Russian Revolution: Why was the revolution of March 1917 successful?

Essay by mankoaHigh School, 10th gradeA+, August 2007

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In 1917, Russia was an autocracy, which meant that the Tsar had total power. Nevertheless, the Russians were not happy with the Tsar's rule and two major revolts occurred, one, in 1905, failed, the other, in 1971, was successful.

By 1905, Russia was very backwards when it came to industrialization and way living, and the terrible situation of the workers and ordinary people illustrate this fact. Most part of the population were peasants, many of whom could not read or write and who lived in deplorable conditions. In the towns workers were squashed into very poor accommodation and received little pay for long days work and were living as if on the XIX century, when the Industrial Revolution took place in most of Europe. The Tsarist autocracy privileged the aristocrats and clergymen and created a huge gap between rich and poor. Therefore, the Tsar found that he had lots of opposite parties, mainly The Social Revolutionaries and The Social Democratic Party, which were banned, and highly punished by the Okhrana, his special police.

But now he knew that he was loosing popularity and control over his people and decided to go to war with Japan, which he lost terribly. Then, while he was not in the Winter Palace what was called "The Bloody Sunday" took place and the people could not stand it any more and decided to revolt. Nevertheless, the Tsar was able to keep power and the revolution failed, firstly, because the aristocrats and the army were still on his side, and because he agreed to the right of free speech, the right to form political parties, and because he set up a "Parliament" called the Duma to show the people that they could participate in the government, but which really had none or very little influence over...