Rusia

HOW DID THE BOLSHEVIKS TO TAKE CONTROL:

THE NEW TSAR:

* Nicholas II was crowned in 1894.
* Tweenty-three years later he and his family were prisioners and were under armed guard in a lonely house at Ekaterinburg.

THE TSAR’S EMPIRE:

Nationalities:

* Many different nationalities.
* Only 40 per cent of the Tsar’s subjets spoke Russian as their first language.
*Cossacks loyal to de Tsar.
* Poles and Finns heated Russian rule.
* Jews suffered racial prejudice.
Vicious attacks pogroms sponsored by the government.

Peasants and the Countryside:

* Peasants
* Around 80 per cent of the Russia’s population.
* Lived in communes.
* Kulaks: prosperous peasant farmers.
* Living and working conditions for mostwere dreadful.
* Famine and Starvation:
* Common.
* In some regions the life expectancy of a peasant farmer was only 40 years of age.
* Much of the Russia’s land was unsuitable for farming: land was in very short supply.
* 1900:
* The population was going rapidly.
* Russian peasants were still using ancient farming techniques.
* Most villages landdivided into large fields.
* Mir:
* Organised the subdivision of the fields.
* Were peasant councils.
* When peasants had sons, the family plot wass subdivided and shared between them
* No basic education.
* Very few peasants could read or write.
* Many peasants were loyal to the Tsar:
* Partly because they were also religious.
* Every week, they wouldhear the priest say how wonderful was the Tsar and how they should be loyal subjects.
* Not all peasants were loyal or religious many supported the opposition Social Revolutionaries.

The Aristocracy:

* Vast states.
* Towns.
* Country houses.
* Elegant lifestyles.
* 1.5 per cent of the society.
* Owned 25 per cent of the land.
* Key part of the Tsarsgovernment.
* Countryside dominated the local assamblies of zemstva.
* Loyal to the Tsar.
* Wanted to keep Russian society as it was.
* Many lived in glamorous cities.
* Many were in financial trouble and had to sell their lands.
* Greatest fear that the peasants would rise up and take their lands.

New Industries, Cities and Working Class:

* Later nineteenth centuryRussia become and industrial power.
* Sergel Witte:
* Minister
* Introduced policies that led to rapid industrial growth.
* Oil and Coal Production trebled.
* Iron Production quadrupled.
* Some peasants:
* Led the land to work in the newly developing industries.
* Their working conditions hardly improved.
* Greatest concentrations
*Capital.
* St. Petersburg.
* Moscow.
* Terrible food, disease and alcoholism.
* Atrocing working conditions.
* No government regulations on child labour, hours, safety and education.
* Trade unions were illegal.
* Low pay.
* 12 to 15 hour days.
* Unguarded machinery.
* Brutal discipline.

The Middle Classes:

* Capitalist:* A new class that was the result of industrialization.
* Landowners, industrialists, bankers, traders and businessmen.
* Increased the size of the Russia’s middle class, particularly in the towns.
* Main concerns:
* Management of economy.
* Controlling workforce.

THE TSAR AND HIS GOVERNMENT:

* The empire was ruled by and autocracy.
*Tsar:
* Had absolute power.
* Believed that God had placed him in that position.
* Russian church supported him.
* Could appoint or sack ministers without consulting anyone.
* Had many good qualities such as his loyalty to his family, his willingness to work hard and his attention to detail.
* He was not an able, forceful and imaginative monarch like his...