The Russo- Japanese War, although an important rationale for the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution , was caused by many other problems which made a foundation for the War as well as the Revolution. Due to the War the economy suffered, adding on to the problems that Russia was already facing from a lack of preceding modernization, making this very important as the majority were affected causing them to revolt. Furthermore, Russia lost against Japan in the War portraying the Tsar as weaker compared to how he was already viewed by the population, making this another very important factor as the Russians felt they needed a stronger leader and …show more content…
The Russian military lost miserably to the Japanese and this was a huge blow to the Russians as due to censorship, they had always conceived the Japanese to be inferior and weaker, making them certain that they would win. The defeat was seen as national humiliation, helping to cause unrest towards the Government and making the Tsar look weak, giving encouragement to the revolutionaries. In addition the overall cost of the War was very high, meaning that the already suffering Russian economy was plummeted further into trouble resulting in the tarnishing of the state finances made by Witte. However, it mainly helped to prolong the Revolution as many of the events of the war took place after the Revolution had …show more content…
Autocratic rule was disliked by many as many people believed that under the Autocratic rule Russia was suffering and there needed to be a change in the way the country was led in order for the country to progress. This caused many political groups to gain extremist views. The extremist groups such as the Social Revolutionaries became very popular as they wanted to give political power to the peasants, who made up 80% of the total population and solving their problems would mean that the whole of Russia would benefit greatly. This shows that the groups were becoming more organized and strategic in the way they worked as they were targeting the biggest problems, in addition in order to gain publicity and get their message and views across, political groups were responsible for over 2000 assassinations which included the Interior Minister, Plehve and the Tsars Uncle, Grand Duke Sergei, the Governor of Moscow. Furthermore, the demand for political reform continued growing as just like the Russian economy, Russian politics was also backwards and unlike other European states, Russia had elected bodies being the Zemstva, instead of an elected national parliament. This meant that the Russian population had no say in how the country was run which angered many and in turn meant that they supported extremist political groups in an attempt to force political