Russo-Japanese War all these were reasons to cause the 1905 Revolution. The Bloody
Sunday Incident was an immediately cause to lead the outbreak of 1905 Revo lution.
After the 1905 Revolution, the Czar still had to face the above problems. IN order to
prolong his rule, he was forced to reform Russia. At first, he agreed to set up
parliament, Duma. It made Russia became a constitution country like Britain.
Between the periods from 1906 to 1917, there were four Dumas in Russia. However,
people were still discontent with the government. It’s because the Czar was not
sincere in sharing power with people. The Car had dissolved the First and Second
Duma because the elected representatives were liberators and opposed him. Moreover,
the Czar only gave the upper- middle classes and workers had right to vote, but not
everyone. This showed the insincerity of the Czar in political reform. This annoyed
the Russians, especially the educated class. Therefore, the revolutionary tide had not
died down in the post 1905 period. The discontent of people did not reduce and the
political right of general Russians did not improve, it marked the ineffective of Czar’s
political reform.
In social aspect, people had to pay a huge land payment, it added to the
burden of people. Czar Nicholas II agreed to abolish the land payment to peasant. He
also lent loan to farmers and gave subsides to farmers in order to lead them improve
farm method by using machine instead of cow and man. This succeeded to create a
class of Kulaks, rich people. The land reform had created a rich class at first, and then
it would improve the general Russians. This land reform was a long-term scheme to
improve the livelihood of general Russians, although it couldn’t their life right now.
As a result, the land reform still succeeded in long-term period. To win people over to
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the side of the government, the Czar allowed Stolypin to build schools to provide
Russians with eleme ntary education. He also introduced free education with the aim
to achieve compulsory free education. This education reform was successful to
increase the rate of literacy of Russians. In other word, the education reform had
regained the support from people and reduced the discontent. However, the Czar still
ignored the problems about workers. He didn’t do anything to improve their working
conditions. The workers still faced the problem of long working hour, low wages,
poor working conditions and child labour. The discontent of workers did not reduce,
even had a great increase when compared with the situation before 1905 Revolution.
In social reform, we could not say it was successful at all, but succeeded in partly in
education and land reform. It failed in improving the working conditions of workers.
In economic aspect, Nicholas II encouraged the industrial development,
especially in coal and steel. He also encouraged railway developments to improve
transport. The production of iron and coal increased greatly and the volume of trade
grew. Moreover, Russia borrowed large fund from her allies, France and Belgium.
This gave a great help in developing industry in Russia. As a result, Russia had a
great improvement in industrial development. It also succeeded to reduce the
discontent of people and improved the livelihood. The revolutionary tide even seemed
to be died down. Therefore, the industrial reform in Russia was effective.
Although the Czar had adopted reforms, it could not reduce the discontent of
Russians at all. Russians still felt discontented with the Czar, especially the
intellectuals. Intellectuals felt discontent with the Czar because they thought the Czar
was an unrepresentative nature of the government. Moreover, they had no right to
vote in Duma. The general people had no voice in Duma, except the nobles and rich
people. The peasants were also discontent with the Czarist government. The peasant
still cultivated with a small piece of plot, their livelihood didn’t have much improve.
The workers also had no improvement about their poor working condition. The
discontent of those Russians had not reduced by Czar’s reforms. On the other hand,
The Czar had achieved the aims in some reforms, such as education reform, industrial
reform and land reform. However, when compared with the whole national reform,
these reforms only represented partly success. The discontent of people had not
reduced so much, even nearly remain unchanged or increased. In conclusion,
Nicholas II was not effective in dealing with problems after 1905 Revolution.
