Why did the Tsarist regime collapse in 1917?

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Why did the tsarist regime collapse in 1917?

Although the Romanovs autocratic regime had been extremely unpopular with the masses for years, it had always managed to survive most seemingly decisive events (see 1905 revolution for example). However one Russian became involved with World War One it became clear that the war was indeed the event that pushed Russia over the edge and was the catalyst for the future 1917 socialist revolution.

One reason is that the First World War highlighted the deficiencies of Nicholas as a leader. One piece of evidence is the fact that Nicholas decided to lead from the front line in the face of a waning war effort, this was a particularly idiotic move as all it did was arm his opponents as now any difficulties with the war could now be directly attributed to him. An additional piece of evidence was the decision by Nicholas to have wartime prohibition; he did this in an attempt to boost patriotism and productivity; however it was a bad move as it decreased support for him as people could no longer drink alcohol and It limited Russia financially as the government couldn’t make money off of taxing alcohol anymore. This highlights Nicholas’s inability to see the bigger picture as by removing alcohol he limited Russia financially and managed to decrease support for him. Another piece of evidence would be the fact that Russia’s wartime setup was doomed to fail as there was contempt between the Minister of War, and Nicholas Nikolayevich who commanded the armies in the field . A final piece of evidence would be the fact that Russia’s army in World War One was logistically poor due to Nicholas’s inability to get his generals to follow his orders. This was bad as it highlighted the fact that Nicholas did not have the leadership characteristics to lead a country, especially during a time of war. This was crucial as the tsarist regime had only survived in 1905 due to the support of the army and without the support of the army the regime would surely fall.

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Another reason is that World War one highlighted the failure of Russia to become a modern industrialised nation. An example of this would be the fact that Russia suffered a extreme equipment deficiency, this can be attributed to many reasons. The first is that for a country the size of Russia’s they had a far to primitive transport system, and when this had been rendered incapacitated by the German army there was trouble in getting equipment to where it was needed. Another reason would be Russia’s inability to shift industrial production toward the war efforts, this was caused by the ...

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