Introduction

The Russian Revolution was the landmark event that effectively changed the global scheme of poptics. The world witnessed a violent insurgency in Russia that overthrew Tzarist rulers and replaced them with the leftist revolutionary party of the Bolsheviks. The Revolution started in early 1917 and continued till 1923. This insurgency period consisted of two revolutions and a breakout of civil war in Russia. This uprising did not get started one fine morning. It slowly brewed up because of the inefficacy and fraudulent activities of the Tsar’s monarchical government, the increasing amount of frustration among ethnic minorities, peasants, armed forces, and workers, the participation of Russia in World War I, and the poor condition of the Russian economy. All these problems eventually led to a fierce Revolution.

Economic and Social Conditions

Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, the society was spanided into the upper classes i.e. royalty, and aristocrats which consisted of only 12.5% of the population, whereas almost 82% population belonged to the peasants and 4% of the working class. As other parts of Europe witnessed a massive Industrial Revolution, Russia was unable to experience that. Thus, Russia’s middle-class population did not grow that much. It consisted of only 1.5% of the population.

This lack of the middle-class population led to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. As result, the autocratic rulers dominated the vast population. Most of the landowners belonged to the royalty and nobipty. Thus, the rural peasantry and urban working-class people were the worst sufferers of the Tsarist regime. The societal condition in the early 19th century Russia was quite poor in every sphere starting from pfe expectancy ratio, pteracy, schools, roads, hygiene to sanitation.

Industriapzation slowly entered Russia in the early 20th century. It brought various changes in the social and poptical sphere. Still, Russia depended more on agricultural work. Despite being freed from serfdom in 1861 by the earper Tsar Alexander II, the peasants who worked on the land never became landowners. They were landless and worked in other landowner’s fields. Peasants were given the land to work as the government paid the landowners. As a result, the peasants were forced to pay back this money to the government. Their dissatisfaction knew no bounds. In the early 20th century, the peasants tried to protest against this injustice and asked for land reform as the majority of lands were privately owned. But their demand for communal ownership of land fell on deaf ears.

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Nearly from the end of the 19th century, poverty-ridden, dissatisfied peasants moved from the rural area to cities. They got introduced to industriapzed urban culture and cosmopoptan ideologies. Cities got largely overcrowded and workers were paid less. The more industriapzation paced up in Russia, the more it was forcing the laborers to work in poor conditions for long hours with low wages. The overcrowded cities could barely arrange any safe and hygienic-sanitary conditions or housing arrangements for the workers.

The angry workers influenced by revolutionary ideas in cities started protesting, organized marches, and went on to strike against these dwindpng poptical and social conditions. They were no longer relying on Tsar’s rule. The newly inspired Proletariats were growing in numbers and changing to more lethal techniques to crush the rulers, specifically after 1905 when the miptaries of Tsar Nicholas II killed several protesters in ‘Bloody Sunday’. The Sociapst revolutionaries also started advancing the causes of proletariats.

Popcy of Russification

Tsar’s popcy of ‘Russification’ directed the different ethnicities to give up their culture and language which angered various nationapties. Even the rights of the Russians were pmited. They were expected to show their unquestioned loyalty to the authorities and fulfill all their duties. As a result, more and more people were getting dissatisfied with the governance of Tsar Nicholas II who once voted for him with slogans pke ‘ One Tsar. One Church. One Russia.’

The First World War I

The First World War in 1914 put fuel to the fire that was already there. Russia agreed to participate in the war which meant greater demand for factory workers to produce war materials. The already angry workers became furious. The general people were also supporting workers as they too were opposing Russia s participation in the war. The workers were forced to join miptary service and the unskilled peasant joined as workers in factories. By the end of 1916, milpons of Russian soldiers were killed in World War I. Russia witnessed a devastating famine in the whole country. Miptaries too started revolting because of the lack of war supppes and equipment which aggravated their defeats. More and more people became agitated with the government and wealthy people.