A Violent Peace

A Violent Peace
We must recognize the chief characteristic of the modern era--a permanent state of what I call violent peace. -Abraham Lincoln

The Russians have had enough.

Russia's defeat at the hands of the Japanese has only added to the common people's troubles. Workers work for eleven hours a day, in unstable environments, and the peasants don't even own the land they till.

For the past year, demands have been made by city councils, called Dumas, to bring about change for the good of the nation: equal representation, redistribution of land, a legislature, a parliament, and freedoms of speech and religion. Yet all attempts at reform made by Tsar Alexander II were thwarted by the reign of his son, Alexander III, and the reigning Tsar, Nicholas II, doesn't seem to keen on giving power to non-aristocrats.

But during the early months of 1905, the people organized mass strikes across the Empire, with 400'000 workers rioting by the end of January. A mass strike in the capital, Saint Petersburg, was brutally surpressed, earning the nickname, Bloody Sunday.

The atrocities committed by the government led to the Tsar dismissing Pyotr Sviatopolk-Mirskii, the Minister of the Interrior, and the formation of a commission designated to solve the discontent of the workers.

The commission was changed little, until a shocking event changed the Tsar's attitude on the matter.

On February 17th, his uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was assassinated by revolutionaries. Tsar Nicholas realized that the old order's time has come, and significant change must be made.

He promised the Russian people that in the following months, he would form the Soviet (Council), the state parliament, a constitution, legalization of political parties, election, basic suffrage, legalization of labour unions, and equal wages.

In OTL, the Tsar still stubbornly refused to fully implement the changes, and eventually, took back power from the Dumas, allowing the Russian Revolution to establish the USSR and Communism to spread across the globe. But what if he carried out the reforms? What if Communism failed to grab a hold in the world? Welcome to A Violent Peace.