Analysis of the causes of the 1905 revolution; specifically oppositon

The 1905 revolution had many long-term and short-term causes. The long-term causes included the agrarian problems, mostly caused by the famine of 1891-92 and the build up of bad harvests, Nicholas II's indecisive personality, and the failing Russian economy; the overall annual growth rate fell from around 8% to 1% per year after 1899. This affected the industrial workers' standard of living; who therefore demanded better wages and working conditions, shorter days and more. There are two main short-term causes to this Revolution: the Russo-Japanese War and Bloody Sunday. The extremely humiliating defeat of the Russians in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 caused many economic difficulties and political unrest, and Bloody Sunday turned many against the Tsarist regime and shocked the entire Russian population, which triggered even more political unrest throughout Russia. Nevertheless, although there was a massive growth of opposition in the year leading up to the 1905 revolution, the opposition was also a long-term cause, as it had been building up for years, even under Alexander III.

     Indeed, one of the causes of the 1905 revolution was the huge increase of opposition throughout the years leading up to it and before. This was big cause of the revolution of 1905, as it was he opposition that encouraged people to rebel, organised the revolution and pressured the government to make changes. As Beryl Williams said, before 1905, many of the common Russian people had never seen a revolutionary; demonstrating how much their influence increased during that period of time. Before the twentieth century, it was mostly the middle class opposition groups that were developing, such as the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1898 and the Social Revolutionaries, despite many of these groups being underground. Additionally, many minorities, such as the Poles, Armenian and Finns had formed revolutionary groups in response to the government's Russification policy, which Alexander III implemented. However, all of these opposition groups augmented enormously in the years before the revolution, for instance, new, more structured ones were formed, like the Union of Unions and the Kadets. Furthermore, the workers played a large role in the opposition, which is shown by the increase in stoppages from 17 000 in 1894, to 90 000 in 1904. After Bloody Sunday, the workers' discontent escalated, with the Putilov strike that had begun on January 4th escalating to a general strike, engendering others around the country. By the autumn of 1905, around 2.5 million workers had laid down their tools, putting a lot of pressure on the authorities. Bloody Sunday not only provoked workers' strikes, but also peasants revolts. Although between 1902 and 1905 they had already extremely augmented (the years 1903 and 1904 became known as the 'years of the Red Cockerel' because the arsonists' flames resembled a rooster's comb), after the massacre of the 9th of January, these escalated even more. Moreover, the first central political body for the peasants was made, calling for the redistribution of land and a Constituent Assembly. Nevertheless, it wasn't only the working classes that rebelled against the government; after Bloody Sunday, the students went on strike, many minority groups, such as the Finns, protested, and there were various mutinies within the military, for example naval ones at Sebastopol, Vladivostok and Kronstadt. Of course, the middle class revolutionary groups continued to press for change in the years coming up to the revolution. For instance, the Union of Liberation organised around 50 revolutionary banquets during the winter of 1904, where speakers would demand constitutional change and attack the government. Also, radical socialists' activities increased, despite the split of the Social Democrats in 1903 weakening the party, with the SRs assassinated prominent officials, and the SDs encouraged strikes and confrontations. These actions scared the government, especially the killing of the tsar's uncle, and also forced the authorities to make change. However, most of the working class unrest was caused by the economic problems they were suffering.

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