Tsar Autocracy In Russia

Divisions of opposing groups of the Tsar were important to the survival of Tsarist Russia. However, other factors such as the church, the belief of the divine right, the army and the Okhrana were also effective in keeping the Tsar in a state of power.

Had Ivan not been paranoid and power hungry, the Russian State would not have been nearly as powerful and developed as it had become under Ivan’s rule. I believe that Ivan had some sort of mental illness and he directed his violent rage toward the boyars because of how they treated him during his childhood after the passing of his parents. Despite the fact that they should have been loyal to the then crowned Prince, they ignored his wishes, mistreated him, left him without enough food, and did not provide him with an education (Carswell

In a burgeoning climate of autocracy, the Romanov dynasty was firmly established in the societal framework of early 20th-century Russia. Having been in varying degrees of absolute political control over an approximate time period of four hundred years, their eventual undoing marked a power shift polarising the imperial regime laid out by countless Tsars beforehand. Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, is recognised to have a degree of personal responsibility for the downfall of the Romanovs, yet the extent to which his decision-making skills can be held accountable is questioned by some historians. Despite this, multiple political, social, and military facets of Nicholas II’s reign were handled with instability, and his perceived lack of legitimacy due to this poor decision-making ultimately was a major causative factor to the downfall of his family’s vast dynasty.

The first of these tsars, Ivan III, also known as “Ivan the Great”, defied Mongol control and declared the autonomy of Moscow. Ivan III was soon followed by Ivan IV, also known as “Ivan the Terrible”, who declared his power by pushing aside his advisors, crowning himself tsar and crushing boyars, who were Russian nobles. At first, Ivan’s reign was successful as he added vast new territories to the Russian empire. Later, after his wife’s death, Ivan’s power and prosperity declined because he started persecuting those whom he believed opposed him. This resulted in the execution of many nobles and their families, friends, servants and peasants, in which he replaced with a new service nobility, whose loyalty was “guaranteed by their dependent on the state for land and titles.” [1] Ivan the Terrible nor Ivan III were never absolute rulers- their ways of ruling just helped lay the foundation for Russian absolutism. After Ivan IV and his successor died, Russia entered a “Time of Troubles”, which lasted from 1598-1613, in which the peasant warrior bands known as Cossacks, rebelled against their nobles who fought back and defeated the Cossacks. Ivan’s grand-nephew, Michael Romanov, was soon elected by the Zensky Sober- a body of nobles, and placed efforts toward state-building. He was succeeded by “Peter the Great”, the Russian king that truly consolidated Russian

This production most likely strengthened Russian industry and the military. Peter I’s Table of Ranks was a formal list of government and military promotions based on various titles and honorifics, with the statement “To attain these ranks, nobles had to serve in the civil service or military” (Doc 3). This suggests that promotions were no longer hereditary, but based on merit, so anyone could work their way up the hierarchy with enough hard work and skill. The boyars most likely resented this new system because they could no longer rely on their bloodlines to move up the bureaucratic hierarchy.

On the 20th October 1894 Nicholas II ascended the throne as tsar of Russia. He idolised the concept of continuing to rule Russia under the autocratic system, in the same way his father and predecessor Alexander III had done so. However, Nicholas lacked the qualities and characters of the autocratic style of leadership. The

In addition to suppressing their revolts, Peter successfully undermined the lifestyle of the boyars, without losing their commitment to the state. He accomplished this with his establishment of the Table of Ranks, which designated the boyars specific roles in either the bureaucracy or military, making them workers of the state. These necessary steps allowed Russia to build a new, strong military force, and a powerful centralized government.

Despite all the work Alexander II did toward reforming Russia, the “Era of Great Reforms” left one crucial aspect unaltered: the power of the emperor. The intentional neglect of this was what kept the reforms from realizing their true potential. This led to dissatisfaction, which encouraged repression, terror, and most importantly: revolution. The first was the Polish Rebellion, caused by the failure of Russian authorities to suppress Polish nationalism. Although the Poles failed, other minorities sprung up for their voice

Lastly, the most influential man a part of the Chosen Council, Zemsky Sobor, made Ivan free every part of Russia that was threatened by Tatar invasion. All of these acts were to try to modernize Russia but also showed how determined Ivan was to take away all power of the boyars, and completely rid of their political

The beginning of the 20th century brought radical changes to the social and political structure of autocratic Russia. It was a period of regression, reform, revolution and eradication. Eradication of a blood line that had remained in rule for over 300 years; the Romanov Dynasty. The central figure of this eradication was Tsar Nicholas II, often described as an incompetent leader, absent of the “commanding personality nor the strong character and prompt decision which are so essential to an autocratic ruler...” (Sir G. Buchman, British ambassador to Russia from 1910 in H. Seton-Watson, The

The Russian state has been characterized by its strong heritage of powerful, autocratic leadership. This domination by small ruling elite has been seen throughout Russia's history and has transferred into its economic history. Throughout the Russian czarist period, to the legacy of seventy years of communism; Russia has been a country marked by strong central state planning, a strict command economy and an overall weak market infrastructure (Goldman, 2003). Self-interest, manipulation and corruption have all been present in the Russian economy, and have greatly helped the few as opposed to the many. To this day, Russia still struggles with creating a competitive and fair market.

This revolution brought newly freed peasants into major cities and the low wages and long work hours lead to the creation of radical parties. Moreover, both before and during Nicholas II’s rule there was a decrease in the amount the dynastic power that the autocracy was able to use. For instance, at the time of Nicholas II’s sovereignty he was forced to sign the Manifesto of October 22, which created the DUMA, or rather the first parliamentary system in Russia. The author argues that this attempt to shift power from the autocrat to the people coupled with the limited amount of power that Nicholas II was actually able to enact as tsar only caused more turmoil during his reign. Lieven concludes his book by pointing out the similarities between Nicholas II and other rulers, including the imperial emperors of Japan and German, as well as drawing parallels between the Tsar’s issues with ruling an empire to issues that were current within 1990s Russia.

The Tsarist Authority is a factor which was not as effective in strengthening the Tsarist State. Tsar Nicholas

Russian Kings called themselves Tsar, which means ‘Emperor’. The Tsar would run on his own, assisted by a few ministers that he chooses on his own. There was no parliament and the other people did not have any right to vote in elections. Tsars ruled in harsh manner, ruining everyone who dared to complain. Nicholas II was born on May 18, 1868 in Pushkin, Russia.

-The increasingly resentful boyars had indeed opposed Ivan and plotted against him on occasion, but the reign of terror that Ivan initiated by the oprichnina proved far more dangerous to the stability of the country than the danger that it was designed to suppress