Was revolution more far-reaching in Russia than elsewhere because of the superior organisation and efficiency of the Bolsheviks

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Rebecca Gadsdon

Was revolution more far-reaching in Russia than elsewhere because of the superior organisation and efficiency of the Bolsheviks?

Since 1613 Russia had been ruled by members of the Romanov dynasty who were absolute autocratic monarchs; there was no parliament, political parties or local governments. A strict press censorship was in organisation and 90% of the population were serfs.

        Despite this, Russia was a country of revolutionary tradition, which can be seen in the Decembrist revolt of 1825(which resulted in assassination of Tsar Alexander I).

This shows there was national discontent throughout the Tsarist period. To combat this, Alexander II (The tsar liberator) passed the Emancipation Edict in 1861. However, most found this emancipation legislation unsatisfactory (due to redemption payments, the Mir etc) and it is said that the 1905 revolution was a result of the anticlimax of the emancipation, however revolution was always on the agenda in Russia and it was eventually the masses that made it happen. Nicholas II managed to survive this revolution but it did have consequences such as the October manifesto

In 1900 Lenin a member of the Social Democrat Party, left Siberia(where he was exiled) and travelled to Europe where he founded a new revolutionary underground newspaper called Iskra (the spark) with which he intended to develop a strong organizational party network.  His views on party organization where further developed in 1902 when he published his pamphlet ‘What is to be done? In which he made clear that it was the party’s task to motivate the working classes political consciousness as they were not capable of doing so themselves. It was ultimately Lenin’s uncompromising stand on the way the party should be organised in ‘What is to be done?’ that lead to the split in the Social Democrat Party in 1903 and to the formation of the Bolshevik Party.

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        The year of 1914 offered the Tsar an opportunity to rectify the failure of the Russo-Japanese war. The declaration of war was accompanied by an outburst of patriotism, but this did not last for long. Nicholas had made the destructive decision to take personal command at the front, and as defeat lead to defeat, the blame fell directly to Nicholas. War is a time that shows a leader in their true colours, and what made Russia different from other leading countries was that their leader was shown to be completely incompetent. This combined with the terrible conditions and food ...

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