Transformation of Russia in the Nineteenth Century
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were times of crisis for Russia. Technology and industry continued to develop more rapidly in the West, and also new, dynamic, competitive great powers appeared on the world scene: Otto von Bismarck united Germany in the 1860s, the post-Civil War United States grew in size and strength, and a modernized Japan emerged from the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Although Russia was an expanding regional giant in Central Asia, bordering the Ottoman, Persian, British Indian, and Chinese empires, it could not generate enough capital to support rapid industrial development or to compete with advanced countries on a commercial basis. Russia's fundamental dilemma was that accelerated domestic development riskeddisturbance at home, but slower progress risked full economic dependency on the faster-advancing countries to the east and west. In fact, political ferment, particularly among the intelligentsia, accompanied the transformation of Russia's economic and social structure, but so did impressive developments in literature, music, the fine arts, and the natural sciences.[3]
Text 2
Read the text below and answer the question: What was the reason for the downfall of the Russian Empire in 1917?
There is no more challenging theme in history than: the end of an empire: the transformation of a whole social system. The only parallel which modern history offers -- that of the French Revolution - did not drive so deep a chasm between past and present as that which divides the old "régime" of Imperial Russia from the new and unique experiment of Bolshevism. The only way to the understanding of a revolution is an analysis of the interworking of the dominant elements of Russia's national life - political, economic, social, moral, and intellectual - under the stress and strain of war. It is a dramatic and tragic story.[4].
For hundreds of years, an elite, awesomely wealthy Czarist regime ruled Russia, the rest of which largely consisted of peasants. That all came to an end during the February Revolution of 1917, which was precipitated by a number of economic, social, and political causes.
As Russia became engulfed in World War I, over fifteen million men joined the army, which left a shortage of workers for the factories and farms. This led to widespread shortages of food and materials. As goods became more and more limited, prices went through the roof, and soon famine consumed Russian cities. Tempers in the lower class grew short, as factory workers were suffering 12- to 14-hour days with falling wages and unbearable health and safety provisions. Labor riots and strikes broke out everywhere. On the farms, things weren't much better. For centuries, a small class of noble landowners controlled a huge number of indentured servants, who were in essence tied to the land (serfs). In 1861, Czar Alexander II emancipated these peasants and gave them each a pittance of land to farm. The small amount of land they were each given to farm proved insufficient to feed and provide for a family's basic needs, and thus mass riots broke out in the countryside, too.
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How did Nicholas II react to all the hardships his citizenry endured? Mostly, by ignoring them, and occasionally with violence as he had send troops to squelch a riot or end a strike. His popularity sank, and in 1915, things went from bad to worse when Nicholas decided to personally oversee Russia's floundering efforts in World War I and left his dingbat of a wife in charge of the government. Eventually, the Russian people came together and suggested establishing a constitutional form of government. Nicholas, true to form, ignored the request, which led to the February Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of Czarist Russia. One year later, Nicholas II and his family were executed.
[1]adapted from http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/alexbio.html
[2]adapted from http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/the-romanov-dynasty/alexander-iii-the-peacemaker/
[3]adapted from http://countrystudies.us/russia/6.htm
[4] https://www.questia.com/library/1629753/the-end-of-the-russian-empire
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