Why did the Tsarist Regime fall in 1917?
By Jack Gray
On the 15th of March 1917 Tsar Nicholas abdicated from the Russian throne, giving up all his autocratic power and rule over Russia. Nicholas was the last of the Romanov dynasty that had governed since 1613 but in the February revolution he was forced to abdicate and was imprisoned. In this essay I will explain why a regime that had reigned for nearly 300 years collapsed so suddenly.
One of the reasons that the Tsarist system fell was because of major defeats for the Russian army after they joined the First World War. When Russia first joined the war there was a huge surge of patriotism from all of the classes in Russia. However this was short lived as the army started being heavily defeated and outmatched by the better equipped and better led Germans. This was demoralising for everyone in Russia but especially the peasants, who made up the majority of the army. They were quickly losing faith in both the Tsar and the Generals who were born into privileged families rather than being the best soldiers. These defeats led to the Tsar making another crucial mistake: He went to the front to motivate and personally lead the army. Despite the fact that this decision was made with the best of intentions, it was still a serious error of judgement for several reasons. Firstly it led to him taking his focus away from the deteriorating situation at home, also it meant that he could more easily be individually blamed by the people for the defeats and finally he left his wife, the Tsarina, in charge at home in Russia.
This was a major blunder as the Tsarina was already unpopular with the Russian lower classes because they thought she was aloof and believed that her advisor Rasputin (a not very trustworthy man) had too much influence over her. In reality she was not remote but just suffered from crippling shyness which resulted in her being reluctant to appear in public. This distrust only intensified during the war because she was German. There were also rumours spreading about her having an affair with Rasputin and although these were probably untrue they served to further undermine the Tsar’s credibility. Added to this discontent had already been growing among the aristocrats over Rasputin and his influence. They were horrified by the fact that a peasant had become so close to the Royal family.
The third and final reason that the Tsarist regime fell in 1917 was because of severe fuel and food shortages brought about by a lack of peasant farmers to produce it (due to the fact that most of them were serving as soldiers) and that a significant amount of the food and fuel