- [Man] Lenin's goal was to create a communist utopia.

Gulags, famine, religion.

(somber music)

Education.

(somber music)

The October revolution is considered the most violent

Communist movement of the 20th century worldwide.

It was the precursor for the international rise

in communism and all the countless catastrophes

that followed.

Today, we'll go back in time and take a look

at the history leading up to communism's inception

but it wouldn't be Edge of Wonder if we didn't tie it

all together to the Illumi-donkey.

(somber music)

Episode four, the Russian Red Revolution.

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- [Woman] Edge of Wonder.

- Welcome to Edge of Wonder, with our fourth episode

on the dark history of communism.

- Well, and we've got quite the episode for you today.

Leading up to now, we've showed you exactly

what communism is, where it came from,

what secret forces have been behind it

and we've also attempted to clear up a lot

of misunderstandings about just what socialism is.

- Today we're gonna talk to you about one of the worst

examples when communism gets implemented, Russia.

We'll share with you stats and facts and even the strategies

of how it all works.

- We'll also share with you some of the necessary history

leading up to communism's inception

and try to hit on some of the strange occurrences

that you probably won't hear anywhere else.

So without further ado.

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- Much like during the French Revolution.

It was a time of turmoil for Russia

at the start of the 20th century.

Russia and Japan were at war which severely impacted

every aspect of life for the Russian people.

- Many people started to demand

a reform over their discontent

of Russia's political system and in 1905,

more than 110,000 workers in St. Petersburg,

the Russian capitol at the time, went on strike.

- They soon formed a peaceful demonstration

led by Father George Capon to appeal

to Czar Nicholas II for improved working conditions

and other complaints and desired reforms.

- What happened next was known in history

as the first or one of the first Bloody Sundays.

There were others called Bloody Sunday in Ireland,

but this was before that.

What took place was the chief of security of police

who also happened to be Czar Nicholas's uncle,

Grand Duke Vladimir, gave the order to his troops

to fire upon the demonstrators.

- More than 200 protestors were killed

and over 500 were injured from the attack.

Revolt is also known as the 1905 Revolution.

Czar Nicholas wasn't in St. Petersburg when this happened,

however, but everyone blamed him

and definitely lost faith in his leadership

because of this.

- So for those of you that don't know,

there was a shadowy figure influencing the royal family

at the time.

His name was Rasputin and many historians suspect

that he was secretly destroying the royal family

through manipulation, deceit and corruption

and maybe even black magic.

You can imagine this dude kinda like Grima Wormtongue

from Lord of the Rings and how they portrayed him

in Anastasia was, you know, the Broadway musical,

not really accurate.

- There are many articles out there that call him

the devil in disguise.

- Yeah, I mean, just look at the guy. (laughs)

I mean, this photo says more than 1000 words.

- He claimed to be a holy man and in a set

of strange circumstances due to hemophilia,

stepped in to stop Nicholas's son from bleeding out.

Because of this, he became very close with Nicholas

and the royal family.

- There are some stories out there claiming

he schemed the circumstances revolved around

the boy's sickness in order to become closer

to the royal family.

Unfortunately, we didn't see much evidence

to support this other than speculations

based off of his reputation.

- Now Rasputin was part of a secret cult called Khylysty,

which believed that to feel the full grace of God,

one would take part in sexual exhaustion

that would turn into these massive orgies.

They would also flog themselves with a whip

to pay back their sins. (laughs)

- Right, I mean, man, this is sounding more and more

like the Alistair Crowley of Russia.

Anyway, why are we bringing him up?

Because he pretty much singlehandledly paved the way

for Lenin to start his Red Revolution

to bring communism to Russia.

Hefty claim but keep listening.

- We don't know for sure if this was his plan all along,

but there wasn't a single positive thing he did

aside from opposing the war that just broke out

at this point in 1914.

Germany declared war on Russia

following the assassination of the Austrio Hungarian

empire, Franz Ferdinand and his wife,

which began the start of World War I.

- Right, in 1916, Vladimir Purishkevich

who was known for his anti communist views,

made a speech at the duma which is the Russian

legislative assembly in which he said

that the czar and his ministers

were puppets on a string with Rasputin being the puppeteer.

- Purishkevich and some other nobles

basically plotted in secret to kill Rasputin.

- Puriskevich along with other nobles

invited Rasputin to the palace.

They proceeded to attempt to poison him with cakes

because I mean, really, who doesn't like cakes?

- I'd eat 'em.

The men were pretty surprised when Rasputin seemed

impervious to the cakes.

When they ran out of patience waiting

for Rasputin to keel over,

one of the men said ah, screw it

and shot him right in the chest.

- I don't know if they used that exact phrase,

but you guys get the idea.

- I'm telling a story here.

- But get this, instead of dying,

Rasputin leapt up like a wild raging gorilla

and went straight after the guy who shot him

in a violent fury.

- Well, apparently, the magic lucky charms

that Rasputin must have eaten that morning

finally wore off and when the fight continued outside

it finally concluded by Purishkevich shooting Rasputin

in the head and that ends the life and the times

of the wild gorilla magician that was Rasputin.

- But this effect had already had a huge impact

and unfortunately instead of things getting better

for Russia, it only got worse.

- Yeah, the Russian army lost all faith in Nicholas

and the military leaders agreed to support the duma

if it took control over the country from the czar

and let's conclude this part with an important question.

Why is it that every point in this series,

we've come across shady men involved in these

occult practices and they always seem

to be paving the way for communism?

- But let's get into the rest of this massive story.

It wouldn't be right if we didn't backtrack

for a moment and talk about one of the most devious

individuals in recent history, Vladimir Lenin.

- Lenin was born in 1870 and was exceptional in school.

He finished first in his class

and was a very diligent reader.

After his father died of a brain hemorrhage,

Lenin started to become troubled

and when his brother was arrested and executed

for plotting to assassinate Czar Alexander III,

it sent him over the edge, you know,

psychopathic family stuff.

- Lenin vowed to get revenge over his brother

and soon started to join protests over government orders

to ban student societies.

He was expelled from his university and exiled.

- Lenin soon started to become fascinated

by radical extremist works.

Once he read Karl Marx's Das Kapital,

it basically consumed his thoughts

so much that by 1892, he declared himself a Marxist.

He then joined the Marxist group called

the Social Democrats, hmm, I've heard that term

somewhere before, oh wait, that's what some people

active in politics in the US call themselves.

If you didn't see our last episode on socialism,

we highly recommend you to do that.

- Influenced by all of these things in 1895,

Lenin went to St. Petersburg, the goal,

to start a revolution.

However, he was arrested and charged with sedition

and was exiled to Siberia for three years.

- Coming back to 1914, World War I just broke out

and Lenin went into exile once again

but before he left, he already started

his Bolsheviks to prepare for a massive revolution

with Joseph Stalin being third in command

after Gregory Zinoviev.

- Around this time, the European Workers Movement

established itself, taking root in communism and theology

and using slogans such as liberate humanity

and abolish social classes.

- The European Workers Movement established itself rapidly

based on Lenin's ideology.

Lenin even said.

- [Man] The services rendered by Marx and Engels

to the working class may be expressed in a few words, thus.

They taught the working class to know itself

and be conscious of itself and they substituted science

for dreams.

- People shouldn't be allowed to think outside

of their controlled commy thinking, apparently,

so dreams were out.

- By now, there were already close to 30

global socialist organizations and countless more

trade unions and cooperatives.

It also had more than 10 million union members

and more than seven million cooperative members.

- Historian Eric Hobsbawn wrote in his book

in How to Change the World, Reflections on Marx and Marxism.

- [Man] In these European countries,

virtually all social thought, whether or not politically

motivated like the socialist movement or labor movement,

are visibly influenced by Marx.

- So why are we bringing up Lenin?

He was a Marxist and his strategy based off of Marx

revolved around revolution.

- Lenin knew that to maintain power and eventually

destroy classes and every kind of thing

civilization had to offer, he had to keep

the revolution going by any means, Lenin said.

- [Man] A lie told enough becomes the truth.

- Revolution is a word that keeps getting passed around

in this series.

Lenin's role was to solidify these concepts

and push them through lies and deceit, forced agitation.

- He also saw the importance of educating children

and maintaining control, he said.

- [Man] Give me four years to teach the children

and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.

Give me just one generation of youth

and I'll transform the whole world.

- And his revolutions did lead to something.

They led to Stalin eventually taking over,

but we'll be getting to that soon.

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- Now coming back to 1917, things couldn't

have gotten any worse for Russia.

Hundreds of thousands of people were on strike,

food shortages was a major issue,

poor living conditions and Russia's economy

was badly hit due to participation in the war.

- [Rob] Millions of people started to protest

and Nicholas II ordered his troops to stop the protestors

and keep them off the