The poverty was spread further than the rural areas of the empire – the urban industrial sphere was also very backward and depended only on capital of foreign countries. The workers and laborers had to endure the most miserable working conditions in the factories of the cities. They worked 12 to 14 hours a day, received very low wages and no medical assistance in case of an accident while working. Trade unions were restricted and considered as a crime. The previous government did not do anything about the devastating situation in the factories and let millions of people live in terrible poverty, dirt and disease even in cities caused by the exorbitant land revenue, the unbearably high taxes and levies. Great intimidation also grew in workers of the city factories, which may also explain the reason for the great ruckus easily spread exactly in the cities during the revolution.
Another very significant why Russia had been led to the miserable stage before the revolution - it was the way how Tsar Nicholas II ruled his empire. Tsar Nicholas II, a man who came to the Russian throne before he was ready or willing, showed little expertise at handling affairs of state. In fact, it may be said that he made poor judgments from the beginning of his reign until the end. Not only did he refuse to relax his grip on tsarist autonomy, which he felt was his divine right to bear as ruler of Russia, but he refused to recognize progress in government, was hopeless as a leader (either while behind a desk or on the war front), and was stubborn when it came to listening to advice from his aides. This is seen in the example of Duma. Before the first Duma met, the government promulgated the constitution, the Fundamental Laws. The Tsar was described as 'the supreme autocratic power' in the constitution. He retained huge executive and legislative powers, including the control of the army and foreign policy, the right to dissolve the Duma and to dismiss his ministers. Instead of hearing out a suggestion from the Duma, Tsar would always give his own personal advice to the Duma instead. Through the incompetent actions, Tsar had lost the trust of his people – he made wrong decisions for Russia’s sake when they stepped into the war with Japan. Tsar’s shortest straw for his people was when he decided to open fire to the demonstration on the Bloody Sunday. The society was not content with the work of their leader and therefore, more and more people adapted to alternative reasoning rather which was not in favor of that time’s monarchy.
It is clear that a lot of people did not want to put up with the constant down spiralling because of the autocracy, many people decided to rise against the situation. These people were split between the reformers and a smaller group of revolutionaries. The reformers, or Liberals, wanted to modernize Russia gradually. They admired the parliamentary systems of Britain, France and the USA. They wanted free elections, more education for the people and no censorship. The revolutionaries, on the other hand, wanted to throw out the whole tsarist system and build a different one. One group of revolutionaries was Marxists - that is, they believed in the ideas of Karl Marx. Revolutionaries were the ones waiting for the perfect moment to strike the match since the autocratic regime had caused a long term fatigue in the society – the long term situation let them was highly in favor of this group in terms of revolution, only a slight push to the angered people was needed to proceed.
There were also direct causes for the revolution to break out - the main event which heated up the situation in Russia was the war that Russians fought - WWI. Russia was industrialized very weakly and men were ill-equipped for battles and many generals were conservative and ignorant in terms of war strategies. When the German armies took over Poland, Baltic States, White Russia and Ukraine, heavy casualties were endured and morals of the army strongly reduced. Tsar decided to take initiative and personally become the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, but this decision made the Tsar even worse since he was far from a strong battle strategist. Instead of a growth in popularity, Tsar experienced great disapproval, but the army’s morals were reduced to the ground level by 1916 and the casualties reached up to 3 800 000 deaths. This caused mass desertation from the frontline – a large part of Russian army was not loyal to its leader anymore. Tsar’s attempts to lead the Russian army also lead to another myriad of problems – the leader was basically stripped of loyal forces, there was no one to ensure the order anymore.
In 1915, when the Tsar left the capital to do his duty as the commander-in-chief, the home administration was left to Alexandra (the Tsarina) who kept receiving a great influence from Rasputin. He filled the ministries by his own favorites. To please the Tsarina, he encouraged pro-German sentiments in the country. Rasputin's administration was detested by all Russians and by the end of 1916; even the Russian nobles could not tolerate the evil influence of Rasputin in undermining the entire official civil service. The liberals in Duma were determined to extract more political concessions from the Czar. Even though they did not like a revolution, it was clear they would be in sympathy with a revolution, if it came – there was no sympathy for the Tsar and his family at all.
Finally, the last short term factor, why Russia was embraced by a revolution was the rise in price for goods – food became very scarce because of the war, and people were literally starving. The prices grew up to 700 percent from 1914 to 1917. After the final moves of Tsar as commander, the economic crisis was at its peak. This economic catastrophe developed due to several particular following factors – Russia’s cut off from outer aid because of Central Powers blockade, the inadequate transport system and mainly the need of factories to manufacture equipment for the unnaturally enormous army. As simple as that – hunger could not keep people waiting and that made workers break out with strikes and cries saying “Down with Tsar”. With Tsar’s final moves as a commander in the war, he had lost everything he could lost and his people could not wait anymore – they were physically forced to strike against.
Russia had truly experienced dark times before the revolution – especially during the WWI, when people were starving, when soldiers did not completely understand what they were fighting for and when the heir to throne acted completely against interests of the majority. People had finally come to the point, when they were ready to replace their frustration for something new – the society was highly motivated by the ideas of the Bolsheviks. All the observed factors which lead to the revolution clearly lead to the impression that revolution was truly something that which was expected and could be foreseen – people of Russia struggled for a very long time and it was only a temporary question. WWI was the perfect moment for the revolution.