A Shaky Start Essays

Russia was a country rich in raw materials that had been undisturbed by modern extraction and refining techniques until then, however, the majority of the countries resource rich areas were nowhere near any railways, with the bulk of the heavy materials such as steel, iron, coal and copper being in the Urals, almost 1,000km away from the nearest railway system in 1860. Oil, another key ingredient in industrialisation was almost 1,500km away to the south, in the Caucasus area3. This lack of transportation in a period when steam powered machines were producing the goods and steam powered trains were delivering them and leading the industrialisation in other countries like Britain, the USA and a future foe in Germany is an indicator of the distance that Russia was behind its rivals under the leadership of the Tsar. So the Tsar’s Russia was largely an agrarian one, but even in the agricultural sector Russia was lagging far behind the rest of the West in terms of the methods employed by farmers, little fertiliser was used and the labour saving machines used in countries with enormous agricultural output like the US were nowhere near as widespread in Russia. The weaknesses of the Tsar’s management of the agricultural sector were highlighted in 1891 when famine hit. Due to the heavy tax on consumer goods, peasants had been forced to sell more of their

In the beginning of the twentieth century, Russia was overtaken by the clash of two ideologies that represented a social, political and economic world order; one that at the time was the capitalist system and the other of revolutionary socialism. After the February Revolution 1917, Vladimir Lenin returned from exile and published a series of directives in an effort to channel the revolutionary energy to an uncompromised movement; prominently known as the “April Theses.” Moreover, later on December 1917, Lenin’s argument, shift from justifying the involvement in the war and the cooperation with liberals in the Provisional Government, such shift it is noticeable in “The Thesis on the Constituent Assembly,” thus showing that Lenin’s writing gave the Bolsheviks a strategic advantage, justified their extreme actions and impacted the course of Russian history.

During the late 19th to early 20th century, Russia under the rule of Nicholas II is transforming itself into a more industrialized country. This transformation produced revolutionary socialist movements that quickly grew in power and influence throughout Russia. These opposition movements are formed by Russian labor workers are referred to as soviets. Out of these soviets, the Bolsheviks emerged in 1903 as a radical wing led by a prominent Russian and communist figure named Vladimir Lenin. The events in 1905 which involved a number of embarrassing Russian loses against the Japanese in their conflicts in the eastern Pacific made the government even less popular among its people. It sparked violent protests across the country including Russia’s then capital St. Petersburg. A number of peaceful demonstrators would be killed and injured as a result of these massive protests. These incidents would spark the Russian revolution of 1905, an unsuccessful revolution that was suppressed by the government. Less than a decade later, World War I would erupt and Russia would find itself at war (“Russian History,” n.d.).

The Russian Revolution is a widely studied and seemingly well understood time in modern, European history, boasting a vast wealth of texts and information from those of the likes of Robert Service, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Allan Bullock, Robert Conquest and Jonathan Reed, to name a few, but none is so widely sourced and so heavily relied upon than that of the account of Leon Trotsky, his book “History of the Russian Revolution” a somewhat firsthand account of the events leading up to the formation of the Soviet Union. There is no doubt that Trotsky’s book, among others, has played a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the events of The Revolution; but have his personal predilections altered how he portrayed such paramount

This left the Russian people isolated as they had little, if any means of income to buy basic necessary items. Too make matters worse for both the Tsar and the Russian people, little action was taken in aid of these inconveniences. Before the war Moscow had been receiving 2200 railway wagons of grain per month in 1914; however by Christmas 1916 this reduced to only 300. This therefore resulted in the accumulative discontent of the Russian people which only made matters worse for the Tsar as the likely hood of the occurrence of revolution was high.

It can be argued that Lenin was the most significant leader of Russia and the USSR due to his revolutionary ideas, such as the implementation of socialist reforms, his New Economic Policy in 1921 and the transformation of the Bolshevik faction to the Communist Part of the Soviet Union leading to a huge Marxist-Leninist movement in the USSR. However, when assessing the ‘significance’ of a leader, it’s crucial that four main themes are taken into account, these being – economics, foreign policy, social change and leadership ability. It can be argued that other leaders of Russia and the USSR have been more

Were the Tsar's failures as a leader the main cause of the Russian Revolution in 1917? In 1917 things were tough for the Russian civilians. Food shortages were ripe after the war, coupled with the fact they had to pay reparations to the Germans. Because of the Tsar's incompetence the country was in disarray and this led to a revolution in 1917.

land reforms for the peasant farmers, and made many other reforms. The Russian citizen’s needs

They suffered low wages, poor housing, and many work related accidents. They government attempted to regulate factories by passing acts to restrict the amount of hours one could work, but their efforts were insignificant and led to many strikes and constant conflict between the workers and the police. Before the Crimean War, Russia had very little industrialization compared to Western European powers. This was partly due to a greedy upper class and serfdom, which is a system in which peasants provide feudal agricultural labor in exchange for the use of part of their master’s land in order to cultivate their own food. However, after the Crimean War, the tsar Alexander II enacted various reforms, one of which included the end of serfdom, this paved the way for Russia to begin industrializing. Between 1890-1910, Russia’s economy increased, due in part to the expansion of the Trans-Siberian Railway and a higher exportation of natural resources. A consequence of Russia’s industrialization was an influx of population in cities. Unlike other industrialized nations, Russia’s cities didn’t expand to accommodate their population growth, so workers in the cities were forced to endure poor and unsanitary living conditions as well as work days with little pay. Due to Russia’s long history of serfdom, there was little technological advancements and people skilled in

Change was prompted in Russia by a combination of an agricultural economy, a bureaucratic state, and international pressure. This political crisis added to by peasant insurrection led to the revolution (lecture). After the era of Stalin and Leninist communism, a few

Famine is something that Russia could be said to be very familiar with. Some of the greatest tragedies Russia experienced under Soviet rule were the famines that occurred in 1921, 1932, and 1947. The scope of the devastation is still unparalleled within the country’s borders and around the globe. While the damage and hardship endured during these trying times is uncontested, their specific causes are still held in contention.

The economy was important to keeping control of the country from the living standards of people. Lenin had his “New Economy Policy”to solve their problems. After the World War I, “Agricultural and Industrial production were down from the levels of 1913. Perhaps a third of Russia 's working horses had been diverted towards direct

In Russia, there were some prosperous peasant farmers called kulaks, but the living and working conditions for most peasants were dreadful. The Famine and starvation were common and in some regions. Much of Russia land was unsuitable for farming. As a result, the land was short in supply because, by the early 1900s, the population was growing rapidly. The peasants living conditions contrasted sharply with those of the aristocracy, who had vast estates, town and country houses and luxurious lifestyles. The biggest problems that Russia faced is that the Tsar did not do delegate day to day task and he also managed his officials poorly.

Lenin believed in a distinctly violent revolutionary ideology. Lenin claimed that he strictly followed Marxism, yet his policies and actions did not reflect it. One need only to read Lenin’s What is to be Done? and contrast it with Marx’s The Manifesto of the Communist Party to note the stark differences between their ideologies. Lenin believed that the working class could not reach class consciousness – the realization that capitalism exploits the working class -- on their own, that a “Vanguard” party must lead them to emancipation. Furthermore, Lenin believed, as Russian ideologues before him, that Russia could skip a stage in its economic development and that the state could alter the rules of

It was the greatest social disaster to have hit Russian peasants, making it highly significant. During the period of collectivisation, grain production levels were at their lowest, taking 25 years to achieve pre-collectivisation era levels, however, in order to improve the economy, grain procurement levels were unrealistically high. This generated a widespread famine and violence in rural Russia. Violence levels rocketed as riots against collectivisation broke out all over the countryside. Many were shocked by the mass slaughter and human misery that it had brought about. It is estimated that a staggering 10-15 million people died of hunger and violence during the years of collectivisation; this number alone highlights the significance of collectivisation. Furthermore, the famine increased as the Soviet government procured grain only for the sake of doing so. In Ukraine, millions were left to starve in what became known as the ‘Black Famine’ as the government rooted out hidden stocks of grain, only to have them rot in warehouses. The situation was not helped by the elimination of kulaks either; the farming expertise had been purged, thus, there was no one to pull the peasants out of starvation. Hence, collectivisation was highly significant as it resulted in a prodigious number of deaths, and agriculturally, was a terrible