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).
Frederick William shared this view and was unwilling to potentially cause a war with such a powerful state. This caused the Frankfurt Parliament to fail because Prussia did not grasp the opportunity to unite and neither did the King, therefore Germany remained divided. Although he desired power, William IV was not willing to put himself and Prussia under control of the Frankfurt Parliament as he distrusted ‘the gentlemen of Frankfurt’. This meant that the Parliament had no real leader, and so lost support because people distrusted the parliament as an influential figure stated he would not be associated with them. This aided in causing the failure of the Parliament because with no real leader, no one could influence the masses or help to make decisions.
To what extent was the lack of political representation the most significant cause of the 1905 revolution? There were a number of different causes that contributed to the start of the 1905 Russian revolution however some were more significant than others. One of the contributing factors was the lack of political representation due to the existence of an autocratic regime. Whilst this was an important factor, the most significant factors were the social and economical issues that caused unrest amongst the Russian population. The long-term policies of Russification imposed by the Tsar in the 1880s, caused a lot of political unrest within Russia and these contributed to the 1905 revolution.
When Nicholas was first crowned Tsar in 1894, the whole country rejoiced and had a new hope for a brighter future, that things would be better than they were before. However, if anything, maybe things got worse. Peasants living in the countryside made up 80% of Russia and their living/working conditions were horrendous. Those who supported the opposition, the Social Revolutionaries, mainly opposed the Tsar because of land. Some peasants left to work in the cities as the Tsar wanted Russia to be an industrial power, however the living conditions there hardly improved, which matched their dreadful working conditions.
* Even from the start it was clear that the Provisional Govermenet weren’t going to hold the authority. * Order Number One * Didn’t help that they weren’t elected body meaning they had no legitimate authority. – didn’t represent the people. * Did nothing to try and help end power from the soviets – sign already that they were weak and useless. However this was not the only problem that showed why they were so short-lived.
Furthermore, Congress was disappointed in the fact that Wilson left some important things in order to compromise with the other countries. Many people believed the League of Nations was completely unnecessary for the US, since it mostly dealt with issues not concerning the US. They did not want to get involved with future European affairs. However, Wilson believed that the only way to prevent future wars was to establish the League of Nations. Wilson’s rock solid position on the League of Nations was one of the most significant reasons why the treaty was never passed.
Opposition to the Tsarist regime increased due to a number of reasons many of which could have been helped and others that were more natural. The key aspects of the opposition of the Tsars was Wittes programme of industrialisation, which while vital to Russia, exchanged the loyalist peasants into the disgruntled working class. While there were problems that the Tsar could not control such as the great amounts of other nationalities wanting independence and resisting Russification, such as the Poles and Jews. In 1881 opposition started due to ordinary people having little to no rights, as it was a criminal offence to question the Tsar and with no parliament to try and change the course of their country they would have to rely on the rich autocratic Tsar to decide to make changes to help the common people. As the government had strict censorship on books and journals when information did get through it would usually be made even more powerful as the government had attempted to ban it.
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.
Mao criticised Khrushchev for his policies such as de-Stalinisation and his secret speech. He was also very critical of the policy of Peaceful Coexistence as he believed it was a way of being friendly with the United States (the enemy) and also Mao saw it abandoning millions of comrades struggling to free themselves of capitalist and imperialist oppression. This, therefore, made the USSR an ‘enemy’. How could two countries work together if they had such differing beliefs about how to run their countries? This problem had a big contribution to the split as they couldn’t agree on anything, and if they did, it was because their national interests were at risk.
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.