Question

Think about everything that happened in Russia in the 1800s. Now imagine that you have the opportunity to go back in time to advise Russian czars on what actions to take to avoid the Revolution of 1905. Based on what you’ve learned about the history of this period, what would you suggest those czars do differently? What outcomes do you hope would result from your advice?

Answer 1

If I could advise the Russian czars, I would give them this advice:

Introduce social reforms by ensuring that everyone has equal political freedom and the lower classes are not dominated by the upper classes.

Introduce workers’ reforms and allow workers to form trade unions so that they can improve their wages and working conditions.

Establish a constitutional monarchy and a legislative body that represents the people in the 1800s rather than after the Revolution of 1905.

I would hope these changes would allow Russia’s transition to a modern economy to occur more quickly and easily. If the government could have given the freed serfs real rights and economic opportunities and gotten the landowners to accept these changes, the nation might have adapted to modern times less violently and more gradually.

Answer 2

As the Bloody Sunday, as the 1905 Revolution was named, was a turmoil of the people of Russia calling for a change in their government as a result of all the wrong decisions made by the czars, if I could go back in time to avoid such a massacre I would urge czar Nicholas II to grant basic rights to the population, to grant citizens the most basic civil liberties, to bridge the gap between the lower class of the population and the feudal lords who still owned the vast majority of lands farmed by peasants and I will also advice him to provide better labor conditions for all the labor force. Thus, I would expect a society with a better lifestyle, whose rights were respected and fulfilled, the wellbeing of the workers at work place, a better economy for worker class, so that they would not need to lead to uprisings to protest, and call for changes. In a result, the great massacre could be avoided.