As their wealth increased, they tried to make more. To do this, they educated and employed proletarians, helping the class that would eventually overcome them. Marx argued that the capitalist society set up by the bourgeoisie to gain money was inherently unstable. He predicted that eventually a major crisis would result from this society that would hurt both bourgeois and proletarian alike. Then, from the ruins of the bourgeois disaster, the proletariat class would take control of the government and act as the ruling class. After solidifying their control as the new ruling class, they would finally eliminate the class system and make everyone equal, instituting a communist government and economic system. The disaster that Marx predicted came in the form of World War I. The political climate in Europe before World War I was tense for a number of reasons, many of which were results of capitalism. Military alliances, continental interest in the Balkan region, and rising levels of nationalism all contributed to the start of World War …show more content…
The rising Socialist Revolutionary Party seized control of the government in March of 1917 in the February Revolution, named because Russia used the Julian calendar at the time, in which it took place in February. Nicholas was forced to abdicate, and the tsarist government that had ruled Russia for centuries was over. The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Mensheviks, set up the Provisional Government as the new government. However, the Petrograd Soviet of Soldiers and Workers also sprang up, and people began to speak of a dual-power system. The soviet was a group of officials elected by the workers and farmers of Russia. The soviets from two major Russian cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, were Bolsheviks, members of the Russian Communist Party. This marked the beginning of communists coming to power in Russia. The Russian Provisional Government continued to fight in World War I, despite the unpopularity of the war. This led to negative opinion of the Mensheviks, and in November of 1917, the October Revolution took place. This bloodless coup made the Bolsheviks as the ruling party of Russia. Led by Vladimir Lenin, the Bolsheviks instated a dictatorship of the proletarian and instituted communism in Russia. Thus, a disaster caused by capitalism led to the institution of communism in Russia, just as Karl Marx had