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.
The term Russian Revolution includes not only one event or even process but a sequence of disruptive and strongly violent happenings which occurred more or less at the same time. It started as a rebellion of the most conservative elements in Russian society, dissatisfied with the Royal family and their connection to the self-styled monk Rasputin and the mismanagement of the decision in the war. But the riots were soon spread to the liberals who feared that of the monarchy remained as it was, the revolution would become inescapable. The Romanov dynasty had lasted over 300 years but Nicholas II, who ascended the throne in 1894, turned out to be the last tsar of Russia. How did such an ancient monarchy collapse so dramatically?
In February 1917 the Tsar had been forced to give up his throne. Explain why this first revolution occurred. Revolution occurred because of the impact World War One had on the defeat of the Russian military; food shortages and transport dislocation in Russia. There was a shortage of weapons and soldiers were forced to fight without weapons as weapons and ammunition had become rationed. 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).
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).
Therefore the question of whether the collapse of the USSR is unavoidable, could be solved differently or should have been more radical had all came up. From the time as Gorbachev became as General Secretary until the collapse in 1991, there are several impacts of other causes of the breakdown such as the polices, economy, resistance within the party and etc. The situation before Gorbachev came into power Stalin tried to modernize Russia and catch up with the western countries. His system led to large-scale industrialization and economic growth, but was not adaptable. The product quality was far beyond Western standards which did not meet the people’s needs and the environment suffered heavy disasters.
Chapter 6: “The Peasants Purges” This chapter is about how Joseph turns the country to collectivization system. A. Millions were kicked off their farms. B. His wife was angry with him because he was treating the peasant farmers wrong.
Tsar Alexander III’s reforms were reverse ‘reaction’ of what his father, Alexander II, did before him to improve the country he ruled over. Repressive policies under Nicholas II were continued right up until early 1905 when Bloody Sunday took place outside Winter Palace and hundreds of Russian citizens were massacred by the Cossacks. It appears that there was extremely little, if any, political reform during 1881-1905. Political reform after 1905 began to rise. A clear turning point for politics in Russia was the publishing of the October Manifesto.
Alexander was hopelessly out of touch with the emerging realities of a modern Russia. For example, agriculture was exploited as a source of export earnings; this helped cause a series of famines, especially in 1891. This made him hugely unpopular as he took grain from the people in an attempt to make money and improve the economy. Due to his slow intelligence and lack of experience, Alexander forgot the fundamental rule of keeping his people happy and instead chose to supress them. He did not realise that, following Alexander II’s emancipation of the serfs in 1861, he could not return to a state of rigid autocracy when the serfs had already had some freedom.
The serfs were approximately 85% of the russian population. For a long time the existence of serfdom was recognised as the major obstacle to the modernisation of Russia. So to solve the problem Alexander II eventually issued a ukase which abolished serfdom. However this was not the case, in fact they had to be tied to land - and the owners of that land now had to be compensated by the state. as a result former serfs had to pay redemption payments to the Russian government for forty three years.
In 1985, Mikhael Gorbachev came to power, and claimed to have a different view on communism (Smitha, The Soviet Union). Gorbachev knew the country needed fundamental reform, because it has not shown positive growth for nearly a decade (Smitha, The Soviet Union). He introduced Perestroika, to restructure the economy (Smitha, The Soviet Union).