There was also a bit of a growth in opposition from 1905 to 1914. In 1905 the opposition to the tsar was disorganised and after that ‘revolution’ nothing really happened as people were scared of Stolypin. This all started to change in 1912 at Lena Goldfields when the workers protested about their 10 hour days to which the government sent armed troops who killed 170 people. This made tension come close to the surface and gave rise to a wave of sympathy strikes. In 1910 the number of strikes was 47 000 but by 1914 this had risen to 1 337 000. These were also brutally suppressed which caused more resentment and more and more people were getting involved. This was also dangerous to the tsar’s fall as the workers became more aware of anti-monarchist political groups and their activities. This was a big step from them following Lenin, Marx or the SR’s and not really have one thing to aim for like better working conditions or more pay. The trade unions were small in number and were largely confined to Moscow and St Petersburg (Petrograd). This could be why the revolution was mainly confined to Petrograd and why it was more organised, even though most of the leaders were still in exile in Switzerland. The strikes cannot be totally blamed however to the downfall of the regime as at this time as most were economic and not political. Even though it was a demonstration which showed the mutiny of the soldiers. However the defeat in the war could be blamed for their mutiny as they were demoralised and all the loyal troops had been killed at the start of the war and this was the reserves. The Soviets were also formed in a matter of days on February 27th.
The tsar was a devoted husband and father to his son and heir to the throne Alexis who suffered from haemophilia. This increased his and the tsarina’s problems and emotional instability. They searched for cures and found aid in the form of Rasputin. He was a scary character with hypnotic eyes and a very powerful personality. The tsar relied on Rasputin and after Stolypin died his influence on the family increased. After about 1911 he had developed a political influence on them as well, especially the tsarina Alexandra. He alienated the nobles and the church disliked him because of his practises and that he became Chief Procurator pf the Holy Synod in 1916. With the church turning against the tsar because of his leniency with
Rasputin the pillars of tsarism which kept the autocracy was already starting to crumble. Rasputin is also not to be blamed entirely for the revolution as he was only ‘a symptom o the downfall to the autocracy, not a cause’. He was opposed to war and tried to urge the tsar to reconsider his decision about joining the war. Also he was assassinated in December 1916 by Prince F.F. Yusupov and V.M. Puriskevitch, his death was not met with sadness, infact it had the opposite effect. Some people blame his assassins for the revolution as no-one had Rasputin to fear anymore just like the peasants didn’t have to fear Stolypin.
The population had been increasing in the cities which made conditions very cramped and poor. This made even more reasons to strike and the numbers were greater, so when there was a revolution in Petrograd there were more people to join the opposition and they were in a more condensed space. There were many strikes because of poor working condition. Factory inspectors recorded the number of strikes that they found so not even all the strikes were counted in the final figures as there were not many inspectors and that is why the working conditions were poor. The growth of the population in St Petersburg went from 1 905 600 in 1910 to 2 217 500 in 1914. People would be unhappy with the tsar as he had supposedly promoted industrialisation but the result of this growth was only more strikes. Even thought Russia was producing 6% more between 1907-1913 it still lagged behind that of Eastern Europe and insufficient agriculture meant insufficient money was available to fund long term growth. This put strain on the whole country to perform, not just the people who were doing the best with the primitive things that they had to work with. The industrialisation was mainly based around the Trans Siberian Railway because it provided transport for the goods, which is why people had to go to the cities.
Unlike 1905 the army turned against the tsar, which his security depended on. On March 12th the Cossacks and other soldiers refused to fire on protesters after shooting 40 demonstrators on March 11th. This lead to Petrograd being in the hands of a revolution without recognised leaders. The army’s chief of staff Alekseev was one of the Liberal Duma’s leaders who were secretly planning and preparing a rival government to the tsar, which shows that because of the war in January 1917 the opposition were planning a revolution because Russia was falling apart. They also put pressure on the tsar to abdicate saying that Russia was a lost cause. They were exaggerating because the revolution was mainly in the city of Petrograd but they no longer believed in the autocracy or that they tsar had been chosen by god, as how could god want innocent protesters who were having a peaceful strike for what the believed in to be shot.
The tsar did abdicate on March 2nd in favour of his brother Grand Duke Mikhail as he didn’t want to leave his son Alexis’s side and his son was too young to take over a huge and unstable country like Russia. However the tsar’s brother refused to take the throne after some persuading from the Duma. This made it so that the country was up for grabs as there was no official leader and the opposition parties would have to fight for it, hence the revolution.
Russia went to war in February 1914. At first the Russian people welcomed the war and it created an initial wave of patriotism that strengthened the regime but this was to create enormous pressure on the tsar. Before 1905 Russia had gone into what is know called the Russo-Japanese war because the tsars advisors had told him that it would be easily won and he would earn the e respect of his people, this did not work however as Russia suffered a massive defeat. This is a similar scenario to why the tsar joined WW1. He vowed to protect the Serbs from the Germans but his people underestimated them and only prepared for up to 2 months of war. When this dragged on for over a year Russia was in real trouble. Also they were promised some territory of the Black Sea Straits which they would take from Turkey, but by September 1914 the Russian soldiers were no-where near their objective. Russia believed that the great numbers of their army would win against the skill of the Germans. This was called the Russian ‘steamroller’. This did not work and they suffered great defeats at Tannenburg where 170 000 Russians died compared to only 15 000 Germans. There was also a massive defeat at the Masurian Lakes during August 1914. This caused the Russians to retreat in panic and by September 13, 1914 there was not a single Russian on German territory. The soldiers did not have enough ammo, food or boots which caused a loss of morale and many soldiers deserted on the train before they reached their final destination which was probably going to be their final resting place. For example in 1914, 6.4 million men had to share 4.6 million rifles. Supply was poor because of inadequate transport and there wasn’t any money to build extra transport. In fact Russia ran out of money which forced the tsar to order for more money to be made which caused inflation. This just made their situation even worse as the value of money was decreasing every time the tsar gave the money, so in the end the peasants wouldn’t sell their crops as the money that they would get for it would be useless as they wouldn’t be able to buy anything worthwhile with it. That meant that shop prices were increasing as they weren’t getting as many products and more workers went on strike so that they could have more money to feed their families (the price of a bag of potatoes rose from 1 rouble in 1914 to 7 roubles in 1917 and a bag of flour rose from 3 roubles in 1914 to 16 roubles in 1917). As there were more and more defeats more and more people started to question whether they needed the autocracy again. There was massive dissatisfaction and so there was radicalisation which led to abdication. The peasants were more revolutionary because their stock was being stolen which was bad news for the tsar as they made up the bulk of the population. As the war dragged on conscription was introduced this in turn caused anti-conscription riots to break out. This added to the number of riots already put a lot of strain on the government and was made even worse by the fact that the tsar wasn’t there.
There was a big rise in armaments production but this was at the expense of other everyday goods as the factories were being used for this new production (80% of the labour force was engaged in war production by 1916) and this made the people unhappy with the situation because of the price increase. Industrialists were doing Ok as the government was paying to use their factories but they wanted more economic freedom. Most were forced into accepting to let the government make their supplies in their factories as non-war industries often went out of business, so there was incentive there for them to join in the revolution but not as much as the peasants and workers as they were still being paid.
Because of the war the Duma was dissolved in 1915 which meant that the people would have no say in what was going the happen in the war. Becaus Nicholas took over the army he was solely to blame for the massive defeats. While he was on the front his wife was under the influence of Rasputin, to which nobody liked. The war alienated the government from its supporters.
The revolutionary in 1917 was spontaneous as the leaders of the opposition were still in Switzerland. The demonstrators weren’t expecting the army to join forces with them despite the huge losses as they had always been loyal to the tsar and demonstrators had been shot just the day before. The people saw their chance and took it because there was more radicalisation. In the end they got their revolution.
