February Revolution Flashcards
Notes in WW1 section
A lot of it, all WW1 stuff in spec point 1
Richard Pipes
Richard Pipes: “rebellions happen, revolutions are made.”
Orlando Figes
Orlando Figes: states that the mutiny turned disorder into revolution. The Revolution was “Born in the bread queues of Petrograd”.
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky: ‘Nicholas II inherited from his ancestors not only a giant empire, but also a revolution.’
Robert McKean
Robert McKean: “the Great War acted as the spark which set the combustible of mass discontent alight.”
Food
In 1917 Bread Queues of Petrograd: Women queued for hours and overnight for a loaf of bread. Often told no bread left.
Nicholas ii failings prior to WW1
1905 Bloody Sunday- Protestors came with petition. Troops shot at them
1905 Potemkin mutiny - Sailor complains to officer that meat is rotten gets shot and mutiny. Troops brought in to deal with this.
After 1905 Revolution Nicholas used field court martials and executions to bring back order
Social and Economy prior to WW1
By 1910 Economy increasing by 10% each year
1860: 5,000 University students in Russia increasing to 69,000 in 1914
LofA
Nicholas due to all his stupid decisions which were the root causes of many bad things.
Arguements
Nicholas- 1904 Decision to go to war with Japan leading to loss his fault as well as making Soliders shoot protestors on Bloody Sunday 1905
Appointing Rasputin in charge of army and taking control of army himself, both had little/no experience of role
War- Caused many deaths, stretched economy - counter Nicholas became commander and poor preparation by Nicholas with lack of supplies- Arguement suggests all countires who suffered from WW1 would have had a revolution which was obviously not the case
Social Economy-
Inflation high, not enough grain or food but COUNTER EITHER CAUSED BY WAR OR how Nicholas dealt with situation Counter for Feb Economy making improvements under Nicholas
Rasputin- fired many ministers and replaced with friends Counter left in a extremely difficult position with becoming in charge of Russia with no experience with the economic strain of war
Tsarist Political System
Tsar’s position was underpinned by the three principles of Autocracy (Dictatorship), Nationality (Russianness), Orthodoxy (Religion).
The one major aspect the Tsarist System was good was it helped protect the Tsars’ authority through the Orthodox Church as it taught children and it’s followers to follow the Tsar. Followers also believe the Tsar was appointed by God so doubting the Tsar would be doubting God.
There were no elections or elected government prior to Nicholas taking over. The legal system supported the autocracy as a common punishment for being an opponent to the Tsar was exile to Siberia where although the climate wasn’t great they could often do what they wanted, this may have kept political prisoners away for a period of time (although thousands escaped) but wasn’t an effective deterrent to standing up to the Tsar FACT 1. The Russian Secret Police (The Okhrana) were used to make sure everyone was doing as they were told which as we know from the Gestapo in Nazi Germany, a Secret Police is a great way to maintain control.
Their poor treatment of national minorities obviously wasn’t like by national minorities as Plehve estimated that 40% of revolutionaries were Jews FACT 2 in 1903 Fact 4. This shows the clear link between the Tsarist System with policy of Russification FACT 4 ultimately leading to it’s own downfall (as a large proportion of people trying to overthrow the Tsar were from National Minorities) as the Tsar being anti-Semitic meant he didn’t do much to improve their lives.
February Secret Weapon
Councillor of State Mikhail Rodzianko warned Tsar Nicholas II to
give the Duma more power to avert a revolution. Nicholas refused.
(Feb 10th)
