Russo - Japanese War

• 1903 - political landscape

  • Volatile
  • Assassinations
  • Uprisings
  • Popularity of revolutionary groups rose with literacy rates and moving back to agriculture
• Russo Japanese war - 1904
• 1904 - Lost public support as Russis retreats
• 1905 - Lose port Arthur and army is defeated
• may 1905 - entire Russian fleet is sunk after six month journey
• 1905 - Vitta negotiates treaty of Portsmouth
• Reaction to war :

  • Tsarist government looked incompetent, irresponsible and wreckless
  • 1904 - interior minister assassinated and lost support
  • 1904 - Zemstva coneference - thousands of telegrams enquired on civil liberties, votes and National Assembly
  • Nobility organised banquets to gather - weren’t arrested as underestimated
  • Trade disrupted - shortages of raw material and silk and unemployment
• Bloody Sunday :

  • 1905 - four workers sacked from putilov engineering works
  • Gapons assembly organise a strike amassing 100,000 workers -
  • Economic not political - conditions and pay
  • Plea for help
  • Social democrats infiltrated and blurred into politics
• Bloody Sunday

  Attending church in best clothes

  150,0000 carrying petititon to winter palace

  Tsar orders - fire at will

  150 died and 300 wounded

  Pivotal moment where things change - bond is broken
• Result of Bloody Sunday

  Momentous spark

  • Fury at tsar and army
  • Strikes and disorder
  • Jan 1905 - 400k striking whilst still at war
  • Duke Sergei assassinated
  • Tsars control starts to unravel