Depth Study B: Russia, 1905-1941 Assignment A: Objectives 1 and 2 Here are some of the causes of the Russian Revolution in March 1917: In 1904 The Tsar of Russia (Nicholas II) embarked on a war with Japan, hoping for a quick and glorious victory that would unite the country, decrease support for the Tsar’s opponents and gain control over Korea and Manchuria. Unfortunately for the Tsar, the Japanese were well prepared, both industrially and military. The Japanese crushed the Russian army and destroyed most of it’s fleet. Damaged both militarily and industrially, Russia had to sign a peace treaty. In 1905 the Tsar crushed the attempted revolution using the army that was loyal to him. In 1914, Russia entered the WWI, unprepared in any way it suffered countless losses and therefore all the problems that existed increased and new problems occurred. 1) FOOD SHORTAGES Food shortages frustrated the people and soldiers more and more as prices were rising dramatically. Food shortages were a result of two main reasons. One was that Russia’s population was around 130 million (and growing) at that time there fore a lot of food was needed to support such a large population, even though Russia was large enough to easily fit that amount of population, `most of it’s farm land was unsuitable for farming`1, this shows that farm land often became overcrowded and farmers demanded more land. Russian farmers were `using ancient farming techniques`2 so one farmer had very little land and he used ancient farming techniques and so this dramatically minimized his productivity. `The population had increased by 50 per cent between 1860 and 1897 and was still growing fast`3 this shows how rapidly the population grew, there fore creating larger food shortages as the amount of farmland stayed the same but the amount of people it had to feed increased greatly. The other reason was transporting the crop once it was harvested. ` The...
