Russia and her Army

One of the best things about seeing news sources from the time they were written is that you get a first-hand account about a potentially world affecting event. Such is the case of the Egyptian Gazette’s pieces on Russia and the potential for a revolution. Even though it will not come for a decade, a newspaper like the Egyptian Gazette was still able to see the potential fall of the tsars. This speaks to me for several reasons.

For one thing, it implies that this was both a solvable issue and one that had been building for decades. In fact, one of the reasons for the fall is directly mentioned in the writing as the Egyptian Gazette states on August 9, 1906 that if the Tsar keeps the support of the army he can maintain power. We know the revolutions were as successful as they were because the army began to support the rebels and not the government. Another reason why this aspect interests me is that it shows a global interaction with large scale events, as these were not just things that happened in a bubble. While I went in with expectations that there might be some conflict that hints at World War 1, seeing fears about a Russian Revolution was not expected and yet seems like something that should have been.

In his analysis on the Russian Revolution, Anthony Muniz determined that there were four main causes of Revolution which were the social structure of the Russian classes, poor land for the peasants to manage the economy that was having trouble, and dissatisfied nobles.