condition of Russia before 1917 - chap 1
Tsar Nicholas II
- member of Romanov dynasty that had ruled Russia since 1613
- came to throne in 1894
- determined to fulfil his divine calling and uphold autocracy although found an escape in his family life with his German wife Alexandra and their four daughters and son, Aleksei.
Russia
- Russia trailed behind in industrial and political advances
- considered a great power due to it's size
- serfs acquired freedom in 1861
- due to the size, there was many different ethnic groups each with their own culture, customs and language - the total population was around 185 million and just under half was Russian
- by 1917 around 3/4 of the total population lived in European Russia
- predominantly agricultural
- defeat in the war against Japan in 1904 to1905 led to many strikes and eventually led to 'Bloody Sunday' in january 1905 - Tsarist army shot at a crowd demanding reforms in St Petersburg.
- he was ill-suited for his position as Tsar - naturally shy and rather awkward; found details of politics boring and struggled to make any clear political decisions by himself; extremely stubborn, resenting any advice which he saw as criticism
- he dismissed a Zemstvo petition for an elected National Assembly
- agreed to a state Duma in 1906 but constantly limited their power
- kept his ministers weak - played them off each other
- reluctant to innovate, perpetual problems of state finance and the disorganisation of overlapping institutions of Tsarist government helped weaken political authority in Russia by 1917.
- Alexandra introduced him to Rasputin, a 'holy man', who was able to heal the pain of Aleksei but Rasputin's influence extended to interfering with government
War effort 1914 -1917
- june 1914 - Archduke Franz Ferdinand (Austria) was assasinated by a Slav. Pan-Slavism was strong in Russia and supported them when Germany went to the aid of their ally - Tsar mobilised in july 1914 and went to the aid of Serbia
- decision to go to war was popular initially (supported by wave of anit-German sentiment) - state Duma dissolved itself claiming that it did not want to burden the country with 'unnecessary politics'
- Battle of Tannenburg in East Prussia in aug 1914 - defeat - left 300,000 dead or wounded
- Masurian Lakes in sept 1914 - defeat - forced russian army to retreat out of Prussia
- Russian gov managed to mobilise 12 million men between 1914 and 1917 - most were peasants - sent to fight without suitable weaponry (1914 - two rifles for every three soldiers)
- Brusilov offense a russian attempt to push westwards from the ukraine and break through austro-hungarian lines in june 1916 -
- deteriorating economic and political situation within Russia led to a fall in morale and 1.5 million desertions by the end of 1916
government and decisions
- disputes over war effort
- tsarist gov set up military zones where all civilian authority was suspended and military assumed command but was opposed by zemstva as they regarded the gov as insensitive to the people.
- June 1915 zemstva and municipal Dumas joined to form Zemgor - the all Russian union of zemstva and cities - chaired by Prince Luvov but Nicholas shunned it
- sept 1915 - Tsar became commander in chief of Russian army and navy - a disaster as he had already lost confidence and support of the generals and soldiers
- Tsars new position made him more responsible for the disasters and he had also distanced himself from developments in Petrograd where Rasputin meddled in political and policy decisions
- rumours of an affair between Rasputin and Alexandra, who as a German was accused of sabotaging Russian war efforts
- Rodzianko (president of 4th duma) warned Nicholas of rasputins unpopularity and the damage he was doing to the Tsarist name and in an attempt to save the tsars reputation, Prince Yusupov and others murdered Rasputin in 1916