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Roots of Russian Revolution
The Russian revolution was caused by the continual breakdown of the
governments in Russia and the incompetency and authoritarian views of it's
czars. Their failures as leaders included policies that neither pleased
nor benefitted the people. By the end of the nineteenth century, Russia's
economy, government, military, and social organization was at an extreme
decline. Russia had become the least advanced of the major European
nations in terms of political and social development. There was no
parliament, and no middle class. The Church, officers, and other important
people and institutions were firmly against social progress. The
disastrous defeat of Russia in the Crimean War in 1855 and 1856 exposed
weaknesses of Russia's various organizations.
For the first few decades of the 1800's, Russia's outlook was brighter
under Alexander I, who was relatively liberal. He became more reactionary
however, and following his death, a group of young army officers tried to
overturn the Czardom. This was called the Decembrist Revolt. The next
czar, Nicholas, was a die hard authoritarian. The Administrative system
continued to decay regardless of his iron fisted rule. The gap between the
rich and the poorer continued to widen. Over five hundred peasant revolts
took place during his reign.
Alexander II, who took the throne in 1855 tried to avert revolt by
attempting reform. In 1861 he freed the serfs and gave them expectations
of free land allotments. But to their surprise, and anger, they were only
given the opportunity to share it as members of a village commune(mir). In
addition, the mir had to pay back the government for the land over a period
of 49 years with interest. Alexander also formed a series of elected local
councils that gave districts restricted jurisdiction of certain aspects of
life. He too became more of a reactionary towards the end of his reign.
The result was his assassination by a group of conspirators called the
People's Will movement. The next Czar, Alexander III, was yet another
reactionary. He was active in silencing criticism of the government,
exiling agitators, and stamping out revolutionary groups.
Industrialization began to appear and with it an increase of
dissatisfied workers. They were underpaid and forced to work in
unfavourable conditions. The peasants farmers were doing fine on their
farms but a famine in 1891 caused extensive suffering. Revolts again
became fairly frequent. Intellectual groups organized and continued the
fight against serfdom and autocracy.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian people were in the mood
for revolution. The loss of the Russo Japanese war to Japan, and the
resulting hardships, made concrete the opposition to the autocracy. In
December of 1904, unrest surfaced in Baku. Strikes occurred in factories
in the capital. Priest Father Gapon lead a peaceful march to petition the
czar for a redress of grievances but it ended violently with the Czar's
troops firing on the crowd. In October of 1905 a general strike was
declared that crippled the country.
On October 30th, Nicholas dispatched the historical October Manifesto
which provided for a constitution under which civil liberties were granted
and an elected state institution called the duma was formed. This broke
the czar's absolute power. However, the czar chose reactionary ministers
to lead the duma and the secret police force was improved and strengthened.
The first two were filled with radicals but quickly dissolved. The members
of the third were conservative in outlook. Social conditions improved too
slowly to reverse public opposition to the absolute monarchy. Poor
political and military leadership in the First World War led to widespread
desertion of Russian soldiers. Their army suffered great casualties and a
battered economy.
It was the accumulation of discontent for governments, czar's, and
living conditions along with Russian defeats in various wars, including WWI,
of the working class citizens in Russia that eventually boiled over and
resulted in revolution. The public dissatisfaction continued to fill for
over a decade like a powderkeg and eventually was set off and caused an
explosion of great impact to the future of Russia. They displayed their
anger in various ways, but the authoritarian Czar's which attained power
did not react to the incoming tide. In fact, they resisted change at every
avenue possible and proved to outrage certain people to such a point that
Czar's were assassinated. By 1917, the Russian people had had enough, and
a public disturbance in Petrograd soon spread throughout the city and had
become a widespread revolt. The resulting revolution proved to restructure
the politics in Russia for years to come.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Campling, Elizabeth. Living Through History: The Russian
Revolution. London: Batsford Academic and Educational, 1985.
Hayden, David. "Russian Revolution." Merit Students Encyclopedia. New York:
Macmillan Educational Co, 1982. 16:241©3
Robottom, John. Russia in Change. New York: Longman Group Ltd., 1984
Trueman, John, et al. Modern Perspectives. Canada: McGraw©Hill Ryerson
Ltd., 1979.
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