How Was the Tsar Able to Survive the 1905 Revolution

How was the Tsar able to survive the 1905 revolution?

Despite the failure of Russia in the war against Japan, the Tsarist regime survived the revolution remarkable unscathed. There are a number of reasons for this. Although a large proportion of the Russian population expressed their opposition to the Tsarist regime during events of 1905 it was not organised protest. Each group had its own grievances and separate set of demands. The nationalities in the Baltic area, the Ukraine, Poland and the south were each angry with the policy of Russification but their grievances were their own and they did not co-ordinate their activities or produce a unified programme. In Poland, Catholic landowners lead the protests; in the Baltic States, it was more likely to be ethnic Germans who felt little sense of common purpose with the Poles. The leadership for the revolution was calling for political reform and a Duma, yet were broadly liberal in their views and demands. They clearly had little common ground with the urban working class who worked for them and were exploited by them. These workers had economic aims, better conditions, shorter hours, and better pay. They organised themselves by autumn of 1905 into soviets but spent most of the year protesting in spontaneous strikes and marches. The peasants were too widely distributed and isolated to have a common organised leadership. Their protests were traditional peasant ones of burning manor records and rioting against redemption dues. They were limited to self-interested economic motives rather than any hopes for revolutionary change in the system of government. In fact, the readiness with which the liberals and the peasants accepted the government’s political and economic bribes showed that neither of these groups were really serious about revolution this lack of unity is a key reason why the Revolution ultimately failed.

Another reason why the Tsar survived the crisis of 1905 was that the army, unlike the navy, stayed...