As Russia entered the year of 1905, with Nicholas II still in power, a revolution erupted. The Revolution of 1905 was ignited by acts of repressive government violence that had occurred in response to the insurgency experienced during the Russo-Japanese war. Russia was overrun with fighting, which resulted in a ‘shut down’ of the Russian empire. The Revolution of 1905 brought the Russia empire into a period of pseudo constitutional monarchy, as seen with the issuance of the October Manifesto. The October Manifesto was seen as a forced document in order to provide some peace in the face of calamity. This was the only real effort made to reach an agreement with the opposition, as autocracy continued to persist. The government, in order to regain control, undermined the Duma, sent harsh and bloody expeditions against the peasants, and encouraged attacks between the right and left-wings. The Duma’s power was heavily restricted by the declaration of The Fundamental Laws the night before their first meeting. The laws devised a framework for the new Russian political system, in which the emperor retained great control and the Duma faced many restrictions. As a result, the first two Dumas did not get along well with the government. There was much discord, and each Duma only lasted a few months; therefore, not reaching full term. The last Duma was dissolved by Petr Stolypin, the new Prime Minister, on June 16, 1907 before it was about to take his land reform policy into consideration. A new Duma was soon appointed after Nicholas II and Stolypin unconstitutionally altered the electoral law, to provide a cooperative Duma.
Petr Stolypin had been appointed by Nicholas II as Prime Minister in 1906, with the approach of pacification and combini...
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...ussia faced a variety of political changes as the government was launched into a period of stress from outside democracy and the current and continued control by Putin. As it reached present time, Russia has remained as a federation in its basic terms of polity.
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Tucker, Robert C. "The Mortal Danger". Course Reader for World Culture: Russia Since 1917. New York University, Spring 2001.
Tensions in Russia in the Early 1900 In the early 1900, Russia faced various kinds of problems in terms of society and politics. Although the largest country in the world, Russia could only offer 5% of its land for farming. The rest was useless due to the extremely low temperatures throughout the year. The problem with land meant that peasants did not produce a sufficient amount of food, consequently resulting famine all over the country.
Moss, W., 2014. A History of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855. 1st ed. London, England: Anthem Press London, pp.112-113.
However, the political system also changed because there was an addition to the local villages. This was the zemstva and to a more national degree, the duma. However, the tsar still had supreme power over these structures. Despite Alexander II’s reforms, Russia still faced a number of problems. Alexander II’s
New York, Oxford University Press. Moorehead, Alan, Ed 1958. The Russian Revolution. New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers Inc. Pipes, Richard, Ed 1995.
It was said that the educated people, the contact with other countries should contribute to the government policy. As said in document 1 , "By 1900 there were political parties raging from far right defenders of autocracy and russian power over all other ethnicities, to far left revolutionaries calling for the overthrow of the government." The government there was autocratic, which was when the tsar had all the power/control of the government. Another cause for the Russian Revolution was the outbreak of WW1. "Even before the war urban workers all over the Russian empire had been increasingly radical, but the war brought the government's incompentence and the people's grievances into sharper relief. The first months of the war were a disaster for Russia." It is much easier to overthrow a government than to try andcreate a new government. As said in document 2,"Chaos, conflict, uncertaunty; more violence are much more common and often led to centralized, authoritarian governments." There was celebration all over the streets after the indication that the tsar was overthrown after 300 years of a tsarist government ruling. "The problem was that, after the party, governing problems arose immediately.
Russia in the 1930s By 1928, Stalin had ousted Trotsky and the rest of the Left opposition. In four years, Stalin had single handedly taken major steps away from Lenin’s collective leadership and free inter-party debate and replaced them with his autocratic dictatorship. Stalin began to secure predominant power over the communist party and the state by destroying passive opposition from the peasantry and former Lenin supporters. He won growing support from the working class, who were impressed with the initial five-year plan. It promised increased industrialization, which would lead to socialism in one country within their lifetime.
While most of Europe had develop strong central governments and weakened the power of the nobles, Russia had lagged behind the times and still had serfs as late as 1861. The economic development that followed the emancipation of peasants in the rest of Europe created strong industrial and tax bases in those nations. Russian monarchs had attempted some level of reforms to address this inequality for almost a century before, and were indeed on their way to “economic maturity” (32) on par with the rest of Europe. But they overextended themselves and the crushing defeats of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the First World War in 1917 lost them the necessary support from their subjects and created “high prices and scarcity” which were by far “the most obvious factors in the general tension”
The Duma As a Puppet Organisation One of the main reasons for the 1905 revolution was the people’s desire for a democratic assembly where they could voice their opinion through their elected member of parliament. When the Tsar was close to getting over thrown he eventually decided it was better for there to be some form of democracy which would please the liberals and so reduce the opposition. In the October Manifesto the Tsar under Witte’s advice accepted the creation of a legislative law making body called the Duma. There were four Duma altogether which we will have to closely scrutinise to see if the Duma was a puppet organisation.
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The Russian’s were wrong in having hope for a reformed government. Following the careless Czar came Lenin and Stalin, both continuing the reign of terror that the Czar had left behind. Instead of a Czarist gover...
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia. 7th ed. Oxford: Oxford, 2005. Print.
Before 1917 in Russia there was one supreme ruler with full autocratic power, there were no elected policies by law and the tsar was seen to have been put into his position by god. Between 1894-1917 the tsar came under pressure generally not suffered by any of his predecessors. The opposition came from four main sides;
8Sites Richard, ‘The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, 1900-1945’, in Michael Howard and William Roger Louis, The Oxford history of the twentieth century, New York, 1998, p. 117-27.