1905 Revolution Flashcards
5 Long term causes:
- Rapidly growing town/cities had poor sanitation or water supplies
- Huge pressures on food supplies & famine was common
- High taxes and redemption payments left peasants very poor & desperate for more land
- Political parties growing, despite efforts by the okhrana to suppress them
- Nicholas II remained committed to autocracy
2 short-term causes:
- 1904 Russo-Japanese war - Russia suffered humiliating defeats (Port Arthur 1905)
- Bloody Sunday - shocked many Russians and badly damaged the tsar’s authority and prestige
Bloody Sunday occurred on the…
9th January 1905
What happened on Bloody Sunday ?
Father Gapon led a peaceful march to the winter palace in St.Petersburg to present a petition to the tsar
Soldiers guarding the palace open fired, killing hundreds of unarmed people
How many workers attended the peaceful march?
150,000
Gapon petitioned for:
- An end to the war with Japan
- Fair wages & an 8-hour working day
- The election of a national parliament
Bloody Sunday triggered the 1905
Revolution.
A month after, c.500,000 workers went on strike in protest at the massacre, by end of year =2.7mil
The strikes affected…
The railways, so food couldn’t be delivered to the towns and cities
The peasants took the strikes as an opportunity to revolt and started…
Illegally taking land from the landowners
In July 1905 - the All-Russian Peasants’ Union met in Moscow but struggled to organise the peasants at a …
National level (had similar aims to the socialist revolutionaries)
National Minorities engaged in…
Widespread protests
In St.Petersburg a council (Soviet) was elected by factory workers. The St.Petersburg Soviet organised…
Was dominated by…
- Strikes and demonstrations
- The Mensheviks, including Trotsky
Nicholas II had to make what to keep control?
Concessions
In August, Nicholas announced the formation of an elected…
Duma
The Duma had no power to pass laws, only to advise the Tsar, which pleased no one.
In October strikes brought the country to a standstill and Witte proposed new concessions, which the Tsar reluctantly agreed to.
October 17th Nicholas published the…
October Manifesto
The October Manifesto promised 3 things:
1) Freedom of speech, religion & a free press
2) An elected Duma, which had actual authority. Laws issued by the Tsar needed to be approved by the Duma.
3) In November a second manifesto was published, promised to improve the Peasants’ Land Bank & to abolish redemption payments within a year.
