Source C shows a photograph taken in 1914 showing a Russian field hospital with the many soldiers lying wounded on the beds, which were made of straw. However, there was such overcrowding that many more patients had to lie on the floor. You can see the nurses tending to them. Another key point of this picture would be the priest praying for the living but also helping the dying into the world beyond.
Study Sources D, E and F
Do Sources E and F support Rodzianko’s statement that the influence of Rasputin affected ‘the entire policy of the government’?
These sources are written about the influence of Rasputin over the Tsar and Tsarina but whether they actually agree with the first source is what I need to decide. Only source E agrees with Rodzianko’s statement but F does also but only to the extent in which it mentions Rasputin going to the Duma with ‘petitions’. Rasputin became famous due to his raunchy nature with women. He was also known for his ability to talk to God and help those who were sick and he first came in contact with the Tsar and his family when they needed help with their ill son Alexis. After a time he was said to be having an affair with the Tsarina and controlled her to get control of the Tsar and this became the biggest problem when she was left in charge during the war meaning that he had full control. But this was never proven and this is the main argument of the three sources.
Source E was a letter written by the Tsarina to the Tsar which indefinitely shows the influence of Rasputin on her and overall the government (Duma). She refers to Rasputin as ‘our Friend’ and also mentions how the information she is giving is ‘based on what he dreamed in the night’. This shows the power he had and that even the most inferior things, which would be dismissed if anyone else had said it, has enlightened the Tsarina to write a letter to her husband the Tsar. She doesn’t trust that the Tsar will do as she has said, so to persuade him to do so, she has used a form of emotional blackmail. In this she mentions ‘endless bloodshed’, which he does not want and says that he should do it ‘for your baby’s sake’ which has the most meaning to him because she means their son Alexis (the haemophilic) who will is the heir to his thrown.
Source F suggests the opposite view. Written by Vladimir Roudenev, who investigated the Tsar regime, it says how ‘Rasputin was a man of large heart’ and how ‘He kept an open house’ and mingled with a ‘curiously mixed company’. Strangle though nothing in this source implies any bad part played by Rasputin but only that he made ‘petitions’ that went to the Duma referring ‘merely to applications for positions, favours, railway concessions and the like.’ These show he had little power because if he did have as much power as shown in sources D and F, he could have just gone to the Tsarina with these ‘petitions’ and got her to make the Duma carry them out.
To conclude, Source E does agree with source D, without letting up and with the writer in mind it does make it a better source than the others because it is straight form the Tsarina’s mouth, who was the one person that could really shed light on what Rasputin was really like. But source F doesn’t show what he was like but that he had no more power than the rest of the Russian population. But curiously, source F doesn’t mention how many of these ‘petitions’ actually got the go ahead, creating a feel of uncertainty in the source.
Study Sources G, H and I
How useful are these sources for explaining how Rasputin’s influence made the Tsar and Tsarina unpopular?
The unpopularity of the Tsar and Tsarina was due to many things but it was known that Rasputin was a cause of this unrest. His influence over the Tsarina and the Tsar made them unpopular and an easy target for abuse. All this is shown in the following sources.
Source G is a cartoon that was published in Russia in 1916. It depicts Rasputin, the Tsar and the Tsarina. There are several main focal points of this picture and one is that that Rasputin is much larger than the Tsar and his wife, even though they are royalty. Also, Rasputin’s left hand is placed around the Tsarina representing their ‘relationship’, which is also interesting because the Tsar is sitting right next to her and him but has his eyes closed and is like he is blind to their affair. The Tsar also seems quite smug with himself and is rubbing up against Rasputin like he is a father figure to him or a kind of confidant that he trusts so much and suggests that the influence over the Tsar and Tsarina was huge.
Source H was written by an agent of the ‘Okhrana’ in early 1916 and describes the disrespect towards the Tsar and Tsarina and the disapproval of the Tsarina’s German background. It says about how ‘the filthy gossip about the Tsar’s family has now become property of the street’, meaning that word of the Tsarina and Rasputin and other such things are now idle gossip for the peasants to do with it as they like. It also mentions ‘the extreme feelings of disrespect’ for the Tsarina, ‘against her as a ‘German’’, though this was never a problem before the war, because the German’s were the enemy she was seen as a spy and traitor.
Source I, is a photograph of Rasputin surrounded by ‘ladies of the aristocracy’, that was published in newspapers in Europe and the USA, suggesting that this was Rasputin’s aristocratic harem. This goes on from source H, saying about that this was the peasant’s gossip, to the world’s news making it everyone’s business. Even though there are many women in the photo there are four other men in it as well. This may be just a picture of the Tsarina’s friends, but on the other hand that would not explain why Rasputin was in the picture because the Tsarina would not want the kind of publicity that showed Rasputin as her friend. The also the picture shows a woman on the floor next to Rasputin indefinitely showing that this is not a picture of friends because the woman would be either standing or sitting on a chair if she was of the aristocratic class, like the others.
To conclude, I believe that source G is useful in showing how Rasputin’s influence made the Tsar and Tsarina unpopular and source I also but only to the extent in which he is with higher class people than himself but I does not show or mention anything to do with the Tsar or Tsarina. Source H is useful in showing the unpopularity of the Tsar and his family but doesn’t blame Rasputin so it isn’t useful to the question posed.
In 1996 a historian wrote, ‘Rasputin’s death changed little. He was not the main cause of the unrest in Russia in 1917.’
Use the sources, and your own knowledge, to explain whether you agree with this view of events in Russia.
I do agree with the statement written by the historian because many other more important issues were being brought up at this time. Rasputin was just one of the many things that made the Russia an unruly place to live at this time. He was known for his ability to talk to God and help those who were sick. He first came in contact with the Tsar and his family when they needed help with their ill son Alexis. Alexis had a blood disease called Haemophilia and Rasputin said he could help when the doctors’ said they couldn’t.
It was soon said that he was having an affair with the Tsarina and sources like E show this in the way that he had power over the Tsarina, like where she mentions that he is their ‘Friend’ and she mentions a ‘dream’ he had.
But then there are the other sources like F which say that he ‘was a man of large heart’ and that he only carried out petitions that could have been outrageous but these were simple and ‘referred merely to’ things such as ‘railway concessions’.
This was just a small part of the despair in the Russian society at the time. The war and the effects of it were greater than the thought of Rasputin controlling the country. In fact, most people might have wanted him to control the country, more than the Tsarina, due to her German background. The country was left in her hands when the Tsar left to fight at the front.
The war itself was a main cause of unrest in Russia because the losses in battle and the amount of battles they lost. There were 30 million conscripts for the Russian army during the war and of them 9 million were injured or killed but that was not the worst of it because for every three men there was one bayonet and only none of those men were properly dressed for the cold whether. The wounded soldiers were not treated strait away but waited for at least six days before they got medical attention and even then the best they could do was bandage them up with filthy cloths. Source C shows one of the Russian field hospital and how overcrowded and disgusting it was with the few nurses at their attention and all the men visible are basically laying on the floor with only some straw dividing them form it.
Another problem at this time was the political instability the Tsar made. The Tsar himself was a firm believer in the current system of autocracy, which made him the sole power of Russia but because of the 1905 revolution he made a political parliament called the Duma, similar to Britain’s parliament. This gave away little of his power due to his control over the Duma but even so he disbanded the Duma often and during the war there no exception. This made the people angry and led to the 1917 revolutions.
Another problem was the poor living conditions and the shortage of supplies to the main cities. Russia had always been a backward country with poorest living conditions the lowest of wages and the most horrid diseases. The shortage of supplies however was not because of the backwardness of the country but because of the war effort. Most of the trains that usually brought the food and raw materials to the cities, now took soldiers to the front line so that the cities were restricted from buying as much food as they could. So instead they were rationed and this made the people even angrier and made them attack the food storage areas even though they were heavily guarded.
In conclusion the death of Rasputin did change little and the war movement was the main cause of unrest in Russia in1917. Rasputin admittedly only had some influence but it was minimal and other major factors were more important e.g. the war. The Tsar did more things that led to his own demise than Rasputin could have ever done therefore actually proving the Tsar was the main cause of unrest in Russia.
