The Romanov's Revolutionary Attempt At Modernizing Russia

Whilst St Petersburg was growing and thriving around him, it seemed as though the Tsar turned his back on the requirements that come with large crowds of people such as, resources, food supplies, housing, etcetera. Due to his closed mindedness the overpopulation of factories, shortages of income and lack of basic necessities became a huge issue. The people stuck in this great poverty began to lose faith in the Tsar and once again sought for a new source of power. Another factor that adds to this cause is the fact that when the Russian society came up with the idea of a government, to help guide the Tsar towards helping his people and modernizing his laws and mindset, he refused to let the people have a say. Nicholas ultimately took away all power from what little government they did set up, called a ‘duma,’ when he set the ‘Fundamental Laws.’ These laws meant that he would overrule all of the duma’s decisions or suggestions. For example, the first law stated, “To the emperor of all the Russias belongs supreme autocratic power.” Then in 1907, the Tsar changed to voting laws to make sure that revolutionaries could not be elected. This meant that all the elected candidates were politicians that were great followers of Nicholas, meaning he got what he wanted. Consequently leaving no way of communication between Nicholas and the lower class of Russia, causing the tragic conditions to continue. As the poor became progressively poorer, malnourished and uncared for the Tsars inaction and lack of sympathy caused a radical

The last Tsar Nicholas II ascended the throne in 1894 and was faced with a country that was trying to free itself from its autocratic regime. The serfs had recently been emancipated, the industry and economy was just starting to develop and opposition to the Tsar was building up. Russia was still behind Europe in terms of the political regime, the social conditions and the economy. Nicholas II who was a weak and very influenced by his mother and his wife had to deal with Russia’s troubles during his reign. In order to ascertain how successfully Russia dealt with its problems by 1914, this essay will examine the October Manifesto and the split of the opposition, how the Tsar became more reactionary after the 1905 revolution, Stolypin’s

The October Manifesto 1905 gained the Tsar back some of his support by promising reform; however the Tsar failed to abide by his promises and did not satisfactorily address the problems of Russia. To ensure his long-term survival the Tsar needed to address the problems that had caused the 1905 revolution. The action of Nicholas II to introduce reform saved his position in the throne s, though not for long as he took the wrong approach and chose to please some groups in Russian society and ignored the demands of others. Some changes were made that did temporarily satisfy his people such as the creation of a duma and the cancellation of the redemption payments. The creation of a duma meant the Tsar now had to delegate authority to parliament and could no longer consider himself an autocrat, however although it may of appeared that the Tsar now did not have ‘absolute’ power he didn’t really give the duma much power at all and he restricted their influence on the Russian government.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, Russia was overtaken by the clash of two ideologies that represented a social, political and economic world order; one that at the time was the capitalist system and the other of revolutionary socialism. After the February Revolution 1917, Vladimir Lenin returned from exile and published a series of directives in an effort to channel the revolutionary energy to an uncompromised movement; prominently known as the “April Theses.” Moreover, later on December 1917, Lenin’s argument, shift from justifying the involvement in the war and the cooperation with liberals in the Provisional Government, such shift it is noticeable in “The Thesis on the Constituent Assembly,” thus showing that Lenin’s writing gave the Bolsheviks a strategic advantage, justified their extreme actions and impacted the course of Russian history.

With the defeat against Japan during 1904 - 1905, poor harvest, higher rates of poverty amongst the peasants and strikes within the oil industry, the people of Russia grew discontent with the Tsar, which led to a strike in St Petersburg on January 16th, 1905. The historical blood shed, otherwise known as ‘Bloody Sunday’, which was an incident that occurred on January 22nd 1905, St. Petersburg. An event where unarmed, peaceful demonstrators marched to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II, hoping he would respond but in stead were gunned down by imperial guards outside the Narva Gate. As the primary source, ‘The Aftermath’, 4th February 1905 represented the many Russian civilians shot down at Narva Gate, although the deaths and casualties are not accurate. This significant event was a turning point for Nicholas II and his time as a monarchy. To the people of Russia he was before known as ‘Little Father’ and soon became, after the mass blood shed, ‘Nicholas the Bloody’. At this point in time Nicholas retained his influential, autocratic

Why did Revolution break out in Russia in 1905? In 1905, thousands of people gathered outside the Winter Palace, demanding change and immediate reform. Although their revolt was ultimately unsuccessful, it is important to wonder why many people were disgruntled with the Tsarist regime. It can be argued that 1905 revolution resulted in both long-term and crucial short term factors: the long-term factors which will be discussed are peasant land-hunger, the declining economy and the exploitation of Jews. For the first factor, I will begin by discussing the reign of Alexander II to Nicholas II; this will allow us to show the developments in time of peasant outrage. Secondly, the essay will discuss the reign of Alexander III who began terrible

The investigation is to compare and contrast the nature of two Russian Revolutions in 1917. The first Russian Revolution to be investigated will be the February Revolution wherein the poor living conditions and the dissent among the people of Russia led to the collapse of the Romanov dynasty and the rise of the Provisional Government. The second Russian Revolution to be investigated will be the Bolshevik Revolution which occurred after the failure of the provisional government to improve the living conditions in Russia and led to the Bolsheviks claiming power of Russia in October. Memoirs and university level history books will be the main sources of reference to examine the nature and results of the revolutions.

After Nicholas II ended some of the totalitarian bans on free speech and assembly, the masses in Russia organized strikes in the streets of Petrograd in late February (Service 2005). The strikes continued for four days as the Russian military did not wish to fire on the crowd of protesters as ordered by Nicholas II (Beckett 2007). Reasons suggested for the military’s reluctance to follow orders include the number of women involved and the soldiers’ own socially-aligned sympathies (Wade 2000). According to the old calendar, the February Revolution occurred on February 26, 1917 as protesters tore down reminders of Nicholas II’s regime (Ibid). Even the loyal troops aligned themselves with the revolutionaries the following day (Ibid). Nicholas II, after having been stopped by mutinying troops, eventually abdicated his throne in early March (Beckett 2007).

The industrial working class remained to be the only major opposition towards the government. The workers did not, on the whole benefit from Russia’s prosperity and felt that they were being left behind to some extent. This led to a number of strikes and protest such as Bloody Sunday; however none of these protest had a great enough impact to cause reform. Furthermore the army stayed loyal to the tsar, crushing revolutionary disturbances and arresting thousands of revolutionaries.

This revolution appeared to break out spontaneously, without any real leadership or formal planning. Russia had been suffering from a number of economic and social problems, which were compounded by the impact of World War I. Bread rioters and industrial strikers were

Central to all of the reforms of Alexander II is the ‘Emancipation Decrees’ which are arguably the largest reforms of Alexander and set up for the following liberal community reforms. The most well-known is the Emancipation of the Serfs in 1861 had reaching consequences into every corner of Russia and its significance is evident in the depth of contemporary excitement as described by Prince Pyotrs Kropotkin, ‘Crowds of peasants and educated men stood in front of the palace, shouting hurrahs’ . Such rejoicing and mass celebration helps highlights the importance placed upon this manifesto, but is also highlighted in the opinions of the author himself as he is in opposition to the system but also a member of nobility in which this manifesto has no direct effect and yet still supports and rejoices at the manifesto. Showing the startling significance that the Russia public put upon this reform, feeds itself into the significance of the Alexander as a reformer- as Pytor describes later ‘[Alexander] Your name has been transmitted through history as that of a hero’ . This point is compounded by a newspaper article at the time in which the ‘emotion created’ by the

The Tsar and his elite began to understand that change was required before they lost complete control. By signing the October manifesto in 1905 Tsar Nicolas II turned Russia into a constitutional monarchy, gave its citizens civil rights and gave the Duma, Russia’s parliament legislative power. It wasn’t long before the 1905 revolution had died down, when Nicholas II disbanded the Duma and violated many of the civil liberties promises in the October manifesto. As a result of the Tsar reneging on his promises, by 1917 another revolution had begun, not only to highlight the lack food and civil rights as in the 1905 revolution but also from the violations of the October manifesto. In March of 1917 workers in Petrograd went on strike. Unlike the protests of 1905, the

Despite all the work Alexander II did toward reforming Russia, the “Era of Great Reforms” left one crucial aspect unaltered: the power of the emperor. The intentional neglect of this was what kept the reforms from realizing their true potential. This led to dissatisfaction, which encouraged repression, terror, and most importantly: revolution. The first was the Polish Rebellion, caused by the failure of Russian authorities to suppress Polish nationalism. Although the Poles failed, other minorities sprung up for their voice

“The power still has to be snatched from the hands of the old rulers and handed over to the revolution. That is the fundamental task. A general strike only creates the necessary preconditions; it is quite inadequate for achieving the task itself”(Trotsky). The ineffectiveness of the strikes can be found in the fact that in nearly every occasion the soldiers were ordered to shoot on the crowd, stopping the revolts and leaving the tsar as obnoxious to the situation as before. Also the peasants in the countryside suffered land-hunger due to the growth of population caused by the decreased of mortality rates. Backwardness was also caused by the “open field system”, which didn’t motivate the peasants to improve their machinery or seeding methods since their land would be taken away from them and redistributed when a member of the community died. Nicholas II was a weak, indecisive and obstinate ruler who, being very conservative and reactionary, used extensively the secret police (“Third Section”) and the army to suppress uprisings and political enemies. He alienated the intelligentsia and angered the liberals with his lack of political participation and exaggerated reliance on the Fundamental laws, which said that the tsar was appointed by god and was rightfully in charge of the country. As a response, the liberals initiated a banquet campaign that started in November 1904, and ended in January 1905 with the aim of making the tsar give

Revolutions are events that consists of so many different struggles, challenges, bloodshed, complications as well as victory. Revolution refers to a fundamental change in power or governmental structures thats takes place in a comparatively short period of time. Revolutions have been taking place throughout most of human history. Many of these revolutions have its simmilarites and differences. This essay will focus on the Russian Revolution with the help of discussing two theoretical revolutionary approaches by Marx and Max Weber.