Was Russia Ripe for Revolution in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries?

Even in the very beginning, to the observant eye, telltale signs of discontentment hung in the air. Eventually, you could argue that it would have been impossible to overlook the unprecedented social and political uproar in the country. No one event would be able to bring down a government which had ruled for so many years, but this was not the case. The crisis began many years before, with its roots deep into the nineteenth century. The storm clouds gathered very slowly, as a front of despondency blew in from the west. It chilled the people to the notion of contentment and forced them to seek shelter under Marx's beliefs. The Czar and his government brought the cloudburst upon themselves, as their policies added more fuel to the already raging political fire. Clearly the Russian Revolution or something equally extreme had already been conceived in the politcally charged environment of the time. Within the years preceding the Revolution, many events shaped the future of the Russian government, including the first Russian Revolution in 1905. …