Why did the 1905 revolution fail? The 1905 revolution failed for a variety of reasons many of which are to do with the revolutionaries themselves such as a lack of leadership and that they were divided in their aims. One of the reasons that the 1905 revolution failed is that the revolutionaries had no leadership; this meant that they were unorganized and therefore attacks and industrial action were randomly taking place according to other strikes. Therefore the threat from each individual strike was much less of a threat to the Tsarist regime than they would have been had the industrial action been coordinated so that they happened at the same time; this allowed the Tsar and the army to be able to eliminate the individual threats much easier than had there been widespread attacks. Therefore the Russian revolution of 1905 failed because the revolutionaries were to easy to defend against as their attack were not in synchronization meaning the army only had to stop one group at a time meaning the revolutionaries suffered heavier casualties than they would have done.
STRENTGHS It was set up by the Treaty of Versailles (which every nation hated) Its aims were too ambitious Some of the greatest powers in the world - Germany, Russia and the USA - were not members: The USA did not want to join. The Russians refused to join (they were Communists and thought the League harboured Capitalists) Germany was not allowed to join Council members were not the most powerful countries in the world, and were not prepared to use their armies. Also sometimes council members were involved in the trouble Trade sanctions would damaged the countries of the League as well as the country that had gone to war The League had no army; it had to rely on member countries declaring war on countries that broke the Covenant Its organisation was a muddle Decisions had to be unanimous, making it very hard to get anything done Secretariat was too small to handle the vast work of the League The League came to be seen as a club for the victors of the First World War and was mostly European WEAKNESSES It was set up by the Treaty of Versailles, which every nation had signed Forty-two countries joined the League at the start. In the 1930s about 58 nations were members. This made the League seem strong.
Communist ideology aimed to establish justice for all, however, the lethal purges and gulags of the Stalinist era led to a general loss of confidence in the system and thus a low level of motivation in the work force. With lack of faith in the system the Soviet economy slumped. To add to this, the Soviet system was particularly inept at handling information. The deep secrecy of its political system meant that the flow of information was slow and cumbersome. An over-centralised government led to bureaucracy and corruption.
1. The US failed to win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese. They were fed up with a corrupt elitist government in Saigon and communism was offering them land reforms and control of their own destiny. The US were instead backing and supporting the corrupt government, thus they were part of the problem, not the solution. The US in fighting communism, was fighting the wrong enemy, they were arrogant and thought that they knew best.
They were losing to a nation very few had heard of and it was humiliating. However, many of the defeats to the Russian military occurred after the Revolution had started, not causing its outbreak, but merely adding to the opposition to autocratic rule by the Tsar and prolonging the Revolution. The Russo-Japanese War brought economic problems for Russia, and this therefore meant there was a significant lack of money to solve any other problems present Russia, hence partly being responsible for the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution. The war costed an extreme amount of money. As it resulted in failure no money could be gained from the invaded territories.
The introduction of Communism did not help the country on the road to greatness like supporters had hoped. This introduction had the complete opposite effect than expected. Looking at economic indicators such as living conditions before and after the introduction of Communism, unemployment rates, and the production abilities compared to output it is noticeable that the presence of Communism was harmful to 20th century Russia and was not helpful whatsoever. Stepping into the history of Communism is greatly needed to better understand the economic failures of the Soviet Union. Contrary to belief, the Soviet Union founders did not come up with the idea of Communism.
Despite the bourgeois claim, Communism does not keep people from appropriating the products of labor; instead it keeps them from oppressing others in the process. They then address objections to Communism. It is believed all work will stop if private property is abolished, if that is the case, bourgeois society would have already been overcome by laziness. Those who work have nothing, and those who have everything don't work. It is also thought that Communism will destroy all intellectual products.
In fact, the readiness which the oppositions accepted the government’s political and economic bribes, showed that neither of these groups were really serious about revolution. For instance, the middle classes were granted the October Manifesto after the spontaneous strikes that developed in St. Petersburg on October 1905. This reform established the political rights and set up an elected legislative assembly, or duma, with real, not merely consultative powers. On the other hand, the peasants were dissatisfied about the land issue. They believed that the land was “God’s” that no one should have the right to buy or sell the land.
They were losing to a nation very few had heard of and it was humiliating. However, many of the defeats to the Russian military occurred after the Revolution had started, not causing its outbreak, but merely adding to the opposition to autocratic rule by the Tsar and prolonging the Revolution. The Russo-Japanese War also brought about economic problems for Russia, and this therefore meant there was a significant lack of money to solve any of Russia’s other problems, hence contributing to the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution. The war cost an extreme amount of money and as it resulted in failure no money could be gained from the invaded territories. Russia had already had economic problems, and its economy
Conversely, Source C (First Interim Report of the Committee of National Expenditure) demonstrates a more negative approach, suggesting the shrinking of the state; inferring that the committee are relatively indifferent to the scale of social unrest (perhaps even no comprehension for the possibility of a Bolshevik revolution) due to the fact that they do not wish to give the public something positive in the wake of the previous national tragedy. Both greatly differing viewpoints present a spectrum of views to how the post war government should deal with social problems- providing historians with informative evidence on the matter. The reliability of both sources is crucial in order to consolidate both sources