This essay will cover the reasons in which I think the 1905 Russian revolution was a failure. However I will also look at how it was not a complete failure and then come to a conclusion by summarising and weighing up the failures against the successes.
Firstly though before a judgement can be made towards either side one must look at what the initial aims and objectives of the revolution were. As historians we must take in to account the feelings at the time, whether they were changed post revolution and whether these feelings affected things in the long and short term.
We must also take in to account how much things changed overall. As I will show, the protestors didn’t fully achieve all that they set out to but they did in fact make a change in Russia and this initial change opened the door to many more in the future that would ultimately lead to the overthrowing of the Tsar and then ultimately to Communism under Lenin and then Stalin.
So what did they set out to achieve? Well some sources claim there were no real aims and objectives of the 1905 revolution. They would say that the whole reason the revolution happened was merely an accumulation of years of unrest and social discontent that had stemmed from the initial emancipation of the Serfs in 1861. This would suggest that the fact that any change was made that was directly caused by the 1905 revolution was purely a coincidence.
Other historians however may argue that it wasn’t a complete failure. They would argue that when the peasants set out to revolt they did so merely to try and put an end to the unbearable political and living conditions of Russia at the time. In this respect they were partially successful.
Russia had previously had a complete autocracy, however post 1905 the Tsar had given some leeway and setup a new type of pseudo-constitutional constitution in the form of the Duma, a wannabe parliament he created that pretended to give the people representation and make them think they...