Russia's defeat in the Crimean War ushered in a period of rapid change that affected profoundly every area of national life. Within a mere sixty years much was done to overcome the country's historic legacy of backwardness – to modernize its economy and to encourage at least some elements in Russian society to take an active part in public affairs. In retrospect, however, it is clear that insufficient action was taken to relieve the serious underlying tensions which afflicted the body politic. The consequence was that, when Russia suffered a major military débâcle during the First World War, the imperial regime collapsed.

The cataclysmic events that followed have naturally influenced historians' judgement on the period. Some have assumed that violent revolution was inevitable, and have taken as their leitmotiv the struggle between the ‘reactionary’ forces and their ‘progressive’ opponents, particularly those on the extreme left. Others have emphasized the role of fortuitous factors and claimed that, at least after the constitutional reforms of 1905–6, Russia had taken the road of peaceful evolution toward western European democracy: according to this analysis, only the war placed revolution on the agenda. Both views are exaggerated, but on a long-term view the latter probably comes nearer the truth. The historian can usefully distinguish those phenomena in the period 1855–1917 that affected the shape of the revolution when it came – remembering that Russia's development was complex and contradictory, and that the pace of advance was quicker in some fields than others. The following discussion assumes familiarity with basic chronology and considers in turn the principal problems that faced Russia during the reigns of her last three tsars.