Many events and actions had to take place before the February 1917 Russian Revolution came to a boil. Although the spark of the Revolution can not be pinpointed to a single event, it can, however, be pinpointed to a single person, Tsar Nicholas II. The Tsar at the time of the Revolution had bad leadership qualities, which in turn created the unrest needed for the Revolution.
The autocracy of the Tsar, Nicholas II, saw that the Russian population was not granted the opportunity to express their grievances, which infuriated the poorer masses. Grain and coal shortages. A widespread famine occurred, there was no agriculture which drastically affected the economy. The 1905 Revolution was sparked by the events of Bloody Sunday, when a peaceful protest by innocent people with a list of grievances, led themselves to the Tsar’s home. Ammunition was fired at the protestors by the police. The Tsar at this time was nowhere to be seen. As soon as he heard about ‘riots’ near him, he fled the country, showing his weakness. Acknowledging the cries of his people would have saved dozens of innocent lives. After many public riots,when the Tsar feared the loss of his throne, he reluctantly signed a Manifesto, which gave way to the Duma. This put a short stop to the riots and the revolution, as the public felt they were slowly getting a result. Despite his own
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Russia had taken on the side of Serbia in World War 1 against Austria-Hungary and Germany and they were losing thousands of men. Here, the Tsar made the call to lead the army himself and left the Tsarina and Rasputin in charge. Having their leader at the front of the army, gave the Russian population a short-term morale boost as he was finally helping his country and doing some good for his people.The Tsar, however, had no war experience and he was an ineffective leader, he soon became a failure to his people as another bad call for the fate of Russians was made.
" First World War.com - Primary Documents - Tsar Nicholas II Takes Command of Russian Armies, 5 September 1915. online at Firstworldwar.com. Available at: http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/russia_tsarincommand.htm>. Engel, B., 1997.
Tsar Nicholas II was a family man who put his family before the wellbeing of the country. In the Bloody Sunday scene thousands of people were marching to the Winter Palace to request help and protection from the Tsar because he was supposed to be in St Petersburg. However he was not there, he had gone home to tend to his son because he was ill. This resulted in the massacring of approximately 200 people who meant no harm . After his abdication in a conversation with his son Alexi he tells him that he abdicated for him. He tells Alexi, “I didn't want you to pay for my mistakes.” Whether this was the reason for his abdication or not the movie led the viewers to believe that everything he did was for his family. The leader of a country should make decisions that will be better for the country, not their family. He put the wellbeing of his family before the country which shows inadequate leadership that ultimately led to the collapse of the old reg...
For centuries, autocratic and repressive tsarist regimes ruled the country and population under sever economic and social conditions; consequently, during the late 19th century and early 20th century, various movements were staging demonstrations to overthrow the oppressive government. Poor involvement in WWI also added to the rising discontent against Nicholas as Russian armies suffered terrible casualties and defeats because of a lack of food and equipment; in addition, the country was industrially backward compared to countries such as Britain, France, Germany, and the USA. It had failed to modernize, this was to do with the tsars lack of effort for reforms. The country was undergoing tremendous hardships as industrial and agricultural output dropped. Famine and poor morale could be found in all aspects of Russian life. Furthermore, the tsar committed a fatal mistake when he appointed himself supreme commander of the armed forces because he was responsible for the armies constant string of defeats.
During the Revolution of 1905, he ordered the mass execution of over 100 and arrested several more rebels. Also, he focused on an agricultural reform in order to address the famine and ineffective use of agricultural land by canceling redemption payments and establishing land banks; creating a positive impact and increased the agricultural production. Moreover, the creation of the Duma can actually be credited to Nicholas II. Additionally, the Czar did not trusted the Duma for their ‘unrealistic’ and hostile demands, their bias towards the aristocracy, the freedom of political debate the Duma and the fact that they were allowed to pass
Czar Nicholas’ poor leadership forced him to abdicate and caused the Bolshevik takeover. One of the reasons I say that is because of the way he handled “Bloody Sunday”. “Bloody Sunday” was when troops killed over a thousand people in a peaceful worker assembly. After “Bloody Sunday”, workers all over Russia went on strike, and peasants caused uprisings that were suppressed by Nicholas II’s troops causing tensions to increase. Another reason was his disastrous involvement in World War I. In the beginning of the war, Russia’s armies did not do well. To fix this, Nicholas became the commander. Now under his command, their continued failure reflected the Czar himself, further decreasing his popularity. Lastly, civil unrest grew as food riots, chronic food shortages, and labor strikes continued to proceed. This eventually erupted into open revolt, and Czar Nicholas had no choice but to abdicate. Soon after, the new government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin.
A communist revolution is inspired by ideas of Marxism whose main purpose is to replace capitalism with communism also considered socialism. “Marxists believe that the workers of the world must unite and free themselves from capitalist oppression to create a world run by, and, for the working class (Britannica).” The Russian Revolution began in 1917 and consisted of two periods of revolts; the February Revolution and the October Revolution. It has been said that the 1905 Russian Revolution prompted the February Revolution due to “the massacre is Saint Petersburg, Russia known as Bloody Sunday. A council of wo...
The Russian revolution of February 1917 was a momentous event in the course of Russian history. The causes of the revolution were very critical and even today historians debate on what was the primary cause of the revolution. The revolution began in Petrograd as “a workers’ revolt” in response to bread shortages. It removed Russia from the war and brought about the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, replacing Russia’s monarchy with the world’s first Communist state. The revolution opened the door for Russia to fully enter the industrial age. Before 1917, Russia was a mostly agrarian nation. The Russian working class had been for many years fed up with the ways they had to live and work and it was only a matter of time before they had to take a stand. Peasants worked many hours for low wages and no land, which caused many families to lose their lives. Some would argue that World War I led to the intense downfall of Russia, while others believe that the main cause was the peasant unrest because of harsh living conditions. Although World War I cost Russia many resources and much land, the primary cause of the Russian Revolution was the peasant unrest due to living conditions because even before the war began in Russia there were outbreaks from peasants due to the lack of food and land that were only going to get worse with time.
I. A good majority of the Russian people were weary and uncontent with the way the war was going and with the Czar's rule. This uncontent, along with economic hardships, caused riots and demonstrations to break out. The Czar called for the army to put down the revolution, as they did in 1905. But the army joined the revolt and the Czar was kicked out of power soon afterwards.
Bloody Sunday was a big impact of Nationalism, what started out as a peaceful march of Petersburg workers marching to the Winter Palace led by Father Gapon turned out to be a nightmare. The marchers wanted to establish an eight hour work day, establish minimum wage, and assemble a constitution, while the marchers marched they was fired upon by Russian troops and several hundred marchers was killed. People believed that Bloody Sunday happened under Nicholas II because he could not be found when the marchers were marching to the Winter Palace causing Russian troops to panic. The result of Bloody Sunday caused riots to break out; forming the councils of workers in St. Petersburg and Moscow and the bond between Nicholas II and the people was broken causing October Manifesto. A result of a short term solution October Manifesto was granted, which was a constitution to stop the riots. The primary intentions of the October Manifesto were to divide the revolutionaries.
In this instance Nicholas did not understand the magnitude of his people's, more specifically the soldiers suffering while at war with Austria and Germany. Often times the war minister, Vladimir Sukhomlinov, misinformed Nicholas regarding the conditions of soldiers leaving the Russian army without food, clothing and weapons. Through this miscommunication, it left not merely the soldiers without defense, but the country defenseless along with them. As a result, “By the following spring, the shortage had grown so severe that many soldiers charged into battle without guns. Instead, commanders told them to pick up their weapons from the men killed in front lines. At the same time, soldiers were limited to firing just ten shots a day. Sometimes they were even forbidden to return enemy fire” (134). This was just one piece of the puzzle that led to the crumble of the Russian autocracy. Especially considering the fact that everyone could see their efforts for winning the war were dissipating all except for one, “. . . everyone in the tsar’s government knew it… everyone, that is, except Nicholas himself” (135). As shown in this instance, basic misconceptions can begin a ripple effect that has the power to put a country in
The Russian Revolution took place during difficult time in Russia. These troubles began before World War I and lasted up until 1930's. Russia's population was made up of mostly poor, starving peasants. A small working and middle class began to rise to help industrialize Russia. But a corrupt government made it difficult for Russia to advance. This added to the turmoil. World War I placed a serious hurt on Russia. Although at first it raised national pride and enthusiasm, it quickly drained resources and poorly trained peasants quickly found themselves fighting with no weapons. This war sent over 2 million Russians to their death in 1915 alone. Turning points for the Russian revolution were the March Revolution, the November Revolution and Stalin coming to power.
The Causes of the Russian Revolution in March 1917 There were many causes to explain the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in March 1917. Some of these can be defined as long term. causes as their origin goes way back to pre-revolutionary times. Others are short-term reasons or even immediate effects, which act as. the last spark, to bring the tense situation out of control.
There were many events that lead up to the Bolshevik Revolution. First off, in 1848, Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels published a thought-provoking book. The Communist Manifesto expressed their support of a world in which there was no difference in class. A world in which the workers and commoners ran the show and there was no high and supreme ruler. Many intellectual Russians began to become aware of this pamphlet as well as the advanced state of the world compared to Russia. Other countries were going through an industrial revolution, while the Czars had made it clear that no industrial surge was about to happen in Russia. The popularity of the Czars further went down hill as Nicolas II’s poor military and political decisions caused mass losses in World War I. Eventually, the citizens could take no more and began a riot in St. Petersburg that led to the first Russian Revolution of 1917.
Bloody Sunday was the day that father Gapon walked to the winter palace with thousands of workers and a petition to outline the problems and hardships caused by the tsar and to demand change be made consisting of an improvement to working conditions, a reduction in working hours and an end to the Russo Japanese war. This is an extract from that petition, “We workers, inhabitants of St. Petersburg, have come to Thee. We are unfortunate, reviled slaves, weighed down by despotism and tyranny. Our patience exhausted, we ceased work and begged our masters to give us only that without which life is a torment. But this was refused; to the employers everything seemed unlawful. We are here, many thou sands of us. Like the whole of the Russian people, we have no human rights whatever. Owing to the deeds of Thy officials we have become slaves.” However this peaceful march ended horribly as when the group of marchers arrived at their destination they were confronted by Russian troops and the police and shots were fired into the crowd resulting in hundreds of dead Russians lying in the street. The events of bloody Sunday were a key factor in the causing of the 1905 Russian revolution as they made Russians angry at the way the tsar, his army and the police dealt with things causing many of
In 1917, two revolutions were involved in Russia, which terminated centuries of imperial ruling. The Russian revolution was made up of two revolutions, which the first one was in February, and the second one was in October.These revolutions started political, and social changes that lead to the creation of the Soviet Union. By March of 1917, Russia who became civil turned into turmoil, which caused constant food shortages.This turned into a revolt against Czar.By the year of 1917 lots of Russian citizens lost faith in their leader Czar Nicholas II. The citizens lost faith in Czar’s leadership due to the governments corruption, Russia’s economy, and Czar constantly affecting the success of the Duma ( the Russian legislative assembly established by Czar Nicholas II in 1905) .This impacted Russia in a disastrous way, which caused Czar Nicholas II to be overthrown.A few months later after Czar was overthrown, the new provisional government was overthrown by Bolsheviks. The first appearance of the Russian Revolution was in February 1917, due to the destructive involvement in World War I. The military and imperial side of Russia, could not compare to the industrialized Germany at the time. The costly war also made Russia’s economy decline in a major way. Word count: 207