The outbreak of the war provided somewhat of an advantage for the Tsar. He was able to gain much popularity among the people and was a leading figure towards the fight against the invading German troops. The army was comprised of professional soldiers at the beginning of the war in 1914, but after the battle of Tannenberg which proved to be a devastating defeat for the Russian army due to the advanced German war machine and technologically backwards equipment of the Russians, produced 70,000 deaths and 100,000 taken prisoner on the Russian side. The backwards economy limited the Russian equipment and the amount of the primitive guns they had, therefore further quickening their destruction, taking away the Tsars enforcing power on the people. Gradually replacing the lost soldiers with peasants, the Tsar named himself commander in chief of the army on the 22 August 1915. This was a bold move that the Tsar made seeking to improve his relations with the people, this meant that he was held responsible for each victory the Russian army gained. Unfortunately, he was also held responsible for every defeat, and given the state of the Russian military and lack of a sufficient economy to sustain the war of attrition or provide efficient equipment for the army; he once again was despised by the population and blamed for the numerous defeats the army endured and a growing hatred grew larger and larger against him and a cry for change. The lack of resources further weakened the state of Russia, all the food reserves were being sent to the frontline troops, and that still wasn’t enough. Having no more professional soldiers to protect him, the Tsar effectively destroyed his last wall of defense against the angry mobs that were getting more numerous by the day. As Richard Pipes had stated: “The events of 1917 demonstrated that for all its immense territory and claim to great power status, the Russian empire was a fragile, artificial structure, held together not by organic bonds connecting rulers and ruled, but by mechanical links provided by the bureaucracy, police, and army”.
The symbol of the end of Tsarism is widely known as the 1917 revolution, also known as the February revolution that actually took place between the 8th and 12th of March (since the Russians had a different calendar, it happened in March for them and in February for the rest of Europe) and was caused by the various long term factors especially the economy and politics. According to Richard Pipes: “The Russian Revolution of 1917 was not an event or even a process, but a sequence of disruptive and violent acts that occurred more or less concurrently but involved actors with differing and in some measure contradictory objectives.” Though it could not have been brought to effect without the fall of the professional army. It displays the desperation and iron will for change of the people since it was very spontaneous and only took 8 months to form this revolution, while the 1905 revolution took years and even decades to come into effect. It was a fairly chaotic revolution as it had no clear leader though the Revolution took place in the context of heavy military setbacks during the First World War. The official turn of loyalty may well be observed when the Petrograd garrison, ordered to shoot protestors in the street in Petrograd, refused to do so as the Tsar had forgotten they were merely “peasants in uniform” and their best interest lied with the protestors and the Russian people. Soon they too turned on the Tsar and the string that was holding his regime together snapped. Upon the Tsars return after the revolution was already over and the power seized by the people, his train was not allowed to enter Petrograd. Visited personally on his train by Rudzienko, head of the Duma, it was made clear to him that he was no longer in power and his rule was finished, after the famous signing of a letter of resignation on the 15 March 1917.
Russia’s economy was appalling due to the medieval regime and the politics which prevented its prospering. 85% of the population lived in the countryside but only 5% of the land was used for farming. Old-fashioned farming methods resulted in inefficiency and starvation. This resulted among others in the inability to provide enough food for the army which led to desertion, disease and in the end the destruction of the entire professional military that was acted as the Tsars “strength”. As for the industry, Russia remained rich in oil. Unfortunately, due to the backwards regime, it only began to industrialize in the late 19th century and was dependent on foreign investment and was still behind the western powers. The start of the war in 1914 proved to be a slight rise for the Russian economy; output was raised by 20% and the people were looking forward to victory. When the latter expectation did not occur, rather its opposite, more peasants were gradually being sent to the front, thus not leaving anyone to work on the land and reducing production to a number close to nil. This caused a scissor crisis. The cost of boots had gone up by 340% and rye by 47%. In 1915-1917, peasant grain sold to the government decreases from 16% all the way down to 9%. Russia almost found a solution with Stolipyn’s reforms in 1906, which were based still on conservatism, but on an idea of “pacification and renewal”. Unfortunately he had no followers and his reforms died with him after his assassination. With almost no food available to the civilians as a result of everything being sent to feed the army, the population started to starve. No population can effectively function or maintain a regime while they literally have nothing to eat and are forced to cue for bread for several days in order to obtain a loaf of bread that would not even satisfy their hunger and lack of nutrients to allow them to function normally. The regime was in a downfall at the turn of the 20th century and was unable to keep up, match or rival the rest of Europe and their economies.
It is widely known that it was on a large part the Politics of the Tsarist regime that caused it to fall and caused the February revolution. Between 1915 and 1917 Russia had as much as 4 prime ministers, and 5 ministers of the interior. Nicholas II was a deeply conservative ruler and maintained a strict authoritarian system. Individuals and society in general were expected to show self-restraint, devotion to community, deference to the social hierarchy, and a sense of duty to country. Religious faith helped bind all of these tenets together as a source of comfort and reassurance in the face of difficult conditions and as a means of political authority exercised through the clergy. Perhaps more than any other modern monarch, Nicholas II attached his fate and the future of his dynasty to the notion of the ruler as a saintly and infallible father to his people. This idealized vision of the Romanov monarchy blinded him to the actual state of his country which was in terrible condition from the turn of the 20th century. With a firm belief that his power to rule was granted by divine right, the Tsar assumed that the Russian people were devoted to him with unquestioning loyalty, though he was greatly wrong. This ironclad belief rendered the Tsar unwilling to allow the progressive reforms that might have alleviated the suffering of the Russian people. Even after the 1905 revolution spurred the Tsar to decree limited civil rights and democratic representation, he worked to limit even these liberties in order to preserve the ultimate authority of the crown which was a priority that would not allow the prosper of the Russian economy or society. However the Tsar was forced to put forth the October Manifesto which elected a democratically elected people’s party (called the Duma) to satisfy their requests, thus giving them an illusion of democracy for a certain period of time. Though after a while, his autocratic ideology caused him to liquidate the 2 Dumas that were formed destroying the foothold the population had in politics therefore angering them further by attempting to take away their say in politics. This in turn worsened the economy due to strikes by the population.
The Russo –Japanese war (8 February 1904-5 September 1905) that Russia had sparked off in order to broaden their spheres of influence and gain an advantage in Manchuria was a bold and risky move that had failed and backfired completely. After a crushing defeat, Russia was left humiliated and is forced to give up their railway network in Manchuria. The defeat also displayed serious structural flaws in the Tsarist system and provided a forum for discontent to be voiced by the people. This further circumvented the autocratic rule and instilled doubt and hatred in the population towards the Tsar bringing the regime yet another step closer to its inevitable demise.
The society’s position was somewhat traditional. The small, upper class, sort of bourgeoisie, began turning against Tsar Nicholas ll. They were shortly followed in their hate by the middle and lower class, which formed the bulk of the Russian people, whose salary was destroyed by the inflation. Starvation, homelessness, disease, child prostitution etc. became a common occurrence on the streets and the Russian society was slowly deteriorating. They had to do something since the current situation would not permit the society to last much longer. Mass desertions from the army instilled fear and doubt in the population. The soldiers brought with them horrifying stories which caused the Russian people to mingle and once all the classes did so, they all realized that they wanted the same thing, which was a revolution, a change in the country’s politics and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas. Since his army was mostly deteriorated at this point, the idea of a revolution seemed feasible. The hate of the people had turned from Tsarism only, to personally loathing the Tsar and wishing his demise
There were without a doubt many short term and long term factors that caused the fall of Tsarism, and the abdication of Nicholas ll was only a short term factor in the fall off Tsarism, but a large factor nonetheless. Russia’s medieval ways and poor economy turned to an extreme downfall at the beginning of the 20th century and was simply not able to rival or even keep up with the western European economies such as Britain and France. One must ask himself first why did the Tsar fail, and also why did Tsarism fail. The reason for the former is that Nicholas was a poor and unfit ruler, who was imposing an even more unfit and backwards regime on a country that was already suffering considerably. The answer to the latter is that it was a backwards regime that did not permit the country to prosper in the 20th century and did not let it rival or keep up with any other European countries. Tsarism was unable to deal with the current events and manage such a vast amount of land and people, which caused mass starvation, homelessness and in general lack of basic human necessities. The destruction and turn of the army may be the final cause of the fall of Tsarism, Russia was in such a strained state that ultimately, the Tsar only had the army to enforce his regime, but once the war broke out, all of the professional soldiers were killed and replaced by peasants whose policies were against the Tsar. The chain reaction that led to the destruction of the army, however, was caused by the long term factors such as poor economy which prevented good equipment and sustaining the war of attrition, the state of the society and economy led to a strain that Russia was under with the army keeping that thin string together. The largest factor being the war that brought it on its knees, it showed that the idea of Tsarism and its laws and ideology did not permit it to survive. All the classes of the Russian population unified in their hate for the tsar and dealt the final blow which was the February revolution in 1917 in Petrograd without any imperial guard to oppose them and fend them off again as they did during Bloody Sunday. This displayed truly that even the army was against the Tsar and so, he was forced to abdicate. This was the end of the Tsar. In his decree of abdication, he wished to pass on the autocratic ruins to his brother. : “We direct our brother to conduct the affairs of state in full and inviolable union with the representatives of the people in the legislative bodies on those principles.....” His brother’s refusal of the proposition marked the true end of Tsarism forever breaking the long line of autocratic rule and instating a provisional government in Russia.
Bibliography:
Documents on blackboard and History notes.