Muse- Collapse from within with outside contibutions

Was the February Revolution an overthow from without or a collapse from within?

During the February revolution many factors contributed to the cause but the revolution itself, although affected by the outside world, was a collapse from within. As World War One raged on all around the Russian empire, collapses of empire after empire occurred but what was coming about was not a larger external conflict but within the Russian empire. A conflict that, after careful thought, would cause the Russians to drop completely out of the war. This internal conflict was a long on-going disaster that mainly took place in the people. Since the Russian empire had been involved in WW1 from 1914, they had experienced three long years of hardships and economic blows, thus causing them to be in challenging times- as it was for most. When the Russians pulled out of the war in order to address the problem occuring within their borders they were still calling for soldiers and supplies in order to keep their army strong and the revolution as miniscule as possible. Even before one year of the revolution had been completed there were shortages (3). The economy took one of the biggest blows due to food shortages and illness. "These mothers, exhausted from standing endlessly in lines and having suffered so much watching their half-starving and sick children..."(3) This, to me, is one of the major reasons for the downfall of the Czar.
Over time Czar Nicholas II had dug himself into a hole that just kept getting deeper everytime he implicated a new way of "the people's voice." For instance, as opposition groups came about the Czar saw it fit to create a so called board for the voice of the people. From a birds eye view, that seemed pretty fitting, but in truth it was actually one of the biggest reasons for his downfall. After Nicholas II created the Duma, in which he said he would turn to in order to listen to the concerns of the people, he ended up ignoring them completely(Belk). The only reason the Duma was created was to buy himself more time on the thrown but this proved to be a fault. In my opinion his creation of the Duma was probably, for that time period especially coming from the hardships of the world war, the most unconventional thing he could have done. Also another contibuting factor of the collapse was when the Czar felt the need to take complete control of the military. Nicholas II took over the military, leading them to battle while having no clue as to what to do, who to put where, or even who was meant to be in a certain position. This decision was a large fault for prior to his sieze of military power, 140,000 men had already been abducted by the revolution (1).
Although all of these internal conflicts took place, other factors contributed that came from the outside world. For instance there were multiple letter exchanges between the Czar and other empires (their rulers) discussing his abdication(1). From his point of view these were absurd allogations while from their point of view, as well as Russian cittizens, was the most economically smart decision. It could be viewed as to the outsiders were the Russian citizens voice, as well as their saviours. As pointed out in source one, even those not a part of the society could recognize the Czar's over zealous use of power as well as his straying from the oath.
For one, Nicholas II was bascially on thin ice where his "people" could give way at any moment. I think one of the most deciding factors as to his abdication was his appointment of his wife as primary ruler of Russia during his military expedition. This contained multiple issues that led to complete outrage towards the Czar. In one case, women had no place to be in power in this period of time but also the Czar had almost completely deserted his country. Although he was, in his mind, bettering the country in order to re-establish their dominance he was just adding to the layers of turmoil and hardships.
Overall, my opinion stands as collapse from within (mainly) because Nicholas II put Russia in a tight situation with food shortages, drafts leading to complete losses of life, and the contradiction to societarian rules by putting a woman in charge. The outside empires spoke up for the Russian society, giving a voice to the people but like the Duma was completely ignored.