Whereas, the White army was faced with: a divided leadership, low moral, corruption and brutality within the army and the downside of the vast geography of Russia. The White party faced many problems which caused them to be militarily and politically weak. They did not have one person in charge of the White forces. Whereas the Bolsheviks had the advantage of Lenin, the whites had Yudenich, Wrangel, Kolchak and Denikin. These men were rivals and each trying to gain control of the White party.
However, many other factors played a role in the demise of the Parliament such as the fact that they were ill-organised, the lack of popular support and their inability to enforce decisions. Frederick William IV was partially responsible for the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament as he was unwilling to accept the ‘crown from the gutter’. William IV was aware that acceptance of the leadership may lead to war with Austria. Austria had no wish to see a united Germany and wanted to keep it weak and divided in order to dominate. Frederick William shared this view and was unwilling to potentially cause a war with such a powerful state.
The Whites failed to work effectively with the Greens, led by Nestor Makhno. The Green controlled a peasant’s army, and wanted to give more political and economic power to the peasants. The Red defeated Maknho’s forces in 1919. The Whites also lacked support from many Russians, who identified the Whites with former Tsarist supporters or foreign invaders. This all shows that White weaknesses were key for a Communist victory.
Another factor to the growth of opposition against the Tsar was due to the Rasputin becoming advisor to Alexandria as Nicholas the second went to war. During September 1915 and December there was frequent changes such as; 4 prime ministers ,5 interior ministers and 3 ministers of agriculture. This made it hard for people of Russia to keep up and it made no improvements to Russia’s society. In addition this made the Tsar hated among the people and the opposition grew against him. However, if Alexandra accepted reforms from the Duma instead of Rasputin a reduction of opposition would of
This was to prevent complacency and make his mark within the military. However, by removing so many important leaders, he weakened the leadership and therefore put strain on his forces, making it more difficult to attain victory, and increasing the chances of the opposition. Additionally, Stalin purged all military intelligence, blaming them for not alerting Russia of Germany’s invasion plans. This meant that he had no eyes on international affairs. Also, generals who performed badly against the Germans were shot on site.
Therefore many had returned from the war only to then find that they had lost their jobs as well, so they directed their anger towards the new government who had signed the treaty. In conjunction with this, the majority of those returning from the front kept their weapons due to poor organisation, which led to the creation of the Freikorps. Armed and and angry with the new government, they were poised to take the country by force if it was not for the Ebert-Groener 1918 whereby Ebert promised to protect the status of those in the army and give them supplies, if they prevented other uprisings. This showed how fragile the
Firstly, the opposition groups of the Tsar were known as the Populists, the Liberals and the Marxists. Each group had its own ideas on what was needed for Russia and each group wanted change, however, there were many problems within the groups and none of them were willing to work with each other. The Populists who were mainly concentrated on establishing a democratic government used violent tactics such as terrorism and assassinations, the most famous being the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. Within the groups, there were many issues, which they refused to work with each other to solve. For example this caused divide within the populists leading to the formation of the Land and Liberty (1876) and the Black Repartition and the radical terrorist group People’s Will (1879).
His army also consisted of millions of poor, starving peasants with bad equipment, poor supplies of rifles and ammunition. In 1916, two million soldiers were killed or seriously wounded, and one third of a million taken prisoners. The Russian population was horrified. They considered the Tsar irresponsible for taking over the army and held him responsible for everything; as a result instability was growing at an alarming rate for the Tsar who had once held himself so assuredly in power. Nicholas II took this course of action to assure himself he still had complete control of Russia.
As it was them who started the protest which turned into a revolution and also they were the ones behind the mutiny of the troops. However, the military was having many problems such as the war was going horribly wrong with many casualties, poor commanding from officers and limited military resources and equipment. The peasants were doing the fighting and the dying. So this could be a small contributing factor to the fall of the Romanov's on several different reasons. Firstly the tsar did not help the peasants personally, but instead leave the burden to the prime ministers when they cannot rule like a democracy today.
The other people were middle class people, who were more educated and wealthier than the worker class, but still minor against the tsar. Nicholas II wasn’t a good ruler: he avoided important decisions, neglected the importance of the policy and suppressed any resistance. He tried to crush any fears of a revolution by entering a war and consequently uniting his country, but his war tactics weren’t glorious. Russia’s people, the ones who accepted the life for many years, started to stir up, for example workers were striking, but their actions were brutally wiped out. As long as the tsar had his army he was unconquerable.