Russian Empire Of Tsar Nicholas II example essay topic

Was size the most important reason in making the Russian Empire of Tsar Nicholas II so difficult to rule in the years before the outbreak of WWI? The size of Russia was an important factor as to why Russia was so difficult to rule, but there were more further reasons that can be used to show the difficulty in ruling Russia in the years leading up to the outbreak of WWI. Russia was an Autocracy. This meant that there was an automatic leader who was unelected, and only one person was in full control.

Russia has been ruled like this for centuries. Being an Autocracy had its' advantages and disadvantages. Some advantages were that there wouldn't be any disagreement over who was supposed to rule, the people were used to the system and there would be no challengers from within. However, the disadvantages were that people couldn't choose who they wanted to rule the country, there was more potential for a civil war due to no elections, and the autocrat would always be blamed if anything went wrong. The Tsar who was charge in the years leading up to World War One was Tsar Nicholas II. He had complete and absolute power, and he made this clear in the way he ruled.

He believed that he had divine right and that he was appointed by God. He felt he was always right, and so did not see the need for taking advice from people. The Tsar took no criticism, and one way he dealt with this was by having secret police called the Okhrama. The Okhrama stopped anyone saying any bad things or allowed anyone to criticise the Tsar. The Tsar had the media, such as newspapers, censored and freedom of speech was prohibited. The country was run on bribery and corruption.

When the Tsar came in control in 1894, he already had a disadvantage. His grandfather, who was Tsar, was assassinated by revolutionaries, and then his father who was also Tsar, ruled in a ruthless way and was disliked by many. As soon as Nicholas II would take control, people were bound to think that he would be no different from the previous Tsars, and so therefore it would have been likely that he would " ve been disliked as soon as he took power. This is a reason that would have made Russia difficult to rule that is not linked to size, because this is about the Tsar being disliked, and if the people do not like the person in charge of their country then they might rebel.

Russia was so big that it actually crossed over two continents - Europe and Asia. This therefore meant that Russia was not just one nationality, but lots of different nationalities like Ukrainians, Polish, Jewish, German and so on. As there were so many different national groups, this also meant that many of the people who lived in Russia didn't speak Russian, and most were illiterate. Russia had around 130 inhabitants, and less than half were not Russian.

The different nationalities were spread over Russia in different areas, and this caused problems because the Tsar should " ve tried to unite the different nationalities. Instead, friction might " ve occurred between different national groups. This is a reason that does link to the size of Russia, but can also be another reason to show that the Tsar did not really care about the people, if he did he would have tried to unite them into one group instead of many different groups. To make matters worse, some of the national groups deeply resented the Russian control. 'Russification' was introduced, which meant that non-Russians were made to speak Russian, wear Russian clothes and follow Russian customs.

Russians were also given important jobs in non-Russian areas. This is a reason that is not linked to the size of Russia, but another fault of the Tsar's. It shows that the Tsar was not up to the job of ruling such as big country, if he was that heartless to inflict this on non-Russian people. Because of the different languages, communication was a much bigger problem as well. There was a lack of telephones, televisions, radios and the Tsar didn't help the situation by only knowing Russian. By learning new languages would have eased the problem.

The lack of communication meant that ruling a country the size of Russia would have been almost impossible. Travelling around the country to deliver news would have been a task in itself; it took a week to travel from one side to the other. The Tsar also made the mistake of basing the Government in St Petersburg and not spreading it out. As he did not do this, he had no idea of what was happening.

This is an example of the size making Russia to rule, but the Tsar could have eased the problem by spreading out the Government, learning new languages and so on. The geography of Russia did not help Tsar Nicholas II. In 1900 only 5 percent of all Russian land was good enough to farm on, the rest lay waste. Most of the population only lived on the 5 percent, which was good for farming, so the streets of the cities were often overcrowded. The many peoples of the Russian Empire were not evenly spread throughout the country. If the land were overcrowded, this would probably have meant that the living conditions would have been poor, especially if you were someone of a lower class.

It was only the regions in the southwest, which were warmer that the soil could have been used for farming; on the south west of the Ural Mountains the land was fertile. To the east of the Ural Mountains the land was cold and useless for farming, so therefore it was thinly populated there. The high mountains provided a good defence against foreign invaders, but the mountains also kept out warm air trying to spread from the south. The cold climate affected Russia's industry and commerce as well as her farming. River Ob, River Lena and River Yenisey were all frozen over in winter and sea trade was made impossible until the spring. Most of the land inside the Arctic Circle was frozen over with thick ice for much of the year.

Cold air swept down from the Arctic Ocean and for this reason, Russia was mostly useful for farming. In the Arctic Circle the land was 'tundra' where nothing grew except moss and scrubs. For more than 1000 kilometres south of the tundra stretched the 'taiga', cold land covered in forests of pine trees. This made it difficult to rule due to the size of Russia, as the Tsar would have been blamed for poor trade in cold weather, resulting in poor food supplies and a lack of other important every day items.

He would also have been blamed for poor living conditions and the lack of space. Even though the size of Russia is not the Tsar's fault, he could have eased the problems by sharing what land he had evenly between the people, but this did not happen, instead the richer, higher classed people had big estates which took up valuable land. This would have annoyed the lower classes a lot, and therefore would have disliked the way the Tsar treated them and disliked the way the Tsar ruled. The different classes in Russia created problems for the Tsar. The Tsar showed an attitude, which told the lower classes that he did not care for them. The country was split into six classes - the Tsar, Nobles, Church, Middle Classes and Army, Workers and Peasants.

The Tsar was at the top, while the peasants were at the bottom. People were not treated equally under the reign of Tsar Nicholas II. The Nobles owned almost a quarter of all the land, even though they made up just over one percent of the population. If you compare this to what the peasants had, it is quite understandable why they disliked the Tsar.

The peasants made up 84% of all the Russian society, and 4 out of 5 people in Russia were peasants, but they had very little land to live and farm on. Peasants were allocated a share of land, but it was barely big enough to survive on. They had to pay loans and many peasants got into crushing debts. The population increased dramatically between 1860 and 1897, so there was more competition for land. However, the Tsar did not seem to care about the peasants, and he also did not care for the workers. The workers were young peasants who were forced off the land and worked in the factories.

They were worked very hard for miserable wages and poor conditions. The Tsar treated the workers and peasants very badly. The Nobles were generally very popular with the Tsar, as he supported their position. Russia followed the Orthodox Church and through the pulpit is where the Tsar communicated to the people and spread propaganda.

Even though everyone in Russia was very religious, there was even a gap between poor priests and bishops. The Middle Classes were rich people who owned the industrial works; they owned large houses and ate good food. However, many Middle-Class people were angry that the Tsar would not share some of his power with the people. There was a big divide in Russia between the rich and the poor, and it turned out that the Tsar only cared about the people with money, as money meant power.

The divide between rich and poor made Russia difficult to rule, but it was not a reason that's linked to size. It is down to the Tsar being a poor ruler, as he simply disliked most of the population, he had no interest in ruling the country and never rose to the challenge of being leader. In 1904 Russia went to war with Japan. As a result of this, prices rose in the cities, as the war caused shortages of food and other goods. A lack of industrial materials caused factories to close, and more workers found themselves unemployed and hungry.

Even worse, the Japanese inflicted defeat on Russia and this was humiliating because Japan was so small in comparison to Russia. This is a reason that can be linked to the coursework question as the Tsar actually encouraged the war, so therefore the food shortages and high taxes were blamed on him. As the Tsar started the war with Japan, the consequences would end up being his fault. An event called Bloody Sunday really sparked off the Revolution. The Bloody Sunday was a march, which involved the peasants.

The military were present which suggests hostility and for some reason, the military attacked the marchers. There are no sources to say that the peasants had actual weapons themselves, so it sounds like the peasants were calm and peaceful. The peasants were revolting because they were so dissatisfied with their living conditions and how the land was divided up. There was an industrial boom, but this was due to wage cuts so poverty was increased. The government's policies to develop industry had had disastrous effects on the people, and matters were made worse by poor harvests and an industrial slump. This is another reason against the size of Russia being the main reason why it was hard to rule.

This is all to do with the Tsar disliking the lower classes and treated them with disrespect, and in the end it was too much for the peasants, so the only choice they had left was to rebel. In 1905 the Russian Revolution had begun. Russia exploded into revolution because of many reasons. Many were to do with the lower classes and how they were treated.

The taxes on everyday items such as alcohol and salt were increased, but the workers' wages were kept low. The peasants also had to pay heavy taxes on grain, and grain was one of their main food sources. There were poor harvests in 1900 and 1902, and there was an industrial slump in 1902. The result of this were thousands of new workers lost their jobs, the peasants were starving, there were outbreaks of violence and landlords' houses were burned. Strikes and demonstrations broke out in many cities. With how things were going at that moment, a revolution was inevitable.

As with Bloody Sunday, this is a reason not linked to size, but to the bad treatment of the lower classes. On October 30th, the Tsar issued the October Manifesto. It promised: "A parliament elected by the people, civil rights, uncensored papers and the right to form political parties". The groups protesting believed they had won and stopped protesting.

A parliament, or Duma, was set up and it appeared that the Tsar's Government was willing to change. However, the Dumas that took place didn't really help the people and little change took place. When the Dumas took place, they demanded some changes and they wanted to do other things such as pass laws, but the Tsar would have none of this. In 1906 the Tsar rejected their demands of passing laws, appointing ministers and controlling finance, and the Tsar closed it down.

In 1907 the Duma demanded more power for themselves and rights for ordinary people, for example the freedom to strike, and the Duma demanded more land for peasants. The Tsar reacted to this by closing it down and he changed the voting rules so his supporters would win. The Dumas in 1907-12 were often critical of the government, and wanted accident insurance for the workers, but the Tsar took no action. In 1912-17 the Duma did not achieve much due to the war, and in 1917 the Tsar dissolved it.

This links to the coursework question because it is an example of the Tsar making Russia difficult to rule by not sticking to his promises. It is worse that the Tsar offered something to the people, but then took it away before making any positive changes. This would only make the people dislike him more. Stolypin became Prime Minister in 1906. He was afraid that there could be another Russian revolution, and this could threaten the survival of the Tsar and the landowners. Stolypin realised that 85% of the population were peasants, so he tried to win their loyalty by a series of land reforms.

Stolypin set up land reforms such as allowing the peasants to buy strips of land from their less enterprising neighbours to make one single land holding, which they owned individually. Stolypin set up a peasants' bank to provide loans for them to buy land. 15% of peasants took up the offer and there were improvements, production of grain increased and there was a record harvest in 1913. The richer peasants were known as Kulaks. Stolypin tried to make agriculture more efficient and he also tried to move peasants to different land, but this plan failed.

Redemption penalties were cancelled. However, if there was trouble, Stolypin was prepared to be ruthless. He was prepared to use force against their own people. The Okhrama were always active and were brutal. There was still no freedom of speech as there was no elected Government. All resistance was crushed and this was known as repression.

Those who opposed the Tsar were executed, and people who went on strike were shot. In a period of two years 2000 people had been executed. This links to the coursework question as Stolypin might have hindered the Tsar, so therefore he is part of the reason for Russia being difficult to rule. However, the Tsar should have had more control of Stolypin, as he put him in that position.

In reference to the question, the size of Russia is not the main reason why the country was so difficult to rule. It was mainly to how the Tsar ruled, but not all can be blamed onto him. He was never educated to be the Tsar, so no one could really expect great things from him. Their were problems with natural hazards therefore causing failed crops which was also not his fault, but the Tsar did show that he just did not care about ruling the country and the people who lived in the country, especially the lower classes.

On the other hand, the size did not help him because it caused such communication problems with the many different national groups, and the lack of radios, and the lack of transport. He did not help the situation by building his Government in one city and only knowing one language. Many of the difficulties of ruling Russia were linked to the development of the economy, the growth of towns, the nature and style of the Tsars government, Stolypin, the 1905 Revolution, the rise of the opposition and the social problems.