As Russia gradually modernized between 1801 and 1939, it continued to rule over the people by intimidation with the incorporation of the secret police force. The secret police force would continue to play a large part of Russia’s attempts in controlling its people while the different forms of governments constantly changed due to the people’s discontentment. At the same time, Russia changed itself from an agrarian based economy to an industrialized nation through a slow, gradual approach of accepting its utmost importance to catch up with the other major world powers that threatened its power. The impacts of the continuity of the secret police and changes of governments and industrialization all eventually led to Russia’s “new identity” as …show more content…
As it served as a way to prevent possible revolutions, the size of the Third Section of Imperial Chancellery was still quite small, but that soon led ended when it was replaced by the Ohkrana in 1881. The Ohkrana was created in response to the assassination of Alexander II with similar motives for the original creation of the previous secret police force. In addition to its original purposes, the Ohkrana protected the tsar, royal family, and the Russian autocracy. However, its organization’s motives soon expanded to an Empire-wide campaign to silence terrorists, revolutionaries, and minority groups. This was because they posed as threats that could eventually have the power to overthrow Russia’s absolute monarchy …show more content…
First, Russia became absolute monarchy and an empire when Peter I became the first Russian emperor in 1721. From then on, the imperial Romanov Family continued to rule Russia for nearly two centuries; however, the tsarist government became unprepared for the problems that arose from World War I, along with its failure to bring any substantial changes after the Revolution of 1905. With the additional series of military and economic disasters, it caused the aristocrats, peasants, and middle class to become more embittered with the tsarist government. As a consequence, the March Revolution in 1917 represented Russia’s last piece of patience towards the ill fit tsarist regime. The Duma soon then assumed its government responsibility by forming a provisional government and abdicating Nicholas II despite the tsar’s attempts to dissolve the legislative body. However, the dissatisfaction among the Russians continued to grow because the Provisional Government continued Russia’s participation in World War I, hence the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government. With the new control of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Lenin announced a new Soviet government called the Council of People’s Commissars on November 8, 1917. Unfortunately, the Russians were still unhappy that Lenin still did
Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...
Moss, W., 2014. A History of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855. 1st ed. London, England: Anthem Press London, pp.112-113.
The Seizure of Power by the Bolsheviks in 1917. How did the Bolsheviks seize power of the Russian Empire in 1917? They were able to do this as a result of taking advantage of the current political and social situations in the country at the time. Through such decisions as disbanding the army and siding with the majority. the peasants, through such promises as land, food, equality and peace.
It was due to its great resources and population that Russia was able to compete with the other world powers in war and in commerce. Russia did not have the succession of leaders that supported industrialization like Japan did. Therefore, Russia, with Alexander II as czar, made few reforms to encourage industrialization. It was only through the multiple peasant revolts that Russia began to change. Both of these nations experienced changes in government, an increase in economic strength and transportation, and radical changes in the structure of the social classes.
It was said that the educated people, the contact with other countries should contribute to the government policy. As said in document 1 , "By 1900 there were political parties raging from far right defenders of autocracy and russian power over all other ethnicities, to far left revolutionaries calling for the overthrow of the government." The government there was autocratic, which was when the tsar had all the power/control of the government. Another cause for the Russian Revolution was the outbreak of WW1. "Even before the war urban workers all over the Russian empire had been increasingly radical, but the war brought the government's incompentence and the people's grievances into sharper relief. The first months of the war were a disaster for Russia." It is much easier to overthrow a government than to try andcreate a new government. As said in document 2,"Chaos, conflict, uncertaunty; more violence are much more common and often led to centralized, authoritarian governments." There was celebration all over the streets after the indication that the tsar was overthrown after 300 years of a tsarist government ruling. "The problem was that, after the party, governing problems arose immediately.
While most of Europe had develop strong central governments and weakened the power of the nobles, Russia had lagged behind the times and still had serfs as late as 1861. The economic development that followed the emancipation of peasants in the rest of Europe created strong industrial and tax bases in those nations. Russian monarchs had attempted some level of reforms to address this inequality for almost a century before, and were indeed on their way to “economic maturity” (32) on par with the rest of Europe. But they overextended themselves and the crushing defeats of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the First World War in 1917 lost them the necessary support from their subjects and created “high prices and scarcity” which were by far “the most obvious factors in the general tension”
In 1905 , Russia had a prerevolution that was put down of the Czar. Instead of learning from this prerevolution, Czar Nicholas II, made a very big mistake by in not introducing some reforms to correct the problems. So because of his actions, the situation grew worse. In 1917, the Russians were fighting in World War I. A good majority of the Russian people were weary and uncontent with the way the war was going and with the Czar's rule. This uncontent along with economic hardships caused riots and demonstrations to break out. The Czar called for the army to put down the revolution as they did in 1905. But the army joined the revolt and the Czar was kicked out of power soon afterwards. A temporary government was set up to decide on what kind of government Russia was gonna set up. Two political parties were set up. The Bolsheviks were one of the two. The leader of the Bolshevik party was a man named Lenin. Lenin was a firm believer of the theories and ideas of Karl Marx. So with his slogan of "Bread, Peace and Land", Lenin gained the support of the peasants and gained control of Russia and setup a communist state.
But the Tsar had least central control. After the 1905 Revolution the Russian people were granted civil rights, an... ... middle of paper ... ... ressed the Tsars lost support from the nobles and power, after 1905 revolution Nicholas II had very little central control.
Russia entered the 20th century as an oppressed tsarist state and the last of the Medieval European strongholds. The people were poor, starving and hopeless and, unlike the rest of Europe, had not experienced revolution. Eventually, however, a small group of revolutionaries emerged and overthrew the tsarist regime. Russia quickly devolved into anarchy and the resulting turmoil saw the rise of the Bolshevik Party and Vladimir Lenin. This was the beginning of the Russian Revolution, a prolonged event that deeply impacted Russia and the whole of Europe and the effects of which continue to be felt today.
The accumulation of these factors centred on Lenin's leadership helped stamp Bolshevik power across the Soviet Union. Lenin’s pragmatic leadership was the most considerable factor in helping to fortify Bolshevik power. His willingness to take power in October/November 1917 and the successes of the move, through his right-hand man, Trotsky, was critical as it helped give him unquestioned authority within the party despite members of the Central Committee i.e. Zinoviev and Kamenev suggested industrialisation needed to occur first. This highlighted Lenin’s communist ideology, which was essential to the Bolsheviks maintaining power. Following the failure of the Provisional Government, Lenin recognised that it was the Bolshevik’s priority to legitimise their government.
Throughout the time of the Revolution there was never just one individual revolution. There was a series of revolutions that were set in Russia in 1917. Some were crushed in the making and had no result but, others ended up being made a very big deal. These sequences of revolutions ended up dismantling the Tsarist autocracy which also resulted in the creation of the “Russian SFSR”. As a result of these revolutions “the emperor was forced to resign from his post and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution.”2
The Russian Revolutions of 1917 led to the riddance of the czarist Russia as well as the ushering in of the socialistic Russia. The first of the two revolutions forced Nicolas II to abdicate his throne to a provisional government. Lenin headed the second of the two revolutions in which he overthrew the provisional government.
The Russian’s were wrong in having hope for a reformed government. Following the careless Czar came Lenin and Stalin, both continuing the reign of terror that the Czar had left behind. Instead of a Czarist gover...
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia. 7th ed. Oxford: Oxford, 2005. Print.
After their defeat in the Crimean war (1853-1856), Russia’s leaders realized they were falling behind much of Europe in terms of modernisation and industrialisation. Alexander II took control of the empire and made the first steps towards radically improving the country’s infrastructure. Transcontinental railways were built and the government strengthened Russia’s economy by promoting industrialisation with the construction of factory complexes throughout...