Loyal army has been replaced with around 15 million peasants, the army had sympathised with workers and themselves along with the navy began mutiny against a government they had no wish to fight and die for with the Bolsheviks rioting. In addition, the peasants could not plough, sow or bring harvest as the young men were of fighting in the war. And they were still heavily in debt after the freeing of the serfs – they had to buy their freedom over Fifty years, and many were still serfs. The situation in the countryside caused problems in the cities, because of lack of harvest they were starving, and in the army the peasants in uniform wanted to go back to
Moscow, for example, had been receiving 2,200 railway wagons of grain per month in 1914, but by Christmas 1916, this figure was down to around 300 wagons. There wasn’t enough food to feed the people of Russia – and to make matters worse, rationing was in place, under which each person got a mere 50g of bread per day. This resulted in the people of Russia becoming agitated and taking part in the strikes and demonstrations in Petrograd, which led to the abdication of the Tsar. Secondly, the First World War crippled the Russian economy. The country mobilized 5.3 million men in 1914, and, by Christmas 1916, 15.3 million men had experienced military service.
This disappointment is clearly shown by the growth of radical activity, which resulted in unrest during the period. For example, 100,000 attended a meeting of the London Corresponding Society in 1795, to protest at hunger and parliamentary corruption. There was also disappointment with the actions of the government during Liverpool’s ministry, 1812-22. For example, the Corn Laws were introduced in 1815. This caused disappointment as it meant that no foreign corn could be imported until the price of British corn reached 80s a quarter.
This, in turn, caused a significant number of casualties and deaths, and by the end of 1915, two million men had been wounded or taken prisoner. This aided the Romanov’s downfall because it caused low morale throughout the population, thus people‘s patriotism and trust in the Tsar was slowly diminishing. What’s more,
Russian industry and agriculture struggled to cope with the war economy; food shortages in the cities were heightened by the war and the limited railway system was focused on transportation of men and arms to the front, rather than food to the cities. Riots broke out as a result of starvation, workers in the cities complained about the situation they found themselves in and, as the number of dead continued to rise, the level of discontent grew. This ultimately caused a sense of unease within the ruling elite which eventually led to the abdication of the
Why did opposition to the Tsarist Regime increase between 1881 and 1904? Opposition to the Tsarist regime increased between 1881 and 1904 due to a mix of the effects of industrialisation, which lowered the quality of life for the peasants and the workers in Russia, and government policies such as Russification and upholding the autocracy. Industrialisation, which both Alexander the third and Nicholas the second prioritized in the 1880s and 1890s, caused a lot of problems for the peasants, which mad them oppose the autocracy. Land hunger was a massive problem throughout this time period and only 5% of Russia’s land could be used for farming. So this meant peasants didn’t get a lot of land, which became more of a problem because to aid industrialisation, a policy of export and starve was introduced.
To add to this rationing was introduced and each person was entitled to 50 grams of bread a day. This meant that the Russian people were frustrated and took part in a number of protests, and strikes. It could be argued that the lack of food was caused by the war, and so contributed to the fall of the Romanovs; however Russia at the time had a rapidly growing population which would’ve stretched the country’s resources anyway. Secondly the Russian economy was decimated due to the
Why did England decided to set up a convict settlement in Australia? In England there was a serious convict problem because of the increase in population in the eighteenth century and changes in agriculture and industry that caused unemployment, so many people had no jobs and chose the option to steal and risk getting caught to feed themselves and their families. The improved methods of crime detection, led to the capture of more criminals. The jails became over crowded with convicts and were absolutely filthy. Since the jails were expensive the government decided not to build any more, but to use old war ships, called hulks, to house prisoners.
Living conditions was both a physical and mental strain on the quality of life of civilians in Britain as shortly after the outbreak of war, the German navy began to use submarines, known as the U-boats. By the end of 1916, the U-boats were destroying on average 300,000 tonnes of imports a month. (Retrospective, 2008) U-boat attacks combined with the poor harvests of 1916 where placing a contributing strain on Britain’s availability to food and supplies. As needs of the nation changed, the government introduced further administrative and legislative controls. In 1918, the government introduced with the use of DORA a rationing system which ensured equal distribution of food supply to all, limiting the issue of starvation.
Husbands as well as sons were required to go to war leaving wives to be the sole caretaker. Urban women were the ones who suffered the most because their means of survival depended on income to purchase necessities. Those who still lived on farms could still provide for themselves. Many women worked as aides and nurses for the troops, while others took positions in factories that were once held by men. By the wars end, at least 620,000 men died which put a big dent in the male population and left families to fend for themselves.