A Brief Russian History Between 1815 and 1939.
... was fraught with problems however. He also created the Zemstvos, which was the peoples first attempt at participation in government at a local level. Ironically he was assassinated the same day. Alexander III was a throwback to Nicolas I and largely oppressive. His lack of mental capacity, advisors and reaction to his father’s assassination were all factors in his reign. He abandoned all forms of reform, began forced Russification of minorities in borderlands and persecuted religious minorities especially Jews. He did however begin limited industrial development with the beginning of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Nicholas II is perhaps the most famous and last Czar of the modern era. He was totally ineffective as a head of State and anti-semite; he was far more concerned with the welfare of his immediate family and his obsession with the camera. Russia suffered a tremendous loss with the Russo-Japanese war this too was in part to his ineffective leading. It was his reign that would lead to the Russian Revolution. Several attempts at revolution had been made prior to the October Revolution of 1917, in 1905 and again in February of 1917 all of which were largely unsuccessful but did manage to breed more contempt for the Czarist regime. In October 1917 the lid blew off the pot so to speak. Trotsky and to a lesser degree Lenin lead the Bolshevik revolution which ushered a whole new era of unspeakable oppression. The Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1920 with the bloody and oppressive Red Army and the Mo...