Faced with the mounting onslaught, the different parties of the ruling classes were drawn together to fight their common enemy - the masses.

Already by 1915 the bourgeois deputies in the Duma had united into a majority ‘Progressive Bloc’. It included Guchkov, a big Moscow industrialist and leader of the party of the big commercial, industrial and landowning bourgeoisie, the ‘Octobrists’. Alongside him stood Miliukov, a professor of history, leader of the ‘Kadets’ (Constitutional Democrats), the party of the 'liberal' middle bourgeoisie, intelligentsia and progressive landlords.

The bourgeoisie hoped that, under the pressure of both external defeats and internal dangers, the Tsar would be prepared to allow the capitalists to at least have some say in government. Even a majority of the Tsar's own ministers were prepared to do a deal with the Progressive Bloc to try and take some of the pressure off their hated regime. However, Tsar Nicholas the Second had no intention of making even the slightest concession.

A group of extreme right-wing bureaucrats advised the Tsar of the dangers of doing deals with the weak and unstable bourgeoisie. They saw any concessions as being just the first step on the slippery slope to mob rule. Their advice was instead a policy of ruthless repression. This would have been a sensible policy for reaction if only they had the same basis of support as in 1905. Unfortunately for them, history had now moved on and the military forces that they wanted to use to put down rebellion were beginning to be seized by rebellion themselves!

As the crisis deepened the Tsar, perhaps in a sense aware that history was about to finally catch up with his outdated regime, reassured himself by becoming more and more indifferent to events around him. The pettiness of his diary clearly reveals the Tsar's mentality. For example, on the day of his decision to dissolve the Duma he wrote: “Very busy morning. Half hour late to breakfast with the officers. … A storm came up and it was very muggy. … Signed a decree dissolving the Duma! Dined with Olga and Petia. Read all evening " [Chapter Four of the ‘History of the Russian Revolution’ ¹² ]. As Trotsky remarks, an 'exclamation mark' was his only show of emotion at this critical time !!

Meanwhile, the Tsarina, Alexandra, began to have more and more influence over the Tsar's decisions. She turned the court circle yet further away from the troubles of the real world and towards the mediaeval superstitions of the other world, relying on the opinions of her own 'Christ' on Earth, Rasputin. This drunken rogue had increasing sway over appointments and policy.

It is often said that every great revolution begins at the top. As things got ever worse, the crisis in society was reflected in splits in the ruling circles. Blamed for everything by the masses, the Tsarist autocracy began to blame each other - and increasingly the Tsar himself - for their desperate position. In desperation, talk of a ‘palace revolution’ spread in the upper circles of Petrograd society. In the end they settled for a ‘small’ revolution - the murder of Rasputin. However, contrary to the expectations of the conspirators, after his killing, the royal pair only turned to the remaining leading members of the Rasputin clique even more determinedly.

All these splits at the top filtered down into the psychology of the masses - and, far from weakening the crisis, they sharpened it. In the army, in the village, in the factories, the masses thought to themselves - if even our rulers have to resort to murder to solve their problems, why shouldn't we try to use a little force of our own?

The actions of the ruling layers had an opposite effect to that intended - only spurring on their mortal enemy, the proletariat and poor peasantry.