Russian+Revolution+InNo+Maurice+Chiu+Part+One

Awesome Stuff

ToonDo

This little comic made by me explains the situation the peasants were in during the Russian Revolution. This is awesome because it took me so long to decide who to use for the photo and what to write. Enjoy! :D

Awesome Stuff part two

The book had mentioned about Rasputin and while I was reading about him on wikipedia, i found one point of interest in his life and it was during his assassination. I don't want to spoil anything but his assassination is pretty strange and rather impossible. So i've decided to put a picture of him as an awesome thing because his assassination was rather awesome, not the part where he died but right before it.

Citation: "Rasputin." Web. 14 Oct 2010. .

Russian Revolution Textbook Part One


 * The Russian Empire In 1900 **

The Land And The Climate
 * Russia is a very vast piece of land but much of the land was useless because the soil was in no condition for growing crops.
 * The high mountains of the southern border are a good way to defend against foreign invaders but because of the mountains no warm wind ever enters and instead the cold air from the Arctic Ocean flows into Russia.
 * In the Arctic Circle the land is **__ Tundra __** and nothing grows there except moss and small shrubs and 1000 kilometers south of the tundra stretches the ** Taiga **, which is a piece of cold land covered in forests and pine trees.
 * While the cold affected the growing of crops dramatically, it also affected Russia's industry and commerce because at Russia's long coastline the water is frozen with thick ice and this is the same with the great rivers of Siberia, the Ob, the Yenisey, and the Lena. Today's massive ice-breaking boats can break through the ice to make passage easily but back in the 1900's the ships were not strong enough to be able to sustain damage from ice breaking. So this caused trade over ocean and sea impossible until spring arrives when the ice melts.

An Empire Of Many People
 * The leader of Russia is called a **__ Tsar or Csar. __** ﻿It means emperor and during the 1900's the Tsar was **__ Nicholas II __** . He ruled over 125 million people under his empire and less than half the people were Russians and other people were from countries such as Ukraine, Poland, Byelorussia, Finland, Germany, Armenians, Caucasians, Iran and also had many jewish people.
 * The population of Russia was not spread evenly because of the vast land that had soil that was impossible for crops to grow on. Many people lived in the 5% of land that was good for farming in Russia and these places were often extremely overcrowded but places like the cold lands of Siberia had a very thin population because the land was not good.


 * The Government Of Russia **

The Autocracy
 * Nicholas II was an Autocrat. An autocrat is someone who would not and does not share his power with anyone, not even having a parliament to limit his/her power. Nicholas II was free to make new laws, increase taxes, and do whatever he likes without consulting anyone and he could sack any minister or adviser if any disagreed with him. This was clearly an abuse of power.
 * While Nicholas II could not govern all 125 million at once, he hired thousands of civil servants to who were ordered into fourteen ranks with the top being the __ **Table Of Ranks** __and those people would be ministers in charge of the government department. The lowest rank were minor officials, such as post office clerks and custom inspectors. Generally the civil service was also hired to collect taxes and make sure Nicholas II's decisions were carried out but since the servants were underpaid for the work they do, many of them took bribes to make ends meet.
 * Since Nicholas II was an autocrat, and that he allows himself to do as he pleases, he does not want anyone questioning what he does and his authorities. To negate that Nicholas II had a secret police force called the **__Okhrana__** , or the Protective Section. The Okhrana had ceased all books and newspaper so nothing against Nicholas II would be in them and they arrested anyone who critisized the government. Political prisoners were usually exiled by being tried by a special court that did not have juries.
 * The Okhrana is not always effective though, this is due to the fact that since there are so many people in Russia and since there are occasional famines, the Okhrana would not be able to cope with opponents of Nicholas II and riots usually broke as a result. The riots were of workers in factories going on strikes and peasants would attack their tax collectors and landlords. But when the Okhrana could not deal with the citizens, another faction comes to play, the __** Cossacks **__. These were fierce soldiers riding horseback who would slaughter and butcher mobs of people and kill people who could not run away from them.
 * The churches in Russia places a role in maintaining the authority of the Tsar and in this case, Nicholas II. The priests of the __** Russian Orthodox Church **__ had taught people to accept the Tsar and his authorities and also to be loyal to him and the head of the church is one of the government ministers. Using this method, the church attempts to brainwash and manipulate people to not disobey the Tsar and to follow his orders.

Nicholas And Alexandra
 * From the textbook, we see that Nicholas II did not want to be a Tsar at the beginning, and he wanted to preserve his father's autocracy but did not have the experience to do so and did not have experience to be a Tsar. Nonetheless he became one anyways.
 * Nicholas had a wife who was german and was very confident and strong willed in Nicholas II's ability to rule Russia as a Tsar and encouraged him rule as an autocrat. During the first ten years of their marriage they had five children and the first four were all girls and the fifth was a boy, Alexis. Alexis was to become the heir of the throne but his parents were struck with grief when they learn Alexis has haemophilia, and the slightest cut could make him bleed to death and a bump would cause massive internal bleeding and swelling and agonizing pain. Alexandra had built a special chapel in the grounds of the royal palace where she prays and begs everyday for her sons recovery.


 * Russian Society **

The Peasants
 * In 1900 four out of every five citizens that was living under the Russian empire were peasants and the people made their living by selling crops and farming. All peasants were serfs, the lowest point of society, and had no rights and no freedom and were slaves to landlords. This changed by 1861 when Nicholas II's grandfather, Tsar Alexander II, freed the serfs and allowed them to own land and to grow their own food. But there was a catch to it and it was that peasants had to pay redemption payments over forty-nine years until they will own it for real. Another thing was that people can not own their own land and it was own by a village commune, or Mir. Though freed from serfdom the people still suffered and their lives did not improve. Each year mirs would split the land and give families land thats proportion to their needs. The bigger the family the more land they would get. But as the population grew the plots of land grew smaller and the average size of plots halved and peasants finds it harder to support their families.

The Town Workers
 * Since farming became increasingly difficult, many peasants tried to improve their life by going to work in nearby towns or cities and would usually work in factories or mines until harvesting time comes and they could go home and gather crops. But no matter what they do it did not improve their lives and the working conditions were bad. Trade unions were not allowed by law and going on strikes were illegal. But if anyone quits they are easily replaced as there are people constantly queuing up for work.

The Rich
 * Ironically, the rich people and the upper class people were fabulously rich and Nicholas II himself had eight different palaces and he had employed 15,000 servants and when the royal family changed houses they required twenty railway carriages to carry their luggage. While the nobles only made up one percent of the entire Russian population, they owned twenty-five percent of the land. by 1900 the __** capitalists **__, people who made money from banking, industry, and trade, also became rich and became another class of Russia.
 * The minister of finance, __** Sergei Witte **__, made it easy for capitalists to make big money because he often gave them government contracts and also gave them loans to build new factories and cut taxes. Since profit was easy for the capitalist they did little to improve the conditions of their workers and hatred starts building up amongst the people.

Opponents Of The Tsar

Terrorism
 * On a sunday afternoon in March 1881, a bomb exploded underneath the carriage driving Tsar Alexander II, who was the one who saved the peasants from serfdom but did not do much else. He was initially unhurt but while he was examining the damage a man threw what looked like a snowball at his feet. It turned out to be a grenade and it tore off one of Alexander's legs and ripped his belly open and he eventually bled to death. The people who assassinated Alexander were known as the __** People's Will **__ and were a terrorist group and were determined to destroy autocracy. But they never succeeded and both Alexander II and Nicholas II watched Alexander's death, and so they were not going to let the same thing happen to them and they increased security to get rid of anyone who opposed the government.

The Socialist Revolutionary Party
 * This was one of the parties to oppose the government and wanted to take land from the government, church and nobles. The group had a Fighting Organization where between 1900 and 1905 they would organize terrorist campaign and over the five years three government organizations were killed along with dozens of other government officials.
 * The group gained much support from the peasants who wanted their own land.

The Social Democratic Party
 * This was another group in the 1900 and they followed the idea of __** Karl Marx **__, a german writer who written the book called the Communist Manifesto. In the book Marx stated that he predict a violent revolution will happen and the working class will overthrow the capitalists and would take all money and resources and share it and Marx called this sharing of wealth socialism.
 * By 1903 the social democratic party split into two groups because of arguments and the __** Bolsheviks **__ and the __** Mensheviks **__ were formed. The Bolsheviks wanted a small groups of skilled revolutionaries to lead the revolution while Mensheviks wanted a huge group of worker classes and in the end no agreement was reached.

Liberals
 * Liberals generally support the Tsar but they also wanted him to share his power. They wanted a democratic system of government.


 * The 1905 Revolution **


 * ** War Against Japan
 * In 1904 Russia entered war with Japan and they suffered ultimate defeat and while Nicholas hoped the war would gain him popularity it made it worst. All but three of the Russian ships were suck in the battle of Tsushima. The war made the conditions of working for people even worse and factories closed down because of reduced raw material and workers were once again out of work.

Bloody Sunday
 * On sunday January 22 of 1905, a crowd of 200,000 workers and their families marched to Tsar's winter palace and they wanted to present Nicholas with a petition asking for better jobs and living conditions and along with many other reforms. Police and soldiers tried to stop the marchers and eventually killed 500 people while wounding many more. The event became known as bloody sunday and kick started the revolution when people began revolting everywhere and hundres of government officials were murdered.

The 1905 Revolution
 * On june 1905 the crew of the battleship Potemkin, threw their officers overboard and took control of the ship. The mutineers gave themselves up after but it proved that Nicholas II can no longer trust his armed forces.
 * Peasants began butchering their landlords and burning their farms and soon many countries that Russia previously occupied decided to declare their independence from Russian rule.
 * In September 1905 a general strike began and all over Russia factories, offices, shops, railways, hospitals and schools closed down and people refused to work. The Strikers wanted a council called the Soviet to run the towns and it quickly became an alternative form of government.
 * Nicholas eventually gave in and issued the October Manifesto and said he would make a parliament. The revolutionaries did not believe Nicholas and they were right when he arrested the members of the Soviet and exiled them and in Moscow an army was sent to crush the soviet and more than a thousand people died in the streets fighting between revolutionaries and soldiers. By March 1906 the revolution was over.


 * The Aftermath Of The 1905 Revolution **

The Dumas
 * Nicholas never gave the parliament any real power and he broke the first two up because he did not like it. He let the third parliament stay because everyone in it was anti-revolutionary and follows the Tsar's orders. Nicholas eventually hired a new prime minister in 1906 and his name was ﻿**__Peter Stolypin__** ﻿.

The Stolypin Reforms
 * Stolypin believed in a strict government and he opposed terrorists against it. After the downfall of terrorism in Russia it was no longer a threat to the autocracy. Eventually Stolypin stopped being strict and attempted to help the poor. he abolished the redemption payment and changed the mir law. Conditions in Russia began to improve because of Stolypin and wasges increase as harvest became good. However in 1911 one of Stolypin's police agents who had been investigating terrorist groups turned out to be a terrorist himself and he shot Stolypin dead.

Rasputin
 * Nicholas and Alexandra met a man who claimed to be a holy man of God. He was Gregory Efimovitch and shortly Alexis had a fall which startled an internal bleeding and Gregory prayed next to his bedside and the next day Alexis was fine. Nicholas and Alexandra were amazed by him and Gregory became one of the most trusted members of their court.
 * However Gregory was not regarded with favour by everyone and he had a nickname of Rasputin, which meant the disreputable one. This was because he drank heavily and had affairs with many local women. He took part in wild orgies and he spends most of his time drunk and once raped a nun.
 * After the death of Stolypin Rasputin's influence expanded and he constantly gave advices to Alexandra who gave it to Nicholas. But as his influences grew, hatred of him grew as well because many people thinks he is having an affair with Alexandra and also because people think he is corrupt.

Summary Russia was controlled by a Tsar, who was an autocrat and had absolute power and did not share any to anyone. Nicholas, the Tsar during the 1900's, had had soldiers called Cossacks and a secret Police called the Okhrana who supressed any uprising against the government. The peasants and worker class people were very poor and had to work very hard jobs and had terrible living conditions while the rich were extremely rich. Three major revolutionary groups emerged and after Bloody Sunday a revolution began but was over in 1906 with no change. Stolypin became the new prime minister and helped out many peasants and worker class people but was eventually assassinated while Gregory Efimovitch miraculously healed Nicholas and Alexandra's son and he became a trusted member of their court.

Questions What was the main event that kick started the Russian revolution and why it and and explain who was involved. Why was Gregory Efimovitch also called the Rasputin and what rumours were on about him? What had Tsar Alexander II done that supposedly was going to help peasants and what were the catches of it? Why is most of Russia's land useless and impossible to grow crops on and why is it hard for ocean and sea trade unless it is spring? What was Alexis sickness and what had Alexandra done and did everyday just for Alexis's well being?