The 1905 revolution was extremely different from the 1917 March revolution in both what was demanded from the Tsar and also due to the size and support the Tsar had. Although there was a revolution in October 1917, the March 1917 revolution in Russia was the one resulting in the Tsar’s abdication and ultimately the end of Tsarism. The reason for the Tsar surviving the 1905 revolution is because of a number of reasons. Firstly, he issued an ‘October Manifesto’ which granted the peoples wishes as it gave them more power. The manifesto offered free speech, the right to form political parties and it created a “democratic” elected house of parliament – called a Duma.
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
Due to industrialisation, factories were built which lead to rapid growth of population in the towns and cities for example from 98 million in 1885 to 125 million in 1905. However though this meant that the economy was improving, the growth in population led to poor living and working conditions which increased social unrest. As trade unions had been made illegal there was no way to protest which lead to support for more radical
This was mostly due to his policies of collectivisation which made economic sense and forced a lot of peasants to leave the land, which was a process needed in order to change an agricultural rural society to an urban and industrial one as well s the fact that his industrialisation plan increased massively the heavy industry in Russia; the production of raw materials such as iron, coal, steel and oil all increased successfully. There were other successes in his economic policy of rearmament, which also improved labour productivity and the transport in the country. However, it would be incorrect to say that all what Stalin did during this period was a success since he also presented various failures, for example not being able to boost the production of consumer goods as well as creating a huge man made famine. It was clear at the time that Russia needed a change, as Stalin said: ‘’ We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this
After the 1905 revolution, Russia was in need of political and economic reform if it was to remain one of the world’s great powers and prevent another revolution from occurring. The answer to this was the October Manifesto. However, some of the Tsar’s attempts to reform made little change to Russia. The October Manifesto was published as a result of the 1905 revolution as a way to appease the peasants and to be seen as revolutionary change. The October Manifesto promised to create a parliament called the Duma.
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.
Prior to 1905 there had already surfaced a general desire for change and reform, this could be seen in the liberals formation of the union of zemstvo constitutionalists and the union of liberation calling for a constitutional monarchy, these ideals were the beginning of the end of tsarism. This was exhibited by Moscow city duma’s demands for an elected national legislature which outwardly rebelled against the tsarist system. They also made request for reforms in freedom of press and religion. The Moscow city Dumas proposals would never be met as it is only a small portion of the vast Russia however it did signify how the middle class intelligentsia were starting to feel; they wanted change and the revolution hadn’t even started yet. Up until 1905 the tsar was an untouchable, powerful supremacy, however things soon started to heat up for him when the new year rolled in.
The foreign banks were willing to continue to loan to Russia as long as they continued fighting, therefore it can be argued that the Provisional Government was inclined to continue the fighting in the First World War. Other reasons which contributed to the failure of the Provisional Governement was the inability to tackle the food problem, the poor handling of land reforms, the Kornilov Affair and the July Days. In February 1917 the Provisional Governement shared political power with the soviets. This was a tricky situation, as any major areas of legislation and policy had to be agreed on by both powers. This was made even more complicated by the fact that the Provisional Governemtn was mainly liberal, whereas the soviets were dominated by left-wing groups, making it more or less impossible to agree on anything.
Also the Tsar still had the support of the Russian army and the navy which stopped any serious uprising. Some historians believe the October manifesto was important in the survival of the Tsar because of the affect it had on the liberal opposition and the peasantry. However i believe it was not so important because it did not entirely solve the problem it only weekend the threat posed. For example the October manifesto did not entirely appease the liberals, although it promised a Duma/parliament there was still a split in the party. And it was clear one group was not satisfied with what the manifesto promised.
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.