*disclaimer: I have not read any of the post yet, so I am sorry if took someone’s idea.*
The rise of inflation caused by the Russo-Japanese, was one of many factors that lead to the Russian Revolution being a collapse from without. Through the devastating loss of the Russo-Japanese war, this meant that numerous amounts of money were spent to support the war with Japan. Russia was not as diverse as it should have been when it comes to social class. The rich represented the smaller minority, while the peasants and the workers represented the larger majority [2]. Wars are usually paid for by the taxes of the people. By the rich representing little portion in the Russia’s socioeconomic makeup, meant less money brought into economy, which lead to penny scraping for the government to fund the war. The government thought of the idea of printing out more money [1], which thought would help sooth the hurting economy (Within falls here, poor decision making by the government). However, this proved to be worse. With little money in circulation, it hurt the famers and workers the most. How it affected farmers are because it left little money for them to buy seeds to harvest crops. With less crops being produced, that drives of demand in prices for them [1], because they become more rare. This has a connection with the workers, because the workers that sold crop made less money, because bosses had little money to pay them to make up for profit loss. This stemmed from people not being able to afford food. With less food being sold, the less the government could tax, to help fund endeavors such as the war with Japan. When viewing the overall evidence, it can be seen that this is a big cycle that would continue until the citizens become desperate and would look to the government. The rich were still rich, but the poor were steadily getting poorer which fueled the fire of the revolution. Now connecting this more with the Russo-Japanese war, with less money from the government, this meant the military was poorly equipped with weaponry and were ill trained [1] and did not know the fundamentals of war strategy. Without the proper equipment to complete their mission and strategy on how to defeat Japan, this resulted in there defeat by the Japanese Empire. Which the public would eventually blame Czar Nicholas II for.
The poor state of the government affected the farmers and workers in a different way then you stated. There was little money for them, but much other reasons also. Other factors include bad harvests and loss of fertile farming land to the Germans (1). The inflationary spiral had no affect on the weather, which played a factor in poor harvests. German troops were also marching in Russia, destryoing land and crops. The connection with the workers is also different. There was a high demand for crops so the prices steadily rose, but workers wages were not rising along with the prices (1). So the workers could not afford the little crop production the farmers could grow, so the farmers just resorted to subsistence farming (1). Also, the government printed more money creating the inflationary spiral because of the troubled state of farmers and workers (1). You mention the government printing more money was the collapse from within, but I feel that everything having to do with the poor state of the farmers represented the collapse from within except the bad harvests. Poor transport systems and the Germans destroying fertile land is a result of the government and their decision to enter the war in the first place. So your evidence actually supports the idea of the collapse from within initiating the February Revolution, contradicting your heading.
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing this out to me Kyle. I will admit I'm still having a little trouble understanding the definition of the question, but after reading your comment, it does make sense. I look at the evidence from without, as when the sources state what the Czar does directly (ex: Bloody Sunday, Creation of the Duma). When I think about the "government," I'm trying to separate the Czar from the government, which in reality that's what he his.
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