WW1- Government/ Political consequences

Question 1

What impact did WW1 have on the Tsar?

Answer 1

-opposition.
-commander in chief position made tsardom based on millitary sucess.

Question 2

What did Nicholas’ presence on the eastern front cause?

Answer 2

-isolation, rely on wife not ministers
-Rasputin.
-Rapid sucession of ineffecutal ministers in Duma and Zemstva trying to organise own war effort.

Question 3

On who’s pressure did Nicholas abdicate?

Answer 3

Millitary advisers, the progressive bloc and the Duma.

Question 4

How did Lenin and the Bolsheviks benefit from the war? (+petrograd soviet)

Answer 4

-Lenin accused of being German agent- german train out of exhile
-Bolsheviks- german money for propaganda + payment-full time political activists.
-Summer offensive fought hard by Germans- ceasefire allowed win of civil war + stop bankrupsu.

Question 5

What do the ‘optimists’ see in terms of the impact of war in general?

Answer 5

-Autocracy secure- needed a dramatic event to change.
-without war, tsar would have made constitutional changes- like 1905
-economic pressure- caused social unrest at home

Question 6

What do the ‘pessamists’ see in terms of the impact of war in general?

Answer 6

-tsar struggling for some time with autocracy- duma+ progressive bloc
-rise of the working class- traced back to Witte’s great spurt. (class struggle).

-seems to be a Bolshevik point of view.