A rather big incident that led to the March Revolution of 1917 was Russia joining the war. When they first joined the First World War everyone was enthusiastic and excited. Many people joined the army and everyone, including the peasants, workers and aristocrats, joined in with the patriotic enthusiasm. This meant that most strikes and demonstrations were forgotten for a while. As the war carried on people began to stop supporting the Tsar and were fed up with war. The war had terrible impacts on the people at home (in Russia) as well because of the war the general public in Russia had shortages of food, fuel and other necessities. In result of the war, many people in the villages and cities became unhappy. The main problem was, however, that there was enough food and fuel but getting it to the cities became a huge problem. Therefore the people became discontented and began to curse the Tsar.
The army had little stuff like rifles ammunitions and even boots. They were appallingly led and treated by the aristocrat officers. The Tsar then decided that he would lead the army, but he was a poor leader. However this did mean that the people could blame the Tsar for any battles they lost, the defeats and blunders. After this many of the soldiers supported the Bolshevik’s party. They had by this time completely lost faith in the Tsar.
The Tsar made another mistake because the people of Russia did not like the fact that one man made all the decisions. In fact he made several mistakes during the First World War one of his main mistakes was that he made himself commander and also that he fled Petrograd. Also they did resented Nicholas II because he didn’t like the idea of reforms. The people did not have the opportunity to have a say in how the country was governed Russia as a whole did not like this.
The Tsar ’s son was ill with haemophilia but a man called Rasputin was like a miracle worker and could keep the disease under control. As this was the case the Tsarina greeted him with great gratitude. Rasputin was a just a peasant but before long he was giving the Tsar and Tsarina advice on how to run Russia. As people began to realise what was going on they became suspicious. Many of the Tsar ’s opponents soon saw the Tsar as weak and not able to rule the country by on his own. However the Tsar didn’t notice this or he took no notice of it and carried on in this way. Rasputin was a bad influence on the Tsarina when the Tsar left Petrograd and left the Tsarina under the influence of Rasputin. Rasputin influences the Tsarina and ‘advised’ her to make some decisions which where not in the best interest of the country.
The final short-term cause of the March revolution 1917 was the conditions in Russia at the time of the revolution in Petrograd to being with the Pulitov steelworkers went on strike than the women of Petrograd started bread riots. More workers joined the strike until nearly 250,000 workers were involved. The Duma was then forced to set up a Provisional Committee to govern Russia. When the Tsar heard of this he ordered them to disband but they refused. Since the Tsar ordered his troops to put down the revolt, again the troops refuse and many join the workers. Following this the Petrograd Soviets are formed and they control food supplies into the city. This means that everyone had lost faith in the Tsar his own army were turning against him, this caused the Tsar to abdicate he offered the job to his brother but he turned down the job, this was to be the end of Tsars in Russia,
My final judgment is that the war was the main cause of the March, Russian Revolution of 1917, many believe this because Russia just couldn’t cope with the war and the effects of it on the people and the country. Many also believe that this is the reason why the Tsar abdicated, he made too many wrong decisions about the war and this caused key groups i.e. workers, peasants and soldiers to turn against the Tsar.
