History Essay

Russian Revolution

a)
Discontentment with the masses played a vital role in the spark of the Russian
Revolution. This was due to the ideology of the czarist rule over the entire nation of Russia up
until 1917. With the czar at the time being Peter the first, who became very autocratic, began to
force his rules on the policies of Russia. This being the reduction of the amount of land that the
peasants were accustomed to (3-10 acres of land). The peasant population originally owned this
land and tension began to increase with those heavily influenced in planting and rearing of
crops. This made the farmers unable to earn money, which leads to poverty and problems
paying off debt. This created a disparity in society between the rich and the poor.
The continent of Russia is a vast area in size however; this is a misconception that size
means power. Contrastingly, Russia was at the time very behind in comparison to other nations
nearby such as Germany and Europe to which had good leaders. Prior to 1905, Russia wanted to
pursue in industrialization and its economy, however the workers to make this possible were
poverty stricken, i.e. the peasants, which had no land for themselves to support their families.
Also because of the size of the country, it creates a variety of sectors in society of persons with
different ideologies and this is almost impossible to do with Czar Nicholas 2nd. The land
expanded 4000 miles with a population of 125 million.
Russia’s involvement in WWI was an essential reason for the spark of the civil
upheavals. This was lead by the Czar to which promoted Russia to invade in the world war. The
Czar’s ideals were to regain Russia’s image of strength after its embarrassing defeat over a
country 10 times smaller (Japan in the Russo Japanese War 1905) and also an attempt to foster
national unity. Czar Nicholas II believed that they could’ve conquer Germany however despite
their size in numbers, Germany was better equipped for fight. This led to great mortality of
people of Russia and the blame was placed on Nicholas II. This drifted the support of the masses
to the Czar as well as his personal army.

b) Czar Nicholas II when appointed to the throne in 1894 corrupted Russia and became oppressive.
This is evident in the event called bloody Sunday, which occurred on January 22nd 1905 a group
of workers led by father Gapon marched to the Czar’s winter palace in St. Petersburg to make
their demands for the poor treatment of the working class where only 3 – 10 acres of land were
allotted to only 70% of the peasant population. Czar Nicholas II ordered the imperial forces to
open fire on the protestors to which resulted in the death of many innocents as well as the
death of the priest father Gapon. Strikes and riots broke out throughout the country in
outraged response to the massacre and to which Nicholas II responded with Duma.
Czar Nicholas was also highly influenced by his wife Czarina Alexandra who was
easily swayed by someone regarded as greatly mysterious and an evil monk, called
Rasputin. The Romanov family line, renowned for its strength in power and control over
the country of Russia, to which Nicholas II grandfather, former Czar Alexander II, was
well known for pushing Russia in the right direction through the removal of the disparity
of classes and the end of the Feudal system. However, with the new Czar Nicholas II, he
 could not make a heir to follow the Romanov line. He had 3 daughters and finally 1 son
who was sickly. They were heavily influenced by the evil monk Rasputin who claimed has
the answers to their prayers. This showed to the masses the indecisiveness of Nicholas II
and his lack of power.
Czar Nicholas II took control of the WWI war which erupted from Germany’s
attack on Hungary. The Japanese however destroyed the strength of mot her Russia,
which is largely known for its great land mass. This was an incredibly embarrassing
defeat on Russia and Nicholas II decided to make himself leader of the fight. This had
major consequences to Czar Nicholas II as the German forces pummeled them . The
blame for their failure was emphasized on Czar Nicholas II, to which made even his own
army forces resent him.

c) The Cheka was used by Vladimir Lenin to consolidate his power after the November
1917 Revolution. The Cheka was the first of numerous Soviet government created to control
the people and without them, the Bolsheviks would have had a difficult time gaining power to
rule with Lenin. After the abdication of the czar monopoly, there was a gap in the ruling sector
of Russia, hence the Bolshevik government lacked a centralised instrument of control that was
pivotal if they hoped to retain authority in Russia, this is where the Cheka was born. It was
regarded as the “sword and shield of the revolution”. This was considered a secret police of the
Bolsheviks, although it was not much of a secret.

d) Millions of peasants came into the towns, or worked in rural factories and mines. In the last half-
century of the old regime the Empire's urban population grew from 7 to 28 million people. The
work force were poverty stricken and were starving, under the rule of the Czar, Nicholas II. His
power caused many of the working class people to suffer with extremely low wages for the
amount of work put in. The farmers were only allocated 3-10 acres of land to produce food on a
local scale. In 1895 the number of strikers in Russia had been only 40,000 whereas in 1905 there
had been 400,000 striking workers. This however changed with the abdication of Nicholas II and
the change of the provisional government and the soon to come leadership by Lenin. This
change allowed Russia’s economy to improve greatly and provided peace, bread, land and all
power to the soviets.