Explain Why Russia Was a Difficult Country to Govern Before 1905

History Pre AS Task

Explain why Russia was a difficult country to govern before 1905

* Russia is a very big country so it would be hard to keep it all under control. One-sixth of the world.

* Because it was big it was hard to communicate with people with the lack of technology they had.

* It was also hard to get to place so it would be hard to keep people under control if something happened as it would take a long time to get there.

* Because of the geographical landscape of Russia it was hard to get trade into Russia.

* There were many different tribes and religions so many people wouldn’t help or talk to each other.

* Not everybody spoke Russian as many neighbouring countries started where taken by Russia but didn’t speak Russian.

* Lack of communication.

* Many different religions

* People would start little conflicts between religions.

* It was hard to get the army to a certain place of Russia if there was a war because of the size and geographical landscape.

* Many people wanted rights and a democratic government but other people wanted the opposite. This made people unhappy.

* The economy was bad as it was hard to collect money or even get money because of the sheer size of Russia.

* Many people ruled Russia within 30 years before 1905. This made it hard for the country to get used to the laws if they changed. * Laws were hard to imply as the country was the biggest in the world.

How far were these difficulties likely to cause problems for the tsarist government in the first decades of the twentieth century?
There were many difficulties that caused problems for the tsarist government. One main reason involved politics and how the country was ruled. The Russia of the tsars in the 19th century was a monarchy. The Tsarist government experienced many difficulties with the opposition. There were many political parties who disagreed with the policies of the Tsar.
The aim of the Liberals was to introduce parliamentary democracy similar to those in the USA, France and Great Britain. This group achieved some success with the establishment of the Russian parliament, in 1906. The second major opposition group was the Social Revolutionaries who wished to create a new Russian society based on the traditional community of the peasant village. This would make it hard for the government as the opposition would get other people from Russia to join them and as there were many people in Russia this would make it easy for the parties but hard for the government as they weren’t able to control the people and make them obey by their way of governing the country.
The problems which the Tsar faced had been mostly brought upon himself before there was even a suggestion of war. Throughout his reign, Tsar Nicholas II had increasingly not talked with his people. On his orders, Cossack guards brutally murdered the 1905 revolution, memorialised as ‘Bloody Sunday’, and the 1912 Lena goldfields protests. This would increase to more violence against the Tsar which would eventually lead to the downfall of his government. After this people realised that their leader was not the benevolent idol they had previously adored, but a ruthless official determined to keep order so that he would benefit from it.
Tsar was doomed from the beginning because they could not adapt. Before long, calls for a more representative parliament were being demanded by the people of Russia. This wasn’t good as Russia was the biggest country in the world therefore there would be many people against the Tsar. The best way for Nicholas II to deal with such demands would have been to prevent future unrest by granting them, but this would have weakened the Tsars.
One big problem which may have made the Tsar collapse was World War One as it hit Russia hard and showed the weakness in Nicholas II. This may have forwarded the collapse of the Tsar as the people could see that he was not doing a good job at keeping the country safe.
The main reason which caused the collapse of the government was the sheer size of Russia as it started to be too much too control. This didn’t help the Tsars as they couldn’t communicate that easily with the people who live all over the country as the technology needed to do that had not yet been invented. This would allow the people of Russia to start riots and not get affected by the government. This also meant that laws were being broken and chaos was occurring. As Russia was so big Nicholas II thought that taking control of the army would make less people try to oppose him, but this did not help him as people didn’t think that he should control the army and this would make the people of Russia want to get him out of the government which later happened in 1918.