Peasants, being over 80% of Russia’s population, played an important role in the abdication of the Tsar. This is due to the major support (or opposition) the Tsar would get from the peasants. These peasants were forced through bad living conditions – pigs and cows were brought into their homes, their homes would leak and floors were made of earth. Also, soap and water in the cottage was rare and so they were made to live in unhygienic conditions. Peasants were ‘owned’ by their landowners and gained very little respect. They were forced to work by traditional agriculture and couldn’t modernise in any way. Peasants soon became angered by these conditions but respected the Tsar nevertheless, as most were religious and believed the teachings of the Church – which was controlled by the Tsar. However, the Tsar always feared a revolt of the peasants due to their large population.
Marxism was the belief established by Karl Marx. It implied that religion was the root of the problem because it persuaded workers and peasants to accept poverty and they will get rewarded by Heaven in the end. This could have been an eye opener for some peasants and workers as Marx believed that a society in which proletariats rule should be developed. The ideology of an equal state would have appealed to the peasants and workers who had enough of the aristocracy within Russia and wanted to be treated equally. Marxism conflicted with the ideas of religion whereas the Tsar was supposedly the ‘man of God’. Due to the spread of Marxism, revolutions began to take place that adopted those beliefs – so the abdication of the Tsar was eventually inevitable. Besides that, workers and peasants were getting fed up of being treated badly by the aristocrats.
The Tsar himself could have possibly been the reason for his own abdication. He left Russia to lead the army on the frontline with hope to improve the techniques of the war front. However, this was not the best decision to take as any defeats would have been blamed on the Tsar. Not only that, but he left the Tsarina in charge, who was extremely uncooperative with the Duma and had a bad reputation in accordance to Rasputin. The Tsar developed a very fragile relationship between his nation and himself by going to the frontline. The country had very little trust in him and there was low morale within the army as well as lack of resources and supplies due to the deteriorating industrial situation of Russia. Food shortages within Russia would have also angered the people of Russia as it would seem that the Tsar was more interested in fighting a war than improving the poor state of Russia. All these negative points against the Tsar could possibly indicate the inevitable abdication of the Tsar.
Many incidents during March, 1917 ensured the abdication of the Tsar and the revolution came together when the nation of Russia had enough of him. The lack of food and fuel due to transport being assigned strictly for war supplies had angered the population as well as the workers who were rather annoyed at the Tsar because of the low wages. Food shortages caused many deaths from starvation. The war situation was also getting worse and more and more soldiers were deserting the army because of the hardships of war. Also, in March 1917, there was a population increase in the city of Moscow which caused overcrowding and people expected a lot when they moved to Moscow only to suffer more in the city. These events led to demonstrations, such as the one in Petrograd when 20,000 revolutionary workers were angered and stood up to revolt. The army joined the demonstrators which ensured a successful revolution and the Tsar was overthrown.
The March 1917 Revolution was the trigger cause of the abdication because by this point, the population of Russia had enough and turned to the Bolsheviks for support. I think the long term causes of the abdication were the situation before the war, the economic, political and social causes. Industry and agriculture was terrible, conditions of the working class were appalling and the Tsar had promised free speech through the Duma whereas the Duma proved to be useless. The Tsar himself was said not to be ready to become a ruler, which was possibly true as he did not do a very good job of it. He had hired the Okhrana (secret police) to ensure everything worked out to his advantage. From the information, I have formed the opinion that the Tsar did not really do much to gain the support of his people, nor did he improve the situation of Russia, which made him extremely unpopular. This reason went hand in hand with the various weak decisions of the Tsar to lead only to his abdication.