Tsar Nicholas II

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Guy Saunders

History coursework

Was size the most important reason in making the Russian Empire of Tsar Nicholas II so difficult to rule in the years before the outbreak of the First World War?

Russia was, and still is a very large country and this would affect the way that the country was governed, it would affect the communication of the ruler of the country, Tsar Nicholas II, and also the law and order, but there are also many other factors that would affect how well this large empire would be governed such as the competency of the leader and the attitude of the people that live in the country. So it is not just size that affects how difficult Russia was to govern but there were many other factors that affected the rule of this country.

One way in which Russia was made difficult to govern was just the shear size of the country. In 1900 the Russian Empire stretched over 600km which is about 60 times the size of Great Britain, and it took 13 days to travel from one side of the country to the other on the Trans – Siberian railway. This meant that communication between Russia’s people was very poor and that it was hard to enforce law and order. This made it hard to govern as Tsar Nicholas II just simply could not help all of his people at once since there was such a large gap between the people, and so communities became impatient and began to revolt, this is why the law and order was so bad as it could not be resolved quickly as the Tsar had too far to travel. Also since the country was so large there were many different languages spread around Russia, in fact only about half of the people that lived in Russia actually spoke Russian. This meant that communication in this country was very poor and this shows how the size of Russia affected the way in which the country was governed. This was a long term cause of why the Tsar was bad and so it would have also affected any previous tsars as well.

One other reason that made Russia so difficult to govern was the hierarchy of the country. It had the Tsar at the top and then very noble and rich people towards the top but as a very small quantity, whereas at the bottom of the hierarchy triangle were the peasants who were 84% of the population. This made Russia very difficult to govern since the different groups wanted different things from their leader. The peasants simply wanted more land and money, the urban workers wanted better working conditions and hours of work to make their lives more bearable and Nobility simply wanted more of everything. This was very unfair on the peasants but since the tsar could not help everybody since they all wanted different things the leadership failed and it wasn’t the size that affected this matter. Since there were many different qualities of life of the people in Russia, not everybody had the same problems, and so the Tsar did not know which problem to solve first. Also if he did solve a problem for the peasants, then the nobility would not be pleased with this and so would dislike the Tsar and so this made it very difficult for Nicholas to resolve any problems. This was also a long term cause of why the Tsar was bad and so it would have also affected any previous tsars as well.

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Another reason in which made Russia hard to govern is because it was and autocracy. This meant that only one ruled and this was the tsar. This meant, that even though decisions would have been made quickly because it would not have needed to been discussed with others, problems would not have been solved very easily at all. Also there would have been fewer ideas given on how to improve the attitude of the people living in Russia and to help the country to evolve. Also the laws created will have suited the Tsar as he runs the and ...

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