The Tsar and Russia around 1910
...nk, although he is a supposed psychic and healer. His wife became very dependant on him, since he was said “to have come from God”. People were very suspicious of the Tsarina, and of his relationship with Rasputin. It can be argued that the Tsar was a very nice person. He spent much time with his family, as is his wife’s wont, but from a certain perspective, he spent too much time for a monarch, especially a monarch in such a precarious situation. But it can be also be argued that he could have been a more forgiving emperor, as killing every bit of rebels wouldn’t exactly create a nice image to the people’s mind. It is also widespread that hee also should be more well trained in politics and in social information (again, nitpicking on the father), more one minded (he had a tendency to switch to the perspective of the person he last spoke to), and more able to choose government officials, and to avoid ones that are happy to live on giving the Tsar a false, utopian dream Russia. Political Russia As said above, Nicholas II was an autocrat. That meant that the he governed the whole of Russia alone. There was no legal method to challenge the Tsarist power, and did not have an elected assembly or parliament. Of course, as the Russians had done in 1905, they could have put it right in front of his face and don’t work anymore, but that is not exactly considered “legal”, although effective. It can also be argued that Russia is already a very politically messy country. To help him make decisions and to help him catch up on information, he appointed several ministers, who were only responsible to him. Therefore, power was seemingly assured, and the only real threat was violence. There was one flaw in this plan, however; the ministers were quite happy to shut him in his little own utopian Russia. Russification was one of the more important points in the inner politics of Russia. Its aim is to change all the peoples of Russia (everyone, including Finns, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, etc.) to speak Russian, dress like Russians, and believe in the Orthodox Church, for example. Nearly everyone except the Russians opposed it. It can also be established that this move of Russification was folly, having only less than half the total population supporting him. And if it ever comes to a fight, everyone knows angry people fight more prominently. Opposition was severely dealt with. Nicholas II praised regiments who put down demonstrations and hung or exiled everyone who was involved in the opposition. He only had violence in mind of strike groups and other opposition. Of course, there were some reforms, such as the 1905 revolution. That granted the middle class the Duma, freedom of speech, and so on, and got some other peasants massacred. It can be said that the political system in Russia is not very effective. It has already been proven to Nicholas II that the people were unhappy, and nothing was done about it. His soldiers shot at the peaceful demonstrations in the Bloody Sunday, and that crushed the image of the “Little Father” Tsar, owing to the idiocy of the military authorities. The only real (of course, relatively real) limit to the Tsar’s power is the epic size of Russia and the corruption in the government. Geographical Russia Russia stretches from the Eastern European plains, to the Ural mountains, then crossing into Siberia. Because it is a vast country with very poor communications, it becomes a partial weapon in the Tsar’s hands. Because most of the peasants were illiterate, and they were all spread out, it was very hard to create a revolution. They could also send opposition to the far corners of Siberia, where it is much more difficult to transmit messages anywhere. But the vast size of Russia meant that the Tsar could not control part of Russia; the parts thousands of miles away from Russia were, as a matter of fact, ungovernable. It also had a large population, and a large amount of natural resources to compensate. The problem was most of the natural resources were locked up in Siberia. As most of Russia’s natural resources were locked up in Siberia, the population was lacking in many aspects. Food, for instance; it was a very little amount of food compared to the work serfs did; and to the minority of the peasants which owned land, there was a large debt to be paid. Battle machinery was also lacking; for the 6.4 million soldiers that Russia had, only 4.6 million guns were supplied. The Tsarist Russia’s politics and social groups became intimately bound to the geography, as the Romanov dynasty grew from long ago (1613). Of course, every country’s politics and socialism is bound partly to the geography of the place, but Russia is one extreme case. Russia accommodated a great many races, including, of course, Russian. Russia is also the home for many of the Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Tartars, and the Kirghiz. Most are unhappy about the Tsar’s rule, and, quite apart from racial differences, most of the population are peasants and serfs. They were mostly illiterate, and for the Russians, blindly loving to the Tsar, their “Little Father”. They still did not like the Tsar’s policies, though. After the Bl...