russian revolution aos1 quotes

Nicholas was the source of all problems…a Tsar determined to rule yet quite incapable of exercising power.

Orlando Figes (Nick)

I am not prepared to be a Tsar

Tsar Nicholas (Nick)

The Japanese are infidels. The might of Holy Russia will crush them.

Tsar Nicholas (RJ War)

The war exposed the weaknesses of the autocracy and Russia’s backwardness…

Sally Waller

There is no God any longer. There is no Tsar.

Father Gapon

We, workers and inhabitants of the city of St Petersburg…have come to you, Sovereign to seek justice and protection.

Bloody Sunday petition

…gravely damaged the traditional image of the tsar as the ‘Little Father’.

Michael Lynch (BS)

No one believed more than Father Gapon in the bond between the Tsar and people. 

Orlando Figes (BS)

The tsarist regime survived 1905 remarkably unscathed.

Michael Lynch (1905 Rev)

…ambiguous and in some ways unsatisfactory to all concerned.

Sheila Fitzpatrick (1905 Rev)

We have been given a constitution, but absolutism remains.

Trotsky (1905 Rev)

I created the duma, not to be directed by it, but to be advised by it.

Tsar Nicholas (dumas)

…a word from the Tsar was sufficient to alter, override or abolish any existing legislation…

Alan Wood (FLs)

The Lena shots broke the ice…and the river of popular resentment is flowing again.

Stalin

In a year of the war, the regular army had vanished. It was replaced by an army of ignoramuses.

General Brusilov

The calorie intake of unskilled workers fell by a quarter and infant mortality and crime increased at an alarming rate.

Orlando Figes (WW1)

While the collapse of tsarism was not inevitable, it was made more likely by deepening cultural and political flaws…fatal under the pressure generated by WW1.

Richard Pipes (WW1)

The capital is in a state of anarchy.

Mikhail Rodzianko

The Romanov regime fell under the weight of its own internal contradictions. It was not overthrown.

Orlando Figes (Feb Rev)

The autocracy collapsed in the face of popular demonstration and the withdrawal of elite support for the regime.

Sheila Fitzpatrick (Feb Rev)

The Soviets had power without authority…the Provisional Gov had authority without power.

Alexander Kerensky (DA)

The orders of the military…are to be obeyed…when they do not contradict the orders and decrees of the Soviet.

Soviet Order No 1

…government of persuasion…

Orlando Figes (DA)

No support for the Provisional Government.

April Theses

For the sake of the nation’s life it was necessary to restore the army’s will to die.

Alexander Kerensky (JO)

There were not to be found anywhere in the country any groups of population…or military units ready to put up a fight for the old regime. 

Trotsky (Oct Rev)

The Bolsheviks did not seize power, they picked it up. 

Adam Ulam

The Provisional Government was so politically isolated.

Isaac Deutscher

…the political resolution of a long-drawn-out social crisis, the origins of which go back at least as far as 1905.

Steve Smith (Oct Rev)

The fundamental cause of the Russian Revolution…was the incompatibility of the tsarist state with the demands of modern civilisation.

Christopher Hill

…these officials swore an oath of loyalty to the person of the tsar…and regarded themselves as royal stewards rather than public servants.

Richard Pipes (IW)

…this government had no popular mandate and little support. It simply carried on the old system, just as a hen continues to run around the yard when its head has been cut off. 

AJP Taylor 

…a…deepening social polarisation between the top and bottom of Russian society undermined the Provisional Government by preventing the consolidation of political consensus.

R.G Suny

It is necessary to prepare men who devote themselves to the revolution, not only their free evenings, but their entire lives.

Lenin (revolution)

Nowhere in the world…was there as much class hatred and class envy as in Russia.

W.H Chamberlin

…his neurotically introspective Empress..

W.B Lincoln

Kerensky single-handedly had discredited the SRs and the Provisional Governments.

Martin McCauley

Tailoring the Bolshevik programme so that it would reflect popular aspirations was one of Lenin’s most important contributions to the…revolution.

Alexander Rabinowitch

Trotsky was indisputably the executive figure who organised the actual rising.

Michael Lynch (Trotsky)

The Bolshevik’s strength was that they were the only party uncompromised by association with the bourgeoisie and the February regime.

Sheila Fitzpatrick (Bolsheviks)

[The Bolsheviks] became the political alternative for the disappointed and disenchanted.

Rex Wade

the only political faction which pursued an unswervingly anti-war policy

Alan Wood (Bolsheviks)