Trotsky wrote, "Although with a few broken ribs, Tsarism came out of the experience of 1905 alive and strong".
Russia in 1905 under the autocratic rule of Tsar Nicholas ll was becoming increasingly unstable and the government was unable or unwilling to tackle the people's grievances. Lower class people in the industrial centres and in rural Russia had an awful way of life living under emergency legislation. Pointless censorship was rife and brutally enforced, ranks of secret police (Okhrana) pursued people who opposed the tsarist regime, the Russian people were being crushed by the autocracy of the Tsar.
In cities and industrial centres soldiers equipped with live ammunition kept order. The rural population on whom the economy was so dependent was close to starving. The social structure was feudal, the upper classes were rich and the peasants were crushingly poor.
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