Visionary leadership of revolutionaries was responsible for the collapse of the old order

Visionary leadership of revolutionaries was not responsible for the collapse of the older order. The old

order, being the autocratic monarchy which Tsar Nicholas II was head of, collapsed because of a series

of events which upset the population and forced them to revolt in a popular uprising called the February

Revolution. Contributing factors to the fall of the Tsar were an outdated government, weak agrarian

economy, World War I, and a context for revolution spanning over several decades.

Before the February revolution of 1917, Russia’s government took the form of an autocratic monarchy.

The Tsar, Nicholas II, had sole control over the empire which posed many problems. Over 125 million

people lived in the Russian empire with an assortment of languages, ethnicities and religions. A census

taken in 1897 placed Russians at only 44.4% of the empire, while the rest felt divided into over 100

separate nationalities instead of feeling united. This and the vast area of the empire left it difficult to

rule especially by one person alone. Poor and slow communications also hindered the ability to rule

effectively, as winter worsened the roads and froze bodies of water. Even a competent ruler would have

difficulty with the empire, but opinions of those close to Nicholas state he was anything but competent.

Count Witte, former minister of finance until he was sacked in 1903, wrote in his memoirs that Nicholas

was untrustworthy and had a lack of willpower, making him ineligible for the role of the Tsar. He

also wrote about Nicholas’ company being “Jew-haters,” such as Plehve and Trepov, which influenced

Nicholas’ personal attitude about the Jewish people and the anti-Jewish riots. It is apparent that placing a

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...then the Minister

of the interior in 1902. Minister Viacheslev Plehve did nothing to stop anti-Jewish attacks by mobs, and

his other unpopular policies caused him to be assassinated in 1904 by a Socialist Revolutionary. He had

angered liberals and revolutionaries so much that they formed a Union of Liberation. These oppositions

of government officials contributed to the future opportunity of revolution. That is, the revolution was a

result of a chain of contingent events. The event of Bloody Sunday in 1905 triggered a revolution in which

the Tsar was forced to promise changes in the government of the Russian empire. Citizens came together

to create a workers council, the St Petersburg Soviet. The crew of the battleship Potemkin mutinied and

joined workers who were on strike. This series of events nearly forced Nicholas to be overthrown from

power.