title: Russian Revolution

text: Workers also had good reasons for discontent: overcrowded housing with often deplorable sanitary conditions, long hours at work (on the eve of the war, a 10-hour workday six days a week was the average and many were working 11–12 hours a day by 1916), constant risk of injury and death from poor safety and sanitary conditions, harsh discipline (not only rules and fines, but foremen's fists), and inadequate wages (made worse after 1914 by steep wartime increases in the cost of living). At the same time, urban industrial life had its benefits, though these could be just as dangerous (in terms of social and political stability) as the hardships. There were many encouragements to expect more from life. Acquiring new skills gave many workers a sense of self-respect and confidence, heightening expectations and desires. Living in cities, workers encountered material goods they had never seen in villages. Most importantly, workers living in cities were exposed to new ideas about the social and political order.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The social causes of the Russian Revolution can be derived from centuries of oppression of the lower classes by the Tsarist regime and Nicholas's failures in World War I. While rural agrarian peasants had been emancipated from serfdom in 1861, they still resented paying redemption payments to the state, and demanded communal tender of the land they worked. The problem was further compounded by the failure of Sergei Witte's land reforms of the early 20th century. Increasing peasant disturbances and sometimes actual revolts occurred, with the goal of securing ownership of the land they worked. Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants and substantial inequality of land ownership, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of the land.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The rapid industrialization of Russia also resulted in urban overcrowding and poor conditions for urban industrial workers (as mentioned above). Between 1890 and 1910, the population of the capital, Saint Petersburg, swelled from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600, with Moscow experiencing similar growth. This created a new 'proletariat' which, due to being crowded together in the cities, was much more likely to protest and go on strike than the peasantry had been in previous times. In one 1904 survey, it was found that an average of 16 people shared each apartment in Saint Petersburg, with six people per room. There was also no running water, and piles of human waste were a threat to the health of the workers. The poor conditions only aggravated the situation, with the number of strikes and incidents of public disorder rapidly increasing in the years shortly before World War I. Because of late industrialization, Russia's workers were highly concentrated. By 1914, 40% of Russian workers were employed in factories of 1,000+ workers (32% in 1901). 42% worked in 100–1,000 worker enterprises, 18% in 1–100 worker businesses (in the US, 1914, the figures were 18, 47 and 35 respectively).


title: Russian Revolution

text: World War I added to the chaos. Conscription across Russia resulted in unwilling citizens being sent off to war. The vast demand for factory production of war supplies and workers resulted in many more labor riots and strikes. Conscription stripped skilled workers from the cities, who had to be replaced with unskilled peasants. When famine began to hit due to the poor railway system, workers abandoned the cities in droves seeking food. Finally, the soldiers themselves, who suffered from a lack of equipment and protection from the elements, began to turn against the Tsar. This was mainly because, as the war progressed, many of the officers who were loyal to the Tsar were killed, being replaced by discontented conscripts from the major cities who had little loyalty to the Tsar.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Many sections of the country had reason to be dissatisfied with the existing autocracy. Nicholas II was a deeply conservative ruler and maintained a strict authoritarian system. Individuals and society in general were expected to show self-restraint, devotion to community, deference to the social hierarchy and a sense of duty to the country. Religious faith helped bind all of these tenets together as a source of comfort and reassurance in the face of difficult conditions and as a means of political authority exercised through the clergy. Perhaps more than any other modern monarch, Nicholas II attached his fate and the future of his dynasty to the notion of the ruler as a saintly and infallible father to his people.


title: Russian Revolution

text: This vision of the Romanov monarchy left him unaware of the state of his country. With a firm belief that his power to rule was granted by Divine Right, Nicholas assumed that the Russian people were devoted to him with unquestioning loyalty. This ironclad belief rendered Nicholas unwilling to allow the progressive reforms that might have alleviated the suffering of the Russian people. Even after the 1905 Revolution spurred the Tsar to decree limited civil rights and democratic representation, he worked to limit even these liberties in order to preserve the ultimate authority of the crown.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Despite constant oppression, the desire of the people for democratic participation in government decisions was strong. Since the Age of Enlightenment, Russian intellectuals had promoted Enlightenment ideals such as the dignity of the individual and the rectitude of democratic representation. These ideals were championed most vociferously by Russia's liberals, although populists, Marxists, and anarchists also claimed to support democratic reforms. A growing opposition movement had begun to challenge the Romanov monarchy openly well before the turmoil of World War I.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Dissatisfaction with Russian autocracy culminated in the huge national upheaval that followed the Bloody Sunday massacre of January 1905, in which hundreds of unarmed protesters were shot by the Tsar's troops. Workers responded to the massacre with a crippling general strike, forcing Nicholas to put forth the October Manifesto, which established a democratically elected parliament (the State Duma). Although the Tsar accepted the 1906 Fundamental State Laws one year later, he subsequently dismissed the first two Dumas when they proved uncooperative. Unfulfilled hopes of democracy fueled revolutionary ideas and violent outbursts targeted at the monarchy.


title: Russian Revolution

text: One of the Tsar's principal rationales for risking war in 1914 was his desire to restore the prestige that Russia had lost amid the debacles of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Nicholas also sought to foster a greater sense of national unity with a war against a common and old enemy. The Russian Empire was an agglomeration of diverse ethnicities that had demonstrated significant signs of disunity in the years before the First World War. Nicholas believed in part that the shared peril and tribulation of a foreign war would mitigate the social unrest over the persistent issues of poverty, inequality, and inhumane working conditions. Instead of restoring Russia's political and military standing, World War I led to the slaughter of Russian troops and military defeats that undermined both the monarchy and Russian society to the point of collapse.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The outbreak of war in August 1914 initially served to quiet the prevalent social and political protests, focusing hostilities against a common external enemy, but this patriotic unity did not last long. As the war dragged on inconclusively, war-weariness gradually took its toll. Although many ordinary Russians joined anti-German demonstrations in the first few weeks of the war, hostility toward the Kaiser and the desire to defend their land and their lives did not necessarily translate into enthusiasm for the Tsar or the government.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Russia's first major battle of the war was a disaster; in the 1914 Battle of Tannenberg, over 30,000 Russian troops were killed or wounded and 90,000 captured, while Germany suffered just 12,000 casualties. However, Austro-Hungarian forces allied to Germany were driven back deep into the Galicia region by the end of the year. In the autumn of 1915, Nicholas had taken direct command of the army, personally overseeing Russia's main theatre of war and leaving his ambitious but incapable wife Alexandra in charge of the government. Reports of corruption and incompetence in the Imperial government began to emerge, and the growing influence of Grigori Rasputin in the Imperial family was widely resented.


title: Russian Revolution

text: In 1915, things took a critical turn for the worse when Germany shifted its focus of attack to the Eastern Front. The superior German Army – better led, better trained, and better supplied – was quite effective against the ill-equipped Russian forces, driving the Russians out of Galicia, as well as Russian Poland during the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive campaign. By the end of October 1916, Russia had lost between 1,600,000 and 1,800,000 soldiers, with an additional 2,000,000 prisoners of war and 1,000,000 missing, all making up a total of nearly 5,000,000 men.


title: Russian Revolution

text: These staggering losses played a definite role in the mutinies and revolts that began to occur. In 1916, reports of fraternizing with the enemy began to circulate. Soldiers went hungry, lacked shoes, munitions, and even weapons. Rampant discontent lowered morale, which was further undermined by a series of military defeats.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Casualty rates were the most vivid sign of this disaster. By the end of 1914, only five months into the war, around 390,000 Russian men had lost their lives and nearly 1,000,000 were injured. Far sooner than expected, inadequately trained recruits were called for active duty, a process repeated throughout the war as staggering losses continued to mount. The officer class also saw remarkable changes, especially within the lower echelons, which were quickly filled with soldiers rising up through the ranks. These men, usually of peasant or working-class backgrounds, were to play a large role in the politicization of the troops in 1917.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The army quickly ran short of rifles and ammunition (as well as uniforms and food), and by mid-1915, men were being sent to the front bearing no arms. It was hoped that they could equip themselves with arms recovered from fallen soldiers, of both sides, on the battlefields. The soldiers did not feel as if they were valuable, rather they felt as if they were expendable.


title: Russian Revolution

text: By the spring of 1915, the army was in steady retreat, which was not always orderly; desertion, plundering, and chaotic flight were not uncommon. By 1916, however, the situation had improved in many respects. Russian troops stopped retreating, and there were even some modest successes in the offensives that were staged that year, albeit at great loss of life. Also, the problem of shortages was largely solved by a major effort to increase domestic production. Nevertheless, by the end of 1916, morale among soldiers was even worse than it had been during the great retreat of 1915. The fortunes of war may have improved, but the fact of war remained which continually took Russian lives. The crisis in morale (as was argued by Allan Wildman, a leading historian of the Russian army in war and revolution) "was rooted fundamentally in the feeling of utter despair that the slaughter would ever end and that anything resembling victory could be achieved."


title: Russian Revolution

text: The war did not only devastate soldiers. By the end of 1915, there were manifold signs that the economy was breaking down under the heightened strain of wartime demand. The main problems were food shortages and rising prices. Inflation dragged incomes down at an alarmingly rapid rate, and shortages made it difficult for an individual to sustain oneself. These shortages were a problem especially in the capital, St. Petersburg, where distance from supplies and poor transportation networks made matters particularly worse. Shops closed early or entirely for lack of bread, sugar, meat, and other provisions, and lines lengthened massively for what remained. Conditions became increasingly difficult to afford food and physically obtain it.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Strikes increased steadily from the middle of 1915, and so did crime, but, for the most part, people suffered and endured, scouring the city for food. Working-class women in St. Petersburg reportedly spent about forty hours a week in food lines, begging, turning to prostitution or crime, tearing down wooden fences to keep stoves heated for warmth, and continued to resent the rich.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Government officials responsible for public order worried about how long people's patience would last. A report by the St. Petersburg branch of the security police, the Okhrana, in October 1916, warned bluntly of "the possibility in the near future of riots by the lower classes of the empire enraged by the burdens of daily existence."


title: Russian Revolution

text: Tsar Nicholas was blamed for all of these crises, and what little support he had left began to crumble. As discontent grew, the State Duma issued a warning to Nicholas in November 1916, stating that, inevitably, a terrible disaster would grip the country unless a constitutional form of government was put in place. Nicholas ignored these warnings and Russia's Tsarist regime collapsed a few months later during the February Revolution of 1917. One year later, the Tsar and his entire family were executed.


title: Russian Revolution

text: At the beginning of February, Petrograd workers began several strikes and demonstrations. On , workers at Putilov, Petrograd's largest industrial plant was closed by a strike. The next day, a series of meetings and rallies were held for International Women's Day, which gradually turned into economic and political gatherings. Demonstrations were organised to demand bread, and these were supported by the industrial working force who considered them a reason for continuing the strikes. The women workers marched to nearby factories bringing out over 50,000 workers on strike. By , virtually every industrial enterprise in Petrograd had been shut down, together with many commercial and service enterprises. Students, white-collar workers, and teachers joined the workers in the streets and at public meetings.


title: Russian Revolution

text: To quell the riots, the Tsar looked to the army. At least 180,000 troops were available in the capital, but most were either untrained or injured. Historian Ian Beckett suggests around 12,000 could be regarded as reliable, but even these proved reluctant to move in on the crowd, since it included so many women. It was for this reason that on , when the Tsar ordered the army to suppress the rioting by force, troops began to revolt. Although few actively joined the rioting, many officers were either shot or went into hiding; the ability of the garrison to hold back the protests was all but nullified, symbols of the Tsarist regime were rapidly torn down around the city, and governmental authority in the capital collapsed – not helped by the fact that Nicholas had prorogued the Duma that morning, leaving it with no legal authority to act. The response of the Duma, urged on by the liberal bloc, was to establish a Temporary Committee to restore law and order; meanwhile, the socialist parties established the Petrograd Soviet to represent workers and soldiers. The remaining loyal units switched allegiance the next day.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The Tsar directed the royal train back towards Petrograd, which was stopped on , by a group of revolutionaries at Malaya Vishera. When the Tsar finally arrived at in Pskov, the Army Chief Nikolai Ruzsky, and the Duma deputies Alexander Guchkov and Vasily Shulgin suggested in unison that he abdicate the throne. He did so on , on behalf of himself, and then, having taken advice on behalf of his son, the Tsarevich. Nicholas nominated his brother, the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, to succeed him. But the Grand Duke realised that he would have little support as ruler, so he declined the crown on , stating that he would take it only if that was the consensus of democratic action. Six days later, Nicholas, no longer Tsar and addressed with contempt by the sentries as "Nicholas Romanov", was reunited with his family at the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. He was placed under house arrest with his family by the Provisional Government.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The immediate effect of the February Revolution was a widespread atmosphere of elation and excitement in Petrograd. On , a provisional government was announced. The center-left was well represented, and the government was initially chaired by a liberal aristocrat, Prince Georgy Yevgenievich Lvov, a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party (KD). The socialists had formed their rival body, the Petrograd Soviet (or workers' council) four days earlier. The Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government competed for power over Russia.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The effective power of the Provisional Government was challenged by the authority of an institution that claimed to represent the will of workers and soldiers and could, in fact, mobilize and control these groups during the early months of the revolution – the Petrograd Soviet Council of Workers' Deputies. The model for the Soviets were workers' councils that had been established in scores of Russian cities during the 1905 Revolution. In February 1917, striking workers elected deputies to represent them and socialist activists began organizing a citywide council to unite these deputies with representatives of the socialist parties. On 27 February, socialist Duma deputies, mainly Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, took the lead in organizing a citywide council. The Petrograd Soviet met in the Tauride Palace, the same building where the new government was taking shape.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The leaders of the Petrograd Soviet believed that they represented particular classes of the population, not the whole nation. They also believed Russia was not ready for socialism. They viewed their role as limited to pressuring hesitant "bourgeoisie" to rule and to introduce extensive democratic reforms in Russia (the replacement of the monarchy by a republic, guaranteed civil rights, a democratic police and army, abolition of religious and ethnic discrimination, preparation of elections to a constituent assembly, and so on). They met in the same building as the emerging Provisional Government not to compete with the Duma Committee for state power, but to best exert pressure on the new government, to act, in other words, as a popular democratic lobby.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The relationship between these two major powers was complex from the beginning and would shape the politics of 1917. The representatives of the Provisional Government agreed to "take into account the opinions of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies", though they were also determined to prevent interference which would create an unacceptable situation of dual power. In fact, this was precisely what was being created, though this "dual power" (dvoyevlastiye) was the result less of the actions or attitudes of the leaders of these two institutions than of actions outside their control, especially the ongoing social movement taking place on the streets of Russia's cities, factories, shops, barracks, villages, and in the trenches.


title: Russian Revolution

text: A series of political crises – see the chronology below – in the relationship between population and government and between the Provisional Government and the Soviets (which developed into a nationwide movement with a national leadership). The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK) undermined the authority of the Provisional Government but also of the moderate socialist leaders of the Soviets. Although the Soviet leadership initially refused to participate in the "bourgeois" Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, a young, popular lawyer and a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRP), agreed to join the new cabinet, and became an increasingly central figure in the government, eventually taking leadership of the Provisional Government. As minister of war and later Prime Minister, Kerensky promoted freedom of speech, released thousands of political prisoners, continued the war effort, even organizing another offensive (which, however, was no more successful than its predecessors). Nevertheless, Kerensky still faced several great challenges, highlighted by the soldiers, urban workers, and peasants, who claimed that they had gained nothing by the revolution:


title: Russian Revolution

text: The political group that proved most troublesome for Kerensky, and would eventually overthrow him, was the Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin had been living in exile in neutral Switzerland and, due to democratization of politics after the February Revolution, which legalized formerly banned political parties, he perceived the opportunity for his Marxist revolution. Although return to Russia had become a possibility, the war made it logistically difficult. Eventually, German officials arranged for Lenin to pass through their territory, hoping that his activities would weaken Russia or even – if the Bolsheviks came to power – lead to Russia's withdrawal from the war. Lenin and his associates, however, had to agree to travel to Russia in a sealed train: Germany would not take the chance that he would foment revolution in Germany. After passing through the front, he arrived in Petrograd in April 1917.


title: Russian Revolution

text: On the way to Russia, Lenin prepared the April Theses, which outlined central Bolshevik policies. These included that the Soviets take power (as seen in the slogan "all power to the Soviets") and denouncing the liberals and social revolutionaries in the Provisional Government, forbidding co-operation with it. Many Bolsheviks, however, had supported the Provisional Government, including Lev Kamenev.


title: Russian Revolution

text: With Lenin's arrival, the popularity of the Bolsheviks increased steadily. Over the course of the spring, public dissatisfaction with the Provisional Government and the war, in particular among workers, soldiers and peasants, pushed these groups to radical parties. Despite growing support for the Bolsheviks, buoyed by maxims that called most famously for "all power to the Soviets", the party held very little real power in the moderate-dominated Petrograd Soviet. In fact, historians such as Sheila Fitzpatrick have asserted that Lenin's exhortations for the Soviet Council to take power were intended to arouse indignation both with the Provisional Government, whose policies were viewed as conservative, and the Soviets themselves, which were viewed as subservients to the conservative government. By some other historians' accounts, Lenin and his followers were unprepared for how their groundswell of support, especially among influential worker and soldier groups, would translate into real power in the summer of 1917.


title: Russian Revolution

text: On 18 June, the Provisional Government launched an attack against Germany that failed miserably. Soon after, the government ordered soldiers to go to the front, reneging on a promise. The soldiers refused to follow the new orders. The arrival of radical Kronstadt sailors – who had tried and executed many officers, including one admiral – further fueled the growing revolutionary atmosphere. Sailors and soldiers, along with Petrograd workers, took to the streets in violent protest, calling for "all power to the Soviets". The revolt, however, was disowned by Lenin and the Bolshevik leaders and dissipated within a few days. In the aftermath, Lenin fled to Finland under threat of arrest while Trotsky, among other prominent Bolsheviks, was arrested. The July Days confirmed the popularity of the anti-war, radical Bolsheviks, but their unpreparedness at the moment of revolt was an embarrassing gaffe that lost them support among their main constituent groups: soldiers and workers.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The Bolshevik failure in the July Days proved temporary. The Bolsheviks had undergone a spectacular growth in membership. Whereas, in February 1917, the Bolsheviks were limited to only 24,000 members, by September 1917 there were 200,000 members of the Bolshevik faction. Previously, the Bolsheviks had been in the minority in the two leading cities of Russia—St. Petersburg and Moscow behind the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries, by September the Bolsheviks were in the majority in both cities. Furthermore, the Bolshevik-controlled Moscow Regional Bureau of the Party also controlled the Party organizations of the 13 provinces around Moscow. These 13 provinces held 37% of Russia's population and 20% of the membership of the Bolshevik faction.


title: Russian Revolution

text: In August, poor and misleading communication led General Lavr Kornilov, the recently appointed Supreme Commander of Russian military forces, to believe that the Petrograd government had already been captured by radicals, or was in serious danger thereof. In response, he ordered troops to Petrograd to pacify the city. To secure his position, Kerensky had to ask for Bolshevik assistance. He also sought help from the Petrograd Soviet, which called upon armed Red Guards to "defend the revolution". The Kornilov Affair failed largely due to the efforts of the Bolsheviks, whose influence over railroad and telegraph workers proved vital in stopping the movement of troops. With his coup failing, Kornilov surrendered and was relieved of his position. The Bolsheviks' role in stopping the attempted coup further strengthened their position.


title: Russian Revolution

text: In early September, the Petrograd Soviet freed all jailed Bolsheviks and Trotsky became chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. Growing numbers of socialists and lower-class Russians viewed the government less as a force in support of their needs and interests. The Bolsheviks benefited as the only major organized opposition party that had refused to compromise with the Provisional Government, and they benefited from growing frustration and even disgust with other parties, such as the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, who stubbornly refused to break with the idea of national unity across all classes.


title: Russian Revolution

text: In Finland, Lenin had worked on his book "State and Revolution" and continued to lead his party, writing newspaper articles and policy decrees. By October, he returned to Petrograd (present-day St. Petersburg), aware that the increasingly radical city presented him no legal danger and a second opportunity for revolution. Recognising the strength of the Bolsheviks, Lenin began pressing for the immediate overthrow of the Kerensky government by the Bolsheviks. Lenin was of the opinion that taking power should occur in both St. Petersburg and Moscow simultaneously, parenthetically stating that it made no difference which city rose up first, but expressing his opinion that Moscow may well rise up first. The Bolshevik Central Committee drafted a resolution, calling for the dissolution of the Provisional Government in favor of the Petrograd Soviet. The resolution was passed 10–2 (Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev prominently dissenting) promoting the October Revolution.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The October Revolution, night to Wednesday 7 November 1917 according to the modern Gregorian calendar and night to Wednesday 25 October according to the Julian calendar at the time in tsarist Russia, was organized by the Bolshevik party. Lenin did not have any direct role in the revolution and due to his personal security he was hiding. The Revolutionary Military Committee established by the Bolshevik party was organizing the insurrection and Leon Trotsky was the chairman. However, Lenin played a crucial role in the debate in the leadership of the Bolshevik party for a revolutionary insurrection as the party in the autumn of 1917 received a majority in the soviets. An ally in the left fraction of the Revolutionary-Socialist Party, with huge support among the peasants who opposed Russia's participation in the war, supported the slogan 'All power to the Soviets'.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Liberal and monarchist forces, loosely organized into the White Army, immediately went to war against the Bolsheviks' Red Army, in a series of battles that would become known as the Russian Civil War. This did not happen in 1917. The Civil War began in early 1918 with domestic anti-Bolshevik forces confronting the nascent Red Army. In autumn of 1918 Allied countries needed to block German access to Russian supplies. They sent troops to support the "Whites" with supplies of weapons, ammunition and logistic equipment being sent from the main Western countries but this was not at all coordinated. Germany did not participate in the civil war as it surrendered to the Allied.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The provisional government with its second and third coalition was led by a right wing fraction of the Socialist-Revolutionary party, SR. This non-elected provisional government faced the revolutionary situation and the growing mood against the war by avoiding elections to the state Duma. However, the October revolution forced the political parties behind the newly dissolved provisional government to move and move fast for immediate elections. All happened so fast that the left SR fraction did not have time to reach out and be represented in ballots of the SR party which was part of the coalition in the provisional government. This non-elected government supported continuation of the war on the side of the allied forces. The elections to the State Duma 25 November 1917 therefore did not mirror the true political situation among peasants even if we don't know how the outcome would be if the anti-war left SR fraction had a fair chance to challenge the party leaders. In the elections the Bolshevik party received 25% of the votes and the Socialist-Revolutionaries as much as 58%. It is possible the left SR had a good chance to reach more than 25% of the votes and thereby legitimate the October revolution but we can only guess.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Lenin did not believe that a socialist revolution necessarily presupposed a fully developed capitalist economy. A semi-capitalist country would suffice and Russia had a working class base of 5% of the population.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Though Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Party, it has been argued that since Lenin was not present during the actual takeover of the Winter Palace, it was really Trotsky's organization and direction that led the revolution, merely spurred by the motivation Lenin instigated within his party. Critics on the Right have long argued that the financial and logistical assistance of German intelligence via their key agent, Alexander Parvus was a key component as well, though historians are divided, since there is little evidence supporting that claim.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Soviet membership was initially freely elected, but many members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, anarchists, and other leftists created opposition to the Bolsheviks through the Soviets themselves. The elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly took place 25 November 1917. The Bolsheviks gained 25% of the vote. When it became clear that the Bolsheviks had little support outside of the industrialized areas of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, they simply barred non-Bolsheviks from membership in the Soviets. The Bolsheviks dissolved the Constituent Assembly in January 1918.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The Russian Civil War, which broke out in 1918 shortly after the October Revolution, resulted in the deaths and suffering of millions of people regardless of their political orientation. The war was fought mainly between the Red Army ("Reds"), consisting of the uprising majority led by the Bolshevik minority, and the "Whites" – army officers and cossacks, the "bourgeoisie", and political groups ranging from the far Right, to the Socialist Revolutionaries who opposed the drastic restructuring championed by the Bolsheviks following the collapse of the Provisional Government, to the Soviets (under clear Bolshevik dominance). The Whites had backing from other countries such as the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and Japan, while the Reds possessed internal support, proving to be much more effective. Though the Allied nations, using external interference, provided substantial military aid to the loosely knit anti-Bolshevik forces, they were ultimately defeated.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The Bolsheviks firstly assumed power in Petrograd, expanding their rule outwards. They eventually reached the Easterly Siberian Russian coast in Vladivostok, four years after the war began, an occupation that is believed to have ended all significant military campaigns in the nation. Less than one year later, the last area controlled by the White Army, the Ayano-Maysky District, directly to the north of the Krai containing Vladivostok, was given up when General Anatoly Pepelyayev capitulated in 1923.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Several revolts were initiated against the Bolsheviks and their army near the end of the war, notably the Kronstadt Rebellion. This was a naval mutiny engineered by Soviet Baltic sailors, former Red Army soldiers, and the people of Kronstadt. This armed uprising was fought against the antagonizing Bolshevik economic policies that farmers were subjected to, including seizures of grain crops by the Communists. This all amounted to large-scale discontent. When delegates representing the Kronstadt sailors arrived at Petrograd for negotiations, they raised 15 demands primarily pertaining to the Russian right to freedom. The Government firmly denounced the rebellions and labelled the requests as a reminder of the Social Revolutionaries, a political party that was popular among Soviets before Lenin, but refused to cooperate with the Bolshevik Army. The Government then responded with an armed suppression of these revolts and suffered ten thousand casualties before entering the city of Kronstadt. This ended the rebellions fairly quickly, causing many of the rebels to flee seeking political exile.


title: Russian Revolution

text: During the Civil War, Nestor Makhno led a Ukrainian anarchist movement. Makhno's Insurgent Army allied to the Bolsheviks thrice, with one of the powers ending the alliance each time. However, a Bolshevik force under Mikhail Frunze destroyed the Makhnovshchina, when the Makhnovists refused to merge into the Red Army. In addition, the so-called "Green Army" (peasants defending their property against the opposing forces) played a secondary role in the war, mainly in Ukraine.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Revolutionary tribunals were present during both the Revolution and the Civil War, intended for the purpose of combatting forces of counter-revolution. At the Civil War's zenith, it is reported that upwards of 200,000 cases were investigated by approximately 200 tribunals. These tribunals established themselves more so from the Cheka as a more moderate force that acted under the banner of revolutionary justice, rather than a utilizer of strict brute force as the former did. However, these tribunals did come with their own set of inefficiencies, such as responding to cases in a matter of months and not having a concrete definition of "counter-revolution" that was determined on a case-by-case basis. The "Decree on Revolutionary Tribunals" used by the People's Commissar of Justice, states in article 2 that "In fixing the penalty, the Revolutionary Tribunal shall be guided by the circumstances of the case and the dictates of the revolutionary conscience." Revolutionary tribunals ultimately demonstrated that a form of justice was still prevalent in Russian society where the Russian Provisional Government failed. This, in part, triggered the political transition of the October Revolution and the Civil War that followed in its aftermath.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The Bolsheviks executed the Tsar and his family on 16 July 1918. In early March, the Provisional Government had placed Nicholas and his family under house arrest in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, south of Petrograd. But in August 1917, they evacuated the Romanovs to Tobolsk in the Urals to protect them from the rising tide of revolution. After the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, the conditions of their imprisonment grew stricter and talk of putting Nicholas on trial increased. In April and May 1918, the looming civil war led the Bolsheviks to move the family to the stronghold of Yekaterinburg.


title: Russian Revolution

text: During the early morning of 16 July, Nicholas, Alexandra, their children, their physician, and several servants were taken into the basement and shot. According to Edvard Radzinsky and Dmitrii Volkogonov, the order came directly from Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov in Moscow. However this claim has never been confirmed. The execution may have been carried out on the initiative of local Bolshevik officials, or it may have been an option pre-approved in Moscow as White troops were rapidly approaching Yekaterinburg. Radzinsky noted that Lenin's bodyguard personally delivered the telegram ordering the execution and that he was ordered to destroy the evidence.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The Russian Revolution became the site for many instances of symbolism, both physical and non-physical. Communist symbolism is perhaps the most notable of this time period, such as the debut of the iconic hammer and sickle as a representation of the October Revolution in 1917, eventually becoming the official symbol of the USSR in 1924, and later the symbol of Communism as a whole. Although the Bolsheviks did not have extensive political experience, their portrayal of the revolution itself as both a political and symbolic order resulted in Communism's portrayal as a messianic faith, formally known as communist messianism. Portrayals of notable revolutionary figures such as Lenin were done in iconographic methods, equating them similarly to religious figures, though religion itself was banned in the USSR and groups such as the Russian Orthodox Church were persecuted.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The revolution ultimately led to the establishment of the future Soviet Union as an ideocracy; however, the establishment of such a state came as an ideological paradox, as Marx's ideals of how a socialist state ought to be created were based on the formation being natural and not artificially incited (i.e. by means of revolution). Leon Trotsky said that the goal of socialism in Russia would not be realized without the success of the world revolution. A revolutionary wave caused by the Russian Revolution lasted until 1923, but despite initial hopes for success in the German Revolution of 1918–19, the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic, and others like it, no other Marxist movement at the time succeeded in keeping power in its hands.


title: Russian Revolution

text: This issue is subject to conflicting views on communist history by various Marxist groups and parties. Joseph Stalin later rejected this idea, stating that socialism was possible in one country.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The confusion regarding Stalin's position on the issue stems from the fact that, after Lenin's death in 1924, he successfully used Lenin's argument – the argument that socialism's success needs the support of workers of other countries in order to happen – to defeat his competitors within the party by accusing them of betraying Lenin and, therefore, the ideals of the October Revolution.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Few events in historical research have been as conditioned by political influences as the October Revolution. The historiography of the Revolution generally divides into three schools of thought: the Soviet-Marxist view, the Western Totalitarian view, and the Revisionist (Trotskyist) view. Since the fall of Communism (and the USSR) in Russia in 1991, the Western-Totalitarian view has again become dominant and the Soviet-Marxist view has practically vanished in mainstream political analysis.


title: Russian Revolution

text: Following the death of Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik government was thrown into a crisis. Lenin failed to designate who his successor would be or how they would be chosen. A power struggle broke out in the party between Leon Trotsky and his enemies. Trotsky was defeated by the anti-Trotsky bloc by the mid 1920s and his hopes for party leadership was dashed. Among Trotsky's opponents, Joseph Stalin would rise to assume unchallenged party leadership by 1928. In 1927 Trotsky was expelled from the party and in 1929 he lost his citizenship and was sent into exile. While in exile he began honing his own interpretation of Marxism called Trotskyism. The schism between Trotsky and Stalin is the focal point where the Revisionist view comes into existence. Trotsky traveled across the world denouncing Stalin and the Soviet Union under his leadership. He specifically focused his criticism on Stalin's doctrine, Socialism in One Country, claiming that it was incongruent with the ideology of the revolution. Eventually, Trotsky settled in Mexico City and began a base of operations for him and his supporters. In 1937 at the height of the Great Purge, he published the Revolution Betrayed which outlined his ideological contradictions with Stalin, and how Stalin was guilty of subverting and debasing the 1917 revolution. He continued to vocally criticize Stalin and Stalinism until his assassination in 1940 on Stalin's orders.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The Soviet-Marxist interpretation is the belief that the Russian Revolution under the Bolsheviks was a proud and glorious effort of the working class which saw the removal of the Tsar, nobility, and capitalists from positions of power. The Bolsheviks and later the Communist Party took the first steps in liberating the proletariat and building a workers' state that practiced equality. Outside of Eastern Europe this view was heavily criticized as following the death of Lenin the Soviet Union became more authoritarian. Even though the Soviet Union no longer exists, the Soviet-Marxist view is still interpreted in academia today. Both academics and Soviet supporters acknowledge this view is bolstered by several key events. First, the RSFSR made substantial advancements to women's' rights. It was the first country to decriminalize abortion and allowed women to be educated, which was forbidden under the Tsar. Furthermore, the RSFSR decriminalized homosexuality between consenting adults which was seen as radical for the time period. The Bolshevik government also actively recruited working class citizens into positions of party leadership, thereby ensuring the proletariat had a voice in policymaking. One of the most important aspects to this view was the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War. On paper, the Bolsheviks should have been defeated in part due to the broad international support their enemies were receiving. Britain, France, the United States, Japan, and other countries sent aid to the White Army and expedition forces against the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were further at a disadvantage due to factors such as: the small land area under their control, lack of professional officers, and supply shortages. In spite of this, the Red Army prevailed. The Red Army unlike many White factions maintained a high morale among their troops and civilians throughout the duration of the civil war. This was in part due to their skillful use propaganda. Bolshevik propaganda portrayed the Red Army as liberators and stewards of the poor and downtrodden. Bolshevik support was further elevated by Lenin's initiatives to distribute land to the peasantry, and ending the war with Germany. During the civil war, the Bolsheviks were able to raise an army numbering around 5 million active soldiers. Domestic support and patriotism played a decisive role in the Russian Civil War. By 1923 the Bolsheviks had controlled the last of the White Army holdouts and the Russian Civil War concluded with a Bolshevik victory. This victory ultimately influenced how the Soviet Union interpreted its own ideology and the October Revolution itself. Starting in 1919, the Soviets would commemorate the event with a military parade and a public holiday. This tradition lasted up until the collapse of the Soviet Union. As time went on the Soviet-Marxist interpretation evolved with an "anti-Stalinist" version of it. This subsection attempts to draw a distinction between the "Lenin period" (1917–24) and the "Stalin period" (1928–53).


title: Russian Revolution

text: Views from the west were mixed. Socialists and labor organizations tended to support the October Revolution and the Bolshevik seizure of power. On the other hand, western governments were mortified. Western leaders, and later some academics concluded that the Russian Revolution only replaced one form of tyranny, (Tsarism) with another (communism). Initially, the Bolsheviks were tolerant of opposing political factions. Upon seizing state power, they organized a parliament, the Russian Constituent Assembly. On November 25, an election was held. Despite the Bolsheviks being the party that overthrew the Provisional Government and organizing the assembly, they lost the election. Rather than govern as a coalition, the Bolsheviks banned all political opposition. Historians point to this as the start of communist authoritarianism. Conservative historian, Robert Service, states, "he (Lenin) aided the foundations of dictatorship and lawlessness. He had consolidated the principle of state penetration of the whole society, its economy and its culture. Lenin had practiced terror and advocated revolutionary amoralism." Lenin allowed for certain disagreement and debate but only within the highest organs of the Bolshevik party, and practicing democratic centralism. The RSFSR and later the Soviet Union continued to practice political repression until its dissolution in 1991.


title: Russian Revolution

text: The Russian Revolution has been portrayed in or served as backdrop for many films. Among them, in order of release date:


title: Chyna

text: Chyna (born Joan Marie Laurer; December 27, 1969 – April 17, 2016) was an American professional wrestler, bodybuilder and television personality.


title: Chyna

text: She first rose to prominence in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in 1997, where she was billed as "The Ninth Wonder of the World" (André the Giant was already billed as the eighth). A founding member of the stable D-Generation X as the promotion's first female enforcer, she held the WWF Intercontinental Championship (the only female performer to do so) thrice and the WWF Women's Championship once. She was also the first woman to participate in the Royal Rumble match and King of the Ring tournament, in addition to becoming number one contender to the WWF Championship. She is considered one of the biggest stars of the Attitude Era. With singles victories over several prominent male wrestlers – including multiple-time world champions Triple H, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho and Jeff Jarrett – she left what WWE called "a lasting legacy as the most dominant female competitor of all time". After leaving the WWF in 2001, she wrestled sporadically, with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) in 2002 and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) in 2011. The latter was her final appearance in the ring.


title: Chyna

text: Outside of wrestling, Chyna appeared in "Playboy" magazine twice, plus numerous television shows and films. She was considered a sex symbol. In 2005, she was a cast member on VH1's "The Surreal Life", which led to several other celebrity reality appearances on the network, including "" in 2007 and "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" in 2008. Chyna was also known for her tumultuous relationship with fellow wrestler Sean Waltman, with whom she made a sex tape released commercially in 2004 as , which won a 2006 AVN Award for Best-Selling Title. She starred in a further five pornographic titles, including AVN's 2012 Best Celebrity Sex Tape, "Backdoor to Chyna".


title: Chyna

text: In 2019, Chyna was posthumously entered into the WWE Hall of Fame as a member of D-Generation X, making her the first woman to be inducted as a part of a group or team.


title: Chyna

text: Laurer was born in Rochester, New York, on December 27, 1969. She had two older siblings: Kathy and Sonny.


title: Chyna

text: Her parents divorced when she was around four years old. She had three stepfathers and one stepmother. She said her first stepfather threatened suicide at one point, while her biological father had a problem with alcoholism and once accidentally stabbed her mother in the thigh with a butcher knife. From 1973 to 1983, she, her siblings and her mother moved several times.


title: Chyna

text: As a child, Laurer learned to play violin and cello. She later said that in seventh grade she was sexually kissed by a much older teacher who worked at her school. At 13, while attending Penfield High School, she began purging after she ate. She left home at 16 when her mother tried to force her into a drug rehabilitation facility, and lived with her biological father. That year she began working out, and because her abdominal muscles were so strong, she did not feel any pain when she developed an ovarian tumor. She finished her last year of high school in Spain.


title: Chyna

text: Laurer attended the University of Tampa, graduating in 1992 with a major in Spanish literature. She studied French and German there (she could converse in either language) and said that during this time she was raped by two men after getting drunk at a party. She was a member of the ROTC. She originally wanted to use her knowledge of foreign languages to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Drug Enforcement Administration. She subsequently joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to Guatemala.


title: Chyna

text: After returning from abroad, she held several jobs: a cocktail waitress in a strip club, singer in a band, and a 900-number chat line worker. In her mid-to-late 20s, while living in the Florida Keys, she took a six-week class to train as a flight attendant. On the way to her first flight, she was in a car crash and spent four days in the hospital. When she recovered, her sister Kathy helped her get a job selling pagers; they both also worked as belly dancers.


title: Chyna

text: After college, Laurer began to regularly enter fitness competitions. In 1996, she competed in the New York City regional level of the Fitness America competition. Because of her large size compared to the other women, she usually finished in last place.


title: Chyna

text: Laurer trained at Wladek "Killer" Kowalski's professional wrestling school in Malden, Massachusetts. Her first match was in 1995 against a male wrestler dressed as a woman. While attending the school, she also worked for various independent promotions as Joanie Lee. Some of her earliest matches were set up by The Fabulous Moolah.


title: Chyna

text: Laurer met World Wrestling Federation (WWF) performers Paul "Triple H" Levesque and Shawn Michaels after a professional wrestling show in 1996. After watching tapes of her matches, they decided to bring her into the WWF as a bodyguard. Vince McMahon, owner of the WWF, initially did not want her to join the company because he did not believe the audience would find a woman beating up men believable. While waiting for the WWF's decision, Laurer was approached by World Championship Wrestling (WCW), who wanted her to be the sole female member of the New World Order. She initially accepted the offer, but later turned it down when Shane McMahon, Vince McMahon's son, informed her that she was about to be hired by the WWF. However, Kowalski said that he got Laurer hired by the WWF after introducing her to Shane McMahon and telling him of WCW's interest in her.


title: Chyna

text: Laurer made her WWF debut on February 16, 1997 at ; her character emerged as a plant from a ringside seat, choking Marlena while Goldust was in the ring with Triple H. The next night she appears on Raw and bearhugs Marlena. Her original role in the promotion was as the laconic enforcer/bodyguard for D-Generation X which was founded by Shawn Michaels and Triple H. She often helped them (then, a rising villain) cheat to win by physically interfering in matches by executing her trademark low blow to the groin. She was later given the ring name "Chyna", an intentionally ironic moniker; fine china is delicate and fragile, a sharp contrast to her character. Offstage, however, the male wrestlers were hesitant at first to let a woman be seen overpowering them.


title: Chyna

text: During her time in D-Generation X, she was put in a romantic storyline with Mark Henry, member of the rival stable Nation of Domination. It started in August 1998 after The Rock ordered Henry to kiss Chyna to humiliate her, during which she fought back. Henry would chase her romantically, eventually threatening her with a storyline sexual harassment demand over one of her beatdowns if she didn't go to a date with him. Chyna accepted and eventually reconciled with him, becoming his on-screen girlfriend and ally. However, in January 1999 she revealed it was all a ruse to humiliate Henry.


title: Chyna

text: A week after her storyline with Henry, Chyna was the 30th entrant in the Royal Rumble, becoming the first woman ever to enter the eponymous match. The day after it, she became a villainess by betraying Triple H and aligning herself with his enemies Vince McMahon and Kane. She teamed with Kane at the pay-per-view against former allies X-Pac and Triple H. At WrestleMania XV, she turned on Kane in his match by attacking him with a chair, appearing to rejoin DX. Chyna and Triple H, however, turned against DX later that evening when they helped Shane McMahon defeat DX member X-Pac. The duo became part of The Corporation and later Shane McMahon's Corporate Ministry. Following the dissolution of the Corporate Ministry, the villainous Chyna remained at Triple H's side. They split up later that year.


title: Chyna

text: In June 1999, Chyna became the first woman to qualify for the King of the Ring tournament. She was also the first woman to be the number one contender for the WWF Championship, but lost the spot to Mankind before SummerSlam in August. Later that year, she became a fan favorite again during her long feud with Jeff Jarrett. She challenged the British Bulldog to a match on the October 4, 1999 Raw, and defeated him. At Unforgiven, she had a match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship against Jarrett, which she lost. She defeated Jarrett for the title at No Mercy in his last WWF match, a Good Housekeeping match on October 17, in the process becoming the first and only woman to win the Intercontinental Championship. She also gained the services of his valet, Miss Kitty. Laurer said that Jarrett demanded (and received) $300,000 from Vince McMahon to lose the title cleanly to a woman. His contract had expired on October 16, and he was therefore not contractually obligated to appear on the pay-per-view. If he had not appeared, the WWF would have been criticized for false advertising, and the title's lineage would have been broken.


title: Chyna

text: Chyna then feuded with Chris Jericho over the belt, defeating him at Survivor Series, but losing the title to him at Armageddon. They faced off again in a match on the edition of December 28 of "SmackDown!", which ended controversially with both wrestlers pinning each other. As a result, then "head of authority" Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley declared them co-champions. At the Royal Rumble, Jericho and Chyna defended the title against Hardcore Holly in a Triple Threat match to determine the Intercontinental Champion, which Jericho won. Chyna's "co-champions" reign is no longer recognized by WWE and is now considered a continuation of Jericho's second Intercontinental reign. Afterwards, Chyna briefly teamed with Jericho.


title: Chyna

text: Not long after losing the Intercontinental title, Chyna became the onscreen girlfriend of Eddie Guerrero. Originally villains, they became fan favorites during the summer of 2000, with Guerrero dubbing her his "Mamacita". They faced Val Venis and then-rookie Trish Stratus in an intergender tag team match at SummerSlam with the Intercontinental Championship on the line. Chyna won the match, but lost the belt two weeks later to Guerrero in a Triple Threat match with Kurt Angle. They officially split in November 2000 after Chyna, in storyline, found Eddie cavorting in the shower with two other women.


title: Chyna

text: At the same time, Chyna posed nude for "Playboy" magazine's November 2000 issue. It was also worked into a WWF storyline (based, in part, on a real-life legal feud between the WWF and the socially conservative Parents Television Council), in which it drew the ire of the Right to Censor (a group of morally conservative wrestlers). Shortly after, Chyna began a feud with Ivory, a member of the Right to Censor, over the Women's Championship. It culminated in a storyline at the Royal Rumble where Chyna appeared to reinjure her neck while performing a handspring back elbow. To convince the audience she was injured, color commentator Jerry Lawler left the commentators' booth and entered the ring to check on her condition, something he had not done since the in-ring accident that killed Owen Hart in 1999. When she returned from the "injury", she won the Women's Championship from Ivory at WrestleMania X-Seven in a squash match. She also defended her title against Lita at Judgment Day in 2001. She soon vacated the title, however, as it was her final WWF match.


title: Chyna

text: She left the WWF on November 30, 2001, several months after she had been taken off of television. Various accounts of her departure have circulated over the years. Behind the scenes, her former real-life boyfriend Paul "Triple H" Levesque began a relationship with Stephanie McMahon; Chyna said the pair began seeing each other before she and Levesque had broken up. In a 2002 interview with "The Baltimore Sun", she indicated that the breakup with Levesque had nothing to do with her leaving WWF and that she left to pursue an acting career. Jim Ross, then Executive Vice President of Talent Relations, reports that it was "mutually agreed" to let her WWF contract expire in order for her to explore other career options. In a 2015 interview with Vince Russo, she said that after a meeting with Vince McMahon about the Stephanie McMahon situation, she was sent home and later received a fax telling her that she was not needed anymore. After her death, her sister said that in 2001 she was offered a new WWF contract with a minimum salary of $400,000 per year and the potential for substantially higher income via merchandising and pay-per-view appearances, but she refused to sign a contract for less than a base salary of $1 million per year. Ross later confirmed this account, characterizing the demand for $1 million per year as "outrageous" and unrealistic, leaving WWF officials reluctant to negotiate with her despite her fan popularity.


title: Chyna

text: After the end of her WWF career in 2001, Chyna made her way to Japan in 2002 where she had a relatively brief but productive stint with NJPW. Her first appearance was at the New Japan Thirtieth Anniversary Show, refereeing a bout between the Steiner Brothers and Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kensuke Sasaki. On August 8, 2002, Chyna defeated woman boxer Chika Nakamura for Universal Fighting Arts Organization, beating Nakamura in the first round by TKO. In September and October 2002, she wrestled several matches for the promotion. After losing to Masahiro Chono on October 14, 2002, Laurer performed her final match on October 26, teaming with a fake Great Muta played by Troy Enders in a loss to Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenzo Suzuki. Despite working with the biggest names like Masahiro Chono and Hiroshi Tanahashi, Chyna could not break out as a relevant player for NJPW.


title: Chyna

text: During the May 3, 2011, tapings of the edition of May 12 of "Impact!", Chyna made her TNA debut, introduced by the returning Spike TV network consultant Mick Foley. He introduced her as Kurt Angle's business associate (she had been previously referred to as his "Mistress") and tag team partner at Sacrifice, where they would face Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett. During the taping she also took part in a battle royal, from which she eliminated Jeff. At Sacrifice on May 15, Chyna submitted Karen for the win in the mixed tag team match. She left TNA shortly after, making Sacrifice 2011 her final wrestling match.


title: Chyna

text: Laurer made her adult film debut with the 2004 video "1 Night in China". Laurer and Sean Waltman approached Red Light District Video to distribute the homemade video, which was released in 2004. Laurer appeared in her second adult video, "Another Night in China" in 2009. In 2011, she starred in her first professional pornographic film for Vivid Video, "Backdoor to Chyna". She also starred for Vivid as She-Hulk in their parody of "The Avengers", released in May 2012. A spinoff feature centered on the She-Hulk character, "She-Hulk XXX," was released to video in April 2013.


title: Chyna

text: In one of her final YouTube videos before her death, she said that she'd had no ambitions to go into porn, but was "making lemonade out of lemons" after the video of her and X-Pac was released "without her permission".


title: Chyna

text: Laurer modeled nude for "Playboy" in the November 2000 issue. In 2002, following her departure from the WWF, she appeared in a second nude pictorial. She also filmed a "Playboy" adult documentary, "Joanie Laurer Nude: Wrestling Superstar to Warrior Princess", which followed her on the set.


title: Chyna

text: In 2001, Laurer released her autobiography, "If They Only Knew". It spent time on "The New York Times" bestseller list.


title: Chyna

text: Laurer appeared on "The Howard Stern Show" in 2000, where she claimed she "made [an ass] out of [her]self." She also appeared in "3rd Rock from the Sun" as Janice, a police officer who briefly dated Harry Solomon, and in several Stacker 2 commercials. She was a presenter at the MTV Video Music Awards.


title: Chyna

text: In 2001, she was a guest on a special celebrity edition of "Fear Factor". She lost in the final round of the competition to Coolio. She provided her voice for stop-motion animation renditions of herself in Celebrity Deathmatch and Gary & Mike. The next year, she was reportedly up for a part in "", but lost the role to Kristanna Loken. She hosted of "Robot Wars: Grand Champions" in 2002, and appeared on the celebrity game show "Hollywood Squares" in 2003.


title: Chyna

text: In early 2005, she debuted on "The Surreal Life" with housemates Da Brat, Jane Wiedlin, Adrianne Curry, Christopher Knight, Marcus Schenkenberg and Verne Troyer. On the show, she drank heavily, appeared nude, and got into an argument with her ex, Sean Waltman. She remained friends with Adrianne Curry after the show and made a brief cameo on her reality show "My Fair Brady". She also appeared on "", which began airing on VH1 in January 2007. Filming took place in April 2006 in Las Vegas. She was eliminated from the show in the seventh episode.


title: Chyna

text: Also in 2006, Laurer appeared in "Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy" and "Illegal Aliens", the latter of which was the last movie featuring Anna Nicole Smith before her death. On "Cristina's Court", a syndicated court-themed reality show, Laurer appeared in an episode originally airing July 14, 2007 in a civil dispute against a breeder of teacup chihuahuas. Judge Perez ruled in her favor and awarded her $4,000.


title: Chyna

text: Laurer's breast implants were custom-made for her after her first implants were ruptured during a wrestling match. She had also complained to her plastic surgeon that their largest implants did not suit her frame as she desired. The custom implants became the model for the Chyna 2000s, now marketed to large-framed women and female bodybuilders. Laurer said she paid $6,000 for them.


title: Chyna

text: From 1996 until 2000, Laurer dated fellow wrestler Paul "Triple H" Levesque. They initially hid their relationship from their co-workers because she felt people might think she "[slept] her way to the top". They also lived together for some time. There is some debate as to whether Levesque started his relationship with Stephanie McMahon while still with Laurer. However, after Laurer's death, her sister Kathy Hamilton told Bleacher Report that while Levesque "was very good to Joanie", the couple disagreed about future family plans (Levesque wanted children and Laurer did not), and that Laurer's addictions and mental health problems also contributed to their breakup.


title: Chyna

text: Beginning in 2003, Laurer had a tumultuous relationship with fellow wrestler Sean Waltman. They were engaged for a period in 2003, then broke up, then became engaged again, a pattern that continued for the next two years. In 2004, they released a sex tape which was filmed in 2003. Eager for a repeat success, the company that released Paris Hilton's celebrity sex tape obtained the footage, edited it, and released it under the name "1 Night in China". It sold over 100,000 copies, with Laurer and Waltman earning a share of the profits. Laurer, however, maintained that she did not earn any money from the release. In January 2005, she was arrested for domestic assault after allegedly beating Waltman.


title: Chyna

text: On February 8, 2007, a visibly upset Laurer appeared on "Larry King Live" to speak about her friend Anna Nicole Smith, who had died earlier that day. Laurer said that she "knew it was coming" because of how the media ridiculed Smith, and she drew parallels between the plight of Smith and herself. However, the wife of the CEO of Trim Spa, Monique Goen, stating that Smith did not consider Laurer a friend.


title: Chyna

text: After leaving the WWF, Laurer was unable to use the name "Chyna" because of its trademark. She began using the name "Chynna Doll" for public appearances. In November 2007, she legally changed her name to Chyna.


title: Chyna

text: She also had problems with substance abuse. She said that her "life was spinning out of control" around the time she made the sex tape. In January 2005, Waltman said that she was battling drug and alcohol addiction, as well as mental illness. Days after the domestic dispute between Waltman and Laurer, it was reported in the "New York Post" that she had removed her clothes and jumped into a fish tank in a New York nightclub. That month, she made another appearance on "The Howard Stern Show", where she was described as "slurring her words, contradicting herself and launching into random tangents that were impossible to follow." On the program, she said she did not to want to do drugs anymore, but said that if a line of cocaine was in front of her, she would do it. After her appearance, she entered a facility specializing in depression recovery, and decided to stop drinking. In early 2008, she appeared on the VH1 reality TV show "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew", but said on the show that she did not consider herself an addict. On December 27, 2008, she was rushed to the hospital after her birthday party, where she was found unconscious with cuts on her arms.


title: Chyna

text: Laurer had a strained relationship with her family. She last saw her mother at the age of 16, and she said that her father was never able to get over her decision not to pursue a career in law enforcement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She also alleged that her father took out several student loans in her name without her knowledge, leaving her with $40,000 in debt. On an episode of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" in 2008, Laurer said she had a bad relationship with all of her family members, including her siblings. In September 2010, Laurer was hospitalized after overdosing on sleeping medication. Laurer later re-established a good relationship with her mother; her father died on May 15, 2014.


title: Chyna

text: From early 2012 until mid-2015, Laurer taught English in Japan. She converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while there.


title: Chyna

text: On April 20, 2016, Laurer was found dead at her home in Redondo Beach, California. She was 46. Her manager Anthony Anzaldo was concerned when she did not post updates or content to her usual social media outlets for several days, and subsequently found her body in her apartment. Initial police reports stated that she appeared to have died of either an accidental drug overdose or of natural causes. Anzaldo suggested that any overdose was accidental, saying that she was prescribed drugs, but tended to use them improperly.


title: Chyna

text: Her brain was donated to science to study the effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). However, the brain had naturally decomposed to a point where it could not be definitively determined whether Laurer had CTE. A memorial service was held in Los Angeles on June 22, 2016. Among the attendees were wrestlers Melina Perez, Rob Van Dam, Sean Waltman and Johnny Mantell; actors C. Thomas Howell and Barry Williams, along with Dennis Hof, owner of the Bunny Ranch; and singers Coolio and Baby Bash, who also performed during the memorial. Chyna was cremated and her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.


title: Chyna

text: A report of her autopsy was released in December 2016 which determined that she died on April 17 of an overdose of alcohol, combined with the anxiety drugs diazepam and nordazepam, painkillers oxycodone and oxymorphone, and sleeping aid, temazepam.


title: Chyna

text: Numerous commentators have credited Chyna as being influential to women's wrestling and one of the biggest stars of WWF's Attitude Era. Commentator and former WWE official Jim Ross called her, "the distinctive athlete [who] was to WWE what Ronda Rousey has been to UFC", while E! News said that she accomplished more in her near-decade career than any other woman. Others praised her as a feminist icon who defied gender norms; Dawn Heinecken, a professor of women's and gender studies at the University of Louisville, wrote in 2004 that "She was demonized as a feminist who challenged male dominance ... Her latest, and most popular incarnation was that of a sex symbol". She was the first woman to compete in the Royal Rumble match and is the only woman to have held the WWE Intercontinental Championship. Luke Winkie of "Sports Illustrated" listed her as the 79th greatest wrestler of all time. Beth Phoenix credits her with "breaking down doors" in the industry, and independent wrestler Kimber Lee credits Chyna as her motivation for entering wrestling.


title: Chyna

text: The day following her death, a post on WWE.com expressed sadness about it and featured a video of her winning the Women's Championship. After years without acknowledging Laurer, WWE played a posthumous tribute video on the April 25 episode of "Raw". A short memorial article was also published on Howard Stern's official website, lamenting her death and describing her as "fan favorite [with a] great sense of humor about herself."


title: Chyna

text: Columnist Mike Mooneyham of "The Post and Courier" stated after Chyna’s death that it was "an oft-asked question" as to when she would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Jim Ross said that Chyna had an "overwhelming desire" to be inducted during her lifetime. On February 9, 2015, during a WWE Network podcast with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Paul Levesque mentioned that Chyna deserved to be in the Hall of Fame but that her career in pornography prohibited it. In interviews shortly after her death, Levesque said that she "definitely warranted" a place in the Hall of Fame and Stephanie McMahon said she was sure Chyna would be inducted but did not know what year it would happen.


title: Chyna

text: Chyna was announced as an inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2019 on February 18, 2019, as part of D-Generation X. Levesque spoke to ESPN of the "complexities" he mentioned on the 2015 Austin podcast, but after describing her in-ring accomplishments he said she "100 percent deserves" the honor. Although she was being inducted as part of a group, Levesque said that she deserved to be inducted a second time as well for her individual career. Shawn Michaels also endorsed the idea of her being inducted a second time, stating: "Of all the people in this group, and D-Generation X as a whole is deserving, but I don't think there's anybody that would argue that [Chyna] is not the most deserving of [an induction]."


title: Chyna

text: On April 20, 2017, a trailer was released for "Wrestling with Chyna", a special documentary featuring Chyna's life from almost her very beginning, to after she left the wrestling business, to her last days of life. On June 16, 2021, Vice TV aired the documentary with exclusive interviews from friends and family members and her manager Anthony Anzaldo.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Shinzo Abe ( ; , Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. He was the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history. Abe also served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2006 under Junichiro Koizumi and was briefly the opposition leader in 2012.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe was born into a prominent political family in Tokyo and was the grandson of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. After graduating from Seikei University and briefly attending the University of Southern California, Abe was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1993 election. Abe was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary by Prime Minister Koizumi in 2005 before replacing him as prime minister and LDP president the following year. Confirmed by the National Diet, Abe became Japan's youngest post-war prime minister and the first born after World War II. Abe resigned as prime minister after one year due to ulcerative colitis and his party's recent election losses. After recovering, Abe staged an unexpected political comeback by defeating Shigeru Ishiba, the former defense minister, to become LDP president in 2012. Following the LDP's landslide victory in that year's general election, Abe became the first former prime minister to return to the office since Shigeru Yoshida in 1948. He led the LDP to further victories in the 2014 and 2017 elections, becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister. In 2020, Abe again resigned as prime minister, citing a relapse of his colitis, and was succeeded by Yoshihide Suga.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe was a staunch conservative whom political commentators had described as a right-wing Japanese nationalist. Associated with the Nippon Kaigi, he held negationist views on Japanese history, including denying the role of government coercion in the recruitment of comfort women during World War II, a position which caused tensions particularly with South Korea. Under his premiership, relations further strained in 2019 over disputes about reparations. Earlier that same year, Abe's government initiated a trade dispute with South Korea after the South Korean Supreme Court ruled that reparations be made by Japanese companies who had benefited from forced labor. Abe was considered a hard-liner with respect to Japan's military policies. In 2007, he initiated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue during his first tenure as prime minister, aimed at resisting China's rise as a superpower. He advocated reforming the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) by revising Article 9 of the Japanese constitution that outlawed declarations of war. He enacted military reforms in 2015 that allowed Japan to exercise collective security by allowing JSDF deployments overseas, the passage of which was controversial and met with protests. Economically, Abe attempted to counter Japan's economic stagnation with "Abenomics", with mixed results. Abe was also credited with reinstating the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe was assassinated on 8 July 2022 while delivering a campaign speech in Nara two days before the 10 July upper house elections. The suspect, who was arrested directly by police, confessed to targeting the former prime minister because of Abe's ties with the Unification Church. Abe's assassination was the first assassination of a former Japanese prime minister since 1936. A polarizing figure in Japanese politics, Abe was described by his supporters as a patriot who worked to strengthen Japan's security and international stature, while his opponents described his nationalistic policies and negationist views on history as threatening Japanese pacifism and damaging relations with East Asian neighbors China and South Korea. Commentators have said that his legacy pushed Japan towards more proactive military spending, security, and economic policies.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Shinzo Abe was born on 21 September 1954 to a prominent political family in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Although as a boy he aspired to become a filmmaker, Abe's family history led him upon a political path. His father Shintaro Abe served in the House of Representatives from 1958 to 1991, with stints as Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minister for International Trade and Industry, and Minister for Foreign Affairs. During World War II, Shintaro volunteered to be a kamikaze pilot but the war ended before he completed training.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe's maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was the "de facto" "economic king" of occupied China and Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state in Northern China established after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the lead-up to the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. During the war, Kishi served as Vice Minister of Munitions in the cabinet of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. At the end of the war, Kishi was imprisoned as a suspected "Class-A" war criminal by the US military occupation of Japan, but was released and later de-purged as part of the Occupation's "reverse course" due to the Cold War. Kishi helped found the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955 and served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 until his 1960 resignation following the Anpo protests. The BBC speculated that Abe's aversion to protests may have originated as a result. Abe viewed Kishi as his "No 1 role model" and was influenced by many of his beliefs, like Kishi's hawkish stance on Communist China. Regarding Kishi, Abe later wrote: "Some people used to point to my grandfather as a 'Class-A war criminal suspect,' and I felt strong repulsion. Because of that experience, I may have become emotionally attached to 'conservatism,' on the contrary".


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe's paternal grandfather, Kan Abe, was a Yamaguchi landowner who served in the House of Representatives during World War II. In contrast to Kishi, Kan Abe was a stalwart pacifist who opposed the Tojo government and war in East Asia.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe attended Seikei Elementary School and Seikei Junior and Senior High School (成蹊中学校・高等学校). He studied public administration and graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science from Seikei University in 1977. From 1978 to 1979, Abe attended the University of Southern California where he studied English as a visiting student. After taking courses in history, international relations, and political science for three semesters, Abe left. Abe is reported to have been an average student.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In April 1979, Abe began working for Kobe Steel. He left the company in 1982 and pursued a number of government positions including executive assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, private secretary to the chairperson of the LDP General Council, and private secretary to the LDP secretary-general. Abe worked as a secretary for his father who visited 81 countries in the 1980s. These travels imparted to Abe the importance of building relations with foreign leaders.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe was elected to the in 1993 after his father's 1991 death, winning the most votes of the four Representatives elected in the SNTV multi-member district. In 1999, he became Director of the Social Affairs Division. He was Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary in the Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi Cabinets from 2000 to 2003, after which he was appointed Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe was a member of the Mori Faction (formally, the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyū-kai) of the Liberal Democratic Party. This faction is headed by former prime minister Yoshirō Mori. Junichiro Koizumi was a member of the Mori Faction, but left it, as is the custom when accepting a high party post. From 1986 to 1991, Abe's father, Shintaro, headed the same faction.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In 2000, Abe's home and the office of his supporters in Shimonoseki, in Yamaguchi Prefecture, were attacked with Molotov cocktails on numerous occasions. The perpetrators were several Yakuza members belonging to the Kudo-kai, a Kitakyushu-based designated boryokudan syndicate. The reason for the attacks was believed to be that Abe's local aide refused to give cash to a Shimonoseki real estate broker in return for supporting a Shimonoseki mayoral candidate in 1999.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe was the chief negotiator for the Japanese government on behalf of the families of Japanese abductees taken to North Korea. As a part of the effort, he accompanied Koizumi to meet Kim Jong‑il in 2002. He gained national popularity when he demanded that Japanese abductees visiting Japan remain in the country, in defiance of North Korea.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: He was the leader of a project team within the LDP that conducted a survey on "excessive sexual education and gender-free education". Among the items to which this team raised objections were anatomical dolls and other curricular materials "not taking into consideration the age of children", school policies banning traditional boys' and girls' festivals, and mixed-gender physical education. The team sought to provide a contrast to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which it alleged supported such policies.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: On 23 April 2006, Abe was elected as the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. His chief competitors for the position were Sadakazu Tanigaki and Tarō Asō. Yasuo Fukuda was a leading early contender but ultimately chose not to run. Former prime minister Yoshirō Mori, to whose faction both Abe and Fukuda belonged, stated that the faction strongly leant toward Abe.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: On 26 September 2006, Abe was inaugurated as Japanese prime minister. Elected at age 52, he was the youngest prime minister since Fumimaro Konoe in 1941. He was also the first prime minister born after World War II. Abe's first cabinet was announced on 26 September 2006. The only minister retained in his position from the previous Koizumi cabinet was Foreign Minister Tarō Asō, who had been one of Abe's competitors for the LDP presidency. In addition to the cabinet positions existing under Koizumi, Abe created five new "advisor" positions.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: He reshuffled his cabinet on 27 August 2007. Commentators noted that these changes seemed to effort by Abe to organize the Prime Minister's office into something more akin to the White House.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: "The New York Times" noted that his cabinet appeared to place a larger emphasis on foreign policy and national security instead of domestic concerns like economic policy. It also speculated that Abe's primary goal may have been to revise the pacifist constitution.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe expressed a general commitment to the reforms instituted by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. He took some steps toward balancing the Japanese budget, such as appointing a tax policy expert, Kōji Omi, as Minister of Finance. Omi previously supported increases in the national consumption tax, although Abe distanced himself from this policy and sought to achieve much of his budget-balancing through spending cuts.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Since 1997, as the bureau chief of the "Institute of Junior Assembly Members Who Think About the Outlook of Japan and History Education", Abe supported the controversial Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and the "New History Textbook". In March 2007, Abe, along with right-wing politicians, proposed a bill to encourage nationalism and a "love for one's country and hometown" among the Japanese youth (specific wording from the revised "Fundamental Law of Education" , which was revised to include "love of country").


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In March 2007, Abe stated that there was no evidence that the Japanese military had forced women into sexual slavery during World War II, which the Japanese government had admitted and apologized for in the 1992 Kono Statement. Responding to a potential motion by the US Congress encouraging Japan to acknowledge the atrocity, Abe stated that the Japanese government would not apologize again.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe held conservative views in the Japanese succession controversy, and shortly after the birth of Prince Hisahito of Akishino he abandoned a proposed legislative amendment to permit women to inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe generally took a hard-line stance on North Korea, especially regarding the North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In 2002 negotiations between Japan and North Korea, Prime Minister Koizumi and general secretary Kim Jong-il agreed to give abductees permission to visit Japan. A few weeks into the visit, the Japanese government decided that the abductees would be restricted from returning to North Korea where their families live. Abe took credit for this policy decision in his bestselling book, . North Korea criticized this Japanese decision as a breach of a diplomatic promise, and the negotiations were aborted.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe publicly recognized the need for improved relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and, along with Foreign Minister Tarō Asō, sought an eventual summit meeting with former PRC paramount leader Hu Jintao. Abe also said that China–Japan relations should not continue to be based on "emotions".


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe was respected among some politicians in the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan), most notably those who are part of the Pan-Green Coalition seeking Taiwanese independence. Chen Shui-bian welcomed Abe's ministership. Part of Abe's appeal in Taiwan was historical; his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was an anti-communist who supported Chiang Kai-shek's government after the government retreated to the island, and his great-uncle Eisaku Satō was the last prime minister to visit Taiwan while in office.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe expressed the need to strengthen political, security, and economic ties with Southeast Asian countries. Although the PRC is not within the Southeast Asian region, Japan has also sought its support. However, relations with the PRC and the ROC continue to be tarnished by the Senkaku Islands dispute and Abe's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe, in his four terms as the prime minister of Japan, sought to upgrade the strategic Japan–India relationship. Abe initiated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Japan, the United States, Australia, and India in 2007. His three-day visit to India in August 2007 inaugurated a new bilateral Asian alliance, building on the long history of friendly bilateral relations between India and Japan. Abe's initiative was to establish the "fifth" bilateral link in an emerging scenario, whereby, the US–Australia, US–Japan, Japan–Australia, and the US–India links are supportive strategic alignments. A sixth link of India-Australia would be the logical corollary, formalized as a new quadrilateral of a strategic bulwark. The eventual expansion to include Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia in this arrangement has been speculated in the media of those states. Chinese strategic experts have labeled the evolving geo-strategic paradigm, the "Asian NATO". Abe's pragmatic India foreign policy was to boost Japan's resurgent economic indicators while gaining a crucial partner in Asia.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe sought to revise or broaden the interpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution in order to permit Japan to maintain de jure military forces. He stated that "we are reaching the limit in narrowing down differences between Japan's security and the interpretation of our constitution". During his first period as prime minister, he upgraded the Japan Defense Agency to full ministry status. Like his predecessors, he supported the Japanese alliance with the United States. Abe supported the US-led war in Iraq.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In the leadup to the July election, Abe's Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide following a series of political funding scandals. He was the first cabinet member to commit suicide since World War II. Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered great losses in the upper house election, losing control for the first time in 52 years. Agricultural minister, Norihiko Akagi, involved in a political funding scandal, resigned after the election. Additionally, Abe's rejection of a possible female Japanese monarch, which led to the Japanese succession controversy, diminished his support base.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In an attempt to revive his administration, Abe announced a new cabinet in August 2007. Support for Abe rose by 10 percent as a result. However, the new agricultural minister Takehiko Endo, involved in a finance scandal, resigned only seven days later.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: On 12 September 2007, only three days after a new parliamentary session had begun, Abe announced his intention to resign his position as prime minister at an unscheduled press conference. The announcement came just minutes before opposition leaders were scheduled to question him in Parliament and shocked many. Abe had described himself as a "politician who fights" and previously pledged not to resign. Abe explained that his unpopularity was hindering the passage of an anti-terrorism law, involving among other things Japan's continued military presence in Afghanistan. Party officials also said the embattled prime minister was suffering from poor health.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe remained in the National Diet following his resignation as prime minister. He was re-elected to his Yamaguchi 4th district seat in the 2009 election, when the Liberal Democratic Party lost power to the DPJ.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: While serving as a member of the Japanese Diet, Abe visited Taiwan in 2010 and 2011. There he met with president Ma Ying-jeou, former president Lee Teng-hui and future president Tsai Ing-wen, who was then the leader of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. Ma described Abe as "the ROC's best friend" and said Abe was the third generation of his family to have close ties with the Republic of China. Abe also visited the National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine, a shrine dedicated to the war dead of the Republic of China, including those who died in the Second Sino-Japanese War.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe later revealed that the illness that contributed to ending his first term as prime minister was ulcerative colitis, but that he recovered due to access to a drug, Asacol, that was previously unavailable in Japan.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Following the resignation of LDP president Sadakazu Tanigaki, Abe was re-elected as president of the party on 26 September 2012, coming in second out of five candidates in the first round of voting, but defeating former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba in a runoff vote by 108 votes to 89.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe returned to the LDP leadership at a time of political turmoil, as the governing DPJ had lost its majority in the lower house due to party splits over nuclear policies and the cabinet's move to raise the consumption tax from 5 to 10 percent. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was forced to rely on the LDP to pass the consumption tax bill and in return was pressured by Abe and the opposition parties to hold a snap general election. Noda agreed to this on the conditions that the LDP passed a bond-financing bill and would support a commission to reform the social security system and address electoral malapportionment in the next diet session.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: On 16 November 2012, Prime Minister Noda announced the dissolution of the lower house and that the general election would be held on 16 December. Abe campaigned using the slogan ""Nippon o Torimodosu"" ("""Take back Japan"""), promising economic revival through monetary easing, higher public spending and the continued use of nuclear energy, and a tough line in territorial disputes.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In the elections on 16 December 2012, the LDP won 294 seats in the 480-seat House of Representatives. Together with the New Komeito Party (which partnered with the LDP since the late 1990s), Abe was able to form a coalition government that controlled a two-thirds majority in the lower house, allowing it to override the upper house's veto.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: On 26 December 2012, Abe was formally elected as prime minister by the Diet, with the support of 328 out of 480 members of the House of Representatives. He and his second cabinet, which he called a "crisis-busting cabinet", were sworn in later that day. The new government included LDP heavyweights such as former prime minister Tarō Asō as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Yoshihide Suga as Chief Cabinet Secretary and Akira Amari as Economy Minister. Following his victory, Abe said, "With the strength of my entire cabinet, I will implement bold monetary policy, flexible fiscal policy and a growth strategy that encourages private investment, and with these three policy pillars, achieve results."


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In February 2013 Abe gave an address at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., in which he explained his economic and diplomatic objectives, and that he had returned to the prime ministership to prevent Japan becoming a "Tier Two Nation", declaring that "Japan is back".


title: Shinzo Abe

text: The Second Abe cabinet revived the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (CEFP) that had played a key role in formulating economic policy during the Koizumi cabinet, but had been abandoned by the 2009–2012 DPJ administrations.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: Abe declared in his January 2013 policy speech to the Diet that economic revival and escaping deflation was "the greatest and urgent issue" facing Japan. His economic strategy, referred to as Abenomics, consisted of the so-called "three arrows" (an allusion to an old Japanese story) of policy. The first arrow was monetary expansion aimed at achieving a 2% inflation target, the second a flexible fiscal policy to act as an economic stimulus in the short term, then achieve a budget surplus, and the third a growth strategy focusing on structural reform and private sector investment to achieve long-term growth.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In 2019, it was reported that 40% of key economic statistics collected from 2005 to 2017 contained errors, casting doubt on the effectiveness of Abe's economic program and the reliability of Japanese economic statistics. It was discovered that the labor ministry did not follow protocol by only surveying about one-third of all the large Japanese businesses it was supposed to survey. The data was eventually corrected, and it was discovered that the faulty data presented Japanese economic statistics more favorably than the corrected data. The faulty data costed 19.7 million people about 53.7 billion yen in unpaid benefits, and costed the Japanese government 650 million yen to correct the error. Opposition politicians criticized the governments response; one lawmaker called Abe's economic program a fraud, with many journalists labeling the event as a data scandal.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: At the first CEFP meeting in January 2013, Abe declared that the Bank of Japan should follow a policy of monetary easing to achieve a target of 2 percent inflation. Abe maintained pressure on the Bank's governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, who was reluctant to set specific targets, into agreeing to the policy. In February, after Abe publicly speculated that the government could legislate to strip the bank of independence, Shirakawa announced he was leaving office prematurely before his term expired. Abe then appointed Haruhiko Kuroda as governor, who had previously advocated inflation targets, and who has pursued the government's policies of monetary easing.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: After the first meeting of the Bank's monetary policy committee after he had taken office in April, Kuroda announced an aggressive program of easing intended to double the money supply and achieve the 2 percent inflation target at "the earliest possible time". Over the first six months of the second Abe Cabinet, the Yen fell from a high of ¥77 to the dollar to ¥101.8, and the Nikkei 225 rose by 70 percent.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: In a surprise move in October 2014, Kuroda announced that the BOJ would boost the monetary easing program and accelerate asset purchases, the monetary policy committee split by five votes to four but supported the policy. This was interpreted as a response to disappointing economic figures in the aftermath of the increase in the consumption tax to 8 percent, inflation has fallen to 1 percent from its peak of 1.5 percent in April.


title: Shinzo Abe

text: The Abe Cabinet's first budget included a 10.3 trillion yen stimulus package, composed of public works spending, aid for small businesses and investment incentives, that aimed to increase growth by 2 percent. The budget also increased defense spending and manpower while reducing foreign aid.