LAUSR

Beginning in 1904–5, Tsarist Russia faced its most serious crisis since the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. Defeat in the Russo-Japanese war, a wave of assassinations of officials and the outbreak of mass rebellion among peasants, workers, sailors and soldiers reduced the country to near chaos, especially during the autumn and winter of 1905–6. The regime responded both by making concessions (notably the creation of an elected legislative assembly, the State Duma), and by employing traditional repressive measures through the police and the army. Meanwhile supporters of monarchy, who had hitherto been politically almost entirely passive, began for the first time to feel that to save monarchy and empire they needed to organise themselves, create political movements and mobilise the mass of the population to defend the monarchy against the socialist and liberal parties.