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.
During the 1905 revolution over (100 people were killed 300 and were wounded; as they fought for their civil liberties. The October Manifesto appeased all of the classes (peasants, middle and working class) by promising different liberties the classes were fighting for. By signing a peace treaty with Japan, the Tsar raised his troops morale and also he paid them what they were owned (back pay). Because the army was still loyal to the Tsar, he sent his troops to crush the opposition, this attracted more hatred toward the Tsar. It was clear that the Tsar had to clear the newly formed alliance between the classes; but even thought they never really worked together they were still deadly as a whole.
In February 1917 the Tsar had been forced to give up his throne. Explain why this first revolution occurred. Revolution occurred because of the impact World War One had on the defeat of the Russian military; food shortages and transport dislocation in Russia. There was a shortage of weapons and soldiers were forced to fight without weapons as weapons and ammunition had become rationed. The military leadership was terrible and the Tsar took it upon himself to have the role of personal command in 1915 (as told to him by Rasputin).
Nicholas II may have believed that, by taking charge, his army would be inspired and would fight with renewed vigour. Unfortunately, the Tsar knew little about the command and organisation of large military forces, and the series of defeats and humiliations continued. The organisation of the Russian army deteriorated and there were massive shortages of ammunition, equipment, and medical supplies. Nicholas II's decision to take charge meant that he was increasingly seen by the Russian people as having personal responsibility for the military disasters inflicted on Russia. Therefore it can be argued that it was not the protesters on the streets of Petrograd but the poor leadership
The problem was, however, that there were no real leaders present in Russia to take control of all the separate groups of revolutionaries as they were either exiled or in a different country at the time, such as Lenin, who was in London trying to run the Bolshevik party from there. The Tsarist was put at great risk because of the war because the army had to be moved to the fronts. This gave an opportunity to the Tsarist opposition to take action. The Tsar relied heavily on the army to keep control over Russia against his opponents
One of the reasons why this didn’t work was the downfall of communication, and disagreements within the group due to the extent of different opinions was so great causing splits and creating smaller less powerful sub divisions. The liberals wanted to keep the tsar but reduce his power and used calm no violent tactics such a discussions and meetings, but this group split; the octobrists and the kadets. The octobrists set up the duma (government) and the kadets wanted full equality and were a first major opposition voice in the duma, both groups came into being at the time of the October manifesto 1905. The social democrats wanted an empire with no rich or poor people, they wanted communism and also like the liberals didn’t use violent tactics. The Bolshevik and Menshevik split and both parties were very distinct opposing Marxist parties.
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.
How important was the October manifesto in ensuring the survival of Nicolas II up to the 23rd of April 1906? In the early months of 1905 a small revolution had started in Russia, it took place because of civil unrest across the country and anger towards the Tsar if Russia Nicolas the second. Some historians argue that the most important reason Nicolas the 2nd survived the revolution was because of the October manifesto that appeased some of the rebels. But i believe other factors where more important, for example the rebellion had no leadership and all parties had different aims, this is what i believe to be the most important reason. Also the Tsar still had the support of the Russian army and the navy which stopped any serious uprising.
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.