The way in which the Tsarist government operated Russia during 1914-1917 is the major cause of the March Revolution of 1917. The Tsar’s decisions, the steadily declining economy, the negative impact of war on society, the unprepared military and the failures of the government leading up to the revolution are the five major aspects that led to the March Revolution. Russia joined the war with a sense of enthusiasm and excitement, but by 1917, the whole country was against the war and wanted nothing more than to get out of it, start rebuilding the country again and look towards a new brighter future. Once the Tsar was abdicated, the ball had started rolling and would not come to a halt until it was surrounded with a blanket of peace. One major aspect that contributed to the Tsarist governments path towards the March Revolution is the decisions that we made by Tsar Nicholas II during WWI.
Some believe the Tsar lacked integrity, others say Alexandra and Rasputin were to blame; still others blame the dismantling of the Duma and the harsh rule of the government. Mutual distrust existing between great powers meant The Hague convention was among the first formal statements of the laws of war. On November 1 1894 Alexander III died suddenly from Nephritis. An unprepared naive Nicholas II took power. A bewildered Nicholas beseeched his brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander, "What am I going to do?
Possibly the greatest vulnerability was 'the weakness within' - the constitution gave the President, the states and the military too much control, whilst proportional voting meant that the Reichstag was separated and weak. There was no single party in complete control and parties had to join together to form a government. However, each party had different goals which caused in-fighting and instability making it difficult for the Reichstag, with its many changes in power, to govern effectively. This was reflected in 376 political assassinations up to 1923. From the start there was economic instability because of the cost of World War One and there was widespread disillusion within the German people.
Following the February Revolution of 1917, Tsarist Russia disintegrated into political chaos. As agreed by the Provisional Committee and the Petrograd Soviet, a Provisional Government was elected under the leadership of Lvov; however this government was ill equipped to deal with the problems of a post-revolutionary Russia and was unable to provide a viable form of government for its duration, leading to its ultimate downfall in October the same year. The Provisional Government was plagued with issues throughout its rule; not only was it weak in its constitution being limited by the Soviet but it was subject to a further multitude of unfortunate circumstances; it was unable to address the issues it faced – those of the Land Question, the War and the Constituent Assembly which added to its unpopularity amongst the peasantry and was threatened by crises such as the July Days and the Kornilov Affair which discredited the already unpopular Government further. This, compounded by poor handling by Kerensky caused deterioration to such an extent that when Lenin took the shrewd decision to move against the government in October, it was unable to survive and power fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks. Whilst Lenin was perhaps the key reason for the fall of the Provisional Government in October 1917, it was already in a major state of weakness.
Why did Nicholas II loose power in 1917 but not 1905 Nicholas II lost power in 1917 because of many reasons. The main reason was the army which was under complete control of the tsar started to rebel against the Tsar by not carrying out his orders. On the 25th of February Cossack troops refused to fire on demonstrators. Also the elite Pavlosky life guards also refused to carry out their orders. This was the first sing to the Tsar to show that he has lost his authority and that the government authority had begun to break down.
Prior to 1917, Russia was run by a Tsar, and its system of government was based on autocracy. There was much dissatisfaction with the Tsar during World War One, which led to his abdication – the March revolution. The provisional government took charge of Russia, whose authority and power was taken over by Lenin’s Bolsheviks in the second revolution in October. The Romanov family had been ruling Russia since 1613, but in March 1917, Nicholas Romanov II was forced to abdicate. Nicholas was a sensitive man with high pride and always preferred to be with his family rather than to involve himself in the running of his nation.
The outbreak of World War One in 1914 also spelt disaster for the Tsar upon his decision to take direct command of the Russian army, which meant that every military failure would now be associated with him personally and contributed to the growing sense of dissent. Nicholas was not a trained general and had no experience in the area of war; both he and his generals were incompetent, the army lacked resources and equipment and the men had minimal training. All of these factors placed both Russia and their forces in a fragile position, and with their numerous military failures coupled with the initial destruction of their standing army, the finger was pointed at the Tsar. This notion of military failure under the Tsar is highlighted in source A, where the military is described as
Was the Tsar’s personal inadequacy that led to the revolution of Feb/March 1917? Essentially, Tsar Nicholas II was a lacking ruler, he was unwilling to get rid of autocracy which then resulted to no reforms in government which was often corrupt mainly due to the fact that it was an autocracy. This led to the demands of the people being ignored causing there to be universal discontent all over the land of Russia, logically Nicholas’s inadequacy as a Tsar would be a reasonable consideration for what led to the 1917 revolution, however there were other reason not just Nicholas lacking strength in leadership which resulted to the revolution. For example, there had been lingering discontent growing especially with the industrial workers and peasants beforehand concerning their conditions of work. This led to an increase in strikes.
When war was declared in 1914, much of the Russian population rallied behind the Tsar and the monarchy in a wave of patriotism. However, the war weariness in the face of 'Total War' soon gripped the country, as the war exacerbated the domestic difficulties of Russia and highlighted the governments structural issues. Losses such as the 'Brusilov offensive' demoralised the army, which in turn weakened the standing of the Tsar and the faith the public placed in him. Poor organisation lead to major casualties, as by Christmas of 1916, 1.6 million soldiers were dead and 3.9 million were wounded with 2.4 million taken prisoner. This lack of organisation also lead to food shortages and issues with transport.
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.