hurian ones. The constant defeats were exacerbated by the fact that food was not able to be transported into the cities and raw supplies were running low causing job losses and an influx in strikes.
Furthermore, the ‘people of Russia’ were not just Russian but a melting pot of different nationalities, its vast size contributed greatly to this, with only half the population being Russian. The vast majority of these people lived to the west of the Ural Mountains where the major cities such as: Moscow and St Petersburg were located. The immense diversity and mixture of cultures was outstanding and ranged from nomadic Muslim people in the south to sophisticated upper class that were predominately located in the west, were the Tsar spent the majority of his time. Due to this mixture of nationalities and ethnicities the Tsarist government found it extremely difficult to govern people who all had different wants and needs, they spoke in foreign tongues and had different cultural ideas. This is why the policy of Russification was introduced; its aims were to force the non-Russian people to essentially forget their roots and become a nation of one, it was mandatory for people to speak Russian and adopt Russian customs. Russian officials were appointed by the Tsar to be put in charge of governments of non-Russian countries such as: Poland and Finland this meant that schools were taught in Russian and the countries were made to adopt the Russian legal system. Individuality between ethnicities was supressed and although Russification was immensely unpopular and viewed as a fundamental attack on centuries of lifestyle many people chose to accept it simply out of fear of the Tsar who enforced his autocratic system of rule through a fearsome scheme of secret police and terror. Freedom of opinion by mouth or word was suppressed and any opposition to the Tsar or indeed his policies was rooted out by the Okhrana and dealt with through: torture, imprisonment, exile and the death penalty. Any show of public outrage was violently suppressed by the Cossacks who made up 2.5% of the population; this meant that the people’s opposition was contained as long as the Okhrana and Cossacks were loyal to the Tsar.
Communications proved a major difficulty for the Tsar, shipping was the main form of transport and travel, for this reason major cities were built up along river routes. Unfortunately many rivers and canals were frozen over for the majority of the year making transport virtually impossible, the railway system only had about the same amount of track as Britain which is about a one hundredth of Russia size and this was extremely dangerous and the majority of the time impossible to travel on in the winter months as tracks were frozen over because of this Russia lost out on the opportunity to tap into the foreign market, Russia was undergoing an industrial revolution and was becoming one of the leading nations for materials such as pig-iron yet due to its poor transport system and the harsh cold of the Arctic Circle where the majority of its coast was located it was virtually impossible to export goods abroad.
One of the most notable problems in governing Russia for the Tsar was the fact that Russia was a polarised society in respects to its class system. The rich made up 10% of the population, the upper class lead lavish lifestyles and owned vast estates; the nobility in particular made up only 2% of the population and yet owned 25% of the land. The significant middle class had only just started to emerge in Russia because of industrialisation, the Capitalists were landowners, industrialists, traders and businessmen, because of their role in society they were normally in charge of the proletariat and as a result clashes between the workers and Capitalists were becoming more prominent. With the upper and middle classes both living comfortable lifestyles while the workers in the cities lived in cramped conditions were disease was rife and the peasants working on communes suffered from malnutrition and their overall lifestyle was so undesirable, this was highlighted by the fact that infant mortality was of an unimaginable level with 50% of children dying before their fifth birthday. To make matters worse there were poor harvests in 1900-1902, peasants could barely survive and even though money was borrowed from other countries the main source was the people, peasants had to pay redemption payments on their communes for 49 years and on daily items such as grain salt and alcohol, this was a heavy expenditure and no profit was made due to lack of land and backwards mechanism. Additionally, due to the fact Russia was unable to capitalise on its size any extra surplus could not be exported to other countries. Workers in cities were paid by piece rate and so worked long hours to gain higher wages
In conclusion, these problems were to a great extent the reasons behind the difficulties of governing Russia. Although the Tsar did protect himself through censorship and military action he was resented by some people and many opposing groups such as the ‘Social Democrat Party’ whose policies were similar to Marxism and Liberals who were made up of law abiding Russian citizens who wanted a system of democracy put in place. To an extent they achieved this as a government called a Duma was elected however, the fundamental laws made by the Tsar himself meant that he got the last say in any major decisions and even if strongly advised he could still ignore decisions that could have potentially catapulted Russia into being a society that enriched all its inhabitants spreading wealth and helping the peasants and working class. The Tsar was single handily ruling ‘a world’ which propelled the Russian people to revolt unsuccessfully in 1905 and successfully in 1907 in which the once extremely loyal army would commit mutiny and turn against him.
by
hannahsyv (student)
