One major aspect that contributed to the Tsarist governments path towards the March Revolution is the decisions that we made by Tsar Nicholas II during WWI. The decisions that Tsar Nicholas II made during WWI made a huge impact towards the March Revolution. His distance as a leader is one trait that came to the surface during this time and heavily contributed to his downfall. The Tsar would avoid any aspect of political landscape that he didn’t like or that he found offensively modern. Just a few examples of things he would avoid are the left, public opinion, industry, the press and unions.
A Tale of Two Tsars: Comparisons of the Regimes of Tsars Ivan IV and Peter I Philip Jia Perhaps no two rulers in the history of Russia before the Revolution of 1917 capture the image in one’s mind of the Tsar as completely as Ivan IV (“The Terrible”) and Peter I (“The Great”). Their very mention summons iconic images of the fearsome power and horrific excesses of the Russian monarchy from a Western perspective, while from a Russian perspective they evoke the idea of a “model” for absolutist rule, a mythos carefully fostered by the government during the Soviet period. In particular, the reign of Ivan IV has long been held up, at least in Western memory, as a key example of what is thought to be a long history of abusive Russian absolutism. Yet, while the rule of the former Tsar is often described as one of Russia’s most calamitous and that of the latter thought of as one of its finest, Ivan IV and Peter I had much more in common than is normally thought to be the case. Both Tsars were thoroughly progressive, bringing reform to Russian bureaucracies and institutions that had slowly stagnated.
History essay EVALUATE THE SUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF ONE RULER OF A SINGLE- PARTY STATE Bolsheviks came to power in November 1917 with Lenin as a party leader. His leadership was strong and determined, which he previously showed by publishing his April theses that gave serious of directives that enabled Bolsheviks to come to power after November Revolution. He was a memorable leader whose policies and decisions shaped Russia from 1917-24. In this essay I am going to evaluate and analyse how effective were his revolutionary transformations in economic, political and social context. When Lenin and Bolsheviks came to power Russia was in tremendous economic and administrative problems.
There were many factors that created a base for the reformist groups to flourish at that time in Russia which in turn created a Revolution. Alexander III was determined to upkeep Russia’s image as a major European power, unlike his father; however he was a conservative, believing that his father’s reforms were a mistake and took to reverse them as much as he could. The counter-reforms initially may have looked like a success due to the period of stability during Alexander III’s reign; however with the Revolution a few years later it seems to be that the counter-reforms were not as successful as they may have seemed. The political oppression resultant of these counter-reforms meant Russia politically was behind its major European counterparts, whilst England and France by now had a form of democracy, Russia was still being ruled by total autocracy, and this increased the resentment against the government and added to the growth of reformist groups. Because of the political structure in place in Russia at the time, without a revolution the only way change was possible was from the Tsar being willing to change things, the Tsar was not willing and he clearly demonstrated this through the counter-reforms, leaving an angry population
By 1914 revolution was in the making, and Tsar Nicholas II sealed his fate by inadvertently leading Russia into what would become WWI. ‘What leads most frequently to misunderstandings of the relationship between an ideology and its historical function is the failure to distinguish its objective from its subjective function. The concepts of a dictatorship derive directly from the economic
To what extent did Alexander III measures create a stronger Russia? When Alexander III came into power as tsar Russia was in crisis after Alexander II was assassinated by the people will. Alexander III faced a hard job of keeping control of Russia and keeping supreme political power, this meant reform for Russia. Although he was reforming Russia like many Russians wanted to, he was actually moving backwards and launched Russia on the return to conservatism and brought an end to further political reform.Alexander III brought in new reforms to strengthen Russia after the tsar was assassinated because of Russia bad state, these reforms effected the political, financial and nearly every aspect of Russian society. One of the most radical and important changes the tsar first made was russification , this meant that in 1885 the official language was changed to Russia and was taught in all school and no other language was allowed to be used in school .
However after Karakazov attempts to assassinate the Tsar in 1866, he becomes much more autocratic, revealing that he had no intention of significantly developing politics, his use of the Zemstvas were in fact to help sustain autocracy, through making local administration more efficient. It can be suggested from this that Alexander II had put the Zemstva Act in place to appease the nobles angered by the Emancipation Act. Alexander III was much more of a successful autocrat. His reactionary attitude led to the reversal of many of his father’s liberal reforms, and was in some cases angered by them. Alexander III re-implements Tsarist form, through the use of repression and terror.
The term Russian Revolution includes not only one event or even process but a sequence of disruptive and strongly violent happenings which occurred more or less at the same time. It started as a rebellion of the most conservative elements in Russian society, dissatisfied with the Royal family and their connection to the self-styled monk Rasputin and the mismanagement of the decision in the war. But the riots were soon spread to the liberals who feared that of the monarchy remained as it was, the revolution would become inescapable. The Romanov dynasty had lasted over 300 years but Nicholas II, who ascended the throne in 1894, turned out to be the last tsar of Russia. How did such an ancient monarchy collapse so dramatically?
Not only this but Stalin used Lenin’s Legacy when he once again falsely claimed he was there at the beginning of the original Russian Revolution, when he was actually in exile. There is a picture, taken from the Eighth Bolshevik Party Congress in 1919 in which Trotsky was absent and Stalin took the opportunity to sit himself at Lenin’s right hand side, gaining him credit and showing his subtle ways of propaganda. However, Stalin’s win couldn’t just be down to what Lenin had done previous to the power struggle. To achieve and successfully get away with all of the above he would have had to have great skill as a politician – which he did. He had the ability to control Lenin’s funeral and turn it into his own campaign,
One of the main reasons why Stalin emerged as sole leader was because of how he used pragmatism to manipulate Lenin’s opinion of him to suggest that he was the most favorable leader to carry on Marxism throughout Russia. This key event that secured Stalin’s public support was around the time of Lenin’s funeral. His role as general secretary gave him the ‘grey blur’ title because of his reputation of being invisible, focusing his time on important paperwork. When Lenin released his testament, Stalin used his reputation to change it, which had previously had influential and opinionated views on Stalin, and if seen by the public, would inevitably have changed the success of Stalin’s emergence to a failure at becoming leader. Lenin’s real opinion of Stalin was highly negative.