The Crimean War was the war between Great Britain, French, and along with some other countries against Russia. While Russia led by Nicholas I, entered to the Crimean War to defend Orthodox Christian within the autocrat empire; French entered this war because they promoted the Catholics Christian; Great Britain wanted to maintain the autocrat empire and maintain power (Aksakov and Danielevsky, 378-389). It was an absolute humiliating when Russia defeated the war. The Russian military was outplayed because the British had much more sophisticated weapons, technology, and supply line (Riasanovsky and Steinberg, 366). Many liberal, conservative, and Russian people believed that the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War was evidence of Russia 's economy and material backwardness and fallen behind many European nations (lecture, 10/19). This led to the “forces of modernization”.
Defeat in the Crimean War made Russia’s lack of modernization clear. The first step toward modernization was the emancipation of serfdom. Soon after the war end Nicholas I came to end of his life. Alexander II was on the throne and the Great Reform period of Russia began. He first issued the emancipation manifesto in 1861. Alexander II “took steps to improve the condition of the peasantry. But these steps were only partly successful, depending as they did on the goodwill and voluntary action of landlords (Cracraft, 340). Therefore convinced that the task of improving the condition of the peasants kind of
The instant consequences to the emancipation of the serfs left Russia crippled, ironic, when alleged that it intended to advance Russia’s status. Many historians argue that despite abolishing serfdom, the means in which it was carried out didn’t coincide with reality. Subsequently, there were many riots which caused a rise of political groups such as Narodnik movement whose existence proves that Russian society was changing. Disorder spread with calls for change within Russia like In May 1862 where a number of pamphlets were issued including the radical Young Russia. Such propaganda aimed to gain support and create challenging individuals which would pressure the Tsar to make further changes. One could argue that as a result this led to the 1905 revolution and the end of Tsardom.
By 1916 russia had 4 and a half times more men captured than killed. In contrast England had 5 times more killed than taken prisoner. This was mainly due to the lack of equipment and weapons the Russian troops had.
This was achieved with the emancipation of the serfs. Still without a middle class, the government played a strong role in the early decisions with industrialization. The tsar during this time, Alexander II, had a great railroad network created that allowed for more efficient use of Russia’s plentiful natural resources.
The October Manifesto 1905 gained the Tsar back some of his support by promising reform; however the Tsar failed to abide by his promises and did not satisfactorily address the problems of Russia. To ensure his long-term survival the Tsar needed to address the problems that had caused the 1905 revolution. The action of Nicholas II to introduce reform saved his position in the throne s, though not for long as he took the wrong approach and chose to please some groups in Russian society and ignored the demands of others. Some changes were made that did temporarily satisfy his people such as the creation of a duma and the cancellation of the redemption payments. The creation of a duma meant the Tsar now had to delegate authority to parliament and could no longer consider himself an autocrat, however although it may of appeared that the Tsar now did not have ‘absolute’ power he didn’t really give the duma much power at all and he restricted their influence on the Russian government.
Taking control of autocratic Russia in 1855, Alexander II was the successor to his father Tsar Nicolas I having been trained his entire life to take on the role. During his reign as Tsar, Alexander passed many reforms all of which varied in political, social and economic stance. His most famous reform was deemed to be that of the emancipation of the Serfs, gaining him the title ‘Tsar Liberator’ as many believed that his effort to free those who had be bound by slavery, made him a hero. However some question whether he truly deserved this title as many reforms became reactional and many initially liberating reforms were revoked in order to ensure the security of the autocracy. As
This demonstrates that since the stress of waging war was tremendous, it should be no surprise that the first war could be a primary cause of the Russian Revolution. Moreover, the major powers of Europe hurt Russia in World War I; yet, by 1917, all the combatants horrifically suffered from the strains of war economically, proving this to be a long-term cause. This was, to a great extent, considerable because the military defeats and social strains of World War I had created a crisis in Imperial Russia. Before, Russia had some military accomplishments and they were on their way to being successful. Nevertheless, their triumphs were not long-standing; hence, Russia was not able to be victorious due to the fact that Russia decreased in economy because of the limitations in Russia. Similarly, restraints included the shortage of food and the huge problems with getting the obligatory materials for the army during World War I, which shows that this was momentous. Along with Russia being defeated and having a scarcity of supplies, Russia also showed economic oppression due to the pressure in jobs workers faced.
The last Tsar Nicholas II ascended the throne in 1894 and was faced with a country that was trying to free itself from its autocratic regime. The serfs had recently been emancipated, the industry and economy was just starting to develop and opposition to the Tsar was building up. Russia was still behind Europe in terms of the political regime, the social conditions and the economy. Nicholas II who was a weak and very influenced by his mother and his wife had to deal with Russia’s troubles during his reign. In order to ascertain how successfully Russia dealt with its problems by 1914, this essay will examine the October Manifesto and the split of the opposition, how the Tsar became more reactionary after the 1905 revolution, Stolypin’s
To Modernization of Russia began when Catherine the Great and Peter the Great came power in the 17th century. Peter The Great had the responsible and Peter the Great had developed a civil service which helped and had
The Russian Revolution began in 1917 and lasted until late 1930’s, the revolution was very brutal with total death of 3 million people and 7 million people were arrested (Document 12). The revolution broke out when Nicholas II comes to power because Bloody Sunday leads to Duma, then he steps down and the Duma sets up a provisional government thus sparking the want for domination and the revolution kicks off (Book). By the end of the revolution Russia was definitely weakened in some aspects but strengthened as a nation. Therefore, the Russian people were better off after the Russian Revolution because they benefited from a better economy, government, and living conditions.
The privileged nobles, who possessed land and serfs, supported his autocratic rule. The main theme of the Russian history in the 19th century is that the non-nobles who detested the Czarist government asked for an improvement in their disconsolate and deprived life. When the Czarist government ignored this matter they revolted for the first time in 1905 and than for the second time in 1917 by which the Czarist government was finally overthrown. Hungry strikers on March 8, 1917 mobbed the streets of Petrograd, their demand was bread. In order to appease the misery of his people Czar Nicholas II resigned his throne to his brother, Michael. His brother knew that everyone hated Czardom so he rejected the throne on March 15. The Provisional Government than took over and Czardom after ruling Russia for three centuries came to an end.
Czar Nicholas II was a very poor leader at the time. Many of his bad leadership decisions and weak skills lead to the Russian Revolution. The Czars were rich, but many Russians were very poor. The Czars took advantage of this and and made them slaves. Finally, Czar Alexander II freed them in 1905. When there were protests and many people were getting killed, he
In Russia, Westernization was nothing new as the late nineteenth century had rolled around, for they had already been immersed in political conflicts of Western Europe by the earlier parts of the century. Russia’s Westernization had even been started by Peter the Great. Being so well adapted to the politics of the West, the conservative Russian nobility had feared revolutions by the liberal West. Russia then had attempted to
Intentions of Alexander II and the Failure of the Emancipation of the Serfs In the 19th century it was estimated that about 50 per cent of the 40,000,000 peasants in Russia were serfs, who worked on the land and were owned by the Russian nobility, the Tsar and religious foundations. This had been true for centuries; in 1861, however, this was all changed when Tsar Alexander II emancipated the serfs and gave them freedom from ownership. Alexander's decision was based on many reasons, and did not have the desired consequences, for the serfs at least. Therefore, it is possible to question Alexander's motives for such large reform, which this essay will do and will also look at why the emancipation,
In fact in 1859 there were in Russia 23 millions of serfs. Alexander made up his mind to abolish it from above before that it would be done from below, through revolution. In 1861 serfdom was emancipated and this was the most important event in 19th century of Russian history. On the other way Alexander III after his father’s dead regarding the serfdom’s reforms decided to reduce the peasant representation in zemstva and the peasant representatives were appointed and no longer elected. Also the “Peasant Land Bank” was created to buy land from the lords and all the children from the lower-class were banned from secondary education. The Tsar, by a new statute in 1890, gave to the provincial governors ‘supervision over the correctness and legality of zemstvo institutions’. The reforms of the government are connected to the abolition of the serfdom. Russia was an under governed society, having many fewer civil servants than Britain. It was essential that local people, therefore, filled administrative roles. In 1864 Tsar Alexander II introduced new bodies in Russia, called zemstva. Zemstva were local governments located in outside city areas and the people who ran them were elected by the people from the village. The Tsar gave them power for make small reforms because he wanted to maintain his autocratic rule everywhere. The members were chosen by three electoral colleges,
For three centuries before the revolution, life in Russia was not peaceful. It was cold, hard, and bitter instead. “The end of serfdom was a major event in Russia; yet it just wasn 't enough.”, in 1861. Serfdom, under feudalism, is the the status of peasants in which they are bound to a lord, or master, works on their land, and can be sold like property. Despite serfs being given ‘freedom’, Russia was mostly ruled by the czar and nobles. The average person was, and stayed, poor. Therefore, World War I was not the main cause of the Russian revolution. This outdated feudal class structure, inability to modernize, lack of peace, and czars’ inept leaderships lead to the Russian Revolution.