During the 1890s, improvements in Russian industry put more jobs in cities. This made the cities larger as people moved there. The workers in the cities, with increasing levels of education, began to develop an interest in politics and the creation of political parties in order to try and change their lives for the better. The conditions that they lived and worked in were horrible. Poor people from other parts of the Russian Empire, like Poland and Ukraine, also created their own parties to try and stop the Russians oppressing them.