How accurate is it to say that the survival of the communist government between 1917-24 was based of the brutality of the Bolsheviks After the Bolsheviks took power of Russia in October 1917 they still didn’t have the full support of the Russian people. In order to gain their support and keep the Bolsheviks in power, Lenin decided to take some severe action. Some things that kept the communist government in power were implemented by themselves and were brutal. These were things like war communism, the red army and the cheka. However, there were other factors that came into play that the Bolsheviks hadn’t intended, such as, geographical factors and the lack of unity of the opposition.
There were signs of an early revolution in the making when the people had had enough off being ruled by an autocratic government. On January 9, 1905 in St. Petersburg, the civilians of Russia peacefully marched to the palace of the tsar with just a simple compromise in which the Russian government was not very fond of due to the fact that they thought an autocratic government was the only government that could rule Russia. They ordered to soldiers to open fire on the demonstrators killing nearly 1,000 people. Russian’s were furious with this and throughout the year, they went on strikes in which one strike paralyzed the country, which then compelled Nicholas the second to grant civil and political freedoms to the people. The document was known as The October Manifesto.
One is because the Tsar enforced Russification of the country, meaning the people who were not necessarily a true Russian who enforced the Russian Orthodox Church were made to. People were taught about how Russia was great but not taught about the down sides and faults of Russia. The universities were shut down meaning there was less education to make people into the workers that Russia really needed. This resulted in many jobs that were needed to produce essentials had less people to do them so not enough merchandise was
The working and lower classes in Russia did not have a say in how the country was run (no political power), Nicholas did not give them the opportunity as autocracy had been drilled into him all his life by his father, and tutor Pobedonostev. This autocracy was undermined by the working and lower classes and especially the revolutionists who wanted to overthrow the Tsar; we know that people were infuriated by autocracy because of the 2000 political assassinations carried out by the revolutionists between 1901 and 1905, and also the peasant disturbances of 1902. In this case Nicholas’ ignorance was to blame for his reluctance to reform and autocratic views. Various economic problems in Russia contributed to the 1905 revolution but not all were Nicholas’ fault. Population growth and land hunger in Russia at the time was a great issue, people were discontented, industrialisation of Russia meant that workers in the new factories were being targeted by revolutionaries, and were also becoming increasingly militant.
In 1905, Nicholas used the army and the Cossacks to crush protests and revolts. The events of Bloody Sunday and Nicholas crushing this protest led to many other protests and revolts across the country. The only reason Nicholas could deal with this revolution was because of the Army being able to put them down, including the army dealing with mutinies like on Potemkin which is just one example. In 1917, Nicholas could not deal with the widespread protests from all classes of Russia, the army did not carry out Nicholas’s orders to attack the citizens, and the leading members in the army turned against him, with no way to deal with these violent and large scale revolts of 1917, Nicholas was forced to abdicate meaning the 1917 revolution was successful. Next are the concessions that Nicholas made in 1905.
A strong example of the importance of “Red Terror” was perhaps the execution of the Tsar and his family in public, showing the Cheka‘s uses. This is highlighted when Marples states “the Bolsheviks had proclaimed the abolition of the death penalty, the Cheka obeyed no such rules” supporting Elknar’s point of the “rapid expansion of the Cheka’s powers”, as this allowed the Bolshevik party to fully implement “Red Terror” to squash the threat to their power, even though it was against the party’s original ideals. From this it is possible to state, that the Bolshevik party saw the Cheka as very important to their success in the civil war, as they saw the use of
She had become increasingly under the influence of the one man who seemingly had the power to help her son, Alexis, afflicted by hemophilia. Others, appalled at his influence over the tsarina, called him the “Mad Monk” – though not in public unless they wanted to incur the wrath of Alexandra. Rasputin had always clashed with the Duma. They saw his position within the monarchy as a direct threat to their position. Alexandra responded to their complaints about Rasputin’s power by introducing legislation that further limited the Duma’s power.
• In response to massive protest he created the October Manifesto (propositions) and promised to grant more rights, such as freedom of speech, meeting and association. Also, promised that no one would be imprisoned without trial. He agreed to set up a national legislature called the Duma but it had limited powers and did little to relieve peasant and worker discontent. Simran: He created the Fundamental State Laws 1906 but the rights were more limited than promised in Manifesto. Ex: created state council and upper chamber but he would nominate half members; he solely encapsulated the right to declare war, he would still control the Orthodox Church, the power to appoint and dismiss ministers and to dissolve the Duma, if he desired.
Austria wanted to send Austrian investigators to investigate Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo and they wanted to abolish all major Serbian organizations, which Serbia refused, and Austria declared war on Serbia. Since the Russians considered the Serbians to be Slavic people as well, they mobilized their army as a sign of support for Serbia. Since Germany was an ally to Austria-Hungary, they sent an ultimatum to Russia demanding them to stop the mobilization of their army and also sent an ultimatum to France, Russia's ally as part of the Triple Entente and an enemy of Germany, asking them to remain neutral in the conflict. Russia did not respond to the ultimatum and France didn’t give a clear answer, which caused Germany to declare war on both countries. Germany was not at fault for World War I, Serbia and Austria- Hungary War because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Social freedom was pretty much unheard of for the vast majority of lower-class Russians, around 50 million at the time of the emancipation of the serfs (1861) and all throughout the history of Imperial Russia’s there have been massive class divides this dived could be sustained whilst the peasants were uneducated but by the turn of the century people were starting to question the divine rule of the Tsar and 1905 revolution could been seen as major turning point that was as important as the First World War because on the 22nd of January 1905 The Tsar was responsible for the shooting of peasants in Bloody Sunday, where he ordered the army to open fire on a peaceful protest suggesting his inability to grasp a whole nature of events. Finally the Tsar was described as “out of touch and arrogant to his people” as he refused to believe and purposely ignored warning messages from Rodzianko his cousin explaining the severity of the revolution in 1017, the Tsar chooses to trust his wife, the Tsarina who has underestimated the threat of the protestors and was being greatly influenced by