With Liverpool gone from office the Tories had lost the only thing that was keeping the different factions together. With him gone old arguments and grudges soon came out into the open. It also meant that the Tory party was now weakened, as it had no united leadership and was unable to settle on a stable arrangement in which all members were agreed. After Liverpool, Canning became Prime Minister and although he had a good plan for improving the country he lost most of his cabinet when Peel, Wellington and five other ministers resigned because they didn’t like his foreign policy or his pro-Catholic feelings. This meant that he had to draft in Whig party members to fill the gaps, which then reduced the Tory presence in Cabinet.
The effectiveness of these groups can be judged in terms of the outcomes of their actions. The first type of opposition to consider is opposition from groups within Russia. In the earlier years of Alexander II’s reign opposition to the Russian government existed within the peasantry. In between 1800-1861 there had been 1467 uprisings and in 1861 alone there were 400 instances of revolt amongst the peasantry. This basic form of opposition was never truly effective as their actions were simply put down by the government partly due to their failure to unite and lack of ideology and political demands.
His wife Alexandra was a huge influence on Autocratic power like his father. It was thought that Nicholas’s political lack of sophistication and extreme stubbornness led to the down fall of the Russian Empire. So in 1918, Nicholas II and his family were imprisoned at Ekaterinburg in the Ural mountains by Bolsheviks and on 16th July the family was led to a basement were they were executed. Some of the minor factors that led to the downfall of the Romanov dynasty were the poor leadership of the Tsar. He was a bad decision maker, people thought of him as weak.
Looking throughout the Tsars reign it is apparent that his many failings encouraged the people to up rise and change the current form of government. His inability to handle the social and economic conditions or his input towards them, brought the blame of many problems some even of external problems. It was predominantly the Tsars poor character and action that lead to his removal as he did not acquire many of the characteristics and knowledge to rule a country and his decisions were poorly made in respect to the public. Revolutionary ideas provided the people with an answer to the their problems; the Tsar. If the Tsar had the capacity to rule, understand and the desire to lead his dynasty would not of ended at all or in such devastating
To what extent was the lack of political representation the most significant cause of the 1905 revolution? There were a number of different causes that contributed to the start of the 1905 Russian revolution however some were more significant than others. One of the contributing factors was the lack of political representation due to the existence of an autocratic regime. Whilst this was an important factor, the most significant factors were the social and economical issues that caused unrest amongst the Russian population. The long-term policies of Russification imposed by the Tsar in the 1880s, caused a lot of political unrest within Russia and these contributed to the 1905 revolution.
The lack of unity opposition possessed was a key factor in its failure throughout the period. Division in opinion and ideology were consistent problems for opposition, which only fully united in the February revolution. Even then there were still divisions in opinion, however there was one common cause to unite behind. Other attributing factors such as heavy repression by rulers, well timed reforms and the continuing use of military force ultimately meant that opposition to Russian Governments was rarely successful in the 1855-1964. The peasantry were consistent opponents of Russian Government throughout the period, yet were rarely successful in doing so.
For however strong the system is at controlling the largely uneducated majority, Tsarism is only as powerful as the Tsar is at the time. So Tsarism in the 1900’s was not very powerful because we can see that from his actions Nicholas II was inept as a leader of such a large country. Blatant failures by the Tsar were apparent to the people of Russia; two examples, which cast questions over his ability, were the Famine of 1891 and the Russo-Japanese war. The famine was an extremely bad time to be a Russian citizen, a great majority of the country was starving and the Tsar and his government had no plan or solution to help the needy. A peasant needs nothing but a home and food, but when food is taken out of his life then he will ask questions
As it was them who started the protest which turned into a revolution and also they were the ones behind the mutiny of the troops. However, the military was having many problems such as the war was going horribly wrong with many casualties, poor commanding from officers and limited military resources and equipment. The peasants were doing the fighting and the dying. So this could be a small contributing factor to the fall of the Romanov's on several different reasons. Firstly the tsar did not help the peasants personally, but instead leave the burden to the prime ministers when they cannot rule like a democracy today.
Calleigh Fife Mr. Hunt History 7/9/11 ‘The emancipation of the serfs and Alexander II’s other reforms made little real difference to Russian politics and society.’ Discuss. The country was in a state of total disarray, for the Crimean war was lost, the Czar had died, and the issue of feudalism hung over the people like a black cloud, able to pour down on them at any second. The loss of the Crimean war brought to perspective that Russia was in fact, a backward, old-world, feudal country that needed change. This was realized by the new Czar, Alexander Nikolaevich II, who believed that in order to maintain the autocracy’s control, it was better to end serfdom from above, by means of legislation, than to await the inevitable eradication
Lenin described Trotsky as “...personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C...’ However, Trotsky also had weaknesses and made mistakes that Stalin was able to use to his advantage. To some Trotsky came across as an arrogant character and lacked support in critical areas of the party. He was also seen as an ‘outsider’ due to his background and past. The biggest mistakes that Trotsky made where a result of his poor judgement. Trotsky underestimated Stalin and what he was capable of (creating a triumvirate with Zinoviev and Kamenev, using this alliance to defeat him).