RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND FRENCH REVOLUTION BOTH SHARE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES    1254 WORDS

It is important to discuss the Russian Revolution of 1905 as it was one of the reasons the 1917 Revolution sparked. In 1905 the Russian government was in a state of conflict and instability and therefore caused numerous uprisings at the time, the main one being called “Bloody Sunday”. Bloody Sunday was a mass killing of Russian workers who were marching to present the Russian Czar at the time, Nicholas II, with a petition “demanding the summoning of an assembly based on universal suffrage, land reform and an eight-hour day” (Briggs and Clavin, 137). The march was a peaceful one but the imperial guards shot into the crowd to disperse this mass-driven protest, this was the fire that lit the match and the Russian Revolution of 1905 began.

This revolution caused a change with the governmental system. They adapted an assembly which was called the “State Duma of the Russian Empire” which limited the power of Czar Nicholas II but he still retained his hierarchy in a set of his own laws which he issued himself called the “Fundamental Laws”. Although he still retained his power the new legislative government that was created did have some say in affairs but was still in a lower category then the Czar. The Russian people where still unhappy with this and therefore this type of government only lasted until 1917 when the second Russian Revolution