Nicholas II’s complete failure during the war between Russia and Japan was extremely humiliating for the country and its people, with Russia never winning a single battle, despite having five times as many soldiers and four times the military budget of Japan (Shanin, 1986: 29). Nicholas thought the war would not even happen until the last minute, and even when the war had begun he still optimistically expected a victory, despite the continuous defeats. He refused to begin peace negotiations, remaining extraordinarily stubborn, even rejecting his own family’s suggestions to attempt a peaceful resolution (Verner, 1990: 104). He finally began peace negotiations in March 1905, after a crushing defeat, though Nicholas insisted it was due to the need to focus on the revolutionary events beginning to occur. The country’s failure in the war was embarrassing, as Japan was a non-Western power, and Nicholas II appeared to completely ignore all the logistical difficulties presented by a war in the East of Russia, far from Moscow and St. Petersburg, connected only to the East by the Trans-Siberian railway, making mobilisation and transportation slow and difficult. Nicholas II also decided to continue his father’s anti-semitic policies, such as forcing Jews to continue living in the Pale of Settlement, where 95% of Jews lived in poor conditions with few rights, and many of them had to stay until the end of the Tsarist regime in 1917 (Rogger, 1984: 200). It is for these reasons that Russia’s people felt the government was out of touch with its people, and decided something had to be done.
Throughout 1905, several revolutionary events occurred, unlike the later revolutions in 1917, which both used a single outright attempt to gain power. As Christopher Read perfectly states in From Tsar to Soviets, “The events of 1905 were essentially a series of separate incidents sparked off by a common stimulus, the perceived weakness of the authorities and the manifest need for change”. The ‘1905 revolution’ was made up of many smaller attempts, spread all over Russia, spearheaded by the so-called Bloody Sunday massacre in St. Petersburg. On Sunday the 9th of January, 1905, around 150 people were killed and many more injured when clashes erupted between peaceful revolutionary protesters and the Imperial Guard in St. Petersburg (Read, 1996: 30). This shocked the people of Russia and a lot of faith was lost in the Tsar, even by those who still believed in the government, because of Bloody Sunday. One of the most famous revolutionary events of 1905 was the mutiny on the naval ship Potemkin in Odessa, when the crew of the ship struck up faith in the anti-government opposition by causing a violent uprising in the city (Harcave, 1965: 155). Several other mutinies and strikes occurred throughout the year, and revolution was in the air all across Russia. These events can be seen as mainly caused by the Russian people’s severe discontent with the monarchic government, as outlined above.
The revolutionary attempts of 1905 had several consequences, though many of the promises made by the Tsar following the events turned out to be restricted and ineffective to the people. Firstly, Tsar Nicholas II formed the ‘October Manifesto’, a governmental reform promising improved civil liberties for Russia’s citizens, along with the upgrading of the state Duma (small local governments), transforming them from a consultative to a legislative body (Shanin, 1986: 42). These consequences appeared positive and a move in the right direction on the part of the Tsar at first, however once the Duma had met, it was obvious that the promise to increase their participation was very limited. It appeared that Nicholas did want to broaden public participation in governmental matters, but also wanted to retain his autocracy, and saw the State Duma as taking away part of his responsibility as Tsar (Hosking, 1973: 10). Nicholas wished to dissolve the Duma, though believing their organisation and opinions to be poor, he chose to wait for them to do something wrong themselves to lead to the dissolution, and merely slowly removed their political rights (Rogger, 1984: 19). Meanwhile, the more liberal Prime Minister of Russia, Witte, resigned from his post, and was replaced by the reactionary Stolypin. The people of Russia took immediate dislike to Stolypin, whose reform of 1906-11 was a direct reaction to the revolutionary events of 1905 and attempted to hinder any reappearance of revolution (Shanin, 1986: 5). Stolypin was assassinated in 1911, and Tsar Nicholas II himself was eventually killed along with his family, following the Bolshevik success of 1917.
Probably the most important consequence of the 1905 revolutionary events is the fact that the people who decided to strike and mutiny brought revolutionary ideas out into the open in Russia, causing them to spread. More people began seeing through the Tsarist government and realising their lives could be bettered if there was a country-wide revolution. This can be seen as leading on to the major Russian revolutions of 1917, as Trotsky put it; the three Russian revolutions went together as one ‘permanent revolution’ (Dukes, 1979: 76). The revolutions of 1917 mark a huge turning point in Russian history, and they may not have ever happened if the strikes and mutinies of 1905 had not preceded them.
In conclusion, the main causes of the revolutionary events of 1905 were mainly due to the Russian people’s unrest with their Tsarist government, whose mistakes and backwardness caused widespread discontent. The worst mistake Nicholas II made was undoubtedly going to war against Japan, leaving both Russia’s military, and her citizens, humiliated Though the immediate consequences were few and far between, the long-term consequences were extremely important, if we assume the 1905 revolution attempts influenced the later revolutions of 1917, as the effects of the October 1917 Revolution can still be seen today in post-Soviet Russia.
Bibliography:
Dukes, P., October and the World: Perspectives on the Russian Revolution,
1979, London.
Hosking, G. A., The Russian Constitutional Experiment, 1973, London.
Lenin, V. I., Prerequisites of the First Russian Revolution, 1936, London.
Read, C., From Tsar to Soviets: the Russian people and their revolution,
1917-21, 1996, London.
Rogger, H., Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution 1881-1917,
1984, Essex.
Shanin, T., Russia, 1905-07: Revolution as a Moment of Truth, 1986, London.
Verner, A. M., The Crisis of Russian Autocracy, 1990, Princeton.
