This was terribly inconsiderate of the military as the other 82% of the nation was left to starve as the military was the government’s top priority. This led to extreme cases of hunger across Russia which soon became famine. Food shortages were at their worst in the towns and cities, Petrograd suffered particularly badly due to the remoteness from the food-producing regions. Secondly, transportation was a key pre- existing war condition; it was the disruption of the transport system rather than the decline in food production that was the major cause Russia’s wartime shortages. The attempt to transport millions of troops and masses of supplies to the war fronts created unbearable pressure on the Russian transport system, and it bucked under the pressure.
War Communism was radical and involved the militarisation of Labour which was disliked by the people and made people focus purely on the needs of the war. This contrasts greatly with the First World War (WW1) because the Tsar didn’t militarise Labour completely and so the demand for supplies in WW1 couldn’t be met by the factories. Starvation was nothing new in Russia and during WW1 the supplies couldn’t reach the troops on the front line and so many soldiers had little to eat. With War Communism the majority of the food would be taken from a household to feed an army and the result was that Russians starved, this time the household starved and there was little incentive to grow more. War Communism was introduced as the focus of Lenin was on the military and getting supplies to the soldiers of Russia quickly.
How far do you agree that the first world war was mainly responsible for the February revolution of 1917? To fully understand to what extent the first world was was responsible for the February revolution of 1917 we must look further than the war itself. Other factors such as the actions of the Tsar Nicholas alongside the social and economic strains the was placed upon the country can also be identified as important. The war played a large part in influencing the revolution. When war was declared in 1914, much of the Russian population rallied behind the Tsar and the monarchy in a wave of patriotism.
Political and social unrest increased however, with the revolutionary Bolsheviks gaining widespread support. During the July Offensive, the Russian Army was soundly defeated by the German and Austro-Hungarians, leading to the collapse of the Eastern Front. The Russian Army was on the verge of mutiny and most soldiers had deserted the front lines. Kerensky's government was overthrown in October 1917, and the Bolsheviks assumed power. The Russian Civil War began in the wake of the collapse of the provisional government.
Tsarina Alexandra was influenced by Gregori Rasputin, an unpopular and scruffy “holy” man, who was supposedly controlling her son’s haemophilia condition. Nicholas’s decisions at the Eastern Front caused the country's military failures; by 1917 over 1,300,000 men had been killed in battle, 4,200,000 wounded and 2,417,000 had been captured by the enemy. First World War had a disastrous impact on the Russian economy; food was in short supply and this led to rising prices. By January 1917 the price of commodities in Petrograd had increased by six times. In an attempt to increase their wages, industrial workers went on strike.
How far do you agree that the First World War was mainly responsible for the February Revolution of 1917? The First World War is hugely responsible for the February revolution in 1917 for 3 main reasons which will be talked about in this essay; an example of one of the reasons is that Ww1 destroyed the Russian economy. However Ww1 was not the sole reason for the February revolution the other factors which had a great effect on the revolution are the rumours surrounding the Tsar and his closest friends namely Rasputin, another reason is the defection of the army. The First World War was responsible for the for the 1917 revolution for 3 main reasons. Firstly, the loss of agricultural workers and horses to the army, combined with the takeover of railway lines by the army, led to food shortages in towns and cities due to poor internal communications between most main cities due to how spread out they all were.
How accurate is it to say that the growth of reformist groups in the years from 1881 was the main cause of the 1905 revolution? The most notable reformist groups that had an impact on the 1905 revolution were the national minorities, the army and the revolutionary parties. The national minorities leapt at the chance of changing autocracy, ending Russification and a democratic government by using Russia’s confusion against itself. It consisted of Jews who wanted civil rights, Polish and Finnish people (and other parts of the Russian empire) who wanted independence and many others. This turned into great violence across the empire, with peasants even attacking officials.
Losing the war angered and shocked German people as they felt stabbed in the back, additionally they were looking for someone to blame. German soldiers believed they did not lose the war and that the army was cheated. It also badly affected businesses and workers within Germany. Farmers were short of labourers to bring in the harvest as men had been in the military. By 1918, Germany was producing only 50% of the milk it had done before the war.
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 Provisional Government of Russia treated the middle and lower class citizens of Russia very poorly, ignoring their needs, as well as dragging them into World War I and two civil wars in a little over two decades. The workers of Russia wanted a democratic republic, or any government that would have allowed them to make a difference, and one that would help them as much as their current government was against them (Wade 27). In 1917, Russia was at war in World War I and was suffering economically because of it, as well as loosing the lives of many of their young men in battle. The people of Russia desired to leave World War I as smoothly and as quickly as possible (Wade 29).
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). This had put a great strain on Russia. Transport dislocation occurred because of fuel shortages, which made it hard to send troops and food to the front. Because of this neither the military nor the civilians had enough food to eat. Revolution occurred because of the rise of the opposition, which consisted of the army, protestors and civilians.