why were the russian people unhappy with their country’s involvement in world war i?

Russian people grew deeply unhappy with their country's involvement in World War I due to massive military failures, crippling economic hardships, and the Tsarist government's incompetence, which fueled widespread social unrest and paved the way for revolution. Enormous casualties—nearly two million soldiers dead—shattered morale, while poor leadership under Tsar Nicholas II, who took personal command in 1915, made him the focal point of blame.

Military Disasters

Russia suffered devastating losses early on, like the 1915 Great Retreat, exposing supply shortages and incompetent generals. Soldiers, mostly peasants, deserted in droves by 1917, linking frontline suffering to demands for peace and reform at home. This erosion of the "Russian steamroller" myth turned patriotism into open defiance.

Economic Collapse

War inflated prices sky-high, causing food shortages in cities like Petrograd amid hoarding and poor rail transport. Factories closed from German imports, throwing workers into poverty and resentment toward both enemies and overlords. Civilians starved while soldiers watched families suffer, viewing the Tsar as failing his "family task" pact.

Leadership Failures

Tsar Nicholas II's frontline blunders and Rasputin's influence alienated the intelligentsia and masses alike. Protests surged as the "shell scandal" left troops with just three shells daily, highlighting corruption. By 1917, defeatism gripped the army, welcoming Bolshevik promises of peace.

Social Unrest

• Strikes paralyzed Petrograd by 1916, blending worker anger with soldier mutinies.
• Women queued endlessly for bread, sparking February Revolution riots.

• Peasants resented urban elites and "internal enemies" like profiteers.

Multiple Viewpoints

Historians note initial patriotic fervor faded into war-weariness, with peasants fighting reluctantly for vague causes like Serbia. Soldiers' attitudes shifted from duty to revolution, seeing exit from war as key to land reform. Modern Russian forums echo this as a "forgotten catastrophe" downplayed in schools, unlike Soviet-glorified WWII.

"The war only served to increase the number of burdens... uniting soldiers’ anti-war sentiments in public protest."

TL;DR : Catastrophic losses, starvation, and Tsarist mismanagement turned WWI into a spark for Russia's 1917 revolutions.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.