"There was widespread support for the Tsar before 1914"

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Amy Wong Form: 10.1

“There was widespread support for the Tsar before 1914”

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that there wasn’t a widespread support for the Tsar before 1914.  I think the statement is false because nearly all of the sources and information that I have encountered are unsupportive towards the Tsar.  The reasons for this include the fact that Tsar Nicholas was out of touch, he didn’t listen to his people, he relied on the army a great deal and he left living and working conditions poor for the unwealthy population of the country.

From source B, we can see that the Tsar was out of touch and unsympathetic towards the public demands.  We can see this because whenever a problem would arise from the people of Russia, Tsar Nicholas would ignore them and he simply would not care.  Source B shows the number of factory strikes and strikers in Russia 1905-14 and it shows a huge number of strikers throughout the years in which Tsar Nicholas ruled.  In 1912, there was an outbreak of strikers who demanded trade union rights.  The Cossack, ordered by the Tsar, shot 270 miners during this strike.  This shows that the Tsar doesn’t listen to others and he always resorts to violence to deal with problems.  The source also shows us that the country must have been unhappy with how things were at that time.  Strikes start when the people are not happy with how things are, so by striking, they are not showing support for the Tsar.

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In addition to this, another reason why there was not a widespread support for the Tsar is because he kept living and working conditions poor.  We can tell this in source A because it says that in 1912, two hundred and seventy miners were shot dead during a strike.  That was the year when there were over two thousand separate strikes held in Russia.  As said before, people only strike when they are discontented; at the time, the country was 80% full of peasants so they were bound to ask for more pay and better conditions sooner or later.   ...

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