Economics: Reason for Downfall of Tsar Nicholas II

→Russia had economic problems that went far beyond 1917. It had been in another war shortly before WWI, against Japan in 1905. Back then, sailors came back home revolted by their poor conditions at sea, and riots occurred around the country over poverty and misery but the Tsar was able to contain them before they turned into something bigger, since he still had support from his troops and was still willing to compromise.
→In 1914, when he was forced to join war, he started what would be the end of his government. As you may be aware, Russia had really important commercial trades in the Balkans and had influence over Serbia. When the Balkan War started in 1914, Germany supported Austria-Hungary against Serbia and immediately declared war to Russia; therefore the Tsar was forced into war by the Germans with the interests of protecting Russian economic trades in the region and also to support France since they kept important commercial relationships and this was one more reason for the Tsar to join war.
→His country wasn’t ready for such a long war and they were already harmed by the loss of Port Arthur in eastern Russia, from where they received a big part of their supplies. War stagnated and weakened the Russian economy to such extent that they weren’t able to sustain themselves anymore and took loans from the Allies, causing depts. Still, the minister of finances increased working hours to 12 hours a day to increase production and increased taxes to a point where people couldn’t pay for them anymore, which made them unhappy. skBesides that, inflation happened due to over printing of money and the prices rose. Unfortunately the wages couldn’t keep up with the prices and people started not being able to acquire essential goods such as bread.
→As shown in statistics, the population was growing in the main cities. In Moscow from 735,500 to 1,762,700 people and in Petrograd from 928,000 to 2,217,500 people from 1881 to 1914. There were more needs for supplies and oppositely almost all supplies Russia had were being spent in war and sent to the front line, that is, when they got there, since now the country was so broke that their transportation methods were inefficient, almost inexistent. Lack of fuel and coal made trains stop in the middle of railways and cars in roadsides; with them, food that had to be transported was rotting and being wasted, a luxury the Russians couldn’t afford.
→As A.J.P Taylor said: “No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic”. It is very unlikely that someone who has food and money complaining about bad conditions of living.
→ Besides any losses Russia may have had in the past, its economy was in a really good stage when it was forced to join war due to the industrial boom from 1903 to 1914. In two years, the national budget was whacked due to war costs and conditions inside the country started to deteriorate. Russia no longer had money to sustain neither the people inside the country neither the people in the trenches. Conditions started to worsen and food shortages started to happen. As people got unhappier, the poorer Russia got. To make things worse, the winter of 1916 was one of the harshest ever faced by the Russian people, increasing even more the food shortage.
→Overcrowded houses and poor sanitary conditions were now common in the country, as they were seen everywhere. With starvation and misery, people started to turn against the Tsar and look up to political parties such as the communists, who promised an equal society. So people started to cause mutinies and riot, and the more they did the more they attracted other strikers. A big example is the Bread Riot that occurred on the 23rd of February 1917 in Petrograd when women that were already starting to sleep in front of bakeries to be the first in line and have something to eat found out there was a bread shortage and the bakeries were closed. In the trenches, soldiers would receive news about the conditions back home and looked around them and saw the same, if not worse, so they started deserting. The weaker the Tsar got, the stronger the people and the opposition got. Without any other option, the Tsar resorted for repression, but even his most loyal troops, the Cossacks and senior generals refused to obey him and he had to step down, on the 2nd of March 1917.

As we could see, the downfall of the Tsar was an indirect consequence of the economical problems happening in the country. The economical problems generated a lot of opposition to the Tsar, as people got each time dissatisfied with him and his measurements towards the country. This opposition caused riots, which attracted more people and created a kind of union that was powerful enough to cause the downfall of Nicholas II.
At last, if the Tsar had remained and not gone to the front line or if the he had been replaced the political problems certainly would go away, but not the economical ones. And this proves that the success of the 1917 revolution was due to something deeper, the source of the problems: the economy.