Following the seizure of state power by the Russian working class in the November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, a wave of revolutionary energy spread throughout Europe. Most notably, a mutiny of sailors in Kiel, Germany in November 1918 was the first domino to fall in the German revolution of 1918-1919, which would see the collapse of the old German Empire and ending of the First World War. The Bolsheviks would inspire other attempted working class uprisings and seizures of state power in Bavaria, Finland and Hungary, all of which were defeated by internal class enemies as well as foreign interventions. Even in parts of Europe where working class revolution did not break out, there was increased working class economic and political activity as seen in the strikes in Scotland, Factory occupations in Italy and establishment of the "Limerick Soviet" in Ireland. Due to internal weaknesses of the European revolutionary forces and the inability of the Soviet Red Army to advance west past Warsaw, only the Soviet Union was left standing as a consolidated worker's state by 1922. Many of the states where the working class revolutions were defeated saw the consolidation of state power of the most reactionary sections of monopoly capital and the establishment of Fascist governments (such as in Italy and Hungary) or the establishment of large Fascist political movements (such as in Germany, Finland and Poland) which would play a major role in the country's politics through the 1920s.

The collapse of the old European empires and promotion of the "right to national self-determination" by both the Russian Bolsheviks as well as Wilsonian faction of the Entente powers sparked a wave of national uprisings in Europe following the end of WWI. The Irish fought the British for nominal independence, the Syrians rose up against the colonial authorities of the French mandate, and the Turks fought back the Entente armies in their attempt to carve up Anatolia. Competing national claims in areas of multi-national composition led to near constant conflict in the years following WWI, such as between Poles and Germans in Upper Silesia, Poles and Ukrainians in Gallicia, Hungarians and Romanians in Transylvania, Greeks and Turks in Smyrna and Italians and Yugoslavs on the Adriatic coast. By 1922, most of the national conflicts had ended and the borders of Europe were set and relatively stable till the rise of Fascist imperial expansion in the late 1930s. However, the wounds of these national conflicts would remain and many of the national conflicts would be re-igntited by WWII.

Hand-Drawn Map of Europe in the Aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and WWI, 1918-1922