The ideologies behind the French Revolution, namely that of equality under the law and various freedoms, that were largely secular, set the basis for the rise of Communism. Communism, by essence, is the concept of liberty and equality taken to a much grander scale to cover economic positions. The French Revolution created the liberalism needed for Communism to spawn. It should be noted that Communism is a response to the economic and social climates coming about from Industrialization and the introduction of factories. During the time of the French monarchy, there were few factories in France, and peasants were expected to make and find what they could to subsist. Perhaps it was the fact that the the people would make popular revolts gave a sort of inspiration to Marx, that the proletariat should one day arise to overthrow economic oppression.
The French and Russian revolutions draw many parallels, an indecisive king (though I wouldn’t call Louis XVI such, but that’s another story), a starving people, a country in the throes of debt. The Revolutions aimed to create secular reforms, the new governments destroyed much of religion in their respective nations.
The French Revolution gave the Russian revolutionaries the inspiration needed to carry out their plans. Lenin, Trotsky, etc failed to account a rule showing itself greatly in history, that the more perfect an ideology is, the more it is disastrous. The Communist State of Russia was much more devastating to its people than Revolutionary France was, and I think this is due to Communism being more perfect than the various ideas spurring the French. Russian and French peasants suffered just as much with or without revolution. In both revolutions, Louis XVI and Tsar Nicolas II are portrayed as weak, incompetent rulers, and I disagree (at least for Louis XVI). Both the revolutions were created to destroy old customs and progress the two world powers to a new liberalism that Great Britain and the United States experienced.
Revolution is the cry of impatience of the people when times are hard.
The Russian revolution is the French revolution, except much more extreme.