Widespread suffering under autocracy—a form of government in which one person, in this case the czar, has absolute power
• Weak leadership of Czar Nicholas II—clung to autocracy despite changing times
• Poor working conditions, low wages, and hazards of industrialization
• New revolutionary movements that believed a worker-run government should replace czarist rule
• Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1905), which led to rising unrest• Bloody Sunday, the massacre of unarmed protestors outside the palace, in 1905
• Devastation of World War I—high casualties, economic ruin, widespread hunger
• The March Revolution in 1917, in which soldiers who were brought in for crowd control ultimately joined labor activists in calling “Down with the autocracy!”