Section 4: Opposition 2 - Other Political Parties and the Army

N.B. This section should be read along with Section 3.

The army

The army was not of course a political party. But it was a potential source of opposition. If the Tsar could not command the loyalty of the army then there was no way that he could hold on to his position as an autocratic ruler. The upper ranks within the army were only available to the wealthy landowners and industrialists and were bought and sold. These people saw the army as a way of wielding their power over the lower classes. Russia had the largest standing army in peacetime of any European nation during the 19th century but the lower ranks were filled by enforced enlistment of peasants and unemployed town people. The army's main function was to maintain law and order and put down disturbances, particularly in the provinces and non-Russian states of the empire.

The army

The officers were loyal to the Tsar and supported the system that allowed them to buy their way into power and then use it against the lower classes. But the discipline for the lower classes within the army was brutal with troops often being beaten to death for very minor things such as not cleaning their boots to the satisfaction of their officers. Soldiers had virtually no civil rights: signs outside public parks for instance frequently read "No animals or soldiers allowed". Their living conditions were squalid and unhygienic and in the remote areas their camps were more like penal colonies. This brought the conflict between the classes in Russia into sharp focus and the Bolsheviks in particular were able to exploit discontent within the army by 1917.