Introduction
Since 1613, Michael I was elected to be the Tsar of Russia, the political situation has never been stable. Trace to the causes, most of them are power struggles among nobles and their armies, however large-scale public riots didn 't appear. During the year of 1905, the situation changed. People’s discontent has been accumulated to a critical point; the Tsar’s status seemed to be overturned. What led the Russian people, which was passive and cowardice, started Russian revolution in 1905?
Long term inducement
Leadership
Since 1613, Russia was ruled by the monarchy, in which only Tsar monopolizes power. Unlike the western democratic societies, there is no legislative constitution which can be used to balance the Tsar.
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Nicholas II, the son of Alexander III, governed the state in the same core although he was weak, less paranoid, and stubborn. Nicholas II concentrated on important family matters rather than state affairs. Housekeeping spent time than reading documents. In government part, listening to his wife is the main job for Nicholas II.
The rise of anti-government forces
In the past, Russian people were willing to obey the rule of the Tsar, they loved the Tsar as their father. Because of the brainwashing from the Orthodox, people were persecuted by the authoritarian though, yet dare not openly revolt.
The Great Reform in the 1860 s disappointed more Russian people, predominantly the peasant populations. They lived very hard. After legislation of serfs’ liberation in 1861, they were very gratified; however, the actual situation was worse than before. The land that government gave was smaller and thinner. In order to pay the forty-nine years of "redeemed land tax", many farmers sold their lands, got debt, lost farmland; therefore, desperate people either rioted or joined the revolutionary organizations.
Since the 1880s, because of the impact of industrialization, domestic needs of no matter labor force, or the specialized knowledge became urgent. The working class and middle class got developed. Not like farmers, the two emerging classes realized their political convenience and started to participate in the relevant political movement.
Russian industrialization didn’t
The instant consequences to the emancipation of the serfs left Russia crippled, ironic, when alleged that it intended to advance Russia’s status. Many historians argue that despite abolishing serfdom, the means in which it was carried out didn’t coincide with reality. Subsequently, there were many riots which caused a rise of political groups such as Narodnik movement whose existence proves that Russian society was changing. Disorder spread with calls for change within Russia like In May 1862 where a number of pamphlets were issued including the radical Young Russia. Such propaganda aimed to gain support and create challenging individuals which would pressure the Tsar to make further changes. One could argue that as a result this led to the 1905 revolution and the end of Tsardom.
Some may argue Tsar Nicholas weak leadership help contributes to the Russian Revolution but World War I was be the primary cause. Tsar Nicholas was not the best leader but that did not have a big enough impact to cause the Russia Revolution because his actions did not lead to as many problems that World War I had caused. World War I had a greater impact because it led to many problems within Russia that caused the citizens to be furious.
Russia's overthrows and shortage caused revolutionary upheaval and massive inflation, which led to deprived infrastructure. During World War I, Russian society naturally caused great dissatisfaction among the serfs. As the revolution wore on, numerous reform and Tsar Nicholas II, a ruler, tried to change Russia's social structure and government. Among the masses, there was discontentment with Russia's social system and living conditions. Laborers worked and lived in horrendous conditions, which played a crucial role in aggravating the condition of workers and peasants. As a result, peasants starved and Russia’s armies were overpowered on the battlefield because much of its terrain was occupied by enemies. Hence, Imperial Russia was a
They were suffering under an asinine government and they took every opportunity to criticise it. The middle-classes were extremely unstable at this point in Russia but they were not ready for revolution. The stability of the government was erratic. It had a very narrow support base this was mainly due to that fact that it was willing to use extreme force and it sent out very anti-Semitic messages, which made it unpopular.
In 1905 and 1917 Russia was tormented by chaotic revolutions. The workers and the intelligentsia had arrived at the point of hating the autocracy because they could no longer endure the suffering, hunger and repression that the tsarist policies brought with them. Years later Lenin referred to the revolution of 1905 as a “dress rehearsal for the October Revolution” of 1917. In 1905 tsardom nearly fell. Nicholas II succeeded in remaining in power, stabilizing the situation, only thanks to various concessions. However, his continuing to rule harshly and unwisely brought him to be forced to abdicate in the February of 1917, signing the end of the Russian monarchy.
The Russian Revolution began in 1917 and lasted until late 1930’s, the revolution was very brutal with total death of 3 million people and 7 million people were arrested (Document 12). The revolution broke out when Nicholas II comes to power because Bloody Sunday leads to Duma, then he steps down and the Duma sets up a provisional government thus sparking the want for domination and the revolution kicks off (Book). By the end of the revolution Russia was definitely weakened in some aspects but strengthened as a nation. Therefore, the Russian people were better off after the Russian Revolution because they benefited from a better economy, government, and living conditions.
The privileged nobles, who possessed land and serfs, supported his autocratic rule. The main theme of the Russian history in the 19th century is that the non-nobles who detested the Czarist government asked for an improvement in their disconsolate and deprived life. When the Czarist government ignored this matter they revolted for the first time in 1905 and than for the second time in 1917 by which the Czarist government was finally overthrown. Hungry strikers on March 8, 1917 mobbed the streets of Petrograd, their demand was bread. In order to appease the misery of his people Czar Nicholas II resigned his throne to his brother, Michael. His brother knew that everyone hated Czardom so he rejected the throne on March 15. The Provisional Government than took over and Czardom after ruling Russia for three centuries came to an end.
Czar Nicholas II was a very poor leader at the time. Many of his bad leadership decisions and weak skills lead to the Russian Revolution. The Czars were rich, but many Russians were very poor. The Czars took advantage of this and and made them slaves. Finally, Czar Alexander II freed them in 1905. When there were protests and many people were getting killed, he
Nicholas the Second was a large contributing cause to his own abdication. Nicholas the Second continued to make countless amounts of unreasonable decisions throughout his reign. His bad decisions drove many of his original supporters away. For example, even on the day of his coronation he managed to start off his reign on a bad foot. This was due to the fact that when many celebratory mugs were being gifted to the people of St Petersburg to celebrate the coronation of the Tsar there was not enough to go around and in an effort to acquire one of these limited mugs many citizens were brutally killed. In the interim, Nicholas showed no consideration or sympathy towards the dead or those affected and continued with the coronation. Consequently
In all major countries they’ll always go through some type of “revolution,” in order to sort everything out. There will always be a rise and fall in a country’s history and in 1917 it was Russia’s turn to revolt. When the current czar during the revolution said, “I am not yet ready to be Tsar. I know nothing of the business of ruling.” (Doc 1) He wasn’t lying, everyone
There were also many problems in Russia after they had an Industrial Revolution. Russia had many government problems. The Russian government was a type of government that did not listen to the people. The government did as it pleased without consent from the people. The people had no say in the governing process as in the United States. Due to this there were poor working and living conditions, overpopulation, poor sanitation, not many jobs and many people were starving. The majority of the people in Russia (about ninety percent) were poor and only about ten percent were rich and they controlled the nation. This meant the majority of the nation was not being listened to.
Another key reformist group was the social democrats they were created in 1898 and believed strongly in western ideas and Marxism. The group also wanted a society that gave power to workers and peasants. Which was the opposite of the Tsar’s views. Therefore in order to achieve this they would need a revolution in Russia and a change in the government. Similar to the socialist revolutionists they believed that creating violence was the best way to achieve this. But in 1905 it split into two groups these were known as the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. These groups created large widespread unrest to created political change. As we can see the violence and unrest caused by these groups would’ve pressured the Tsar and therefore are a main cause of the revolution.
Although they were father and son, the reigns of Alexander II and Alexander III took off in completely different directions. Alexander II was committed to his empire by vowing to reform Russia, making it more in line with nineteenth-century western society. His son, on the other hand, was the unprepared tsar, whose actions were literally reactions to his father’s unexpected assassination. Consequently, Alexander II went down in history as much more productive in the field of domestic policy; in dealing with revolutionaries; and in his foreign policy than his son Alex III would ever be.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was unsuccessful because of how it did not accomplish the initial goal of establishing communism, internal social and economic issues within Russia, detrimental effects of rapid industrialisation and became the catalyst of a civil war. The defeat in war against Japan, in 1905, led to increased opposition to the Tsar, who was viewed as incompetent. The war was also important in intensifying and worsening longer term social and economic problems, as it caused food shortages, high prices and unemployment - the factors which motivated many to take part in the march on the Winter palace that resulted in Bloody Sunday (Document A). The Tsar was
There were also direct causes for the revolution to break out - the main event which heated up the situation in Russia was the war that Russians fought - WWI. Russia was industrialised very weakly and men were ill-equipped for battles and many generals were conservative and ignorant in terms of war strategies. When the German armies took over Poland, heavy casualties were endured and morals of the army strongly reduced. Tsar decided to take initiative and personally become the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, but this decision