There were many long-term effects that can be viewed as causes of the Revolution. The main one was Government Policy. The Tsarist regime was seen as weak and indecisive and it was a very repressive government. Basically, anything that the Tsar said was done with no questions asked. He did not have to listen to anyone as he could decide everything himself and just order that it would be done. However, for years the people of Russia looked up to him. The Tsar believed he had been appointed by God to lead and guide his people. He believed that he was only answerable to God and no-one else. He had an Imperial Council to advise him and a cabinet of ministers to run the various governmental departments; however, they were not responsible to a parliament or a prime minister, only to the Tsar himself. Therefore he could control them and have them do exactly what he wanted. He denied the people their basic freedoms such as free press and freedom to form political parties. In fact, political parties were illegal up until 1905. Any and all protests against the Tsar were repressed, usually by force.
The workers had many grievances, including, that they had to work long hours while they were on low pay and the fact that they had terrible living and working conditions. There were many deaths due to accidents and health problems that had come about because of the type of work they were doing. They all lived in shared rooms in tenement blocks or in barrack-styled buildings next to the factory or mine in which they worked. The men, women and children all lived together in one room divided only by curtains. No one had any privacy. The working class were becoming more and more educated because of the policy of modernisation and they were starting to voice their opinions on matters of what the government was doing. This was going to become dangerous to the stability of the government.
The middle classes, or liberals, believed that they should have a say in what the government did and how the country was ran. They wanted to have a parliamentary style government that would then reduce the Tsar’s powers. They wanted to turn him into a more Constitutional Monarchy. Included were the students, who were always seen as troublemakers. They continually protested against the repressive government controls. Also national minorities want more independence and they wanted an end to the policy of russification. They wanted to be able to speak and teach in their native tongues.
Socialist Revolutionaries wanted the peasant revolutions to encourage the creation of socialism based around the peasant communities. Therefore the peasants would have a say in what was going on in their country and how they wanted things ran. The Social Democrats want the urban working classes to stage a revolution so that a socialist state could be created. They believed that they could then create a communist state from this.
Sergei Witte was the Finance Minister from 1892-1903. During his time in office he introduced many industrialisation policies. Under one of the policies, Witte had squeezed the urban workers and the peasants very hard. They were hit by high indirect taxes and low wages. To get the Capital Equipment that he required to expand the industry in Russia, he had gotten as much money as possible from the peasants. He had also had to borrow money from Foreign Investors and therefore he had to make repayments to these investors at regular intervals.
The taxes they paid on both state and everyday items were increased and they had all their surplus grain sold abroad to pay off the interest payments on the loans from the Foreign Investors. Poor harvests in both 1900 and 1902 were the “icing on the cake” so to speak, and this sent the peasants right to the edge, by 1905 they were ready for revolution. An economic slump after 1902 had lead to high unemployment and a lot of social tensions within the towns. This was all starting to add up. It was obvious that a Revolution was going to happen very soon.
Finally there was the ignition spark. On Sunday 22 January 1905, the Tsar’s troops fired on peaceful protestors outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The government troops opened fire on a procession of peaceful, unarmed demonstrators carrying a petition to be presented to the Tsar. Several hundred people were killed and the incident, which came to be known as Bloody Sunday, marked a turning point. For most of 1905 the Tsar was at war with his own people and strikes, peasant uprisings, petitions, riots and demonstrations happened very regularly throughout the year.
The consequences of the Russo-Japanese war were basically the catalysts that made the revolution happen earlier that it might have if Russia had not gone to war. Many other factors were part of the reason for the revolution, and the Bloody Sunday incident was really the spark that set the whole thing off. Therefore, the consequences of the Russo-Japanese war were very much one of the biggest reasons for the 1905 Revolution. If the Russians had not declared war, then they may never have had to deal with the Revolution. Things may have gotten better by themselves.
