What was a major cause of the Russian Revolution (1917)?
1 Answer
This is a complicated question because the revolution can be seen as the effect of:
1) extreme social unbalance (few owing everything);
2) extreme poverty of the majority of the population;
3) need for reforms and democratic laws.
However, the cause, the spark or the drop that caused the water to overflow I think was World War I.
Explanation:
WWI wasn't very good for Russia.
Although the intellectuals, industrialists and nobles wanted it (to protect the Serbians) the war was fought by peasants with no weapons, food or training and, on top of it, treated as they were treated at home, as slaves by their officers (the nobles).
Add to this that their deaths were not going to change anything of their conditions back home.
The soldiers were dying by the millions at the front and their families were starving at home; when women protested in Petrograd for food they were even charged by the Czar's cavalry!
[Repression of civilians at the market (Petrograd)]
The war wasn't only disastrous for Russia in general but it also was a kind of catalyst joining and accelerating the reaction between all the protests and re-vindications of the population.
When the soldiers started to mutiny and go back home the situation was impossible to manage; when the soldiers started to turn their weapons away from the protesters and towards the commanders and ruler...the revolution was a fact!
[Soldiers joining the insurgents]
