Background of the Russian Revolution

The Russian Empire

Russia by far was the largest country in the world, but in many ways was one of the weakest in relation to the other powers engaged in the Great War. The Russian Empire contained within its large landmass a multitude of nationalities, religions, and resources.

Unfortunately, the size of the country made it difficult to rule and the population existed as a feudal (like the Medieval period) society. This meant that poor farming peasants were under the control of powerful landlords who controlled their lives. Finally, there was little industry or manufacturing of goods except in the very large cities. For the most part, Russia was a giant and backward nation by Western standards.

Internal Problems

To control such a massive empire, the tradition of a strong Tsar with the support of a powerful secret police, was belied to be the only way. Attempts to assist the suffering of peasants with land reforms had been attempted in the past, but had met with failure. In fact, Tsar Alexander II had freed the serfs (basically eliminated slavery), but was rewarded by being blown up by assassins. Regardless, many still believed that efforts had to be made to reform the country to catch up with West.

Eight out of ten Russians lived as peasants who labored under terrible conditions. Life in general was one of hardship and suffering. Many would starve to death during poor harvests and only ate meager rations with good harvests. Life in the cities was not much better, there people lived in cramped housing and worked low paying jobs. The rural and urban people of Russia were ready to hoping for improvements in their way of life from the Tsar.

Leadership of Russia

In 1894 a new Tsar (king) came to power named Nicholas II. Russia was not to benefit from the rule of Nicholas II, as he believed God had chosen him to rule alone. He was not interested in sharing the power to rule over Russia, but he came to the throne at a time when people were calling to this to occur.

In addition, he was physically weak, not very smart, and was a bad judge of people. This made him easy to be influenced by all sorts of poor advisors. One of these weak advisors was a monk named Gregory Rasputin. Rasputin gained access to the royal family because of the Tsar’s wife Empress Alexandra. She believed that Rasuptin was able to control her son’s hemophilia (a disease where uncontrollable bleeding occurs). Rasuptin used his position to have his friend appointed to posts in the Russian government.