Russian Revolution: Causes and Consequences

Posted on Feb 10, 2025 in History

Causes of the Russian Revolution

  • The situation of oppression and poverty to which the Russian peasantry had been sentenced for a long time, supporting with their lives the absolutist command of the Tsarist monarchy.
  • The successive defeats of the First World War that Russia suffered, added to the fact that, at the time of entering the conflict, all parties were in favor except the Social Democratic Labor Party.
  • In addition, the failure to sustain the Russian production rate during the war unleashed an economic and social crisis that resulted in famine, commodity shortages, and the collapse of state structures, which led to certain first levels of organization. autonomous people.
  • The arrival of the winter of 1917, one of the bloodiest of those times, in the worst possible conditions for the Russian people.

Demographic Consequences of WWI

  • Decline of birth rate: The death of so many young men produced a decline in the birth rate.
  • Fatalities: Military and civilian casualties, huge loss of human lives.
  • Spanish flu: Flu pandemic (1918-1919), caused additional millions of deaths around the world. The disease was carried around Europe by American soldiers.
  • Living conditions: Got worse. Rationing was imposed to distribute the little food there was.

Background of the Russian Revolution

For centuries, the Russian Empire was essentially a rural nation (85% of the population lived outside the cities). There was a high percentage of landless, impoverished peasants who were receptive to revolutionary ideas. In fact, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), with a Japanese victory, unleashed a propitious moment for the demand for changes.

But Tsar Nicholas II did not heed the requests of the so-called 1905 Revolution, he proceeded to suppress it with fire and blood, resulting in the infamous Bloody Sunday in which the Russian Imperial Guard mowed down the protesters. This means that the critical moment for the Revolution and the fall of the aristocracy had been brewing for a long time.

Causes of World War I

  1. Rivalry among colonial powers
  2. Nationalist exaltation
  3. The Balkan conflict
  4. The Balkan League creation
  5. Moroccan conflict

Economic Consequences of WWI

  • Inflation and debt: The war bankrupted Europe. Enormous debts. Debt led to hyperinflation. People’s savings were destroyed.
  • Destruction of infrastructures: Material and economic losses.
  • USA global power: Europe lost its economic supremacy. The United States became the world’s leading power. American banks held most of the debt of the war.

Peace Treaties (Treaty of Versailles)

  • Territorial change: Germany lost territories.
  • Military restrictions to Germany: it was forced to reduce its army and arsenals.
  • Compensations: Germany was required to take responsibility and to pay reparations.
  • League of Nations: created to solve some international disputes without war.

Social Consequences of WWI

  • Women: more presence in the job market, replacing men who had fought in the war.
  • People: poorer than before due to the cost of the war.
  • Social tensions: fights because of poverty and famine, less prestige of the ruling classes.
  • The rise of extremism: development of revolutionary, populist, and authoritarian movements.

Political Consequences of WWI

  • Downfall of the monarchies: Germany, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and Russia. The war made people more open to other ideologies.
  • Changes in the map of Europe: The war reshaped many borders in Europe.
  • Defeat of the Central Powers: End of the last empires of the continent: the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires. People became more nationalistic, and this also spread to the colonies (first steps towards independence).
  • The failure of peace: Peace came too late. Weakness of the League of Nations, it was difficult to solve all the disputes during this period.