FP3: How far was the Tsar weakened?

Rasputin and the Tsarina

  • They discredited the autocracy further with the terrible handling of the government.

    • Replacing able ministers with incompetent ones in their favour meant that there was no one to actually handle things.

    • The frequent change in ministers meant the situation was unstable.

    • The situation is cities needed some form of handling but it wasn’t, fueling people’s anger.

  • They were ridiculed and mocked.

    • The cartoons of the two having an affair reflected badly on the Tsar, who was blamed for their role.

    • The Tsarina’s German heritage meant that people didn’t trust her.

    • The nobles were also disillusioned with the system under the two and even they stopped supported him, with some supporting the Progressive Bloc.

Difficult living conditions/home front

  • Inflation

    • Lack of food and goods so food/fuel prices quadrupled

    • The government printed money to pay wages which led to high rates of inflation (300% by 1916.)

  • Shortages of food and fuel

    • Railway was overloaded, lines blocked and signalling systems collapsed.

    • Cities- especially Petrograd- were difficult to get food to once land in Poland and the West was lost.

    • Peasants didn’t sell grain due to lack of incentive so little grain in the market.

    • Food was requisitioned for the army.

    • Lack of fuel also meant people were left cold.

    • Major source of anger, matched by the ban on vodka sales.

  • Worker shortage

    • The high number of men conscripted into the army meant a shortage of farm and factory workers.

    • This led to shortages of goods and food.

    • Many of these men also died in the war, fueling anger- in peasants especially as they lost the most numbers.

  • Overcrowding

    • Expansion of work force in factories/mines and refugees from German occupied areas led to overcrowding in towns.

    • A deterioration in living standards.

Failure to reform

  • The Progressive Bloc (2/3 of total Duma deputies who came together to demand a ‘ministry of national confidence’ where elected Duma members would replace incompetent ministers) gave the Tsar a chance to:

    • look as though he is working with the people

    • share blame for the state of Russia

    • slip into a constitutional monarchy

    but he rejected it and decided to maintain autocracy.

  • This meant the blame for both the military failures and the Tsarina/Rasputin was pointed directly at him. He made himself an obvious target of people’s ire.

  • Zemstva started forming their own bodies for medical care eventually banding together to make the Zemgor. Autocracy wouldn’t cooperate with them.

Military Failures

  • Losses

    • Huge number of casualties.

    • Heavy, humiliating defeats and land losses.

    • Led to disillusionment of the Tsar and his government.

  • Management

    • Soldiers sent to fight woefully unprepared.

    • Supplies and weapons terrible.

    • Soldiers told to pick up dead men’s rifles.

    • Incompetent leaders, bar some exceptions like Brusilov

  • Tsar takes over

    • Provided a chance for himself to be held personally responsible for the defeats and deaths, increasing his culpability.

    • He left Tsarina and Rasputin in charge.

    But…

  • by 1916, USSR was matching Germans in shell production

  • USSR had succeeded against Austria and contributed to the Allied effort by launching attacks at the Eastern Front

  • Brusilov’s offensive in 1916 meant Germans had to pull out 35 divisions to counter it

  • the army was not at verge of collapse at the beginning of 1917.

So
Although a key factor, the war was not responsible for the end of the regime. However, it did highlight its inadequacies and hastened its collapse.