Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/March 2017/Op-ed
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Peasants of the Russian Empire: At Wit's End |
- By TomStar81
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In all probability, the morning of 7 March 1917 began as it would any other day for the citizens of the
Nicholas II had been born in May 1868 to a family whose reign over Russia had traced back nearly two centuries to 1721, a year in which Peter the Great established the Russian Empire. Nicholas II's royal rule could be traced back even further, as the first to claim any royal rule in Russia were the Princes of Novgorod in the 860s. Through the next 1100 years Russia underwent several changes of the royal family that would see Russia ruled over by the Grand Princes of Kiev, then the Grand Princes of Vladimir, then to the
During the era of Russia's reign by the Grand Princes of Moscow, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor,
Although at the top of the hierarchical pyramid in Europe by using the title Emperor, the Russian Empire lagged sorely behind its European counterparts in a technological and industrial sense, and this lag began to catch up with Russia during the reign of Nicholas II. In a time when steam trains, gasoline cars, and flying machines were wowing the world in the west Russia was still making use of horses and wagons, still had a disproportionately large lower class working demographic and, thanks to an absence of advisors with actual field experience, the Russian monarchs had managed to snuff out most of what was at the time considered the middle class, arguably the most important class in post industrial revolution societies. Nicholas II in particular had a particularly nasty habit for not understanding the ins and outs of Russia's manufacturing, production, agricultural, and commercial based businesses or the people that ran them; either due to innocence, misplaced trust in bad advisors, or perhaps a certain naivete in matters of the state Nicholas always seemed to be misguessing, underestimating, or overlooking signs that his Russian Empire was in dire straights. The first sign that Nicholas II's reign was in trouble came when socialist sentiment began spreading across the Empire, fueled in part by personnel affiliated with the Constitutional Democratic Party, Socialist Revolutionary Party, and the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. These parties advocated for governmental reforms which upset Nicholas II, who was determined to retain the autocracy his father had left him. Despite these efforts to undermine Imperial rule, the Russian Empire remained one of the world's great powers.
Nicholas II's reign began to crumble in 1904-1905, when the
By the time of World War I the citizens of the Russian Empire had gotten over the 1905 revolution and greeted the conflict with enthusiasm and patriotism, with the defense of Russia's fellow Orthodox Slavs, the Serbs, as the main battle cry. Initially, the Russian army invaded Germany's province of East Prussia and occupied a significant portion of Austrian-controlled Galicia in support of the Serbs and their allies – the French and British. Military reversals and shortages among the civilian population, however, soon soured much of the population. German control of the Baltic Sea and German-Ottoman control of the Black Sea severed Russia from most of its foreign supplies and potential markets. By the middle of 1915, the impact of the war was demoralizing. Food and fuel were in short supply, casualties were increasing, and inflation was mounting. Strikes rose among low-paid factory workers, and there were reports that peasants, who wanted reforms of land ownership, were restless. The Tsar eventually decided to take personal command of the army and moved to the front, leaving Alexandra in charge in the capital. As the government failed to produce supplies, mounting hardship created massive riots and rebellions. With Nicholas away at the front from 1915 through 1916, authority appeared to collapse and the capital was left in the hands of strikers and mutineering conscript soldiers. Despite efforts by the British Ambassador Sir George Buchanan to warn the Tsar that he should grant constitutional reforms to fend off revolution, Nicholas continued to bury himself away at the Staff HQ (Stavka) 600 kilometres (400 mi) away at Moghilev, leaving his capital and court open to intrigues and insurrection.
By early 1917, Russia was on the verge of total and utter collapse. On 23 February 1917 in Petrograd, a combination of very severe cold weather and acute food shortages caused people to start to break shop windows to get bread and other necessities. In the streets, red banners appeared and the crowds chanted "Down with the German woman! Down with Protopopov! Down with the war! Down with the Tsar!" Police started to shoot at the populace from rooftops, which incited riots. The troops in the capital were by this time poorly motivated and their officers had no reason to be loyal to the regime, and as a result they began to side with the populace.
The Tsar's Cabinet begged Nicholas to return to the capital and offered to resign completely. Some 500 miles away the Tsar, misinformed by the Minister of the Interior,
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On 12 March, the
With no faith or confidence in the Emperor, and with order broke down across the Russian Empire, members of the Duma and the Soviet formed a Provisional Government to try to restore order. They issued a demand that Nicholas must abdicate. Faced with this demand, which was echoed by his generals, deprived of loyal troops, with his family firmly in the hands of the Provisional Government and fearful of unleashing civil war and opening the way for German conquest, Nicholas had little choice but to submit. Nicholas thus abdicated on behalf of his son, and drew up a new manifesto naming his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as the next Emperor of all the Russians. With this blow the Russian Empire was irreversibly compromised. Grand Duke Michael declined to accept the throne until the people were allowed to vote through a Constituent Assembly for the continuance of the monarchy or a republic. The abdication of Nicholas II and the subsequent Bolshevik revolution brought three centuries of the Romanov dynasty's rule to an end. No longer able to maintain an at war footing with the Allied Powers, the Russian Empire's provisional government would eventually seek a negotiated end to the war. In Russia itself the February revolution opened the door for anti-imperial elements to begin forming a new government, but a disagreement between the liberals and the socialist/communist block in the Duma would eventually lead to the second and final revolution of the time in Russia. This revolution, which would begin in October, cemented the socialist/communist block's control on the country, leading to the eventual establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
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