Russian Revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

Demonstrations before Bloody Sunday
Date22 January 1905 – 16 June 1907
(2 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 4 days)
Location
Russian Empire
Result
Belligerents

Russian Empire Russian Empire
Supported by:

Revolutionaries
Supported by:

Commanders and leaders
Casualties and losses
  • 3,611 killed or wounded[1]
  • 15,000 killed[1]
  • 20,000 wounded[1]
  • 38,000 captured[1]
  • 1 battleship surrendered to Romania
17,000 civilian killed by revolutionaries[2]

The Russian Revolution of 1905,[a] also known as the First Russian Revolution,[b] began on 22 January 1905. A wave of mass political and social unrest then began to spread across the vast areas of the Russian Empire. The unrest was directed primarily against the Tsar, the nobility, and the ruling class. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies. In response to the public pressure, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to go back on his earlier authoritarian stance and enact some reform (issued in the October Manifesto). This took the form of establishing the State Duma, the multi-party system, and the Russian Constitution of 1906. Despite popular participation in the Duma, the parliament was unable to issue laws of its own, and frequently came into conflict with Nicholas. The Duma's power was limited and Nicholas continued to hold the ruling authority. Furthermore, he could dissolve the Duma, which he did three times in order to get rid of the opposition.[3]

The 1905 revolution was set off by the international humiliation that resulted from the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, which ended in the same year. Calls for revolution were intensified by the growing realisation by a variety of sectors of society of the need for reform. Politicians such as Sergei Witte had succeeded in partially industrializing Russia but failed to adequately meet the needs of the population. Tsar Nicholas II and the monarchy narrowly survived the Revolution of 1905, but its events foreshadowed what was to come in the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Many historians contend that the 1905 revolution set the stage for the 1917 Russian Revolutions, which saw the monarchy abolished and the Tsar executed. Calls for radicalism were present in the 1905 revolution, but many of the revolutionaries who were in a position to lead were either in exile or in prison while it took place. The events in 1905 demonstrated the precarious position in which the Tsar found himself. As a result, Tsarist Russia did not undergo sufficient reform, which had a direct impact on the radical politics brewing in the Russian Empire. Although the radicals were still in the minority of the populace, their momentum was growing. Vladimir Lenin, a revolutionary himself, would later say that the Revolution of 1905 was "The Great Dress Rehearsal", without which the "victory of the October Revolution in 1917 would have been impossible".[4]

  1. ^ a b c d Clodfelter, M. (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015. McFarland. p. 340. ISBN 9781476625850.
  2. ^ Borisyuk 2023, p. 77.
  3. ^ "1906 Russian Duma Meets". www.historycentral.com. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  4. ^ Ascher, Abraham (1994). The Revolution of 1905: Russia in Disarray. Stanford University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-0-8047-2327-5.


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