The collapse of Tsarism

Introduction

The collapse of Tsarism came from many different directions I am going to use the books “Lenin’s Russia” and “Russia revolution and counter revolution” to try and find out the main cause of the collapse I am going look at the short term causes and the long term causes.

February 1917

In February 1917 there was a revolution the people of Russia thought it was a spontaneous outbreak by an exhausted population not planned buy freemasons or Bolsheviks, there was also the view that the February revolution was neither wanted nor expected.

It was also uncontrolled and not manipulated by the political leaders and for the most part the opposition politicians were caught of balance by the February revolution.

As a result there was no government waiting to take control when the Tsar abdicated there was a whole to be filled and into this gap moved to groups the Provisional Government and the Petrograd soviet.

The Provisional Government formed in early March 1917 it consisted of Constitutional Democratic also known as the Cadet and it also consisted of the Octoberist parties there aims were to end tsarist autocracy, establish law-making body with meaningful powers and to allow basic rights such as freedom of speech.

The difference between the new soviet and the old soviet

The Petrograd Soviet was a re-established St Petersburg Soviet or council of workers which was set up during the 1905 revolution. The difference between the new soviet and the old soviet is that the new one is made up of representatives from the Petrograd army garrisons as well as factory workers.

Also the effects of the war were having a big effect on the downfall of the Tsarist collapse. There was a statistic that states Russia lost in the whole war more men than any army which ever participated in a national war approximately 2,500,000 died during the war. There was also the fact that there was not enough weapons, ammunition to go round the soldiers and some of the soldiers where having to go and get weapons off dead people laying in no mans land.

There was also the poor links between the front line and the cities so supplies and food supplies could not get to the army forces. This was all putting pressure on the Tsar.

But when the Tsar choose to go and join the front line fighting he put him self up for a lot of criticism because if Russia lost a battle he would be to blame straight away because he was at the front line. What the biggest mistake was leaving Tsarina in charge of Russia and leaving her to deal with all the problems Russia was suffering with. There were many rumours that she was a spy from Germany because of her German relations also because she took advice of Rasputin who took advantage of the Tsarinas trust by putting all of his partners in a role of advisors. He was then assassinated because someone thought he was taking control of Russia and giving too many views

Conclusion

In conclusion I think that there was I lot of problems in Russia during the early years into the 1900`s but the tsar did not help him self stay in power with some of the decisions he made during his rule and regime. He did not listen to his people and he believed firmly in autocracy and that was a mistake because the people need to be listened to and they need to be able to express there view on how the country is run.

He also made mistakes in how he used peasants and how he didn’t allow them to make enough money for themselves also the conditions in the factories and the way the people were working very hard and very long hours for the money they paid. So I don’t think the Tsar could have prevented the Revolution unless he changed they way he ran Russia which he didn’t do and was then force to abdicate.