What were the short term impacts of the abdication of the Tsar in 1917 on Russian society?
The abdication of the Tsar in 1917 brought about massive change in Russia. Some in Russia had been calling for the Tsar to leave the throne as early as 19001, due to his ineptitude when it came to social reforms and his failures in world war one. Although this essay focuses on the impacts of the abdication, it must not be forgotten that Nicholas’ incompetency in the war played a huge part in his downfall.
One of the first immediate impacts of Nicholas’ abdication is that the country was sent into disarray. ‘The situation is serious. The capital is in a state of anarchy. The government is paralysed; the transport service has broken down; the food and fuel supplies are completely disorganized.’2 Clearly his abdication caused a state of turmoil, one that Russia had never experienced before. This led to a massive power vacuum in Russian politics, with the Bolsheviks leading the charge. However, as history tells us, the Bolsheviks did not grasp power immediately, that in fact a provisional government was set up to replace Nicholas. This is clearly a massive impact as never before had the Russian people seen a government made up of direct representatives, up until this point they had always been under autocratic rule. ‘The composition of the new government is extraordinarily moderate in the circumstances. There has been, and still is, danger from extremists, who want at once to turn Russia into a Socialist republic and have been agitating amongst soldiers, but reason has been reinforced’3. What we can deduce from this source is that one of the biggest immediate impacts of the Tsar abdicating is that a (somewhat) democratic government was set up, and the some of the public unrest was quelled. Due to the aforementioned power vacuum, violence also increased on the streets after the abdication of the Tsar. ‘There were cases of killing and bloodshed, and during the day many were...