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Russian Revolution
Background Information
In 1913 the Russian royal family, the Romanovs, celebrated 300 years of the family’s rule over Russia. Beneath the celebrations, however, all was not well. Russia was an Empire creaking at the seams. The Tsar, Nicholas II, was not a man suited to the times in which he lived. He had come close to losing his throne in 1905. The Tsar had suffered a disastrous defeat in a war against the new rising power of Japan in the East. Also in that year, discontented industrial workers had called a general strike and paralysed the major cities. As the army tried to suppress them, the middle classes and the peasants joined the revolution. So did some units of the armed forces. In the Black Sea, sailors on the Battleship Potemkin mutinied and sailed their ship to be impounded in Romania.
Only a combination of frantic concessions by the Tsar to peasants and the middle classes saved his skin. The years from 1905-13 were to be the acid test. Could the Tsar preserve his throne against the forces which threatened it? He faced a range of competing demands:
- Industrial workers wanted better pay and working conditions. They also wanted an education for their children.
- The peasants wanted education, but above all they wanted land. They eyed the vast estates of the nobility and the Church with envy. It is a striking feature of the Romanov regime that in a country as vast as Russia, the main problem facing the regime was a shortage of land!
- The middle classes wanted more say in government. They wanted to be able to rise through the ranks of the civil service and the army on ability. Promotion at this time was often connected to the rank and status of your family.
Part of the problem was the Tsar himself. He was not especially interested in consulting his people. He had an unshakeable faith in the fact that God had given him his throne and only God could take it away. He still treated Russia as though it were a family estate. He saw every minister individually, rather than discussing important issues in Cabinet. He was hopelessly overworked, and he was not a particularly efficient worker anyway. By 1913 the situation in Russia was mixed.
- There had been major economic growth, but by the standards of the time Russia was still backward, especially when compared to Germany and Britain.
- Many of the social reforms had not worked. The Tsar himself had blocked plans to give the middle classes more political say. He had also blocked plans for factory reforms and education.
- The Tsar was also uneasy about plans for land reform.
- There had been important improvements in the quality of the armed forces. However, they were still hampered by competition between senior officers and corruption.
The acid test was to come in 1914. Russia initially greeted the coming of war with enthusiasm. This enthusiasm was soon dimmed. The Russian army held its own against the Austrians. However, it was no match for the superbly led, equipped and trained German forces. The army suffered catastrophic losses. Matters were soon to get worse as the Tsar made a catalogue of political errors. The Tsar took personal command of the army in 1915. Now he was seen as personally responsible for the military failures, the fact that the soldiers had no boots, the lack of weapons and ammunition. He also left his wife in charge at home in the capital St Petersburg. She was deeply unpopular (being German) and was under the influence of a strange monk with a dark reputation called Rasputin. This, along with the inefficiency of the war effort, managed to turn the middle classes and even many of the aristocracy against the Tsar.
By 1917 the Tsar had no friends left. Peasants were unhappy at being drafted into the army. There was no food for the industrial workers in the towns. The soldiers were on the verge of mutiny. When riots and strikes turned to revolution in 1917 there was nobody left to support the Tsar.
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