Russian Revolution 1917 Essays - Nicholas II Of Russia,

Russian Revolution 1917 Depth Study B: Russia, 1905-1941 Assignment A: Objectives 1 and 2 Here are some of the causes of the Russian Revolution in March 1917: ~Failures in the War ~The mutiny in the Army ~The Tsarina and Rasputin ~Food Shortages ~Strikes PREFACE: In 1904 The Tsar of Russia (Nicholas II) embarked on a war with Japan, hoping for a quick and glorious victory that would unite the country, decrease support for the Tsars opponents and gain control over Korea and Manchuria. Unfortunately for the Tsar, the Japanese were well prepared, both industrially and military. The Japanese crushed the Russian army and destroyed most of its fleet. Damaged both militarily and industrially, Russia had to sign a peace treaty. In 1905 the Tsar crushed the attempted revolution using the army that was loyal to him. In 1914, Russia entered the WWI, unprepared in any way it suffered countless losses and therefore all the problems that existed increased and new problems occurred. 1) FOOD SHORTAGES Food shortages frustrated the people and soldiers more and more as prices were rising dramatically. Food shortages were a result of two main reasons. One was that Russias population was around 130 million (and growing) at that time there fore a lot of food was needed to support such a large population, even though Russia was large enough to easily fit that amount of population, `most of its farm land was unsuitable for farming`1, this shows that farm land often became overcrowded and farmers demanded more land. Russian farmers were `using ancient farming techniques`2 so one farmer had very little land and he used ancient farming techniques and so this dramatically minimized his productivity. `The population had increased by 50 per cent between 1860 and 1897 and was still growing fast`3 this shows how rapidly the population grew, there fore creating larger food shortages as the amount of farmland stayed the same but the amount of people it had to feed increased greatly. The other reason was transporting the crop once it was harvested. ` The USA could fit into Russia two and a half times and over and Britain nearly 100 times`4, the problem with transportation was that the railroads were very often the only way to transport large amounts of goods as Russias conditions often made roads impassable. `By 1900 Russia had only as many miles of track as Britain`5 and Britain was 100 times smaller. This meant that there were very large delays of delivering food and most of it rotted before even reaching town. The only way of transporting goods from the industrial West to the unfarmable East was the Trans Siberian Express, which took more than a week to complete its journey from Moscow to Vladivostok. During the WWI (which started in 1914), Food Shortages increased greatly because more strikes begun demanding an end to the war. Strikes of course caused food shortages as peasants began striking and not producing any food. Also more soldiers were needed to join the army and so the factory workers were taken to fight and peasants left the countryside to seek better jobs in factories so fewer farmers were left to grow food. Another very important reason that caused an increase in food shortage was that ` the Russian railway system was being used to carry supplies to the war front and so trains carrying food to the cities had been reduced`1so more delays in food delivery had been caused, so nor the people, nor the soldiers were being properly fed. Even though Russia got help from Britain and France, the goods were delivered into ports which froze in the winter and so the aid piled up at see and none of it could reach the population. Not only was there little food for the people, prices for food rose dramatically and very few could actually afford to eat what was produced. Food Shortages were a serious cause of the revolution because they could be linked to each one of the causes on the list because the reasons that they led to, led to other, serious causes. Food Shortages linked with 1) Strikes: 2) Failures in the war: 3) Tsarina and Rasputin: 4) Mutiny in the Army Food shortages led to Strikes as people were underfed, so demanded bread, more strikes were forming