Gloriya Georgieva
Discuss the significance of the following causes of the February Revolution; Nicholas II's character and beliefs, the impact of World War I and the situation in Petrograd.
Tsar Nicholas II was the last member of the Romanov family that governed the Russian Empire for over 300 years. Alexander II, Nicholas’s grandfather was an autocrat and was never a supporter of reforms, he saw them in a way of failing the tsarist system. Therefore, Alexander II was assassinated by a group of Social Revolutionaries also known as People’s Will. The assassination of Nicholas’s grandfather, had a huge impact on his personal and professional life as the tsar. Thirteen years later, Alexander III, Nicholas’s father dies from a kidney inflammation making Nicholas II the new tsar of the immense Russian Empire in 1894. However, the new tsar was not recovered and ready for the huge responsibility which was waiting for him after the death of his loved ones. Nicholas II did not have an idea on how to run the Empire, the only thing he knew was that he should follow the conservatism and remain with the autocracy, as his grandfather did. (Lynch, 2005)
During his dynasty, Nicholas was constantly advised by Konstantin Pobedonostsev a man with huge influence power in the Russian Empire. He was the chief minister in the government and the procurator of the governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church. He always had a thought that the tsar was God’s decision and that the decision of God, must be always respected and nobody could go against it. Pobedonostsev himself, was a loyal supporter of autocracy and the way the Empire was governed during Alexander II times. However, he had a huge influence in Nicholas’s life as a tsar of Russia and made everything possible for the tsar to follow his words. Pobedonostsev also taught Nicholas that Imperial Russia was dominant native, and it must expand its land to China. (Hite, 2001)
Nicholas II had many obstacles during his reign. The Russian Empire covered 8 million square miles of land. Therefore, in 1914 the population of the Empire came to a total of 166 million (Simking, 2017). The result of the huge amount of population made hard any type of communication with the countries that formed Russia. However, Nicholas decided to carry Russification, an obligatory rule of limiting any influence from the non-Russian minorities. The main aim of the policy was to maintain the Russian dominance and impose their culture, values and religion across the Empire. All the population had to assume Christian Orthodox religion and be devoted to the Russian church and its believes about the tsar. This process created criticisms between the population and humiliated the tsar and his tsardom (Pike, 2011).
Nevertheless, the Russian economy was not appropriate for the country as the low number of employees showed that Russia did not increase its industrial growth which had been achieved in the nineteen centuries. Russia’s undeveloped industrial...
