First Bolshevik Revolt (French Trafalgar, British Waterloo)

The First Bolshevik Revolt, also known as Red April, was a short lived insurrection by a radical Marxist party in the Russian Empire, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Josef Stalin in St. PEtersberg and Moscow, during the last months of the. However, the failed attempt to capture Czar Nicholas II allowed loyal Czarist officers to mount a counter coup, crushing the short lived Soviet Republic of Russia, killing Stalin and arresting Lenin.

Background
Despite great strides over the previous decades in social and economic reform, the Russian Empire that entered the Second Global War was still considered backwards, espeically when compared to Western European nations like and the. The Czar still welded great power, especially over the army, while the Duma gained legislative and budgetary powers, although the Czar possessed veto rights through the Prime Minister, responsible to both the Duma and the Czar.

When Russia joined the Second Global War in 1911, it soon became apparent that the army so costly maintained to deter aggression and to enforced Russian power, was not going to be enough. The initial victories over the and  encouraged the army to push straight into Germany with Polish help, but the result was long, over stretched supply lines, a collapsing supply situation and the longest land front of the entire European conflict, stretching from the Baltic to. Demands for a total mobilization of all resources of Russia was slow, and down in incremental steps by the Czar and the Duma, the former still being assured victory was right around the corner, while the latter was deadlocked in committees and debates, resulting in half-measures and compromises.

The 1913 Offensive by German forces, along with Naval landings by British Marines at Riga, snapped the entire Russian government into action. With the military retreating through allied Poland, and losing thousands a day due to casualties, disease, fighting and capture, the Czar and Duma came together, forming the "Imperial Emergency Cabinet", composed of all participating government parties (including, for the first time, the Russian Socialist Union, led by Leon Trotsky). Headed by Czar Nicholas II and Prime Minister Pavel Milyukov, the Cabinet issued numerous decrees, centralizing the economy and gearing all production to the war effort. Nicholas II became the symbol the nation rallied around, fighting to protect the Motherland from barbarous Germans and Mercantile-minded Englishmen. The response was overwhelming: women entered the factories for the first time, while a limited, but constant stream of new tractors was used to replace men in the fields for military service. Lands that were owned by the large landowners quickly bought the new machinery, while the many smaller farmers, with the encouragement of the government, formed "kolhozy", or collective farms. Food production increased, while the army grew larger, and new weapons were turned out. However, it wouldn't be until early 1915 when the new armies were fully equipped an prepared, starting the stunningly successful Battle of Zodzina, leading to the liberation of Minsk.

However, the black market flourished while rations struggled to match the basic needs of the poor during the hard winter of 1913. Prices jumped while wages were under control, until the Emergency Cabinet ordered price decreases and wage increases. The army was burning through men at an alarming rate, causing increasingly dissatisfaction at home. The Bolsheviks took advantage of this demanding an end to the war, increasing Mechanization of farms and Industrialization of the entire nation. The increasingly blood thirsty calls of revolution were forcibly stamped out in 1914, but leaders like Lenin and Stalin were released later because of the public outcry, and the "trampling of democracy." Lenin and Stalin used this time to form revolutionary councils, called "soviets" in most major cities. With the sudden German counterattack of 1916, which broke through the army lines, the Bolsheviks seized the chance, and declared a general strike on April 17 (April 4 by the recently abandoned but still widely used Julian Calender).