Nicholas II

• 1891-92 famine highlighted the failures of a tsarist government and people had more trust in them once Nicholas arrived
• Growing call for National Assembly but called ‘senseless dreams’
• Used emergency powers and repression to keep power - only fuels radicals
• Workers becae literate and. unhappy with conditions - owners wanted assembly - modernisation caused a multitude of problems
• workforce became militant and went on strikes - thousands of textiles women
• Gov legislate for 11 and a half hour workday - prolitareat making change
• Nicholas use force on strikes - opposition politicise
• Students 


  More opportunity for higher educated

  Opiniated and revolutionary - imprisons them

  Police brutality

  Education adn money
• Recession 


  Factories shut

  • 30 blast furnaces shut in black Earth region
  • No state support for unemployed - blamed tsar
  • Moved back to countryside and spread revolutionary propaganda
  • Disturbnavces 1902-5
  • Burnt down nobility
• Tolstoy - open letter - censorship was abominable and reflective of the mood
• 1903 - Zubatov - Okrana head organised trade unions in Moscow - initially worked bit 1903 general strikes and was sacked
• Nicholas assumed giving economic change would replace political need