Despite there being a demanding leadership crisis that could cause challenges to even the best leaders of the time, the presence of Tsarina and Rasputin worsened the conditions. They reshuffled the cabinet, sacking talented cabinet ministers and in their place, putting useless ones and the acknowledgements they got were widespread rumors that both had become lovers.12 It was at this moment when Nicholas directed the army to take control of the situation and because of the atrocities, they had suffered in the hands of the Tsar, many soldiers chose to deny Nicholas' call to fight riots and rather joined the demonstrating crowds. The denial by the armed forces to take control of the demonstrating crowds lead to fighting that tuned the St. Petersburg city into a battle zone. For example, the consequences were that by the October 28, there were approximately 80,000 soldiers, who had declined to fight the demonstrating crowds and by their resignation from the force, it ignited a widespread robbing and stealing. At this moment, Nicholas was facing extreme pressure on his leadership and thus, he renounced his sovereign power where his brother took over power. Unfortunately, Michael failed to acknowledge the authority as he (Nicholas' brother) failed to accept the challenge from his brother as he opted for election to power by Duma and due to his stand on the matter, the following day saw his resignation leaving Russia without a national leader (Wood 59).
In the process of the long-term impacts to Russian, full revolution could have been by 1905. 13 Instead at this time, the country's economy was dipping deeper and deeper in to crisis and Russia was in desperate need of a complete change. The large number of poverty-stricken employees who ended up working for long durations in exchange for meager compensations coupled by their slam dwelling status further fueled the worsening situations. The poor conditions touched the renown Karl Marx and he ended up in describing the peasants as only supposed to lose the chains and nothing else (Kowalski 32). 14 By this time, Tsar only concerned with the affluent and this did not change even after Nicholas took over power from Tsar.
Despite ignoring the poor, Russian geography was a major obstacle in communication. For example, the communication network could delay information and mails for longer periods across Russia. 15 Moreover, the poor transport system increased the starvation of people not resulting from food shortage, but the lengthy time taken to transport the food leading to its destruction on transit. The food shortages and political instabilities fueled the 1917 revolution and revolution was at the verge of happening. After the long wait, the unavoidable happened in February 1917 and Russia found herself abruptly forced into a revolution, just as many had anticipated this for quite some time. Successive events lead to others and created more unrest and in fact, the entire period of the long-term unrests, they all saw the opposing of Tsar as well as the social organizations of the suited family (Wood 60). 16
World War 1 impact to Russian revolution
Considering the opposition that Tsar received, the political, social, and economic instabilities, the World War I, as well as the Russian geography characterized some among the many short- and long-term causes of the 1917 revolution. However, amongst these many, there happened to be one that resulted to the others and this was the First World War during 1914, which lasted for four years and left Russia in tatters. Despite first benefiting from the outbreak of the First World War I, where the lower classes looked up on their leaders for assistance and good governance, Tsar's leadership collapsed later.17
The Russian military was succeeding wonderfully but motivation did not last for long as the first casualties of the war were at Tannenburg, where the Germans devastated the Russian fighters. In the following month of September of 1914, the second casualties of Russia were the military in the Eastern parts of Germany. Seeing the eventual consequences of smaller fighting groups or army, The Russian army rejoined to fight Galacia despite losing over a million fighters, and to their relief, they managed to defeat the Austrians. What followed was a mere disaster as significant sides of the Russian empire were receiving fighting from their enemies (Bunyan, and Fisher 471).
World War I being the event that contributed to the overthrow of the Russian Monarchy in 1917, it gave the killing kick to Nicholas' dictatorship. During the initial counters with Germans 19, they suffered another blow by loosing hundred thousands of troops that was a huge number compared to their opponent twenty thousand casualties. This continuous loosing of battles and reversal of his progress in his intentions caused his departure from St. Peterson in 1915 so that he can have independent directing of the military. It was such a desperate moment for Russia because the pressure saw the deployment of compulsory State military services as well as unqualified armed forces in the front lines and to make matters worse, these untrained soldiers did not have the necessary weapons and because they were frequently put at front lines, there was no doubt about the massive number of causalities. It was in 1916 when the fighting force lost much of its motivation as the war got tougher and tougher to the disadvantaged class, who saw their sons dying in the front lines as well starving. With such a failure, the Tsar Nicholas governance had to bear all the responsibility for the failures and these critics went on to reach the climax of seeing Nicholas overthrown (Bunyan, and Fisher 471).
The composition of the Russian military was made of a large number of the disadvantaged men who were able to work in factories, but instead recruited in to army. The soldiers who survived at war saw the suffering that their fellow men were undergoing and the blame again went to the authorities. It is also important to note that the recruitment of able men to the military caused shortage of workforce in the industries, further worsening the economy. With the collapsing economy, business went down and salaries fell and at the same time, riots were continuing and by December 1916, Russia was collapsing and the army, together with the other citizens became more frustrated where they ended up joining forces to fight Tsar Nicholas.
By January the following year (1917), it saw Russian military thrashed from Poland and Romania and because Tsar refused to listen to Duma concerning change of strategies in leadership, it led to more rioting. Therefore, all citizens withdrew their support for Tsar and this lead to his giving up of leadership in March 1917.20 When Tsar saw this, he commanded his army to fight the rioters, but they failed to abide by his directions and rather joined the demonstration rendering Tsar helpless and eventually surrendering and relinquishing power (Bunyan, and Fisher 480).
In conclusion, poor leadership and the effects of World War I both lead to the 1917 Russian revolution. Unlike the preceding authorities of Alexandra II who accepted some form of sharing supreme power, Nicholas could not tolerate it and opted for an autocratic mode of leadership that was not mindful of the civilians. It is clear that the contribution of the World War I to the Russia revolution was significant. Had it not been for the war, the opposition forces would fail to gather enough support, there could not be strikes and demonstration for better livelihood of the ordinary Russians. Consequently, Tsar could have managed to escape from his costly mistakes in his leadership. The outbreak of these events made people understand the need for change as the only option to save Russia. In addition, had it not been for the war, the Russians would have continued suffering from poor lifestyles and governance. The long-term causes, it led to the short-term causes and their link lead to the unavoidable Russian revolution. Peasant Russians welcomed the much-awaited makeover that they have been waiting for years characterized by extreme suffering. Therefore, the long-term events as they unfolded combined with World War I impacts contributed to the causes of all other events eventually leading to the overthrow of the Russian monarchy.
Works Cited
Bunyan, James, and Fisher, Harold H. The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918: Documents and materials. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1934. Print.
Kowalski, Ronald. The Russian Revolution: 1917-1921. New York, U.S.: Routledge, 1997.…
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