The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire and began during the First World War. Commencing in 1917 with the fall of the House of Romanov and concluding in 1923 with the Bolshevik establishment of the Soviet Union (at the end of the Russian Civil War), the Russian Revolution was a series of two revolutions: the first of which overthrew the imperial government and the second placed the Bolsheviks in power.

The new government established by the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers in March 1918, taking it out of the war; leading to Central Powers victory in Eastern Front, and Russian defeat in World War I.