There are hundreds of events which occurred over a long period of time that could have been the cause of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Most of these events would have played at least a small part in the creation of the revolution although the real question is which events were the most significant or had the most impact on the forming of it. After researching the various events that could have been the main cause I found that the most significant causes of the 1917 Russian Revolution were the famine in the cities, the Tsar’s failure to take action and the lack of improvement for the working class citizens after the 1905 Revolution.
Like the Revolution itself the famine in the cities was cause by a number of different things. Russia’s industrialisation which
…show more content…
Shops began to close and the lack of food became so severe the most working class women were spending up to 40 hours a week in bread ques, many sleeping outside bakeries overnight to be the first in line . Louise Bryant describes the daily struggle in a paragraph from her book Six Months in Russia she writes ‘One of the things that strikes coldness to one’s heart are the long lines of scantily clad people standing in the bitter cold waiting to buy bread, milk, sugar or tobacco. From four o’clock in the morning they stand there.’
On the 23rd of February 1917 a bread riot that would change Russia forever broke out. It was International Women’s Day and the women themselves, fed up with waiting for bread, started a riot which they lead through the workers districts of the city gathering their husbands and other workers from factories with whom they went on to occupy the centre of the city. There were about 100,000 people who marched to the centre of the city and over the following three days they continued to occupy the area with more and more people joining the
People would be queuing for hours just to get a loaf, sometimes less, of bread. There was lots of poverty for the poor in Russia. The life expectancy amongst the poor was less than forty years old. The aristocracy only made up one per-cent of the Russian population yet owned twenty five per-cent of the land. All of this angered the peasants as they felt the Tsar did not care about them, or want to help them. They resented the rich as they had good living conditions and were not treated badly by the
Food is one of their main struggles. There is nothing much left to eat in Russia during that time because the government only has a limited supply of food so they can only give out a small number of ration cards to their people. This disturbs normal daily life and happiness like bread for example. Lev narrates “The entire city was starving, no one had enough to eat, and still, everyone cursed the bread, the sawdust. flavor, how hard it got in the cold. People broke their teeth trying to chew it” (Benioff, 11). The bakeries have to make bread with cottonseed, cellulose, and sawdust as the flour and grain grew scarce. This is not right because people can’t have real food. Meanwhile, the delicious tasting, beautiful sight, and good touch of actual food bring true happiness on people face. Yet, making bread is not the only thing that people can’t enjoy.
For many revolutions people may argue different reasons why that particular revolution was caused, but there often one that is the primary cause. The Russian Revolution began February 1917, many people in Russia lost faith in their government, especially since they had not done so well to begin with when they participated in World War I. Which resulted in a lot of expenses. Others may argue that since Tsar was an unproductive leader and because of the decisions he made when he was in power that influenced the Russian Revolution. Although Tsar’s weak leadership may have influenced the Russian Revolution, World War I was the main cause of the Russian Revolution because it destroyed the economy, which led to riots and many people
This demonstrates that since the stress of waging war was tremendous, it should be no surprise that the first war could be a primary cause of the Russian Revolution. Moreover, the major powers of Europe hurt Russia in World War I; yet, by 1917, all the combatants horrifically suffered from the strains of war economically, proving this to be a long-term cause. This was, to a great extent, considerable because the military defeats and social strains of World War I had created a crisis in Imperial Russia. Before, Russia had some military accomplishments and they were on their way to being successful. Nevertheless, their triumphs were not long-standing; hence, Russia was not able to be victorious due to the fact that Russia decreased in economy because of the limitations in Russia. Similarly, restraints included the shortage of food and the huge problems with getting the obligatory materials for the army during World War I, which shows that this was momentous. Along with Russia being defeated and having a scarcity of supplies, Russia also showed economic oppression due to the pressure in jobs workers faced.
In 1905, the social and economic tensions building up within Russia boiled over into Revolution. It was described by Lenin as the “Great Dress Rehearsal” for the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and may give us clues as to why the 1917 revolution started. The suggestion that Tsar Nicholas II and his actions were to blame for this revolution is debatable and there are many factors such as the repressive Tsarist system, the growth of opposition from the time of Alexander II and the defeat in the war with Japan to consider. These events can be separated into short and long term effects on the revolution. Bloody Sunday and defeat to Japan would be short term effects whereas the
Poor Living and Working Conditions as the Reason for Bolsheviks' Seizure of Power in 1917
“The power still has to be snatched from the hands of the old rulers and handed over to the revolution. That is the fundamental task. A general strike only creates the necessary preconditions; it is quite inadequate for achieving the task itself”(Trotsky). The ineffectiveness of the strikes can be found in the fact that in nearly every occasion the soldiers were ordered to shoot on the crowd, stopping the revolts and leaving the tsar as obnoxious to the situation as before. Also the peasants in the countryside suffered land-hunger due to the growth of population caused by the decreased of mortality rates. Backwardness was also caused by the “open field system”, which didn’t motivate the peasants to improve their machinery or seeding methods since their land would be taken away from them and redistributed when a member of the community died. Nicholas II was a weak, indecisive and obstinate ruler who, being very conservative and reactionary, used extensively the secret police (“Third Section”) and the army to suppress uprisings and political enemies. He alienated the intelligentsia and angered the liberals with his lack of political participation and exaggerated reliance on the Fundamental laws, which said that the tsar was appointed by god and was rightfully in charge of the country. As a response, the liberals initiated a banquet campaign that started in November 1904, and ended in January 1905 with the aim of making the tsar give
Money was required for Russia to build their own industrial base to support themselves. To build this infrastructure they had to borrow money from other countries. In exchange Russia would give them grains. Hence, Russia’s economy depended on the peasant who had to feed themselves & the bourgeoisie.The peasants weren’t productive enough. As a result, Stalin started to collect agriculture to finance industrialization (New World Encyclopedia contributors, 2014). Economics historians believe it to be the fastest economic growth rate ever achieved. In 1932-1933 the 4th greatest famine occured in the USSR due to collectivication (Fitzgerald, 2013). The workers building and working in these industries were unpaid laborers and prisoners (New World Encyclopedia contributors, 2014). Because there was about ~7 million - 15 million prisoners in labor camps and they were working in industries, those camps were now necessary for the prosperity of Russia’s economy (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d.). With all those measures in place the productions of coal, pig iron & steel increased (New World Encyclopedia contributors,
Causes of the Russian Revolution 2 - What were the causes of the Russian Revolution? (n.d.).
Another reason for the fall of Tsarism in 1917 that was highlighted but not caused by the war is the fact that Russia was a difficult country to run. Russia's economy was backward compared to those of other Western countries, 4/5 of it's population were peasants, who were more often than not illiterate and lived in severe poverty. Although by 1917, improvements had been made to the
Russia was a country rich in raw materials that had been undisturbed by modern extraction and refining techniques until then, however, the majority of the countries resource rich areas were nowhere near any railways, with the bulk of the heavy materials such as steel, iron, coal and copper being in the Urals, almost 1,000km away from the nearest railway system in 1860. Oil, another key ingredient in industrialisation was almost 1,500km away to the south, in the Caucasus area3. This lack of transportation in a period when steam powered machines were producing the goods and steam powered trains were delivering them and leading the industrialisation in other countries like Britain, the USA and a future foe in Germany is an indicator of the distance that Russia was behind its rivals under the leadership of the Tsar. So the Tsar’s Russia was largely an agrarian one, but even in the agricultural sector Russia was lagging far behind the rest of the West in terms of the methods employed by farmers, little fertiliser was used and the labour saving machines used in countries with enormous agricultural output like the US were nowhere near as widespread in Russia. The weaknesses of the Tsar’s management of the agricultural sector were highlighted in 1891 when famine hit. Due to the heavy tax on consumer goods, peasants had been forced to sell more of their
There were many long-term causes that gradually led up to the revolution in 1917. The political system installed in Russia under the
For three centuries before the revolution, life in Russia was not peaceful. It was cold, hard, and bitter instead. “The end of serfdom was a major event in Russia; yet it just wasn 't enough.”, in 1861. Serfdom, under feudalism, is the the status of peasants in which they are bound to a lord, or master, works on their land, and can be sold like property. Despite serfs being given ‘freedom’, Russia was mostly ruled by the czar and nobles. The average person was, and stayed, poor. Therefore, World War I was not the main cause of the Russian revolution. This outdated feudal class structure, inability to modernize, lack of peace, and czars’ inept leaderships lead to the Russian Revolution.
There are many reasons that could have been considered to be the cause if for the outbreak of revolution in February 1917. The many effects of the war proved to lead towards the revolution because it demonstrated how hopeless the Tsar and his government were in dealing with all the problems Russia faced. Also the ministers within the government also had a part to play in the events leading up to the revolution as many of them advised the Tsar to resign.
The long term causes lead back to the time between the end of the 1905