However, the Russo Japanese was not the only factor leading to Bloody Sunday, the start of the Revolution, other factors such as the Great Spurt and Alexander III’s manifesto – ‘the reaction’ also led to the start of the revolution. Short term causes of the war are that people wanted change. There was a growing population in Russia, but conditions were only getting worse. The proletariats (urban workers) had to endure harsh working conditions as well as appalling hygiene standards. Another cause of the war was that Russia wanted to continue its expansion into the Far East and obtain a free port.
This meant serfdom was already coming to its own natural end, and for Alexander II to support his nobles he had to emancipate the serfs so they could go start increasing their wealth and get out of debt. Serfdom was also holding Russia back, with the rest of Europe liberalising and making vast economic progress Russia’s economy was starting to look inferior and for them to advance as a nation they had to increase productivity of the serfs and the simple solution was to emancipate them. The serfs were inefficient and had a low productivity due to poor farming methods and constantly being oppressed by their nobles. This oppression and poor farming was caused by the extremely conservative rule which refused to modernise, had the Tsar modernised the farming techniques and stopped the
Hence, though peasant life was at its best in its history, all these reforms did for the majority was ignite the hope that more liberating reforms were to come. Unfortunately the untimely assassination of Tsar Liberator by the extremist group, ‘The Peoples Will’ led to the rise in power of Alexander 3rd, who’s views towards the ruling of Russia differed greatly from his fathers. Many of the liberties granted through the reforms were stripped by Alexander 3rd’s own reforms. Peasants control over courts was restricted as courts for government opponents became government controlled. Many government opponents would have been protesting about how unfair the Russian system was towards peasants and hence through trial by jury, they would have been sympathised with.
Furthermore, proposed indirect taxes on luxury goods such as motor cars and petrol would have affected the Lords as they were among the few rich enough to afford such luxuries. The Lords set up a budget protest league and denounced the budget as “confiscation and robbery”, and breaking with convention overwhelmingly vetoed the budget. A less important reason was that the Lords believed the budget amounted to a social revolution. They were worried by the idea of progressive and redistributive taxation which taxes the rich more heavily. They feared once these principles were established they could be extended to ‘soak the rich’ and even out the unfair distribution of wealth in Edwardian Britain.
Women were another vulnerable group because they were always paid at a lower rate than men. There was no safety net for people who fell into poverty other than resorting to the ‘workhouse’ which had been established to deal with cases of extreme poverty in Trade unions had little power as the Taff Vale Incident of 1901 showed and Friendly Societies could only provide a limited amount of help. Attitudes to poverty in the early 20th century were quite unsympathetic many politicians from both the Liberal and Conservative party felt that poverty came from personal laziness. Both parties had an attitude of “laissez-faire” i.e. non interference from the government.
The other people were middle class people, who were more educated and wealthier than the worker class, but still minor against the tsar. Nicholas II wasn’t a good ruler: he avoided important decisions, neglected the importance of the policy and suppressed any resistance. He tried to crush any fears of a revolution by entering a war and consequently uniting his country, but his war tactics weren’t glorious. Russia’s people, the ones who accepted the life for many years, started to stir up, for example workers were striking, but their actions were brutally wiped out. As long as the tsar had his army he was unconquerable.
Alexander III had one goal when he came to power after his father’s death, it was mainly centred on Russification and to rid Russia of a lot of western ideas, these ideas were mainly ones that Alexander III personally thought were weakening the country’s national identity. He wanted Russia to be like the great ‘Russian’ nation that he had heard about growing up and he believed that outside influences and reforms were killing off what he perceived to be the better Russia. He made a lot of reforms of his own which reversed those of his fathers, such as more open education for poorer people, and women were no longer allowed to go to university. This does not mean however that he undid ALL of his father’s reforms, as he did not reform the Russian military as that only strengthened the nation in his eyes when compared to things like education which taught more liberal ideas. The Russification that Alexander III embarked on wasn’t all good news for Russia as it lead to widespread racism towards the Jewish population and other religious minorities.
However it created land ownership problems which with the redemption fee system created bitterness amongst peasants and became known as ‘the great disappointment’ . His other reforms such as changes to the legal system, military and education, also gave Russian’s a greater freedom, however he didn’t provide the extensive changes to autocracy and society that radicals hoped for. As the population got a taste of liberalisation opposition increased, threatening the tsarist regime, forcing Alexander II to use repression to maintain control. Some historians suggest this shift from reform to reaction was directly related to the first assassination attempt on his life. However, Jonathan Bromley argues that there was no conservative shift as just prior to his death he agreed in principal to a national assembly.
Opposition to the Tsarist regime increased due to a number of reasons many of which could have been helped and others that were more natural. The key aspects of the opposition of the Tsars was Wittes programme of industrialisation, which while vital to Russia, exchanged the loyalist peasants into the disgruntled working class. While there were problems that the Tsar could not control such as the great amounts of other nationalities wanting independence and resisting Russification, such as the Poles and Jews. In 1881 opposition started due to ordinary people having little to no rights, as it was a criminal offence to question the Tsar and with no parliament to try and change the course of their country they would have to rely on the rich autocratic Tsar to decide to make changes to help the common people. As the government had strict censorship on books and journals when information did get through it would usually be made even more powerful as the government had attempted to ban it.
Conscripted peasants had begun to lose interest, and their welfare was harmed with the conscription of animals, meaning beasts of burden and the like were deposed to military use. Most of the officers had bought their positions for reasons of prestige and glory, meaning that they were inexperienced and not fit to lead armies into war. He, despite the warnings of his advisors, joined the front ranks. Nicholas believed he was doing the right thing, rather than realizing the incompetence of his own aggressive nationalism. This led to Russia being in the control of the German Alexandria, who was hated by the Russian people because of her inability to speak Russian, her reliance on Grigory Rasputin, a mystic who claimed to heal her son, her antisocial, depressed attitude and a general political incompetence to rival Nicholas’s.