Question

Describe the circumstances responsible for the start of the Russian Revolution.

Answer 1

Instructions:
The answer to this question can be broken into 4 parts:

• Condition of the peasants in rural russia
• Condition of the workers in industrial cities
• The rise in prices of essential goods and how this impacted wages of working class
• Condition of women and how they were paid less than the men in the factories
• Unemployment as a trigger factor.

Solution:
There were many reasons that were responsible for the start of the Russian revolution, especially economic factors that resulted in people accepting socialism as a form of change.
Some of these reasons that led to the revolution were as follows:

• Agrarian economy and poor condition of the peasants: At the beginning of the 20th century, more than 85% of the Russian population was practicing agriculture. But majority land was owned by rich people, worked on by poor peasants who felt exploited at the hands of the land owners.

• Poor condition of workers: Most of the industries were controlled by the private individuals who exploited the workers despite provisions made for welfare of workers. Most of the workers were working for more than 15 hours a day and living in poor conditions and were paid very low wages as well.

• Unemployment: Unemployment rate was very high in Russia. The rich industrialists were exploiting the workers and this led workers to form associations and unions in order to form a body that would have a chance to fight in favor of the workers.

• High prices : Prices of essential goods rose so quickly that real wages declined by 20%. This led to widespread dissatisfaction and anger, especially amongst the working class of Russia.

• Condition of women: Most of the women were working in small factories and accounted for almost 31% of the factory labor force. They were paid less wages than the men and were forced to work for very long hours