Chapter 443 Russian Earthquake

As the Russian government began to purge capitalists to a certain extent, it inevitably affected factories in St. Petersburg and surrounding cities.

According to incomplete statistics from the Russian government, this purge affected hundreds of Russian capitalists, and hundreds of factories were affected.

This also affected the work of at least tens of thousands of Russian workers. After all, their behind-the-scenes bosses were arrested, and who would pay them wages and let them continue to work?

For Russian workers who are already hungry, whoever makes them lose their jobs is their enemy.

Those capitalists who were purged or affected are also trying to solve the current difficulties.

For these people, the weapons they can use are the workers who are dissatisfied with the suspension of factory operations.

Speaking of this, we have to mention the Russian Duma, which is the Russian State Duma established since the 1905 Revolution.

The Russian State Duma is similar to the British House of Commons, but the power of the State Duma is not very large at present. Tsar Nicholas II still holds the power to appoint cabinet ministers, and the government does not have to be responsible to the State Duma.

However, no one can deny that the united workers' groups can indeed have a great impact on the government.

Didn't Nicholas II before him also fail to bear the pressure of workers' marches, so he established the State Duma to calm the anger of the workers?

As long as the workers in these factories can be used reasonably to force the government and Nicholas II to give up the purge of capitalists, the big capitalists in St. Petersburg can escape this crisis.

It is precisely because of the pressure from the Russian government that European capitalists and political parties actually have a common goal, which is to achieve their goals by promoting workers' marches.

Adhering to the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my ally, in just a few days, the big capitalists in St. Petersburg united with the workers' parties, intending to incite a large-scale march to put pressure on the Russian government and Tsar Nicholas II.

It is ironic that the original purpose of many workers' parties was to fight against factory owners and capitalists who exploited the working class.

The two seemingly mortal enemies united together. Although it was against their respective interests, it had to be admitted that this was an extremely large interest group.

Starting from October 22, 1916, large-scale demonstrations broke out in the streets of St. Petersburg. Workers held high banners that read "Please give us back our jobs" and "We just want to survive" and started a vigorous demonstration.

At the same time, a small number of workers who were not affected also started a general strike. Hundreds of thousands of workers in St. Petersburg gathered together just to convey their wishes to the government and the Tsar.

On the afternoon of October 22, the news of the St. Petersburg strike reached the ears of Tsar Nicholas II.

At this time, Nicholas II was handling military affairs in his bedroom. Nicholas II also cherished this hard-earned one hour of time to handle military affairs. His queen and Rasputin sat next to him and hastily handled military affairs under their advice.

Hearing the prime minister report the large demonstration in St. Petersburg, Nicholas II couldn't help but frowned.

"Your Majesty, those damn workers were instigated by the capitalists and the reactionary party behind them. We cannot tolerate this march, otherwise those capitalists and reactionary parties will intensify their demands. I have calculated that the empire will win this war soon, and no jumping clown can shake the empire in the slightest." Before Nicholas II gave any opinion, Rasputin next to him couldn't wait to say it.

As a complete charlatan, Asputin is very obsessed with the feeling that power brings him.

Relying on the trust of Nicholas II and his wife in him, Rasputin handles most of Russia's political and military affairs, and even the blame is passed to the front-line commanders and capitalists.

For Rasputin, it is very important to ensure the stability of Nicholas II's status. After all, only when Nicholas II and his wife are alive can he rely on Nicholas II and his wife to control the power of the whole of Russia.

As for the impact of his decision on Russia, Rasputin actually doesn't care, and he is completely unaware of it.

It is better to expect Nicholas II to be powerful in the military than to expect an uneducated charlatan to understand the principles of governing a country and military affairs.

Queen Alexandra also nodded, fully supporting Rasputin's decision to forcefully suppress the march.

Nicholas II had used force to suppress the march before, so naturally he would not have any objections.

With Nicholas II's nod, the St. Petersburg garrison began to act, surrounded a large number of marching people, and began to forcibly evacuate these people.

In order to prevent capitalists and reactionaries from escaping St. Petersburg, under the order of Nicholas II, the entire St. Petersburg began to be under martial law. Without Nicholas II's order, no one was allowed to enter or leave at will.

In order to prevent the corruption of the St. Petersburg garrison and police, Nicholas II decided to transfer the front-line troops and forced all police to stay in the police station and not to act without orders.

You know, the situation of the St. Petersburg garrison is much worse than that of the front-line troops, but there is no guarantee that these people have not been bought by reactionaries and capitalists.

Needless to say, the police, like the workers, enjoy the extremely high prices in St. Petersburg, so it is natural for them to be dissatisfied with the government.

After the martial law was imposed in St. Petersburg, a large number of marchers were immediately scared away.

You know, St. Petersburg will not impose martial law unless there is something particularly important and urgent.

As the capital of the empire, every martial law in St. Petersburg also means that a bloody incident will occur in St. Petersburg.

The workers only thought about fighting for their rights, and did not think about sacrificing their lives for those capitalists in vain.

After Nicholas II turned the table, a large number of marchers were immediately scared away.

After most of the blindly following workers were scared away, the big ones were bought by capitalists or lured by political parties.

There are not many of these workers, less than 10,000 in total, and they are scattered on various streets in St. Petersburg.

Some of these people also wanted to retreat, but they soon found that it was too late. A large number of troops have surrounded the streets of St. Petersburg, and they are facing the cold muzzles of guns.

"Sir, this is probably a mistake." The leading member of a certain party was about to beg for mercy and explain, but was interrupted by an oncoming bullet.

Bang!

The bodies fell on the street, and the sound of collision was not loud, but it was a heavy blow to all the people who participated in the march.

Most of the marchers organized by capitalists and political parties were workers who were dissatisfied because of losing their jobs.

These people did not have any weapons, and some of them were just passionate about their livelihoods.

After the army took the initiative to open fire, the remaining marchers immediately calmed down. People put down their banners, looked at the army with fear, and waited for their fate.

"Take them all away!"

Seeing that no one resisted, the leading commander nodded with satisfaction and ordered the soldiers to arrest all the people who participated in the march.

Not only those who participated in the march, but also some newspapers that criticized the Tsarist government, factories and individuals who had been involved in the march, were on the list of arrests.

From the fact that the army had been operating in St. Petersburg for several days, it can be inferred that this suppression arrested at least tens of thousands of people.

On October 25, 1916, the Russian government began to execute the captured criminals on a large scale.

The Tsarist government dealt with these people in a very rough way, either providing more useful clues to the government or directly executing them.

Few people are not afraid of death, which has led to the repeated expansion of the arrest list, and even involved a large number of people outside St. Petersburg.

For a while, the whole of St. Petersburg was in panic. The masses did not even dare to leave their homes, because the army patrolling the streets might arrest them at any time.

Although the security environment in St. Petersburg has improved a lot, the Russians will soon face a very serious problem, that is, the food crisis.

Although he knew that the food crisis in St. Petersburg was more serious, Nicholas II had no idea of ​​relieving these civilians.

For Nicholas II, not dealing with these marching workers was already a net, and taking the initiative to rescue these civilians would have to wait until the next life.

Nicholas II had no idea of ​​buying the hearts of the people. After all, Russia has a population of up to 160 million, and it costs at least 160 million rubles to give each person one ruble, which is not a small expense.

Nicholas II thought that no one would use their own funds to help the people, let alone the gray animals in Russia who would not feel sorry for the death of millions of people.

As St. Petersburg entered martial law, although prices did not rise in a short period of time, the problem was that most people had lost their jobs.

Before, they could not afford it even if they had money, and now they could not afford it even more. They could only watch the grain in the sealed granaries being transported to the palace or divided up by those high-ranking officials and nobles.

But no one dared to covet the grain transport team. The grain transport team was not only guarded by a large number of soldiers, but also patrolled everywhere in the city, which was not something that unarmed workers could covet.

However, this was an opportunity for those political parties. After a large number of capitalists were purged, the workers in those factories were like rootless duckweed. They had no ability to fight the government at all, but they were indeed suffering from a life crisis.

Now, they only needed to pay a little bit of food to quickly win these workers over to their own political parties and strengthen their own strength.

Nicholas II may look down on these workers, but for the reactionary parties that are being hunted down by the government, the support of a large number of workers is life-saving, and it can also better achieve their goals.

Most of these political parties in Russia have plans to overthrow the government. This is not surprising. For a corrupt and autocratic empire, there have long been dragon slayers who are dissatisfied with the dragon and have the opportunity to kill it with one blow.

In fact, looking at all countries in the world, as long as it is human society, it is inseparable from class gaps and vested interests.

The upper level wants to desperately squeeze the lower level and squeeze out all the value of the lower level to serve themselves.

And after being squeezed for a long time, the lower level will always give birth to warriors who want to slay the dragon, and there are warriors who succeed in slaying the dragon.

But the problem is that whether it is a tribe or a country, it is inseparable from actual leaders.

Power will always blind people's minds. When desire overcomes reason, the dragon slayer will eventually become a dragon.

Such reincarnation is staged in every country and at every time. As long as there are human beings, it is a topic that can never be avoided.

From the end of October, political parties led by the Workers' Union began to distribute some food to workers who could not afford to eat, at the cost of these workers signing a declaration of resistance to the Russian government.

If it were normal, most workers would not sign such a declaration even if they had to endure hunger.

Once seized by the government, the signer would not only bring disaster to himself, but also implicate the entire family and his relatives.

But it is different now. If there is no more food relief, these workers and their families will really starve to death.

Starving to death now or being seized by the government in the future, I believe most smart people know how to choose.

Under the instigation of these political parties, tens of thousands of workers signed a declaration of resistance to the government and had to stand with these political parties.

As time entered early November 1916, the Great Purge launched by Nicholas II was successfully completed, and St. Petersburg restored its previous order.

The confiscation of a large number of capitalists allowed Nicholas II and the Tsarist government to obtain a large amount of funds and materials. Satisfied Nicholas II waved his hand and distributed a small amount of materials to the people of St. Petersburg.

If it was at the beginning of the Great Purge, this might have won over some people. But unfortunately, it was too late now. Except for the workers who resisted the government's declaration, they had been coerced by the political party and could not restore their previous peaceful life.

A crisis more chaotic than the previous demonstration was about to break out, and the complacent Nicholas II was still unaware of it.

The failure of the previous demonstration made the reactionaries clearly realize that it was impossible for the government to change its policies by relying on a milder demonstration alone.

Coupled with the previous dissatisfaction with Nicholas II's cleanup operation, after careful consideration, the party led by the Bolshevik Party decided to launch an armed uprising to forcefully overthrow this barbaric and cruel government.

On November 7, 1916, thousands of workers forcibly occupied the arsenal in St. Petersburg and took away a large number of guns and ammunition in the arsenal.

Because the cleanup operation had just ended, Nicholas II and the Russian high-level officials were very satisfied with the results of the cleanup operation and had long relaxed their vigilance on the order in St. Petersburg.

This also led to the arsenal in St. Petersburg being guarded by only dozens of soldiers and there was no patrol system.

After occupying the arsenal, a large number of weapons were distributed to the workers. At the same time, a small number of St. Petersburg garrisons that were won over by the workers' party also defected to the side of the uprising workers and participated in this armed uprising.

The soldiers and workers added up to tens of thousands of people, and they marched to the Winter Palace and government departments, attracting a large number of onlookers.

During the period when the Tsarist government was not prepared, the uprising troops quickly occupied the Winter Palace and government departments, and arrested a large number of Russian senior officials and generals.

Fortunately, Nicholas II was in a palace outside St. Petersburg at the time, not living in the Winter Palace, otherwise he would have been arrested.

But the uprising troops that occupied the Winter Palace and government departments actually controlled most of St. Petersburg.

The control of the capital was a huge blow to Nicholas II and Russia. If it was not handled properly, such rebellions could break out everywhere in Russia.

On the one hand, Nicholas II urgently recalled the troops that had just evacuated from St. Petersburg, and on the other hand, he urgently asked for help from Britain, France and Australasia.

When Arthur received the news of the outbreak of the Russian rebellion, it was already November 8.

The news of the civil unrest in Russia was not good news for the Allies, as it meant that Russia was almost 100% going to withdraw from the war.

No matter which side won the civil unrest, the Russian authorities had no spare energy to continue the war.

Without Russia's containment, the Germans fighting on a single front were not weaker than the British and French coalition forces, and they were even able to help the already precarious Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In order to ensure the stability of Russia as much as possible and to weaken the strength of the Soviet Union to be established in the future, Arthur made a prompt decision and ordered the intelligence personnel in Russia to rescue Nicholas II's family as much as possible, at least to rescue the direct heir to the throne like Crown Prince Alexei, so as to ensure the continued existence of the Russian monarchy.

The Russian Empire ruled by the Romanov dynasty was an ally of Australasia, but Russia controlled by the uprising forces had no relationship with Australasia.

The countries established by these political parties could easily affect the Russian people in Australasia, and at the same time, it would cause the Allies and Australasia to lose a major ally.

According to the historical trend of Russia after the uprising, Russia and the United States at that time jointly destroyed the colonial system maintained by Britain and France for hundreds of years, and made the two top powers of Britain and France step down from the altar.

For a large country like Australasia, which also has a large number of colonies and territories, the collapse of the colonial system is not good news.

Therefore, it is necessary to weaken the strength of this country that has not yet been established as much as possible.

On November 9, 1916, the mighty uprising team surrounded the palace where Nicholas II was.

The palace has a total of thousands of soldiers guarding it, which is enough to ensure the safety of Nicholas II in normal times.

But now facing the siege of tens of thousands of people, Nicholas II can only hope for the support of allies and the return of the front-line troops.

What Nicholas II worried about still happened. The garrison in the palace also mutinied. Although the mutiny did not succeed, it greatly weakened the combat effectiveness of the garrison.

After two days of siege, the palace was finally captured by the insurgents, and Nicholas II and the royal family were captured by the insurgents with pale faces.

Although the Russian uprising was a complete success, the current situation in Russia was not as smooth as it seemed.

First of all, there were still two factions within the Russian uprising army. The more powerful one was the working class alliance composed of the Bolsheviks and other workers' parties.

This faction advocated the establishment of a completely republican and democratic government and the withdrawal from the monarchy that had existed in Russia for thousands of years.

The other faction was mainly composed of Russian landlords and capitalists. Because the capitalists had been weakened to a certain extent before, the strength of this faction was relatively weak compared to the working class.

But the bourgeoisie feared the working class more than the previous Tsarist government, because the workers and the bourgeoisie were naturally opposed, assets were equal to exploitation, and the workers launched an uprising precisely to resist exploitation.

Because they were afraid that the working class would liquidate themselves in the future, the bourgeoisie opposed the abolition of the monarchy and advocated the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, transferring power to parliament, and fair competition among all political parties.

The bourgeoisie's proposal was quickly opposed by the working class. The bourgeoisie is mostly composed of nobles and capitalists. Although they are weaker, their capital is much stronger than that of the working class.

If the competition is only in parliament, as long as the bourgeoisie is willing to spend money, the working class will not be able to compete with the bourgeoisie.

This is equivalent to handing power to the bourgeoisie, which not only violates the original intention of the working class to launch an uprising, but also violates the desire of some workers' alliance parties to gain power.

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