Unit 4 AOS 1 Report 2

2. Using 3 or 4 points, explain the cause and course of the 1905 Revolution.
Unrest had been slowly chipping away at the faade of peace in Russia for quite some time. As the
demands of the people continued to remain unmet, the tension in the Empire continued to mount.
And so, this frustration, this exasperation, in the Russian populace finally culminated in the
Revolution of 1905.
Indeed, Tsarist repression and perceived oppression had had a detrimental effect upon state
cohesion for quite some time. Leo Tolstoy (1828 1910), famed Russian author, himself described
the persecution beneath which Russia groaned in his Open address to Nicholas II (1920). And
Russia was, truly, an aggrieved land. Peasants remained unsatisfied with their lot; whilst the
Emancipation Edict (1861) issued by Alexander II (1818 1881) had indeed brought an end to
serfdom within Russia, peasants
First and foremost was the contribution of the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (8
th
Feb 1904
5
th
Sep 1905). The war, intended to be a small, victorious war as hoped by Viacheslav Plehve (1846
1906), Russias Minister of the Interior at the time, instead created a situation of extreme
humiliation for the Tsarist regime. The Russian military, upon which 45% of government expenditure
was being spent, was utterly dominated by the decidedly inferior Japanese infidels.