Q- What were the social, economic and political conditions in Russia before 1905?
Answer- The hyper condition of Russian Empire in 1905 leads to a large revolution in Russia known as Russian Revolution.
At the beginning of 20th century, about 85% of Russian people were engaged in agriculture or were agriculturalist. At that time Russia was the big exporter of grains. Most of the Industries in Russia were under control of Industrialists.
Due to a huge unemployment the wages of workers were too low and the working hours were too high. This led to a wide spread corruption and exploitation in Russian Empire. Russia was ruled by Tsar and it was an autocracy. The Tsar specially Tsar Nicholas 2 a self made corrupt and rude ruler of Russia. He ignores the works for public welfare that leads to the anger in the peasants deteriorated. In Russia the peasants and workers both were divided.
Peasants frequently refused to pay rents and even murdered landlords. Being inspired by the democratic experiments by the western European countries, the Russians also demanded a responsible form of government but all their demands were ignored.
As a result, it even led to the modern reforms talk about revolutions. During the Reign of Tsar Nicholas 2, the general public including workers and farmers had no say in the government whereas the privileged has got special rights.
The situation has collapsed to a level that even the Liberals campaigned to end this state of affairs.
This led to the formation of the Russian Social Democratic Workers party in 1898 by the socialist who followed Marx’s ideas. In 1903, this party further divided into 2 groups-
1. Mensheviks
2. Bolsheviks.
The Bolsheviks were in majority and led by Lenin who is regarded as the greatest thinker on Socialism after Marx.