The Russo-Japanese was an important factor which lead up to the outbreak of the 1905 revolution as it was a catalyst which highlighted the fundamental weaknesses in the leadership of the Tsar. Though it was an was important factor, ultimately the outbreak of the 1905 revolution was due to a number of factors such as the long term issues such as the lack of modernisation; socially, economically and politically. The most significant cause of the 1905 revolution was the lack of modernisation. Due to the failure of modernisation in the countryside led to increase in social tension. Agriculture in Russia was far behind other great powers and peasants were suffering greatly through the repeated famines in 1902 and 1905.
He felt these areas would help to solve Russia's three biggest problems; Communication, Size and Social Divide. Witte's industrial policy covered many areas. The first was huge investments from France. Witte used this money to kick-start various economic plans he had. This money was important because the economy in Russia was poor at the time; bearing in mind there was a huge number of peasants and very few working class people at the time may suggest a reason for this.
The Noble class of Russia owned most of the countries wealth and land. Nicholas II assigned family members to important political roles; this caused him to have absolute power over Russia without any threats of being over powered. Not only was Nicholas II corrupt with assigning important roles, but also he had insufficiency of the training and experience needed for the Russian Tsar, his failure to make decisions and his organization was extremely poor, “Unfit to run a village post office” This underlines the point that Nicholas II was extremely poor at making decisions and his lack organization was so poor that he would be unable to run a small village post office, that is normally very quiet, let alone Russia, one of the worlds biggest countries, this is backed up by “His ancestors did not pass on to him one quality which would have
After 1905 the Tsar seemed to be giving in slightly and live did improve for people in little ways, people were mostly worse off than before though. Although the Tsar started a Duma he did not give them much power and he still made most off the decisions. For the first three Dumas the Tsar did not work with them at all but by the fourth he began to. The Duma could also just be completely dissolved by the Tsar at any time. For some peasants life did improve dramatically, Stolypin set up banks that would help peasants get loans and buy land.
Even though this solved all the immediate needs of the communist state, the majority of the peasants were unhappy about the new policies and rebelled against the Bolsheviks. This, in turn, forced Lenin to change policies and introduce the New Economic Policy. The NEP was seen, in the Bolsheviks’ eyes, as a return to capitalism as it allowed small businesses to open and people to sell goods in the market, even though major industries, such as steel and iron were still under government control. Lenin had a huge impact on Russia. He made Russia a strong state and consolidated her
How secure was the tsarist regime in 1914? Before the Great War between the Allies and the Central Powers, Russia had experienced a period of unrest and turmoil mainly a cause of the Tsar’s outdated and cruel system. But, however, everything seemed to look better by around about 1914. The Tsarist regime was weak because around 80% of the Russian population were peasants. Not all peasants were loyal or religious as many supported the opposition, the Social Revolutionaries.
Another long-term cause of the 1905 Revolution was the general disappointment with which many Russian people viewed the reforms of the previous decades. The emancipation had promised much but delivered little. The reign of Alexander II had produced a number of similar reforms. Changes to local government and the legal system were both limited and led to the call for more liberal reform. The reactionary reign of Alexander III led to a tightening of government control and the persecution of minority groups, such as Jews, within the Empire.
In particular, he released the serfs, which is generally seen as one of the most significant social reforms of the nineteenth century. Yet, the fundamental inconsistency between Alexander II's commitment to autocracy and his moves towards liberal reform isolated him from both reformers and conservatives. The growth of radical political opposition during his reign, was arguably given momentum by the liberal reforms he made which still left some radical groups pushing for revolution and eventually led to his assassination by terrorist of 'The People's Will' group in 1881. A great obstacle was that compared to Western Europe, Russia was backward economically, socially and politically in the late 19th Century. Russia was determined to not set up a new system by which the government were modernized and autocratic in which this stopped Russia from industrialising.
This included the Tsar’s incompetence which led to failures both in foreign policy and domestically, as well as the severe human consequences that resulted from the slow and inefficient development of agriculture and industry – a fruitless attempt to keep up with the other Great Powers. From 1881 onwards, reformist groups grew to become of major significance, as their ability to carry out of a full-scale revolution grew with support. Liberal reformers hoping for more radical reforms following Alexander II’s reign were severely undermined by Alexander III and then Nicholas II’s repressive measures. The refusal of the regime to share power with the public representative bodies, and the continued bureaucratic restrictions on the rights of the zemstvos, brought about the zemstvo moment – an alliance of the bourgeoisie (the gentry, professionals, intellectuals and students) – which provided the ‘organisational basis for a constitutional movement’. Tsar Nicholas II’s dismissal of such constitutional desires as ‘senseless dreams’ only provoked further outrage and violence (e.g.
‘To what extent do you agree that the nationalist movement was the greatest threat facing the liberal government by 1914?’ By 1914, there were a number of threats to the liberal government. Examples of these are from the PSI (the socialist party), nationalists and the Catholic Church. The reasons why these groups were a threat to the liberal government was in part because of the weaknesses of the liberal government itself, and the poor state of the economy under the liberals. The economy especially led to a lack of Italian identity, with very high levels of emigration (mainly to the USA). These factors led to a fragile liberal government, with the main threat in my opinion being posed not by the nationalists but the socialists.