Political causes were also played a role in the revolution in Russia. After people protested for a parliament the result of what they got was disappointing. The Duma was a group of people who proposed ideas on how to better the country of Russia. However they had a lack of real power. They couldn’t pass an actual law without the agreement of the Tsar. The Tsar could dissolve anything that he wanted so anything he didn’t like didn’t get passed. So the country just stayed as it was basically.
The war. This put real pressure on the Tsar. Firstly the people of Russia were greatly affected. The men of the country were drafted in to the army to fight a losing battle. This resulted in mass death, meaning Russia could be invaded because of such a weak army. Secondly the prices in the country rose due to the lack of supplies coming in on the railways. Either the railways were blocked or the men who operate them had been drafted in to war so no one knew how to work them. This resulted in the people of Russia staving and having to queue for hours waiting for food even though in some cases the shop didn’t have any food to sell. Thirdly like mentioned earlier the factories closed which resulted in no jobs, no money to feed the families and no produce to sell in Russia or the international market.
In this period of time the Tsar made many mistakes. To start of with the Tsar sent in his army to fight Germany under equipped and with a basic lack of training. The Tsar told his troop that they didn’t need guns because they would find them on the ground from other dead soldiers. This was a terrible mistake because although the army was brave it could fight the German artillery. The men were walking into German machine gun fire just to try and find a gun to fight back but it was no use. His second mistake was going to the front line after he heard about the dreadful beating his country was suffering. While he was away he left the Tsarina in charge of the country, who was aided by her trusted friend Rasputin but Rasputin was dislike by most of Russia so this could not have been good news for the Tsar. She was a terrible leader and she couldn’t handle the enormity of Russia and was making bad decisions and while all of this was going on the Russian people still blamed the Tsar.
The start of the revolution in March 1917 was really the point beyond return for the Tsar. The conditions in Russia in March 1917 were so awful that people had had enough of the Tsar. They wanted basic human rights which the Tsar didn’t give them; they wanted better conditions not only for work but when they were at home as well, so nice house to be built for them or something. The Tsar did not give them any of these so they didn’t really have much option but to strike and start the revolution. Tens of thousands of peasant and workers marched up the streets of Saint Petersburg and tried to storm the winter palace. The Tsar could see this happening and ordered his troops to shoot the protesters down and stop them from approaching his palace. However this time the troops did not listen to the Tsar. They also had enough of the Tsar ordering them around and doing nothing to help the country. They were also bitter about the war and how they were sent in with no guns and that they had lost so many men. They turned their guns on the Tsar and forced him to leave the city. It was alter when on the train out of Saint Petersburg that the Tsar abdicated.
Overall there were many different causes of the revolution. I don’t think that the war was the main cause of the war. This is because at the start of the war Russia was quite happy about going to war and thought they would win and then they could get land in other countries and sort out there lack of land problem. I also don’t think this was the main cause because he was unpopular before the war because of key decisions he had made like the Duma and not giving power to the people. Also the fact that Rasputin had been able to get so close with the Tsarina. People thought that he was hypnotising her to tell the Tsar what to do. However I do think that the war did contribute to the revolution as the defeat, the deaths, the hunger, the poverty and the Tsar not conceding the war but carrying on to receive further death, hunger and poverty. I think the March 1917 Revolution was caused by a mixture of defeat in the war and the Tsars lack of capability to run his own country.