Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War Powers to withdraw from North Russia and Siberia in 1920, though Japanese forces occupied parts of Siberia until 1922 and the northern half of Sakhalin until 1925. In 1917, Russia was in a state of political strife, and public support for World War I and the Tsar was dwindling. The country was on the brink of revolution. The February Revolution changed the course of the war; under intense political pressure, the Tsar abdicated and the Russian Provisional Government was formed, led initially by Georgy Lvov and later by Alexander Kerensky. The Provisional Government pledged to continue fighting the Germans on
Eastern Bloc politics Because the party later had to admit the mistakes of much that occurred during the purges after Stalin's death, the purges also destroyed the moral base upon which the party operated. In doing so, the party abrogated its prior Leninist claim to moral infallibility for the working class. Eastern Bloc secret police organizations were formed on Vladimir Lenin's theory and Joseph Stalin's practical application of "the defense of the revolution." One of the first acts of Lenin after the October 1917 Revolution was the establishment of a secret police, the Cheka. Such organizations in the Eastern Bloc became the "shield