Causes of the 1905 Russian revolution

by 3nnyj (student)

What were the causes of the 1905 Russian revolution. Jenny Hughes

Before the 1905 revolution Russia was a very unstable country. 80% of the population who happened to be the peasants were struck with famine and they wanted to own their land and not have to pay redemption payments. The Liberals wanted to have a constitutional government so that the Tsar wouldn’t have all the power. The working class wanted to have better working conditions and wanted to reduce the amount of time they spent at work. All these groups wanted change in Russia, something had to be done.

One of the main causes of the revolution was the Russo-Japanese war. This war completely humiliated the Tsar because he thought that he could start a war with a weak nation, Japan and by winning, he could distract the people of Russia from the problems at home. Not only did it humiliate the Tsar it also caused shortage of resources in Russia. Unfortunately the Russian navy was absolutely crushed by the Japanese in multiple of quick battles. This sparked outrage all over Russia that such a weak nation, an Asian nation could beat them. Because of this the army started ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

200,000 protesters, who were industrial workers, led by Father Gapon, marched unarmed and sang patriotic songs to the Tsar’s winter palace in the hope of presenting a petition to use his authority to ease the working conditions and shorten the working day. However the police thought different, they thought the strike was an uprising against the Tsar and started to open fire on them. Many innocent protesters died leading to several people having a very negative attitude of the Tsar. This event was called the Bloody Sunday.

The Bloody Sunday, along with increased action and threats from the Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg, the Tsar was brought back to Russia from a peace conference in the USA, to deal with his nations struggles. Once the Tsar came back from Russia he issued the October Manifest. The manifesto granted basic civil rights and liberties to Russian citizens. The people of Russia didn’t like how Russia was an autocracy and that he kept using the army and the Okrahna, the Tsar had absolute power, so the Tsar offered a Duma, elected parliament. However, the Tsar manipulated the Duma, the Duma wasn’t allowed any real power, this caused difficulties later. The October Manifesto also ended the revolution as well as it kept the people of Russia temporarily happy.

All these events combined caused the 1905 revolution however, the army later crushed the revolt and by 1906 the revolution was entirely defeated.