Causes of the 1917 Februrary Russian Revolution

(infodump essay, so that I can find it later without taking up any memory on my pendrive or harddrive. Oh, and our kitten is now a queen and she's in heat. Bloody noisy nuisance of a cat.)



Intro: The 1917 Revolution in Februrary was merely the explosion from a steady build up of pressure. When the 1905 Revolution acheived next to nothing for the workers and peasants and they realised that, the discontent started building again. Not only had Tsar Nicholas II reneged on the promises made in the October Manifesto, but the Duma he allowed to form supported -him- rather than the interests of the workers and peasants, those that had protested essentially. If this alone was not enough then the mismanagement of the people and politics during World War One certainly would have been.



Before the war

Economic causes- Due to the Industrial revolution, the economy was proving to be more efficient and profitiable compared to the output it once had. This meant that the archaic methods of farming were set aside and updated (around 200 years -after- the rest of Europe), albeit only slightly and industries in the cities and towns were increasing production.

- City population swelled as peasants were migrating from the farms and countryside into the cities for employment. Each factory had 1000+ workers by 1913, which made living conditions poor and labour very cheap. The low wages only increased discontent among the disgruntled workers and the close living conditions meant that it was much easier for word of a protest to get around, since censorship of the newspapers prevented the more conventional methods.



Social causes- While in some aspects the conditions of the peasants and workers -had- improved, in most others they had not, living conditions, equality of status and the right to have an equally weighted vote wasn't among the improvements. The aristocracy and upper/middle class beurgoise(sp? Merchants essentially) retained the majority of the power, leaving the peasants and workers on the bottom rungs of the social ladder.

- Bloody Sunday (February 9th, 1905) meant that the Tsar could no longer rely on the peasants loyalty for his rule (peasants are around 80% of the population). Stolypin, his Minister of the Interoro knew this and tried to get their loyalty back to the Tzar by improving famring -and- crushing the revolutionaries. His method was court marshalls, very abrupt 'justice' systems. 24 hours after being convicted the prisoner would have a trial and within 24 hours of the trial they had to have the execution-- usually by hanging. Hence the gallows became known as 'Stolypins neckties'.



Political causes- The Duma, the Third one formed but the first to actually serve it's full term of 5 years, was made up of wealthy merchants and aristocracy, therefore it was highly supportive of the Tsar and very conservative. The First Duma made a vote of no confidence in the government, Nicholas' response was to dissolve the Duma. The Second Duma was made up of Social Revolutionaries (those that started the Revolution in 1905 and want to remove the Tsar completely from his throne) was dissolved four days before it even took seat on the premise that they weren't loyal to the throne. The third Duma was made and allowed to stay as it -supported- the Tsar's decisions, rendering it rather unpopular with the peasants and workers. --prime hunting ground for the left- and right-wing revolutionaries.

The War
Effects on the people- Low wages--> due to a great number of workers going off to the war (around one in three soldiers were conscripted) businesses were failing regularly, unless of course they were part of building and creating armaments, ammunition, guns and so on, supplies for the army essentially.
- Inflation and high bread costs--> again due to the number of people in the war there weren't enough peasants working the land and farming crops to supply food for everyone, let alone the army, this pushed bread prices through the roof, a precious commodity.

Effects on the Army- Shortages --> Food, arms and ammunition were short, obviously, due to the fact that the Tsar had left about one tenth of the working population to -work- and provide the food and products for the rest of the country. It got so bad that at one stage the soldiers had to wait until their comrades holding guns fell and died to pick up their weapon and march on.
- Heavy losses --> frequent defeats to Germany and the officers treating the war like a race to Berlin resulted in a loss of morale. The individual officers advanced ahead of their supply lines and not as a uniform force, one flank would advance further than another and have to retreat. Rather than forcing the Germans out of Russia in a unified force. The Officers, generals, captains etc were made up of aristocracy, given their positions from favours and rank (ie, Lord such and such) rather than on -merit-, their capabilities as a leader was never previously tested.

Tsar Mistakes- The Tsar dismissed his uncle, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and took personal command of the army. This was a bad move because the defeats the Russian army took in the face of the German's were now blamed directly on Nicholas II rather than on his ministers and officials. Further loss of morale and supportive loyalty to the Tsar from the civilians, army and almost everyone.
- His second major mistake was leaving the Tsarina (his disliked GERMAN wife) and Rasputin (disliked 'priest' that was introduced to the family because the heir had haemophillia and the doctors couldn't do anything about it, Rasputin managed to help somehow.) in charge. In an autocracy, the autocrat canNOT leave the centre of power to stand on the peripherals, not without commiting virtually political suicide.

Tsarina and Rasputin- The Tsarina was German and disliked before the war, now that she was in power and they were at -war- with the Germans, her popularity plummeted. Essentially she was seen as a German spy and distrusted as well as disliked - now hated.
- Now Rasputin is a bit more complex of a character. He was a peasant that was raised up through the ranks by becoming a clergy minister, of sorts. He was a mystic, a rather disliked mystic because he damaged the Royal Family's reputation, -and- because he was an advisor to the Tsar, advice which the Tsar took. Rasputin had religious 'councelling' sessions with the aristocracy. They ended up being sex orgies as numerous rituals needed to be performed 'naked'. (side note of random information, aparantly he was 11". Ouch. Perhaps his appeal was hidden beneath his cassock?)

The Revolusion- Coldest winter on record, with an average of -12 deg C compared with the -4.4 deg C of the year before.
- Low food, low wages, low comfort. On the 23rd of February--> International Womens day and thousands of women marched in a protest. They were joined by their menfolk as they marched onto the Winter Palace.
- General Khabalov tried to introduce rationing when the food shortages ran low --> very bad idea, too little too late. Should have rationed -before- then.
- Then Khabalov lost control of the army when they refused to fire on the women protestors and joined in the riot. The Tsar couldn't get the army to supress the revolution if the army didn't follow his and his general's orders, so he was forced to abdicate without the power of the army behind him to enforce his rule.

(There we go, info dump complete.)