On October 8, 1917, an armed uprising in Petrograd overthrew the Russian Provisional Government, established a few months earlier following the February Revolution, and political power in Russia shifted from the nobility and aristocrats to the various local soviets dominated by the Bolsheviks of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party. The Bolsheviks, led by the charismatic Vladimir Lenin, established a communist government called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (or Russian Federation). One of the main pretexts for the October Revolution was the Tsar's resolve to keep Russia in the First World War. When the Bolsheviks came to power, Lenin immediately took Russia out of the war by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This treaty obliged the Russian Federation to renounce all its claims to the Baltic states and Ukraine, to cede territories to the Ottomans and six million marks to the Germans. This caused the new Bolshevik government to lose a third of its population, a third of its arable land, 54% of its industries, 73% of its iron ore deposits, 75% of its coal mines and 85% of its production. cash crops (sugar). ). Although this treaty destabilized the economy of the Russian Federation, it allowed the Bolsheviks to consolidate power – keeping their promise of peace to the people – and to focus on domestic issues. In the summer of 1923 Vladimir Lenin was dying and the Bolshevik Party needed leadership; four candidates emerged as possible successors: Leon Trotsky and the triumvirate of Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev. Stalin eventually took power and purged the old Bolsheviks from the party in the infamous “Great Purge.” Stalin assumed the role of dictat... middle of paper... attempted to consolidate his form of government by instilling religion in his people. The United States Pledge of Allegiance was a form of political and social expression (nationalism), and every weekday children in schools were required to stand, place their right hand over their heart, and repeat an expression of allegiance to the state flag. United States. Before 1954, one line read: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands; an indivisible Nation with freedom and justice for all”. Subsequently, the Pledge was amended to include “under God,” so that it now read: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” . This is still the official Pledge of Allegiance.