Russian and its rulers
1855 - 1917
Russia c.1855
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Ruled autocratically by Romanov Tsars since 1613
Ruled since 1825 by Tsar Nicholas I (‘Thirty wasted years’)
Supported by Russian Orthodox Church; the ‘divine right’ to rule
(the ‘little father’ of the Russian people’)
Landowning nobility were the elite (though not necessarily very
rich)
Opposition exiled / imprisoned; secret police - The Third Section
Economically backwards; little industry and few railways whilst
Western Europe was industrialising rapidly
Primitive agricultural methods and low outputs / yields
90% of the people were peasants and most were serfs (slaves)
Working and living conditions were harsh
Between 1853 and 1856 defeat in the Crimean War exposed just
how backward the Russian Empire had become
See OXLEY Chapter 1 pages 8 - 21 for detail
Russia 1855 - 1881
The reign of Tsar Alexander II
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Introduced ‘reform from above’, to modernise Russia
Key Reform - The Emancipation of the Serfs 1861
Several other reforms including the introduction of some local
government (zemstva) and trial by jury
Most of these reforms had significant flaws and were met by
mounting opposition - the intelligentsia (‘westernisers’ and
‘slavophiles’)
Key Opponents include
– The Narodniks in the early 1870s
– Land and Liberty
– The People’s Will
Alexander was unwilling to give up his own autocratic power; reconsidering this when assassinated in March 1881
An ‘ineffective liberal’ and an ‘inefficient autocrat’
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See OXLEY Chapter 2 pages 22 - 41 for detail
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Russia 1894 - 1917
The reign of Tsar Nicholas II
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Attempted to rule like his father - stern autocracy and repression -but
his character and changing circumstances made this impossible
Condemned liberal demands for a constitution as ‘senseless dreams’
Faced rising opposition from groups like the Social Democrats
(Bolsheviks & Mensheviks) and the Social Revolutionaries
Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (04/05) and events on Bloody
Sunday (Jan 05) sparked off the 1905 Revolution
Nicholas survived 1905 by reform (The October Manifesto - granted a
Duma or parliament)
From 1906 Nicholas ignored demands from Duma for reform and
rigged elections in 1907 to ensure the election of supporters
Stolypin 1906 - 1911 repressed severely but introduced reform in
countryside
By 1906 Nicholas II was increasingly under influence of Rasputin
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See OXLEY Chapter 3 pages 50 - 63 & Chapter 4 64 - 89 for detail
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Nicholas II - Page 1
Russia 1894 - 1917
The reign of Tsar Nicholas II
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Stolypin assassinated in 1911
Massacre of striking miners in Lena goldfields in 1912 suggests regime
in trouble
Entry into the First World War in 1914 probably doomed Nicholas II
Disastrous defeats on Eastern Front as troops lacked modern weapons
Nicholas II appointed himself supreme army commander in 1915
(which left no-one else to blame)
Government increasingly in hands of his unpopular German wife,
Alexandra, and Rasputin (until his murder in December 1916)
War led to rapid inflation, food shortages and starvation
Bread riots in February 1917 spiralled into revolution and led to the
abdication of Nicholas II and the end of the Romanov dynasty
See OXLEY Chapter 3 pages 50 - 63 & Chapter 4 64 - 89 for detail
Nicholas II - Page 2
1917 The Russian Revolutions
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Two revolutions
– February (March)
– October (November)
– October (November)
The February Revolution
– Tsar Nicholas II abdicated
– Two groups claimed power:
• The Provisional Government (former members of the Duma)
• The Petrograd Soviet (Workers’ Council)
The Provisional Government failed to reform and lost popularity
– Continued fighting (and losing) in the First World War
– Failed to re-distribute the nobles’ land to the peasants
Lenin and the Bolsheviks (Communists) gained support with their
demand for ‘Peace, Bread and Land’.
In October 1917 the Provisional Government was overthrown and the
Bolsheviks, who by then dominated the Petrograd Soviet, seized
power.
See OXLEY Chapter 5, pages 90 - 109, for details