Editing Russian Revolution (section)

===Political issues===
[[File:1917petrogradsoviet assembly.jpg|thumb|The [[Petrograd Soviet Assembly]] meeting in 1917]]

Many sections of the country had reason to be dissatisfied with the existing autocracy. Nicholas II was a deeply conservative ruler and maintained a strict authoritarian system. Individuals and society in general were expected to show self-restraint, devotion to community, deference to the social hierarchy and a sense of duty to the country. Religious faith helped bind all of these tenets together as a source of comfort and reassurance in the face of difficult conditions and as a means of political authority exercised through the clergy. Perhaps more than any other modern monarch, Nicholas II attached his fate and the future of his dynasty to the notion of the ruler as a saintly and infallible father to his people.<ref name="See1993" group="nb">See, especially, {{Cite book |first=Dominic |last=Lieven |title=Nicholas II: Emperor of all the Russias |publisher=London |date=1993}}; {{Cite book |first=Andrew |last=Verner |title=The Crisis of the Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=1990}}; {{Cite book |first1=Mark |last1=Steinberg |first2=Vladimir |last2=Khrustalev |title=The Fall of the Romanovs: Political Dreams and Personal Struggles in a Time of Revolution |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |date=1995}}; {{Cite book |first=Richard |last=Wortman |title=Scenarios of Power |volume=2 |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=2000}}</ref>{{Sfn|Figes|1996}}

This vision of the Romanov monarchy left him unaware of the state of his country. With a firm belief that his power to rule was granted by [[Divine right of kings|Divine Right]], Nicholas assumed that the Russian people were devoted to him with unquestioning loyalty. This ironclad belief rendered Nicholas unwilling to allow the progressive reforms that might have alleviated the suffering of the Russian people. Even after the 1905 Revolution spurred the Tsar to decree limited civil rights and democratic representation, he worked to limit even these liberties in order to preserve the ultimate authority of the crown.<ref name="See1993" group="nb"/>

Despite constant oppression, the desire of the people for democratic participation in government decisions was strong. Since the [[Age of Enlightenment]], Russian intellectuals had promoted Enlightenment ideals such as the dignity of the individual and the rectitude of democratic representation. These ideals were championed most vociferously by Russia's liberals, although populists, Marxists, and anarchists also claimed to support democratic reforms. A growing opposition movement had begun to challenge the Romanov monarchy openly well before the turmoil of World War I.

Dissatisfaction with Russian autocracy culminated in the huge national upheaval that followed the [[Bloody Sunday (1905)|Bloody Sunday]] massacre of January 1905, in which hundreds of unarmed protesters were shot by the Tsar's troops. Workers responded to the massacre with a crippling general strike, forcing Nicholas to put forth the [[October Manifesto]], which established a democratically elected parliament (the [[Duma#State Duma in Imperial Russia|State Duma]]). Although the Tsar accepted the 1906 [[Russian Constitution of 1906|Fundamental State Laws]] one year later, he subsequently dismissed the first two Dumas when they proved uncooperative. Unfulfilled hopes of democracy fueled revolutionary ideas and violent outbursts targeted at the monarchy.

One of the Tsar's principal rationales for risking war in 1914 was his desire to restore the prestige that Russia had lost amid the debacles of the [[Russo-Japanese war|Russo-Japanese War]] (1904–1905). Nicholas also sought to foster a greater sense of national unity with a war against a common and old enemy. The Russian Empire was an agglomeration of diverse ethnicities that had demonstrated significant signs of disunity in the years before the First World War. Nicholas believed in part that the shared peril and tribulation of a foreign war would mitigate the social unrest over the persistent issues of poverty, inequality, and inhumane working conditions. Instead of restoring Russia's political and military standing, [[World War I]] led to the slaughter of Russian troops and military defeats that undermined both the monarchy and Russian society to the point of collapse.