In January 1905, there was a revolutionary tide in Russia. This was mainly caused by the defeat of the Russo-Japanese War in September and the Bloody Sunday Incident in January. In the country, workers, peasants and merchants were holding demonstrations in order to express their discontent to the Tsarist government. Although Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto to pacify the discontent of people temporarily, he still had to face some problems after the 1905 Revolution. To regain the support from people, he needed to carry out the reforms in the October Manifesto.
The increasing pressures of World War 1 combined with years of injustice, lead to the fall of Russian Romanov Tsar Nicholas 2 in March 1917. Forced to step down from power, Nicholas was replaced by a Provisional government committed to continuing the war. However there was increasing losses and fear of German advance on Moscow showed what little support remained for the war and, undermined the provisional government’s authority. Hoping to aggravate the uproar, the Germans were said to have secretly transported, an exile Vladimir Lenin from Switzerland to Russia. In November Lenin led a group of Bolsheviks from the Russia's Social Democrat Party, in a successful attempt to gain power in St. Petersburg.
However, his dismissal led to Bloody Sunday. 150,000 unarmed workers and families congregated in St. Petersburg outside the Narva gates and troops fired into them. 200 were killed and 800 were wounded which led to an outbreak of rebellion through the military, the peasantry, national minorities and urban workers whereas before, only the military and national minorities were dissatisfied. Nicholas II had continued refusal to negotiate with them, however, 'bloody Sunday' showed the threat to his position. Sergei Witte was aware of this and drew up the October Manifesto, forcing Nicholas II to sign it.
This event led to labor unrest, peasant insurrections, student demonstrations, as well as army and navy mutinies. Although the shooting was not Nicholas II’s fault, he was given the nickname, “ The Bloody Murderer” and stated that he was not going to make any changes for the people. This was the last major event before the Revolution of 1905 officially broke out. New councils created by urban workers in order to better organize strikes were created called Soviets. During this time, Russian cities were dying because all the workers and peasants were focused on rebelling against the government and seizing the land of their landlords, instead of working in the factories and living the life of a peasant or urban worker.
All threats of revolution were taken seriously. The authorities hastily assembled an extensive spy network. The most famous threat of a revolution was in August 1819 when a large crowd assembled at St Peter’s Fields in central Manchester to hear a pro-reform speech from Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt. Fearing uncontainable disorder, and perhaps even revolution, the Manchester authorities over-reacted and sent in troops to disperse the crowd by force. Eleven people were killed and the radicals were given a huge propaganda boost by referring to the event as ‘Peterloo’, in a grim analogy with the Duke of Wellington's famous victory over Napoleon at Waterloo four years earlier.
Known as the Czech Legion, they fought the Germans as a separate unit under the leadership of Masaryk until Brest-Litovsk ended that fighting. Trotsky gave them his agreement that they had his permission to travel through Russia to the Western Front so that they could continue their campaign against the Germans. The one provision was that the Czechs had to leave their weapons behind. As soon as the first units of the Czechs surrendered their weapons, the Red Guards shot them. This was to prove a costly error as it was obvious that the other men could not trust what Trotsky had promised.
They loved the Tsar and believed he would help them, so protested for better living conditions. Their protest was brutally put down by the Imperial Guard since they were shot down by the czar’s troops. This incident “Bloody Sunday” destroyed the people’s faith in the Czar. Strikes and revolts exploded around the country. • In response to massive protest he created the October Manifesto (propositions) and promised to grant more rights, such as freedom of speech, meeting and association.
Thousands of soldiers awaited the crowd having been informed incorrectly that the protestors where there to harm the tsar and destroy the palace. The soldiers fired into the mob, killing and wounding hundreds. The unprovoked massacre, called Bloody Sunday, became the catalyst for further strikes and uprisings against the government, called the 1905 Russian Revolution. Although the Tsar was not in the country at the time and had no part in giving orders for the troops to fire, he still received the blame for the deaths resulting in the Russian people losing faith in Nicholas II and a surge of bitterness towards himself and his autocratic rule. In response to this event and to gain back the trust of his people the tsar was forced to grant a constitution and establish a parliament, the
A political factor that caused the Russian Revolution was absolutism. As stated in Document 2, absolutism caused strikes, illegal proclamations, underground circles, etc. Document 4 shows the numerous strikes that took place before the Russian Revolution, due to the Bolsheviks’ point of view toward absolutism. Document 3 was stated by a delegate at Samara who talked about absolutism. He believed that the people should own the land.
First Paragraph Analysis: The 1905 Revolution included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies. Bloody Sunday was a massacre on Jan. 22 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia, where unarmed, peaceful demonstrators marching to present a petition to Tsar were gunned down by the Imperial Guard while approaching the city center and the Winter Palace from several gathering points. The Duma: central legislative body, had very little power, passed laws could be vetoed by the tsar at any time. Potemkin Mutiny: In June 1905, sailors on the Potemkin battleship, protested against the serving of rotten meat. The captain ordered that the ringleaders to be shot.