Russia analytical overview (up to 1917)

• Autocracy


  A system of government in which unlimited power is held by a single ruler
• Tsar Nicholas II


  • Poor and ineffective ruler
  • Relied on secret police, army, and Church to repress opposition
• The majority of the population in the Russian Empire were not Russian and wanted to be independent
• Redemption payments


  Payments peasants had to make in return for the abolition of serfdom
• Workers' living and working conditions in the cities were terrible
• The bourgeoisie had no political representation as there was no elected assembly
• Disastrous failure in the war against Japan (1904 - 1905)


  Reflected badly on the Tsar's military leadership
• Brutal repression of peaceful demonstrators on Bloody Sunday in January 1905


  Sparked major social and nationalist unrest across the country
• Workers' councils (Soviets)


  Created to try to take control of the main cities of Russia
• There was a mutiny in part of the Black Sea fleet
• Tsar's August Manifesto


  Failed to win over some of his opponents with a limited set of reforms
• Tsar's October Manifesto


  Promised the bourgeoisie political representation and peasants an end to redemption payments
• Workers in the Soviets were now isolated and so could be crushed by the army
• Nationalist movements in other parts of the empire were also brought under control
• Opposition groups and parties that developed in Russia

  • Octobrists
  • Kadets
  • Social Revolutionaries
  • Social Democrats (Mensheviks and Bolsheviks)
• Octobrists


  Supported the application of the 1905 October Manifesto
• Kadets


  Slightly more radical than Octobrists, focused on demanding greater power for an elected assembly
• Social Revolutionaries


  Represented the interests of the peasants, often resorted to terrorist attacks to push their demand for land to be distributed to the peasants
• Social Democrats


  Small Marxist party who sought to lead the workers in a revolution; split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks
• Mensheviks


  Sought to strictly follow and apply Marxist ideas
• Bolsheviks


  Hoped to carry out a proletarian revolution straight away even though Russia had not yet industrialised
• Tsar Nicholas quickly retracted the promises he had made in the October Manifesto


  Newly created elected assembly in the Duma had little real power
• Stolypin used brutal methods to repress political opposition
• Tension in the 1st and 2nd Dumas in 1906 - 1907

  Tsar and Stolypin imposed greater control over the electoral system to create the more conservative 3rd and 4th Dumas in 1907 -1914
• Stolypin's reforms to agriculture

  Encouraging more productive peasants to borrow money to buy land from less productive peasants in order to boost overall production
• Many poorer peasants who had no land struggled to survive and so migrated to the cities
• Workers continued to face terrible conditions as the population of the cities grew, putting pressure on housing, employment and wage levels; as a result many went on strike
• The authorities responded to these strikes with violence, massacring hundreds at the Lena Goldfield mines
• This sparked off even more protest in a huge wave of strikes between 1912 and 1914
• Russia entered the war to protect its interests in the Balkans
• The Duma agreed to close itself down until the end of the war
• Nicholas' management of the war effort

  Very poor; he refused to work with the bourgeoisie in the smaller locally elected councils
• Nicholas decided to leave St Petersburg to go to the frontline to manage the army himself


  He left power in the hands of Rasputin and Tsarina Alexandra
• Rasputin


  A peasant who had gained huge influence over the royal couple as they believed he could help their ill son; the nobles and bourgeoisie were infuriated that such a man should have so much power
• Alexandra was deeply unpopular as she was of German origin and many suspected that she and Rasputin were lovers
• Rasputin's choice of ministers was poor, and he was eventually assassinated by some nobles in December 1916
• The war against Germany


  Went very badly as the Russian army was poorly equipped and poorly led
• Russia suffered major defeats in 1914 and 1915, and an attempted counter-offensive in 1916 also failed
• Losses were very high and, by early 1917, morale was very low amongst the soldiers
• Food production fell with so many peasants being drafted into the army

  Peasants had little incentive to produce more than they needed themselves as the money they would earn was of little use to them as there were very few goods or equipment being produced for them to buy