Main features of Tsarist rule and Russian society before the First World War: Tsar Nicholas the

Second began ruling Russia in 1894, the year he was granted power. He began ruling as part of the Romanov Family. Russia was ruled by him as an absolute monarchy, where he controlled all aspects of Russia. He believed he had the divine rule to rule Russia and that he was sent to Russia by God. He would not accept any opposition to his method of ruling. The secret police, the Okhrama, assisted the Tsar in censoring all newspapers and other books deemed to be offensive towards the Tsar and would imprison any offenders. He had a council of ministers that supported the Tsar. They would report the daily events to the Tsar and make suggestions; however the final decision making was done by the Tsar only. There was no elected parliament. It was very difficult to rule Russia because Russia was an extremely big country; its land mass accounts for 1 out of 6 of the total land mass in the whole world. It stretches for up to 6000 kilometers. Even when the Trans-Siberian railway was built, this connected St.Petersburg from the West to Vladivostok in the East; it would take 13 days of travel. Furthermore, communication was transport was extremely weak; the infrastructure of Russia was poorly developed. It was hot on one side of Russia, while it continued to be freezing cold on the other side. Furthermore, trade was made to be more difficult as many of Russias main seaports in the East were frozen for most of the year. The lives of Russians before the First World War were quite poor. 4 out of 5 Russians selected would be peasants, who used extremely backward methods of farming with no machinery in sight, using only basic farming essentials, i.e. wooden ploughs. The population of Russia was around 125 million during the 1900s. Russia had over 16 different nationalities and tribes, i.e. Armenians, Georgians, the Cossacks, Polish, Germans, Kazakhs, Kirgiz, etc. Due to the different cultures and religions, not all society of Russia was happy with the government due to different beliefs and traditions. Furthermore, most of the population lived around the Ural Mountains, where the climate was not as extreme as in the East, near the Tundra. The population types of Russia are as follows; 84% were peasants out of the 125 million populations, 5% was the military, 4 % was the government officials, 1.5 % was the noble classes, 0.5% was the rich merchants, and 1% was the priests. The Russian Orthodox Church played a big role in Russia. Russians were very religious and believed in the Orthodox Church. They would have many and numerous religious icons and pictures related to the Church being put on display in their houses. The Church also greatly contributed to the continuous ruling of the Tsar because the church supported the method of how the Tsar ruled Russia. There was a big difference inside the Church, as there was a big contrast between the poor priests and the rich bishops and clergymen. The holymen of the church were known as Statsy for plural and Staret for singular.