Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is Abby Martin. This is the audio version of each episode

of the Empire Files hosted on Telesaur English. You can watch every episode at the Empire Files.tv.

2017 marks the centennial of one of the biggest events in human history.

100 years ago, a huge chunk of the planet became ruled by workers and peasants with a socialist

economy, with the success of the Russian Revolution.

Fourteen other nations joined Russia into what became the Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics, shifting a balance of power in a world

that had long been dominated by lords and barons.

Critics and supporters can agree.

The Soviet Union shook the world,

ushering in a period of social revolution,

breaking of old colonial bonds,

and a challenge to the reigning system of capitalism. All of that started on November 7th,

1917. To learn more about this event, I sat down with Brian Becker, long-time socialist organizer

and co-author of the new book, Storming the Gates, How the Russian Revolution Change the World.

So can you set the stage for the revolution in Russia in 1917?

And what was happening both locally and globally that sparked it?

Well, the big context, the big picture for the Russian Revolution was a country that spanned

all the way from Poland to the Pacific Ocean.

In other words, the largest landmass of any country in the world.

A country that had been ruled by an emperor, the Tsar.

For 300 years, the Romanov family dominated.

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