A Level Russian History - 1: The Condition of Russia before the Revolution of February 1917

Why was Russia a challenge to govern?

Why was Russia a challenge to govern?

Tricky Geography

·       Large land area – 6000 miles east to west, 2000 miles north to south

·       Population was mostly concentrated in the west due to inhabitable/difficult to live in terrain in certain areas

·       Less than 10% of land was cultivated for crops

·       Less than 2% lived in towns of over 100,000

Ethnic Diversity of Russia

·       1897 Census - 126 million people lived in Russia

·       Majority ‘Greater Russian’, however with a significant number of Ukrainians, Poles and Jews

·       ‘Russification’ - Tsar Nicholas II’s social policy where Russian was the only official language. Independence movements were supressed.

Peasantry

·       80% of Russian population

·       Lived in villages / small towns

·       1861 Serfdom Abolished – legacy of serfdom remained. Nobles had kept the best land and peasants had to pay for their freedom.

·       No equality before the law

·       Wanted land reform and redistribution

·       Land was owned collectively by the peasants and allocated by the M.I.R.

·       Economically inefficient in large areas

·       Most were generally conservative and resistant to change

Working Class

·       Less than 5% of Russian population

·       Peasants migrated to cities – increasingly becoming urbanised in 1900s-1910s

·       Life in the factories was tough – no workers’ rights, very few trade unions, long hours, dangerous conditions.

Middle Class

·       Only 1.5% of the population – poorly developed in comparison to Western European countries.

·       Often industrialists, bankers, financiers, lawyers and civil servants

·       Educated and cultured

·       Had financial power but no political power

·       Some were leaning towards wanting constitutional reform – wanted the state to become more effective and enlightened

Nobility

·       Russia’s royalty and aristocracy often lived lives of comfort

·       Isolated from the dissatisfactions of the lower classes

·       Noble titles and land ownership were the main determinants of privilege

·       Nobility had huge amounts of political power

·       Protective or their wealth and privilege – Russia’s aristocracy was arguably the most conservative force in the empire

How Russia was ruled

·       Fundamental Laws - basis of the Russian hierarchical system where thrtsar was ‘the emperor of all Russias in an autocratic and unlimited monarch’. His authority was divine and should not be subject to limitation or scrutiny.

·       Revolts were supressed by the army and Cossacks

·       Newspapers and publishing were censored

·       Many organisations were banned – socialist parties and trade unions were illegal and suppressed

·       Okhrana – the secret police force under the Russian Empire. Those prosecuted were often exiled to remote parts of Russia.

Was Tsarism doomed to fail?

Supporting Evidence

• By 1917, people were increasingly dissatisfied with the regime: WW1 had been going very badly militarily.

• Affected conditions at home - inflation, food shortages. Strikes were becoming more frequent.

• Tsar’s own reputation had suffered, especially when he took control of the army - increasingly regarded as incompetent and indecisive.

• Growing feeling that Tsar & aristocracy were increasingly out of touch

• People were disillusioned w/ lack of political reform.

• Tsar’s relations w/ duma weren’t good - rejected the demands of Progressive Bloc for a government of public confidence and a greater say in running the country.

Contradictory Evidence

• Hostility towards Tsar overemphasised? - regime was v popular during 1914 (start of WW1), with a strong residue of traditional support for the ‘Little Father’.

• No mass organised movement to overthrow the Tsar - more an unwillingness to come to his support once the crisis occurred in February

• Small groups of opposition - eg groups of factory workers, occasional mutiny in army. But how much of this was active opposition as opposed to generalised grumblings and gradual erosion of support?

• Military defeat was crucial - had WW1 been more successful, morale would have been higher. Ultimately, it was the failure of the military to unit behind the Tsar in 1917 that forced his abdication, not popular opposition. The Tsar only abdicated when the generals withdrew their support for him.

February Revolution 1917

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