Not all peasants were loyal or religious as many supported the opposition, the Social Revolutionaries. Their main discontent was over land - they resented the amount of land owned by the aristocracy, the Church and the Tsar. They also hated the conditions they had to live in and work. An example of their horrible conditions was that the life expectancy for an average peasant farmer was only forty years old. Most of the peasants wanted change and the way they could do was to get the Tsar out and they could achieve that through the Social Revolutionaries and other opposition parties.
Their anger was made evident during the peasant disturbances of 1902. The landowners were also unhappy with the terms of emancipation. They lost the free labour of their serfs and a large amount of land. As a result many were facing huge debts by 1905. Another long-term cause of the 1905 Revolution was the general disappointment with which many Russian people viewed the reforms of the previous decades.
It displays Lenin’s striking similarity to the way the Tsar reacted to political pressure from opposing ideologies and factions. In other words, he simply illustrated that he was not the democratic and just leader he made himself out to be before the Revolution. The formation of the Red Army and Cheka also demonstrated Lenin’s likeness to the Tsar on many occasions after the takeover of the Winter Palace. Both bodies were significant instruments of Terror and both stringently enforced compliance to the communist government by committing atrocities against both the White Armies and dissident Worker and peasants. These atrocities included things such as torture, imprisoning the wives of enemies and seriously wounding prisoners
This led to an increase in strikes. Secondly, the peasants lacking of land; rapidly developing a new a class of hostile landless labourers, also discontent existed in middle classes due to the growth in professional middle class, who wanted a greater role in national government. Therefore looking at these scenarios it seems the depth of frustration of the people about their situation and their disaffection with Russian society and monarchy was another cause of the 1917 revolution. The Tsar’s reaction to social discontent prior to the revolution was indecisive and his relenting attitude towards his autocracy further alienated the growing opposition groups. In 1915 when the moderates in the Duma joined together to form ‘The progressive Bloc’, compromising over two-third of the Duma member.
How important is the character and personality of Nicholas II to an understanding of the reasons for the February Revolution? There are many reasons for the February Revolution of 1917, the character and personality of a Tsar who was conservative and nervous in the position that he felt, God had wanted him to take, is just one. Other factors include the feelings of hostility that arose after the revolution of 1905, growths of parties within Russia, including the ideas of both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, and of course the war of 1914 and the hardships it brought to the Russian people. The view of some historians is that the revolution of 1917 was spontaneous, but when considering the conditions of the majority of Russian people during this revolutionary period, one must see that this cannot be the case, the country was ripe for change… and for revolution. This essay will aim to examine each factor in turn, before coming to a solid conclusion on the main reasons for the revolution in Russia, in 1917.
Russia’s role in World War I quickly led Russia’s people to the strong dislike of their Provisional Government and further into economic downfall which continued to upset the citizens of Russia. The Bolsheviks, a left-wing political party that were socialists, began to grow in popularity among the peasants and industrial workers whose pay was very low and in most cases among the industrial workers; their working conditions were very poor and unsafe. The Bolsheviks then instigated a revolution, resulting in Bolshevik power of Russia. Bolshevik power led to further unhappiness. The months before and during the Bolshevik revolution, as well as the signing of the peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk cause turmoil among the socialists and brought Russia into civil war.
The crushing of Russian’s military added movement to the 1905 Revolution, as it made the people of Russia aware of the weakness of their military, making many people become un-patriotic. They were losing to a nation very few had heard of and it was humiliating. However, many of the defeats to the Russian military occurred after the Revolution had started, not causing its outbreak, but merely adding to the opposition to autocratic rule by the Tsar and prolonging the Revolution. The Russo-Japanese War also brought about economic problems for Russia, and this therefore meant there was a significant lack of money to solve any other problems present Russia, hence partly being responsible for
From the start there was economic instability because of the cost of World War One and there was widespread disillusion within the German people. The public did not support the Weimar, and the administrative branch of the government, including the Judiciary, also teachers did not back it up either. Mass unemployment, damages to the infrastructure also from World War One, and the demand for reparation payments put lots of pressure on the inexperienced democracy. Not only in Germany, but all over Europe, fundamental and anti-democratic movements gained support. 2.
History: Russia (Notes) Why was Russia a hard country to govern before 1905? • As Russia is equivalent to one sixth of the entire world, Russia would have been hard to govern in this sense because there would be a lot of citizens to control. • Citizens of all different nationalities may disagree with the governing of Russia and plan a rebellion. • When trying to pass new laws, Russia would have been hard to govern in this sense due to the lack of technology; and with an extortionate amount of people inhabiting Russia, legislation may have been a very long process and people could have been wrongly arrested for various things due to miscommunications. • Many different religions due to many different nationalities inhabiting Russia, this could have caused religious disputes, conflict and perhaps religious wars.
This industrialisation was paid for through heavy taxation on the peasants and the workers. Wages were suppressed to allow money to be ploughed back into developing industry and , in particular, railways. Conditions were very poor for urban workers and soon revolutionary parties like the Bolsheviks began to appear. Furthermore, industrialisation required an educated workforce. This was dangerous for the Tsarist system as an educate workforce was more likely to call for reforms.