iron fist

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Nicholas on the other hand was a pale photocopy of

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his father He was weak tea He was a disaster

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waiting to happen in the russian culture While nicholas and

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his family spent their days in magnificent palaces and on

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gorgeous yacht nicholas peasants also known as the russian people

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were deeply unhappy And who can blame him They worked

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all the time They were poor and usually hungry and

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cold They had no say in how russian politics or

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government function And when russia went to war well they

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were the ones who suffered Of course lots of people

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in europe suffered during world war ll russian peasants however

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were the ones who got the shortest end of the

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stick Why Well first off russia had no confident military

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leaders Zilch Zero nada germany on the other hand was

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bursting at the seams with military experts And to make

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things worse russia was barely industrialized at the beginning of

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world war which meant that there were no factories to

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manufacture weapons Which meant you guessed it Russia soldier warrant

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arm that's Right Nicholas sent his men into battle without

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guns We hope a few of them haunted him for

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a while After that they had insults to throw at

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those germans Well the outcome was just as bad as

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you think it would be By the close of nineteen

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Sixteen millions of russians had been killed or wounded in

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the fighting All right well the people of russia were

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rightfully furious at life The universe and pretty much everything

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make matters worse Nicholas was just really bad at the

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whole leadership thing which further undermined his position with his

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peasants Not only did the czar allow a super creepy

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russian mystic named rasputin toe constantly whisper in his ear

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but nicholas insisted on taking really bad advice from his

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german wife alexandra Of course alexandra was also a granddaughter

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of queen victoria but the russians didn't care about that

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it's hard to get excited about royal genealogy when you're

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starving to death which the russians were see nicholas government

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had decreed that people would only be allowed to purchase

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a limited amount of bread at a time there just

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weren't enough loaves to go around with you know the

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war and all in order to feed themselves and their

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families the women of russia had to wait in line

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for hours in order to get a crack at bread

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and afar Terrifying experiences that disneyland have taught us anything

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it's that nothing makes people angrier than a line that

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doesn't move The aptly named bread riot began in the

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city of st petersburg in february nineteen seventeen and it

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wasn't long before russia was in the clutches of a

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full blown revolution It got so bad that nicholas ditched

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his throne and a provisional government took his place well

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The provisional government consisted of middle class moderates who wanted

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a parliamentary democracy It struggled for power against the soviets

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or socialists pulled from the lower classes And the bolsheviks

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who were flat out crazy marxists of these groups The

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moderates wanted to stay in the war The soviets were

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very about the fighting and the bolsheviks wanted out of

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the conflict Stat By the end of nineteen seventeen the

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bolsheviks were in control The bolsheviks promptly set up a

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communist government and economy that drastically improved life for your

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average russian land was redistributed Groups of workers were put

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in charge of factories Everybody was thrilled to submit to

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the leadership of a group that believed in peace land

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and bread bread Yeah well vladimir lenin the leader of

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the bolshevik government followed through on the whole piece part

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of the platform by signing the treaty of breast liftoffs

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with the central powers in march nineteen eighteen Yet piece

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was good But the problem with the treaty was that

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it left lots of formerly russian territory including ukraine finland

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estonia latvia lithuania and part of poland either under german

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Control or independence Well the russians got mad again There

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was revolution again So let's look west for a moment

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just to see what are old friends in the trenches

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are getting up Tio yeah with russia out of the

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war germany and its allies started sourcing truth supplies and

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food to the western front Even more importantly the united

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states started to look like it might finally get involved

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in world war ll see so long is a dictatorial

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russia was an ally of the allies The u s

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was reluctant to join the fighting because we've never been

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friends with undemocratic governments before But with russia out of

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the picture president woodrow wilson was finally ready to take

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the plunge So on april second nineteen seventeen president wilson

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went before congress and argued that declaring war on germany

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would make the world safe for democracy Representatives and senators

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like overwhelmingly agreed with him two days later about the

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house of representatives and the senate voted in favor of

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war It might be wondering at this point what happened

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in nicholas rasputin and the rest of the gang who

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al rasputin caught a bullet in nineteen sixteen nicholas alexandra

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and their five children made it a bit longer They

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were all gunned down in a basement in nineteen eighteen

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Yep anastacia didn't tell you the truth None of them

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made it and that is how absolute power can become

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an absolute nightmare Now if you'd excuse us we're going

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to re watch anastacia and try and believe that it's 00:05:50.09 --> [endTime] A true story

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