The Russian Revolution was a social movement as well as a political one and involved the assertion of a people that they wanted a change in leadership, in economic structure, and in how society was ordered. The revolution was based essentially on principles espoused by Marx and Engels and then reshaped by Lenin and others in the era prior to the onset of the revolt. The Russian Revolution would serve as a model for other revolutionary movements to come, notably that in China, with modifications according to the specific needs in a given situation. Yet the revolution was only incidentally ideological, for the mass poplar unrest leading to the revolution derived more from other forces and long-standing grievances.
The Revolution was the culmination of a long period of ferment, not the beginning. For half a century Russia had been in some turmoil:
Until 1861 Russia had for 300 years been a predominantly agricultural system maintained by the labor and taxes of peasant-serfs.
The peasant-serfs were tied to the land in a system that endured for three centuries, but in the nineteenth century the system was seen as increasingly inefficient. The Industrial Revolution did not affect Russia until the last quarter of the century. The result was a period of modernization that tested the parameters of Russian society and that helped to create a revolutionary situation:
Transportation and communications were improving rapidly, education and literacy more slowly. But the overall effect was to facilitate the movement of people and ideas around Russia. Both the knowledge and the aspirations of the masses increased dramatically, so that appeals for revolutionary change not only reached more people but found among them a readier response.
The spread of education and social mobility conflicted with the conservatism of the ruling classes, and this interaction produced a well-prepared and alienated revolutionary elite ready to lea...