Comparison between the Bolshevik Revolution and French Revolution

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A revolution takes place when a group does not agree with the current government and the policies they have in place. In some cases, revolutions turn violent during the attempt to overthrow the government. This is exactly what took place during the French Revolution, 1789 and the Bolshevik Revolution, 1917. Overall both revolutions found the beginning in the poor. The poor struggled under the rule of the monarchy; there was a strain on resources and high taxes. There were famine and food shortages due to bad weather, and WW1 respectively. In France, the nobility, first and second estates, did not have to pay these high taxes which further angered the poor. Both French and Russian nobility and monarchy were to blame for the suffering experienced. In the French and Bolshevik Revolutions there were philosophical ideas that guided the people to put a stop to their suffering, these ideas fueled extremist groups that brought upon violence and overall the goal of these Revolutions were not permanent. French and Bolshevik Revolutions had revolutionary ideas that went hand in hand with revolutionary violence and ultimately left the countries in chaos for some time after.
The ideas of change in the French Revolution came from Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau, from his book, Discourse on the Moral Effect of the Arts and Sciences, had the idea that civilization corrupted people and had once said “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”. His ideas were the beginning of socialism. He believed in the common good. More extremely, there was Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) who fueled ideas for the Russian Revolution. He was the Father of Communism, a more radical form of socialism. Those who followed Rousseau’s and Marx’s ideas felt that the...

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...o recover from not only the Revolution but the Napoleonic Wars as well. In Russia, the new leader was Stalin. Although he did save the communist revolution, the price was 20 million people and communism in Russia did end in 1991. The Bolshevik Revolution was not as effective in comparison and is often called the experiment that failed.
The French Revolution and Bolshevik Revolutions were similar in the fact that they had revolutionary ideas that sparked revolutionary violence. In both cases, there were socialistic views that gave rise to the revolution, and extremist groups that executed those who opposed and the monarchy in order to make the changes they wanted. However, in the aftermath of the Revolution, France fared much better than Russia in the sense that their ideas stuck with the country. Revolutionary ideas do go hand in hand with revolutionary violence.

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