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Robert Service - Coggle Diagram
Robert Service
WW1
Limited
- Denounces view of historians who believe pre-war Russia was a 'sound' state.
Deplorable conditions
- societal backwardness (
"Revolution was only to be expected in such circumstances"
)
i.e. conditions are terrible anyways so war couldn't stimulate drastic enough deterioration in population's quality of life to spark revolution.
"Conventional opinion
(i.e. his opinion)
has been that revolution of some kind, if not unpreventable, was highly likely"
i.e. Russia was not sound so revolution would have happened anyways
Criteria for idea that revolution would occur with or without WW1
- replacing WW1 with another similar aggravating event would result in same outcome. Due to
following problems:
Leadership -
"Nicholas II was unvisionary and unbending"
Political system underpinned by police state + arbitrary rule
Social classes/National groups/Religious groups resented status quo.
Widespread poverty (aggravated by industrial drive that neglected popular needs).
Quote:
"The Russian Empire was a powder keg waiting to explode"
.
i.e. limits ability of WW1 to cause drastic deterioration in livelihood
Increasing economic backwardness
in pre-war Russia and glaring social/political issues remained.
Quote:
"The industrial lead achieved by North American and European economies was large and growing larger"
.
i.e. Negates views of historians who claim WW1 served to prompt revolution by reversing developmental trends
Quote:
"The overthrow of the Romanovs grew likelier as year succeeded year"
.
i.e. Sense of inevitability - revolution was increasingly likely so would occur anyways.
Tsarist Government
Nicholas II
- unfortunate enough to inherit Empire with such magnitude of fundamental problems.
i.e. The problems faced by pre-Revolutionary Russia would have posed an acute threat to any leader/administration (no matter how skilled).
Quote:
"This set of circumstances ... would have put any conceivable Russian government to an extreme test in the early twentieth century"
.
Criteria
for justifying the scale of these issues:
Bolsheviks/Lenin
Peasantry