French Revolution and Russian Revolution

Strayer boldly argues that the Russian Revolution was modeled after the French Revolution. However, it's extremely unlikely that any Russian revolutionaries took it as their inspiration because the people of Russia were concerned with their own daily worries and the declining quality of their day to day life, not the grievances that pushed people to act in a very foreign country centuries ago. The Russian people, weakened due to the war, began to protest the state of the nation demanding improvements. Food was scarce, the winter was cold, workers were paid meager salaries, shops were boarded up, and the Provisional Government failed to solve the problems within the nation. Protests, violence, and the formation of trade unions occurred because each person realized how terrible their life was becoming, and they wanted to take whatever action they could to restore it. Strayer's myopic argument fails to address the fact that people are concerned with their own welfare. People don't base political action on knowing that a line of action has worked in the past. Revolutions occur as a reaction to certain circumstances.

Although the two seem to be unique incidents created by the needs of the particular country at a specific time, many parallels appear when the two are juxtaposed. True, both revolutions involved the massive working class rebelling against their controlling powers due to their respective injustices impressed upon them by higher powers. Both revolutions carried with them the unheard of ideals to form an improved society. The French Revolution implemented the blooming Enlightenment ideals, and Russia followed the lead of Lenin's communism. Although the Russian Revolution was spurred on by their government's inadequacy whereas the French Revolution rebelled against a strict unfairness in representation, both formed new governments based on the reverse of the failed old government. While the French Revolution was not necessarily a direct influence on the Russian Revolution, there are definitely similarities. Because the old ideas caused the nation to crumble, it was believed that by taking the opposite route, the people of the nation would be able to embrace a brand new way of life.