Chapter 3: The collapse of the Russian Empire 1894-1917

Nicholas II

-Nicholas II came to the throne in 1894 at 26 when his father had died unexpectedly. Nicholas was rather overwhelmed with the prospect of taking over from a strong father whom he admired greatly. He declared himself wholly unfit to reign. Compared with his father’s huge bulk he had a slight, somewhat diminutive figure. Although he was well educated it was the army he was most attached. He loved military life. He came to see it as his personal domain and appointed grand dukes and members of his family (not very able) to high positions.

-In his personal life he was a loving family man. His private letters and diary provide evidence of his strong religious convictions and his deep affection for his wife and family. He was generally charming and kind to those around him. but Nicholas was also narrow minded and prejudiced and had no time for people who did not fit his idea of a true Russian. He was anti Semitic and praised regiments that put down disorders.

-He could command respect and loyalty but lacked the training and experience for leadership. His poor leadership skills have been recorded by contemporaries and historians, his inability to make decisions , his unwillingness to engage in politics- even read gov reports, his lack of organisational skills, his weakness, his obstinacy. He found it difficult to say unpleasant things to ministers to their face and would write them a note after seeing them criticising their ideas and proposals. He lacked the personal drive and ambition to instill a sense of purpose and direction in the ministers ad bureaucracy.

-He was completed wedded to the principle of autocracy. At the very beginning of his reign he stated Let it be known to all that I shall devote all my strength for the good of the whole nation, to maintaining the principle of autocracy just as firmly and unflinchingly as it was preserved by my unforgettable father. Like his father he was influenced by Pobedonstsev and like his father hew was anxious to maintain the political authority of the regime.

The Tsarina

-Alexandra was born of a German royal house and was a Protestant. She converted to the Orthodox Church and threw herself into learning Russian customs and traditions. However she developed a strong dislike for court life and this was reciprocated. The court perceived her as cold and aloof and she was compared unfavourably with her mother in law. Alexandra was always regarded as an outsider and was never liked by the Russians. Nicholas and Alexandra had 4 daughters and one son who was a haemophiliac. Naturally shy, Alexandra sought to create a private world in their palace just outside St Petersburg, demanding the Tsar spent the evenings with the family. Alexandra was strong willed and obstinate. She believed firmly that the Tsar had been appointed by God to be the autocratic ruler of Russia. She was adamant that he should keep his powers and not share them with people. Her influence on him was great and not always helpful. At crucial moments she would argue against any move towards constitutional monarchy. also she insisted that they maintain their relationship with the disreputable character Rasputin.

Grigory Rasputin

-Grigory Yefimovich, a Siberian peasant, gained a reputation as a holy man and the name Rasputin. In 1905, he came to St Petersburg and became known to the royal family. The Tsar’s son Alexis suffered from haemophilia and Rasputin seemed to be able to stop thebelleding that resulted from when doctors could not (perhaps through herbal remedies or hypnosis). The Tsarina took this as a sign from God and her favour gave Rasputin an elevated position at court with direct access to the royal family. High society women flocked him to ask for healing or to carry petitions to the Tsar to advance their husbands’ careers. There were rumours that Rasputin solicited sexual favours for his help. Whatever the truth, the stories of debauchery caused reputational and political damage to the Tsar. It caused tension between the Tsar and the Orthodox Church who disproved of Rasputin, between the Tsar and the Duma because the tsar censored reports of Rasputin in the newspapers and between the Tsar and Stolypin who disparaged the effect Rasputin had on the Tsar’s public image. Rasputin was to do much more damage during the First World War.

Nicholas the early years 1894-1904

-Just before Nicholas came to throne Russia had been hit by the catastrophic famine 1891-92. Drought in 1891 cased famine and starvation in the Volga region which spread to the 17 provinces from the Ural mountains to the Black sea. Then cholera and typhus struck killing half a million people by the end of 1892. The gov bureaucracy proved totally incompetent in its handling and even worse continued to export the grain while people starved. The gov was forced to ask the public for help. Zemstva organised relief effectively and voluntary bodies organised citizens to join relief campaigns.

-The gov bureaucracy had been exposed and discredited and civil society had been mobilised to help. People talked about the efficacy of the autocracy and whether it was time for people to play a greater role in gov at different levels. The Zemstva with a huge amount of support pressed for more autonomy. More liberal and progressive Zemstvo men demanded the calling of a national assembly. And they presented their ideas to the new young Tsar in his accession. But Nicholas denounce them as a senseless dream.

Policies of Nicholas II

-Nicholas continued with the policies of his father. The emergency powers of 1881 were kept more or less intact and the policy of Russification was pursued vigorously. Witte the Finance Minister and was driving forward at a great pace industrialisation and modernisation. But this threatened the stability of the regime in a number of ways:

-Millions of peasants pouring into the cities to work in factories treated volatility and social tension

-Many workers were concentrated in large complexes and huge factories. This made it easier to organise strikes.

-A more educated workforce (and Witte favoured the spread of technical education) with a high literacy rate (57.8% in 1897) was able to read political literature and articulate their views.

-The growth of the middle classes created pressure for political change, for more accountable and representative government.

-As the 1890s progressed urban workers became more militant. They resented deeply working and living conditions that they had to endure as well as the way they were treated. The textile workers in St Petersburg where the vast majority of workers were women, mounted massive strikes in 1896 and 1897. This marked the arrival of a genuine proletariat able to organise itself. This action forced the gov to concede the only significant piece of legislation in this period restricting the working day to 11 ½ hours. More worrying for the gov was the Marxist Social Democrats were actively encouraging workers to take strike action. The peak of strikes was 1899 and involved nearly 100k workers. The gov could only deal with them by police repression, arrests, imprisonment, exile and even execution. A special factory police force was established in 1899 and its units stationed permanently near large industrial works.

-The turn of the century also saw some serious disturbances involving students. What started as a protest against gov restrictions on unis mushroomed into huge demonstrations in 1891 when police beat students with whips, arrested their leaders and drafted some in the army. The middle classes were horrified by the police brutality and many students were radicalised. Thousands joined the Social Revolutionaries.

-As Russia moved into the twentieth century it was an unstable and volatile condition. There had been another famine in the Central Volga region in 1898-99and things got worse. An international recession after 1900 caused a deep depression in Russia. it affected all areas of the economy and workers were hit by falling wages and unemployment, resulting in a widespread industrial action. Workers returned to their villages to stir up peasant revolt wheee there was already huge anger about taxes and high rents. Poltava province saw the first wave of peasant violence in 1902 because landlords were withdrawing land needed to feed families or renting it out at more exploitative rates. Peasant revolts ripped through the countryside in 1902 and 1903. there was an air of growing internal disorder. The gov had no answer other than repression: prisons were filling up with political prisoners. This lead Leo Tolstoy to write the famous open letter. The regime now faced growing opposition and some people were turning to the ideas of revolution.

Zubatov trade unions

-The only constructive response to the problems in the cities came from Sergei Zubatov, head of the Moscow Okhrana. He believed that the repressive measures alone could not combat working class militancy: workers had to be convinced that their lives could be improved within the existing system. He thought that this could be achieved by giving them trade unions and self help organisations, supervised and partially funded by the police. Starting in 1901 Zubatov set up three unions in Moscow which submitted demands to their employers who were pressurised by police representatives to make concessions. The Zubatov movement spread rapidly across south and west of the Empire . However many in gov and business community feared the unions would politicise workers and harm the economy. when in 1903 a strike organised by police unions in Odessa escalated into a general strike Zubatov was dismissed.

-Historians have differing views on Zubatov’s programme. Read regards it as a gov own goal, one of the self inflicted blows that caused the 1905 revolution. Wherever they were set up the Zubatov unions became a cover for radicals and blew up in the face of their sponsors however it was the only coherent labour policy comin from the gov quarters.

The opposition 1895-1905

-The main opposition groups that developed during this period were the Liberals, Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats. These movements were continuations of the pre-existing stream of opposition to autocracy although they had been quiet and subdued under AIII. Now in a rapidly changing world they took on a new lease of life and evolved in different ways.

The Liberals

-Although the Liberal movement can be traced back to the liberal intelligentsia in the 1850s and 1860s who were active in arguing for the emancipation of the serfs and representative assemblies, it is the Zemstva that have bee identified as the seedbeds of liberalism. These councils had created a class of people who became skilled in local politics. They included liberal leaning members of the Russian nobility as well as representatives of the middle classes. Many middle class professionals employed by the Zemstva (the third element) worked at the interface with peasants and workers and had a real desire to improve social conditions. The inadequacies and the inefficiencies of gov bureaucracy became very apparent to the third element during the 1891-92 famine and thereafter wanted to see reforms, an extension of freedoms and civil rights and more participation in government.

-The idea of liberalism prevalent in Western Europe took a different form in Russia. What liberal Russians agreed on was that reform rather than violence was the way to change the tsarist system and limit the tsar’s powers. Liberalism took on a more organised form at the beginning if the 20th century. in 1903, the Union of Liberation was formed demanding economic and political reform . The Liberals were the major opposition to tsarism before 1905 and in that year formed two major political parties- the Kadets (constitutional democrats) and the Octoberists.

-Main beliefs: Civil rights and freedom of the individual, the rule of law, free elections, parliamentary democracy and limitation of the tsar’s powers and self determination for the national minorities. Some believed that the concept of the zemstvo should be extended to regional and perhaps national level.

-Methods: Reform rather than violent action, political channels through Zemstva, articles in the newspapers, meetings and reform banquets.

-Support: Their main support came from the middle class intelligentsia; lawyers, doctors, professors, teachers, engineers and other professional groups. They also had support among progressive landowners, industrialists and businessmen.

The Social Revolutionaries (SRs)

-The Socialist Revolutionary Party grew out of the Populist movement. It was a loose organisation accommodating groups with a wide variety of views- more moderate groups following the same lines as the Black Partition and mire extreme terrorists following the traditional of the People’s Will. These groups merged in 1901-01 into the Socialist Revolutionary Party although it was never well coordinated or centrally controlled and did not hold its firs congress until 1906. SR extremists assassinated as many as 2k gov officials between 1901 and 1905 including the Minister of Interior Plehve.

-Main beliefs: SRs placed their central hope for revolution with the peasants who would support a popular uprising in which the tsarist gov would be overthrown. Land would be taken from landlords and divided amongst the peasants. Unlike the populists the SRs accepted that the of capitalism was a fact. The leading exponent of their views was Victor Chernov. He accepted that the growth of capitalism would promote the growth of a proletariat(working class) who would rise against their masters. But he saw no need for the peasants to pass through capitalism he believed they could move straight to a form of rural socialism based on the peasant commune. He saw the SRs as all labouring people.

-Methods: Agitation and terrorism including assassination of government officials.

-Support: Peasants provided a large popular base but by 1905 industrial workers formed perhaps 50% of the membership, probably because many workers were recently arrived ex-peasants and many had regular contact with their villages. The SRs often bemoaned their lack of strength in villages because most SR committees were run by students and intellectuals in towns. Nevertheless they were the party the peasants recognised as representing them, especially its pledge to return the land to those who worked it.

Karl Marx

-In the 1880s it seemed to some Russian intellectuals that there was no hope of a revolutionary movement developing among the peasantry. Instead they turned to the latest theories of German philosopher, Karl Marx. The scientific nature of Marxism appealed to them- it was an optimistic theory which saw progress through the development of industry and the growth of the working class to the ultimate triumph of socialism. Marxist reading circles developed and societies and groups were formed. They believed in action an d soon became involved in organising strikes in factories. The working class not the peasants were the key to revolution.

-Marx was a German philosopher who spent the last years of his life in London. he wrote the Communist Manifesto which encouraged workers to unite to seize power by revolution. He also wrote Das Kapital which explained his view of history . His views became known as Marxism and influenced the thinking of socialists throughout Europe in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

-Marxism was attractive because it seemed to offer a scientific view of history similar to the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin, history was evolving in a series of stages towards a perfect state-Communism.. Each stage was characterised by the struggle between different classes. This was a struggle over who owned the means of production (resources used to produce food, goods and so on) and so controlled society . In each stage, Marx identified a ruling class of haves who owned the means of production and exploited an oppressed class of have nots who sweated for them for little reward. He saw change as being brought about by a revolutionary class who would develop and contest power with the existing ruling class. Economic change and development (economic forces) would bring this new class to the fore and eventually allow it to overthrow the ruling class in a revolution.

-Particularly important at the end 19th century was the move from capitalism to socialism. Marx put forward the view that all value was created by human labour and that the owners of means of production (factory owners) took themselves for surplus value created by their workers. They invested their ill gotton surplus value (capital) in labour-saving machinery (technology) growing production and their wealth but also reducing wages and eliminating jobs. As a result wealth would be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and workers would become poorer and poorer. Eventually Marx argued that would rise up in revolution against the capitalists and then create socialism ( a state run by the workers on behalf of the workers) which would lead to communism.

-Marx was a determinist he thought that there certain forces (economic forces, such as changes in technology) driving history which would lead to the changes he predicted. However he did give individuals a role in history. He believed that they could affect the course if events, though not the general patter. His theory gave middle class revolutionaries an important role in that they saw what the true nature of history was and could help bring it about. Marx did not think his theories were the final word and he did not think all countries would go through the pattern described; he thought it applied particularly to countries in western Europe. He expected that experience would lead to changes in his theories.

Stages of Marxism

Feudalism-

-Government: Absolute monarchy/autocracy

-Means of production: Land, land ownership gives power

-Social organisation: Aristocracy is the dominant group controlling the mass of the population, peasants or serf, who work on their estates. Peasnts/serfs are virtually owned by their lords and masters.

-Revolutionary change: The revolutionary class is the middle class (traders, merchants, manufacturers). As this group gets wealthier it begins to break down the rules of feudal society which hinder its development , it wants an economy based on money, and labourers free to work in towns).

This leads to: The bourgeois democratic revolution. The growth of trade and industry sees the middle classes becoming larger and more powerful. Eventually they want to reshape society and gov to suit their interests e.g. they want to have a say in how the country is run and do not want landed aristocrats determining national policy. The middle classes take power from the monarch and aristocracy. The bourgeois revolution can be violent as in France or more peaceful and gradual as in Britain.

Capitalism-

-Government: Parliamentary democracy with civil rights, elections, freedom of the press etc but largely run by the middle classes.

-Means of production: Industrial premises, factories, capital goods like machinery, banks owned by capitalists. Land becomes less important as industry and trade create greater share of national wealth.

-Social organisation: Middle classes or bourgeoisie are the dominant or ruling class although the aristocracy may still hold some positions of power and prestige. The mass of population move from being peasants to being industrial workers- the proletariat, who are forced to work long hours in poor conditions for little reward.

-Revolutionary change: As capitalism grows so does the proletariat, since more workers are needed to work in factories and commercial premises . Great wealth and material goods are produced, but these are not shared out fairly. A small bourgeoisie gets increasingly wealthy while the proletariat remains poor. Gradually the proletariat develops a class consciousness and realises that it is being oppressed as a class.

-This leads to: Socialist Revolution where the proletariat moves form class consciousness to a revolutionary consciousness aided by revolutionary leaders(often from the middle classes). They now form the great bulk of the population while the bourgeoisie are a tiny minority. They rise up and seize power, ousting their class enemies-the bourgeoisie. The socialist revolution starts in a highly industrialised country.

Socialism-

-Government: Workers control the state. At first government is exercised through dictatorship of the proletariat, a period of strict control necessary to deal with counter-revolution (old capitalist enemies trying to recover power) and to root out non socialist attitudes.

-Means of production: Factories, machines etc. as in the capitalist period but not owned by individuals. They are owned collectively by everybody.

-Socialist organisation: Everybody is equal, the class system is brought to an end. Wealth and goods produced by industry are shared out fairly. Everybody has an equal entitlement to good housing and decent standards of living.

-This leads to: Transition to communism the need for government declines because there are no competing classes.

Communism-

-Government: There is no state, just people who are interested in managing day to day business of keeping society going,

-Social organisation: Everybody is equal. There is an abundance of goods produced by machinery rather than by workers’ labour, so everyone has much more leisure time. People work on the principle “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” They take out what they need from a central pool and contribute to society in whatever way they can. (Marx’s view of a communist society is not very clear)

Marxism-Leninism

-Lenin developed Marxist theory, The three main changes were:

-The revolution would be accomplished by a small group of highly professional, dedicated revolutionaries. They were needed to develop the revolutionary consciousness of workers and focus their actions.

-Lenin believed that the revolution would occur during a period of conflict between capitalist powers. He accepted Trotsky’s weakest link theory- revolution would start in an underdeveloped country like Russia where the struggle and conflict between proletariat (working class) and bourgeoisie (middle class) was very great, and then spread to more advanced industrial countries.

-He did not think that the middle classes in Russia were strong enough to carry through a bourgeois-democratic revolution. He believed that the working class could develop a revolutionary gov of its own in alliance with poor peasants who had the history of mass action in Russia- that is the bourgeois and socialist revolution could be rolled into one.

Social Democrats

-George Plekhanov was the father of Russian Marxism. He translated Karl Marx’s work into Russian and saw it as the answer where Populism had failed. Like most radicals Plekhanov was in exile in Europe having left Russia in 1880. In 1898, in a house on the outskirts of Minsk, he met with a small group of socialist exiles and formed the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In Dec 1900 the Party publishes a newspaper to unite revolutionaries around the Marxist programme. It was called Iskra and Lenin was on the editorial board.

-In these early years there were serious disputes about the direction of the Party. Some wanted to encourage trade unions to improve the conditions of the workers. Others wanted the focus to be on revolutionary tactics and the preparation of the working class for revolution.

-At the Second Party Congress in 1903, the SDs split into two faction- Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. This was largely caused by the abrasive personality of Lenin who was determined to see his idea of the revolutionary party triumph. During the congress the votes taken on various issues showed the two groups were roughly equal. But in a particular series of votes Lenin’s faction came out on top (mainly because some delegates had walked out of the conference) and he jumped on the idea of calling his group the majority party which gave them the stronger image. In fact until 1917 they always had fewer members than the Mensheviks for reasons apparent below.

-Main beliefs: Both SD factions accepted the main tenets of Marxism but they were split over the role of the Party.

-Bolsheviks: Lenin believed that a revolutionary party should be made up of a smaller number of highly disciplined professional revolutionaries, operate under centralised leadership and have a system of small cells (made up of 3 people) so that it would be more difficult for the police to infiltrate. It was the job of the Party to bring socialist consciousness to the workers and lead them through the revolution. Critics warned that a centralised party like this would lead to dictatorship.

-Mensheviks: They believed that the Party should be broadly based and take in all those who wished to join, be more democratic allowing its members to have a say in policy making and encourage trade unions to help the working class improve their conditions. Mensheviks took the Marxist line that there would be a long period of bourgeois democratic revolution during which the workers would develop a class and revolutionary consciousness until they were ready to take over in a socialist revolution.

-Support: Mainly came from the working class. Bolsheviks tended to attract younger more militant workers who liked the discipline, firm leadership and simple slogans, The Mensheviks tended to attract different types of workers and members of the intelligentsia, also a broader range of range - more non Russians, especially Jews and Georgians

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin 1870-1924

-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov later known as Lenin was born in Simbirsk in 1870 into a privileged professional family. His father was chief inspector of schools, his mother the daughter of a doctor and a landowner. The Ulyanovs were a self made, upwardly mobile family but the involvement of Lenin’s older brother in a plot to assassinate Tsar AIII saw the family ostricised and had a big impact on Vladimir. Lenin studied law at Kazan Uni but was expelled for political activity but allowed to sit his exams. For a short time he practiced as a lawyer.

-Lenin became more interested in revolutionary ideas and was drawn to the scientific logic of Marxism. In 1893 he moved to St Petersburg and joined Marxist discussion groups where he met his future wife. He became involved in propaganda for a strike movement in 1895 and was arrested. He spent the next 4 years first in prison then in exile in Siberia. After his release he moved to London where worked on the Party newspaper Iskra. In 1902 he published his pamphlet What is to be done? which contained his radical ideas about the nature of a revolutionary party. He put forward his ideas at the Second Congress of SD party which met in 1903. His abrasive personality helped to cause the split in the party into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks played a relatively minor role in the 1905 revolution and Lenin returned to St Petersburg only in October. But when the revolution failed, he left for exile abroad once more. The years from 1906 to 1914 were frustrating. There were arguments and splits in the Bolshevik party and membership collapsed.

-Political theorist: Lenin is regarded as an important political theorist. The body of his work including adaptations of Marxist theory had been called Marxism-Leninism. But he really saw his writings as plans for actions. His principal writings include:

-What is to be done? 1902- here he argued for his idea of a revolutionary party:

-It was to be highly centralised a clear line of policy would be laid down by the central committee of the party

-There would be a network of agents who would be regular permanent troops

-It would act as the vanguard of the working class who would not attain a revolutionary consciousness without clear guidance from the revolutionary elite.

-Lenin encouraged the individual revolutionary to be hard with himself and others to achieve his aims, there was no room for sentiment.

-Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism 1916- here he claimed that capitalism was a bankrupt system and would collapse in a series of wars between capitalist countries over resources and territory. This would lead to civil war and class conflict within countries which would facilitate the socialist revolution. This could start in a relatively underdeveloped country, the weakest link in the capitalist chain, and then spread to other industrialised countries. Russia seemed to be the weakest link.

-The State and Revolution 1917- this book discussed what the state would be like after revolution. Existing state structures would be smashed by revolutionaries. The transformation of the economy and society would be relatively easy- the spontaneous will of the people would support revolution and they would play a large part in managing their own affairs in industry and agriculture.

Leon Trotsky 1879-1940

-Lev Bronstein was born in 1879 in Ukraine, the son of a well to do Jewish farmer. Dissatisfied with society, particularly the treatment of Jews, he was drawn to Marxism in his teens and joined a Marxist discussion group. There he got involved in inciting strikes in 1900 and got arrested and exiled to Siberia. In 1902, Bronstein escaped dramatically by using a false passport with the name of a prisoner warden- Leon Trotsky.

-He made the journey to London where he got on well with Lenin and was given the nickname the pen because of his writing skills. But in 1903, at SD conference he would not side with Lenin. He prophesised that Lenin’s concept of a revolutionary party would lead inevitably to a dictatorship. He remained in the Social Democratic Party somewhere between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks but not in either camp.

-He first made his mark in 1905 revolution, where his oratorial talents led to his becoming deputy chairman of the St Petersburg Soviet. His subsequent arrest and escape established his credibility in revolutionary circles. His analysis of the situation in Russia moved closer to Lenin’s when he developed the theory of the weakest linkconcerning the weakness of the Russian bourgeoisie and how revolution might begin. He was in teh USA when the revolution broke and he threw his lot with the Bolshevik Party.

The Russo-Japanese War 1904-05

-The war with Japan arose out of Russia’s expansionist policy in the Far East. Russia wanted to exploit the area in Manchuria, rich in resources and markets and also to control the strategic and ice free Port Arthur. But Japan who had already taken control of the Korean Peninsula did not welcome Russian intrusion in an area they had marked out for economic expansion. When Japan proposed a compromise whereby Russia would be ceded predominance of Manchuria is it agreed Japan could control Korea, the Russians treated the Japanese with disdain. Not long afterwards Japan launched a surprise attack on Russian ships at Port Arthur 26 Jan 1904.

-The Russians completely underestimated Japan, which had better trained army and navy, more effective intelligence and was much closer to the action. The Russians suffered several defeats in early 1904 and had to retreat. Public support for the war quickly turned to dismay. In Jan 1905, Port Arthur fell to the Japanese and in Mach the Russian army was defeated at Mukden. The final humiliation was the naval defeat of the Russian Baltic fleet in May. It had sailed almost half way around the world taking over 6 months just to be destroyed by the Japanese navy in under an hour. These disastrous defeats on land and sea led to Witte being sent of to negotiate the Treaty of Portsmouth under which the Russians withdrew from Manchuria and ceded control of Korea and Port Arthur to Japan.

-Russia might have avoided revolution in 1905 if it had not provoked a war with Japan- the catastrophic defeats justified the claims that the autocratic gov was irresponsible, incompetent and reckless. The war acted as a catalyst for meltdown in 1905.

Reaction to war and its efforts

-The humiliating defeats at the beginning of 1904 rocked the regime which was looking increasingly incompetent. By July the gov was very unpopular and assassination of the much disliked Minister of interior, Plehve, in that month was met with public indifference, Opposition groups demanded changes in the way the country was governed. When the liberals decided to hold a national zemstvo congress in Nov with over 5k telegrams poured in urging delegates to press for fundamental changes such as an extension of franchise, civil liberties and a national representative body. A series of banquets organised by the Union of Liberation (established in 1903 by Struve a liberal defector of the Marxist movement, argued that revolution would be disastrous and instead needed a period of political and social evolution as in other European countries where democracy can be established within a constitutional framework) were really illegal political meetings where the liberal intelligentsia discussed matters to do with reforming the political system and extending civil rights. The press reported the meetings in a manner that was increasingly hostile towards the gov. The fact that the banquets were allowed to go ahead and the press reports weren’t censored were indications of the gov weaknesses and insecurity.

-The economic impact of the war added to the misery of the general population. Trade with East along the Trans Siberian railway was disrupted by the military priorities. Shortages of raw materials such as silk, cotton and chemicals affected industries. This led to factories closing particularly in St Petersburg with the resultant loss of jobs. With food prices rising and unemployment increasing, the winter of 1904-05 proved one of growing discontent.

Bloody Sunday

-At teh begunnin if 1905, anti-government feelings were running high in the capital especially when news came through that the Russians had lost Port Arthur. When four workers were sacked at the giant Pulitov engineering works on 7 January, a strike was called that drew in over 100k workers. At this stage, it was an economic strike concerned with wages and working hours. However other large industrial enterprises joined in and suddenly tens of thousands were involved. The situation in the city was becoming tense.

-A priest father Gapon organised a petition and a march to the Winter Palace to seek the help of the tsar. The petition called for an 8 hour day, minimum wages and more dignified treatment. It was not aggressive in tone but later parts did call for the right to form trade unions and an elected parliament.

-Up to 150k men, women and children all dressed in their best clothes and carrying icons and pictures of the tsar- set of on the morning of Sunday 9 Jan. The march was peaceful and well disposed towards the Tsar. But as the crowd approached the Winter Palace they were charged by cavalry and troops opened fire. The casualty figures are unclear but some sources put them at around 130 killed and 300 seriously wounded. The events of Bloody Sunday had a profound effect. They changed the character of the demands of the workers form economical to political. They broke the bond between the Tsar and people. The petitioners had always trusted the Little Father to protect them from corrupt or incompetent officials but they would never trust him again. In one vital moment the popular myth of the Good Tsar which had sustained the regime through the centuries was suddenly destroyed.

-The reaction to Bloody Sunday was dramatic. Strikes and disorder quickly spread to other cities and towns. By the end of Jan over 400k people went on strike. On 4 Feb the Tsar’s own uncle the Grand Duke Sergei was assassinated. The shocked regime had lost nerve and lost control of the country.

The course of the revolution

-There was no shape or order to the outburst of anger that followed Bloody Sunday. Disorder in the form of strikes, demonstrations, riots vandalism and hooliganism increasingly ruled the cities as the police became largely ineffective. In some places armed gangs and criminals roamed the streets and citizens formed militias or vigilante groups to protect themselves. The action was not all from the left. Right-wing groups came out on the streets in support of the Tsar and attacked anybody whom they deemed unpatriotic.

-The leaders of the main socialist parties were nowhere to be seen as they were mainly in exile in Europe. The workers started to form factory committees to represent themselves but strikes were spontaneous rather than planned. It was the liberals with the support of the students who made the running. In May a number of professional organisations (such as lawyers, engineers) and trade organisations (such as bookkeepers and clerks) came together to form the Union of Unions a sort of umbrella body to press the cause of liberal political reform and notably request a national representative assembly elected by universal suffrage. Political meetings were held in universities thrown open by students. Hundreds of zemstva and city councils sent in petitions demanding political change. Added impetus was given to their demands when the Russian Baltic fleet was wiped out by Japan in the most humiliating manner in the middle of May. The gov was condemned as incompetent and reckless.

The peasants

-The mood of revolt spread to the countryside as the summer arrived. Peasants took advantage of the upheaval. In June and July they began seizing land, grain and animals, burning landlords houses, cutting timber illegally and refusing to pay rent and taxes. Their general demands were land, the end of redemption payments and reduction in rents. There was no coordinated peasant movement but a whole range of peasant unions and societies appeared. At the end of July the All Russian Peasant Union met near Moscow. In a few places peasants set up what were in effect peasant republics, although this meant self gov rather than overthrow the monarchy. The army was used to put down peasant uprisings but it was mainly comprised of peasants and mutinies began to spread as whole units refused to carry out orders.

The nationalities

-The national minorities took advantage of gov disarray in Russia to m=demand autonomy, democratic gov and the end of Russification. The Poles and the Finns demanded outright independence. In many areas, the struggle became very violent e.g. in Caucasus where officials were attacked. There was a strong nationalist character to demands e.g. local language and culture to be taught in schools. The Tsar dispatched 10k troops to Georgia to try and keep it under control. In Poland there was a virtual state of civil war and the tsarist regime had to keep a force of 300k soldiers there. Russian troops shot 93 Poles who took part in demonstrations that sparked Bloody Sunday. This provoked more demonstrations with slogans such as Down with Tsarism and Long Live Independent Socialist Poland. Popular unrest in Baltic states followed a similar pattern.

The mutiny of the battleship Potemkin

-With so much of the army being required to deal with the peasants and the nationalities it came as a profound shock when on 14 June the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutinied over harsh conditions and being given rotten meat to eat. They seized control of the ship and sailed to Odessa which was in a state of turmoil with daily demonstrations. The arrival of the ship was warmly received by huge crowds. Troops were ordered to disperse the crowds and opened fire, killing as many as 2000 citizens. The Potemkin escaped surrendered the ship in a Romanian port in exchange for safe refuge. This was not only an embarrassment for the gov but also a huge wake up call. The loyalty of the armed forces was paramount. With the growing insurgency in the country, defeats in the war and the possibility of further mutinies in the armed forces, the Tsar realised that he had to end the war with Japan. He called reluctantly on the services of Sergei Witte who negotiated peace in the Treaty of Portsmouth between Russia and Japan on 29 August 1905.

Matters come to a head

-In September labour unrest reached a new level of intensity when a general strike was called. It started with printers (educated and skilled workers) and spread to railway workers who brought the central railway system to a halt. In St Petersburg, Moscow and other cities, industrial and utility workers, shop assistants, actors, bank employees and even staff from gov offices- up to 2 mill- supported the strike. This cause real hardship: food and medical supplies ran short, unburied bodies piled up and there was an explosion of criminality. Middle class professionals even some industrialists supported the strikers and gave money. Barricades went up, manned by a motely mix of workers, students and professionals initiating clashes with the police and Cossacks. The general strike carries on into October.

-Particularly significant was the formation of the St Petersburg Soviet (council) on 13 October. Prompted by Mensheviks the soviet of workers’ deputies met to co-ordinate the activities of workers in the general strike. It was made up mainly of representatives elected from factories. It not only directed the general strike, informing workers through its newspapers Izvestia but also sorted out matters like food supplies. Leon Trotsky who became deputy chairman was a driving force noted for his fiery speeches. The urban worker had emerged as an organised force confronting the autocracy.

The October Manifesto

-The tsar tried to ignore the strike but the country was on edge of disaster and the Tsar’s advisors persuaded him that something had to be done. He turned to Witte recently returned form successful peace negotiations. Witte told Nicholas that he had to choose between two courses of action- the first was to put down the uprising brutally, the second was to introduce reforms, his favoured option. Nicholas preferred a military dictatorship to constitutional government but his advisors and generals agreed with Witte and Nicholas was therefore dragged reluctantly to agree to the October Manifesto on 17 Oct, this conceded:

-civil liberties: freedom of speech (end of censorship of the press) and conscience, freedom of association and the end of unwarranted arrests

-an elected parliament (duma)

-The liberals hailed the October Manifesto as the first step towards constitutional government and for them the main aim of the campaign had been achieved. They now moved to support the tsar. Witte had achieved what he set out to do- to isolate the radicals by accommodating the liberals. The St Petersburg Soviet called of the general strike since it was bringing severe hardship to most of those who were involved.

-After the granting of the manifesto there was a brief period of celebration in which political meetings were held in in the streets and parks and new newspapers and publications flourished, testing out the end of censorship. Around this time two important new liberal political parties were formed- the Constitutional Democrats/Kadets and the Octoberists- reflecting the two strands of liberalism.

-But the peace did not last long. At the end of October there was an explosion of violence. The Tsar’s supporters were incensed by the triumphalism of the liberals and socialists. There was fighting between right and left on the streets. Right wing paramilitary gangs called the Black Hundreds marched around carrying portraits of the tsar. Tacitaly supported by the police they mounted violent revenge attacks on anybody perceived to be on the left or anti-tsar. A particularly nasty aspect of this was a concerted attack on Jewish communities involving the burning of Jewish houses and businesses, rape and looting, over 3k Jews were murdered in the last 2 weeks of October 1905.

The tsarist regime regains control

-The new Minister of Interior P.N. Durnurvo an uncompromising reactionary was now determined to re-establish gov control particularly as the St Petersburg Soviet had built up an armed militia of 6k men. On 3 Dec the leaders were arrested and hundreds of its deputies arrested too. This caused an armed uprising in Moscow led by the Social Democrats and barricades were erected. The uprising was crushed followed by a brutal crackdown with mass arrests, beatings and summary executions. The gov now felt confident to take control and moved against civilian defying authority. The Okhrana and the police arrested hundreds of people.

-It took longer to restore order in the countryside. A wave of peasant unrest and violence had reached its peak in November partly because of the deterioration in economic conditions due to the poor harvest. Some of the peasants anger was assuaged when the gov promised to cut redemption payments in half in Jan 1906 (and end them completely by Jan 1907), it also announced the setting up of a Peasants’ Bank to help them buy land. But peasant disturbances continued through most of 1906.

-Troops were sent out on punitive expeditions using brutal methods - beating, rape, flogging and executions - to bring the peasants under control. Between mid-October 1905 and April 1906 as many as 15k people were executed and 45k deported. The troops worked their way through the Baltic provinces, the Ukraine and the Caucasus. In summer 1906 field court martials were introduced to deliver fast trials and fast executions (within 24hrs of sentencing). Peasants were hanged in their hundreds. The noose used in the hangings became known as the Stolypin neckties after Peter Stolypin, the new Minister of of Interior. This cold blooded repression had its effect and the resistance to the authorities was everywhere in retreat. The old order was back.

Why was the Tsar able to survive the 1905 revolution

-Crucially the army remained loyal although there was a number of minor mutinies mainly involving the refusal to obey orders. About 1/3 of the infantry units were affected by some kind of disturbance. On 6 Dec military reforms brought the soldiers back onside. Their pay was increased and their terms of service reduced (from 4 to 3 years for infantrymen). They had demanded better food and now for the first time they were promised increased meat rations and tea and sugar. Also they would no longer be required to do forced labour in the civilian economy. The elite army units and the Cossacks had not been touched by mutinies and were rewarded with money and privileges.

-The relatively quick end to the war with Japan and the reasonable peace treaty meant that the Tsar did not lose support of the military. Also Nicholas was able to bring back troops from the front to suppress uprisings and disturbances.

-The government used brutal, repressive measures to bring the populace into line and beat them into submission, These methods were effective in re-establishing gov control across the empire.

-The different groups opposing the tsar- workers, peasants, liberal middle classes, students and national minorities- had different aims and purposes. They were not able to bring to provide coordinated and effective opposition to bring the tsar down.

-The October Manifesto split the liberals and socialists. The liberals wanted political reform and movement towards constitutional democracy, the socialist wanted social revolution. Many liberals felt they had gotten what they wanted out of the Manifesto and withdrew from further action. This left the socialists isolated and it was much esaier for the gov to crush them

-The violence and criminality evident throughout 1905 had put a huge scare into the middle classes. They were frightened by the coarse proletarians on the streets and the intimidating forces that had been unleashed. Houses had been burgled, sons and daughters assaulted, crude behaviour experienced. They wanted it to stop and return to authority and control.

-The revolutionary parties were not ready for the 1905 revolution and did not play a huge role in events. In fact the revolutionaries irritated the workers when they squabbled over political ideology. The workers were more concerned with improving pay and conditions. The Mensheviks did play and important role in the creation of the St Petersburg Soviet and the Bolsheviks were active in radicalising the soviets at the end of 1905 and organising Moscow uprising in Dec.

-By the end of 1905 the gov was in deep financial trouble. The cost of the war and falling tax revenues were driving the government to the brink of financial collapse. However Witte secured a huge loan largely form French bankers in April 1906. This loan stabilised the economy and gave the gov money to pay for its functions for a year. It also paid for the troops who needed to restore order.

The significance of 1905

-The tsarist regime had come through its first real challenge with its institutions intact. It had shown it could survive as long as the army remained loyal. There were mutinies but these were on the whole limited in scope and nature. Moreover the revolutionary parties had played a relatively small part and seemed to present no real threat. Also it appeared that the liberals had no appetite for revolution. Two of the most significant outcomes of 1905 were the Duma and the formation of the liberal political parties. This seemed to offer the liberals and middle classes opportunities in the future to participate in gov and they had no wish to see the violence of 1905 repeated.

-This all served to reassure the tsar and his advisor that they were secure and could carry on without making fundamental changes. But this was a false sense of security. They did not appreciate the extent of the disenchantment felt by much of Russian society. Bloody Sunday and the brutal suppression of protest had broken the bond between the tsar and people. The people feared the Tsar but they no longer respected him. The workers were now much more inclined to social revolution especially as the liberals had deserted them after October. Their protest had not just been about economic demands it had also been about freedom and the lack of dignity accorded to them in the workplaces and daily lives. In the countryside landowners noticed that the mood of the peasants had changed and the deference had been replaced by sullen resentment.

-The people had experienced political freedom- the growth of free speech and critical newspapers, the formation of political parties, the soviets and forthcoming dumas. Liberals, progressive landowners, businessmen and entrepreneurs wanted more freedom of action, civil rights and to escape the heavy hand of the tsarist state. Some areas wanted more self gov or in the case of nationalities independence. These groups would not be happy to see the autocracy go back to carrying on in the same old way.

-There has been a tendency for historians to see 1905 as simply part of the build up to the revolution of 1917 hence Lenin’s description of it as a dress rehearsal for the main event, (He thought without it 1917 revolution would not have been possible, he thought the bourgeoisie and its liberal parties as a political force to combat the autocracy were weak, the peasantry had revolutionary potential and national movements in the borderlands could undermine the empire. This led him to the key Bolshevik idea that the vanguard of the proletariat in alliance with the peasantry and nationalities could seize power without waiting for Russia to go through the bourgeoisie-democratic revolution and proceed straight to a socialist revolution). Since it didn’t change the political or social fabric of the tsarist state some have said it does not qualify as a revolution( more like an uncompleted revolution). It involved popular protest and a mass movement which opened up new possibilities including more democratic gov through elected dumas and political parties and the expansion of civil rights. The big question was how the autocracy would respond to these possibilities.

Key dates: 1905 revolution

1905:

-9 Jan Bloody Sunday

-4 Feb Assassination of Grand Duke Sergei

-May Union of Unions formed

-14 June Mutiny of the battleship Potemkin

-31 July All Russian Peasant Union meets

-29 August Treaty of Portsmouth signed-end of war with Japan

-September General Strike

-12-18 Oct Kadet Party formed

-13 Oct Dt Petersburg Soviet formed

17 Oct October Manifesto

-3 Dec Leaders of the St Petersburg Soviet arrested

-Dec Armed uprising in Moscow crushed

1906:

-Suppression of peasants and minorities.

The dumas

-In the October Manifesto the Tsar had agrees to the establishment of a duma to represent the people of Russia. This seemed to be a significant step towards constitutional government. However it was soon clear that Nicholas had no intention of weakening the autocracy. In April 1906 he issued the Fundamental Laws which stated that: The Sovereign Emperor possessed the initiative in all legislative matters the Sovereign Emperor ratifies the law, no law can come into force without his approval. Moreover Article 87 of the laws gave the tsar the right in exceptional circumstances to pass his own laws without consulting the Duma at all.

-The Tsar also announced the creation of the second chamber the State Council half of the members of which would be chosen by him. It would have equal power to the with the Duma and both chambers would have to agree to a legislative proposal before it went to the tsar for approval. The tsar remained retained control of the military and foreign policy as well as the appointment of ministers. All in all this meant that the Duma had little real power and a limited ability to enact laws.

-The liberals were dismayed. This was not what they thought had been agreed in October. This feeling was exacerbated when the system of elections to the Duma was revealed. They had hoped for a universal, equal, secret and direct election. What they got was a complicated system of electoral colleges designed to represent the different social classes. It was profoundly weighted towards the upper classes. For instance 2k landowners were represented by 1 deputy and 90k workers were represented by 1 deputy, But at least it provided representation for people across Russia including the nationalities such as the Poles and Finns.

-The dominant political figure in this period was Peter Stolypin who was appointed President of the Council of Ministers in July 1906. He was the most outstanding politician of his time and perhaps the only person who might have steered Russia through this turbulent period. He was a tough conservative and supporter of the autocracy but he also believed that reform was necessary to repair the relations between the tsar and his people and bring Russia into the modern age.

The first two Dumas

-Russian society was still in a turbulent state when the first elections to the Duma were held at the beginning of 1906. Nevertheless people had high expectations of the Duma: it was flooded with petitions, many of them from peasants. The ceremony to open the Duma, held in Winter Palace, was a tense affair, marked by the division between the Tsar, his family and court decked out in fine uniforms, dresses, jewellery on one side and the members of the Duma dressed mainly in clothing of the workers and peasants on the other (they had much hatred for them).

The First Duma

-In April 1906 the Duma met in its new home, the Tauride Palace. Despite the bias in electoral system towards the upper classes, it was the Kadets who had won most of the seats (182 out of 448). Support for the Kadets came from the liberal intelligentsia who wanted elected assembly, civil rights, universal suffrage end of censorship trade unions and free education. The second largest party was the left Trudoviks with 107 seats. They were a loose grouping whose main aim was agrarian reform and consisted of deputies representing peasants. Other groupings in the Duma were fluid with many deputies not joining any party clearly. The rightists had much smaller representation. (SDs Mensheviks=18, SDs Bolsheviks=0, SRs=0)

-There was an air of hostility in the chamber much of it directed towards the Tsar and his government. The Kadets annoyed at the limitations imposed by the Tsar did not hold back. They demanded the powers of the Duma should be increased and the elections should be universal and secret. They also wanted guarantees of free speech and assembly. There followed two months of bitter disagreement and fierce debates on issues such as civil rights and land ownership. The tsar horrifies by the hostility and lack of respect, dissolved the Duma which he know considered unworkable. He said curse the duma it’s all Witte’s doing.

-Two hundred Kadet deputies took themselves off to Vyborg in Finland where they issued the Vyborg Manifesto urging Russians not to pay their taxes. The gov responded by closing down the Kadets offices and dismissing members of the Party from government service. Many of the rebellious departments were later arrested and disbarred from re-election. This hurt them in the elections to the second duma.

The Second Duma

-Despite the failure of the First Duma to achieve any worthwhile results peasants and workers still had great hopes for the second Duma and flocked to the poles in huge numbers. Over 70% of eligible workers in St Petersburg voted. It was the left who ran out the winners with over 200 deputies, largely because the revolutionary parties (except Bolsheviks) had joined the elections for the first time. The Trudoviks were the largest group with 104 deputies, the Kadets weakened had 91. However the right wing groupings had also increased their number with over 60 deputies (many of whom were Russian nationalists in their national groups) and the Octoberists had 42.

-The second Duma met in February 1907. It was much more radical than the first and became known as the Duma of national anger. It was riven by disagreements as right wing and left wing deputies provoked each other. The left made fierce attacks on gov ministers and interrupted them when they were speaking in the Duma. After only three months the tsar dissolved the Duma using the excuse of the discovery of a plot by Social Democrats to assassinate him.

The Third and Fourth Dumas

-After the debacle of the Second Duma changes were made to the electoral system (known as Stolypin’s coup). The peasants and workers were virtually excluded and non Russian national groups much reduced. The vote was restricted to the upper and propertied classes. As a result the Octoberists (154) and Rightists(147) dominated the Third Duma.

The Third Duma

-Stolypin was able to work with the Octerberists and those in the centre of and relations between the Duma and government were much more cooperative. However the Third Duma was not subservient, it did not act as a rubber stamp for gov policies. It was critical of the government especially in matters to do with state finances. The right wings groups tried to put a brake on Stolypin’s reforms in particular his plan to extend the zemstvo system to the western part of Russia. By 1911 relations were breaking down but at least it showed the Duma could work positively with the government. Gov ministers were coming to the Duma to answer questions whereas before they had only explained themselves to the Tsar. Its main achievements included:

-Stolypin’s land reforms although he faced a lot of oppositions

-an education law in 1908 which laid out the foundations for universal education, especially compulsory primary schools for 8-11

-improvements in the army and navy

-the restoration of the JPs replacing the hated Land Captains

-A progressive national health insurance scheme which would pay sickness benefit to workers.

The Fourth Duma

-The Fourth Duma was interrupted by the outbreak of First World War and met intermittently during the war. its composition was much the same as that of the Third Duma although the Rightists were stronger and Octoberists weaker. Its main work involved:

-Continued support and money for the law of 1908, providing universal education education. The number of primary schools had risen significantly up to 1914 and there had been an improvement in literacy rates.

-Reform of the Orthodox Church and the reduction of state control but Nicholas would make no final decisions on this before war intervened.

-Talks to reduce the huge compensation of vodka because its impact on public health. No action was taken because the government got so much revenue from it.

-It was also critical of the government’s handling of of increasing social unrest especially the Lena Goldfields Massacre.

-The Duma met briefly but significantly in 1915 when Nicholas was persuaded to recall it. A Progressive Bloc was formed which offered the tsar a real chance to work with the people. But Nicholas would not countenance it and the Duma was suspended. It met again briefly in 1916 and 1917.

By how far was the constitutional experiment working by 1914

-Stolypin was assassinated in September 1911 and after his death the constitutional experiment ground to a halt. The new ministers that Nicholas appointed were conservative and unimaginative nonetities who were not likely to cause him any trouble. The power of the prime minister declined and the battles between ministers and conflicting departmental policies returned to its old pattern. There was little chance of creative relationship with the Duma. Indeed the government abandoned any attempt to present a coherent package of reforms to the Duma. Nicholas and his court cronies were becoming increasingly isolated and depended almost entirely on right wing support, particularly that of the All Russian Union of Landowners.

-Nicholas must take a large share of the responsibility for this. He had never really been willing to work with or listen to the Duma. Those close to him were always looking for ways to reduce its power and Nicholas looked for excused to close down sessions. In Stolypin he had a chance to bring in significant reform s but Nicholas never backed him in any consistent way and had at the end contrived with his right wing friends to thwart. He did not what to change to key institutions of of the Russian autocracy or the main legal arrangements. At heart, Nicholas didn’t believe it was a good idea, wanted to preserve autocracy because he thought it was a better way of running Russia. Not all blame on the tsar, the Kadets demands in the first duma were very radical nd they were not prepared to compromise or be patient. As a result the Duma degenerated into quarrels and bitter struggle between the Tsar and his supporters on the right, and the liberals and other parties on the left. They did not allow for any relationship of trust and cooperation to develop. By 1913 the liberals a much reduced force had little hope of getting what they wanted.

-Some historians believe that the existence of the Duma showed political progress was being made. It had done some useful work and there was evidence to that a working relationship between the Duma and government ministers could be established. On the other hand, other historians consider that the Dum experiment failed to bring about any fundamental change to the conduct of gov and the relationship between Tsar and the people, and that articulate group who participated in the Duma were becoming increasingly disillusioned. The autocracy had fought off any attempt to reform it and the political aspirations of the Russian people had been frustrated. Russia’s situation in 1914 did not augur well for a peaceful transition to liberalism and democracy. This was partly because the Emperor who still retained the last word in such matters could only be pressured into constitutional concessions by dire and immediate threat of revolution.

Stolypin

-Peter Stolypin came to notice as a provincial governor in Saratov where he had forcefully dealt with peasant unrest. He was appointed Minister of the Interior and soon after Prime Minister. Stolypin was a strong supporter of the autocracy and opponent of revolution and disorder. He had set up field court martial in 1906 to crush peasant uprisings. Under his watch, thousands of peasants were executed by hanging (Stolypin’s neckties) and thousands sent into exile in Stolypin carriages (railway cars). This earned him enmity of the left who condemned him as a brutal butcherer.

-However he was not a diehard supporter of the autocracy. Like Witte before him he believed that reform was essential to solve Russia’s problems. He believed that industrial progress alone was not sufficient enough to take Russia forward and gave his main attention to agriculture. His land reforms had bold aims, to feed the rapidly growing population and create a strong conservative peasantry who would support the regime. If he had succeeded this would indeed have radically altered Russia’s future. But it was always going to take years to work in the face of a deeply conservative peasantry. He did not have that time.

-Stolypin was virtually only prime minister of the constitutional decade to see the Duma as partner in building a strong Russia. He did not consider that he was limiting’s the monarch’s authority but rather giving it broader social base. In particular he developed an understanding with the Octoberists which allowed him to push through his reforms. His success suggested the possibility of a working relationship between government and elected assembly.

-However his own actions undermined this relationship. He had in what was known as Stolypin’s coup radically changed the electoral system when the Second Duma proved unworkable. To all intents and purposes he had deprived pasants and workers of their votes and created a more conservative electorate likely to produce a more amenable Duma. He used Artice 87 of the fundamentals laws which allowed him to pass measures withen the Duma was not in sitting. In March 1911, he persuaded the Tsar to suspend both houses of the Duma which allowed hime to force his measure of introducing zemstva to the western provinces. This alienated the Duma including majority of the Octoberists who had hitherto supported him.

-Stolypin was assassinated at the theatre in September 1911 but his star was already waning by this point. He proposed a series of reforms to extend civil rights, reform local gov(giving peasants more influence over the zemstva) and local justice (abolishing Land Captains) and making changes to education and reform of emergency powers. The rights and those close to the tsar deemed that his reforms undermined autocracy and worked to block and get him out of office. When he died it seems that the tsar was pleased to see the back of him and the Tsar’s wife always hated Stolypin.

-The enmity which confronted Stolypin from all sides demonstrated the difficulty of taking the middle road in Russia. In 1906 he said I am fighting on two fronts. I an fighting against revolution but for reform. Yu may say that such position is beyond human strength and you may be right. In the final analysis, apart from his land reforms, he was not able to implement much of his programme of reforms and even then only with the use of emergency powers.

-Stolypin remains a controversial figure. He has many admirers who believe that with the support of the tsar and given enough time to implement his reforms he could have been the saviour Russia needed against revolution and brought about a more peaceful transition into the modern age. Stolypin stood head and shoulders above his immediate predecessors and successors in that combined a vision of the desirable with the sense of possible, he was a rare blend of statesmen and politician.

Russia on the eve of the war

-Some historians argue that Russia was making progress economically and politically and given a period of stability could have developed into a parliamentary democracy and modern industrial state. Others maintained it was heading for disaster and revolution much before the war intervened. Guchkov, the Octoberist leader, told its members that in Nov 1913 that the government’s actions were revolutionising society and the people. With everyday people are losing faith in the state and in the possibility of a normal peaceful resolution of the crisis, the probable outcome was sad unavoidable catastrophe.

-The Russian economy was doing well in the lead up to war. After 1905 the labour movement had retreated due to the repression of trade unions but there was a revival of militancy form 1912. It started with the Lena Goldfields Massacre in April 1912. Striking workers, protesting about degrading working conditions , low wages, 14 hour working dats, clashed with troops and over 200 killed and many injured. This opened the floodgates to workers’ protests. Workers became increasingly militant and the frequency and scale of strikes increased in the years 1912-1914. A good deal of these were political as well as economical in character. July 1914 saw a general strike in St Petersburg involve barricades and street fighting.

-Some historians argued this is evidence of the workers turning to the Bolsheviks and the notion of armed struggle. Support for the Bolsheviks had increased in larger factories and they had gained control of some of the biggest unions in St Petersburg and Moscow such as the Metalworks Union. The Bolsheviks paper, Pravda, had achieved a national circulation of 40k copies twice as many as their Menshevik rival. Figes said that thousands of strikes under Bolshevik slogans meant that urban Russians found themselves on the brink of more violent revolution than in 1905. However others argue that most workers did not work in large factories and were not socialists. He says the strikes were mainly about pay and working conditions and that only a small number were engaged in radical activity. In other areas of Russian life there were no indications of imminent revolution in 1914:

-The villages were relatively quiet before 1914 and there had been no major upheavals or disturbances. Several years of good harvests helped. However Stolypin’s reforms had proved divisive and the peasants hadn’t been tied closer to the tsar like he hoped. Rural poverty was still severe in some areas especially in populous central districts. The revolution of 1906-07 was still fresh in people’s minds and Figes said resentment was simmering in the countryside.

-In 1914 the army remained loyal. However the experience of 1905-06 and the subsequent reforms had weakened the reliability of the army as an instrument of control. The mutinies of 1905 and 1906 could not easily be forgotten. Cutting the period of service to three years brought the army much closer to the stresses and strains of civilian society. Also as the officer corps became more professional they became more determined not to be used for crushing civilian disturbances.

-The liberal opposition was weak and divided and not in a position to cause the regime much trouble. The Octoberists and Kadets distrusted each other. The Kadets never really recovered from the early days of the Duma. The Octoberists lost influence after the Third Duma. Both parties and the liberal middle classes feared the masses and so did not want to see revolution.

-Government repression after 1905 had decimated the revolutionary parties. The SRs had been infiltrated by the Okhrana and were obsessed with the issue of double agents after head of terrorist wing was found out to be an Okhrana agent. There were divisions among the leadership and the leadership and rank and file. They were in disarray before 1914.

-The Mensheviks were doing better. They had taken advantage of the new political freedoms of 1905 and created a legal labour movement. This had increased their support in trade unions where they outstripped the Bolsheviks. But they were not planning revolutionary action.

-The Bolsheviks had also been penetrated. 4 out 5 of the party’s St Petersburg committee were Okhrana agents in 1909. Lenin’s close confidant worked as an Okhrana agent and wreaked havoc on the Bolshevik underground between 1909 and 1913. The Bolshevik leadership were either in exile or like Lenin isolated abroad. There us evidence of the workers becoming radicalised and turning to the Bolsheviks but even as late as Jan 1917 Lenin said we the old people won’t survive until the decisive battles of the forthcoming revolution so he didn’t envisage the Bolsheviks leading a revolution in that year.

The impact of the First World War

-When war broke in August 1914, Russia’s internal divisions were temporarily forgotten and Nicholas rode the wave of popular support. Paintings of the Tsar were carried in processions and crowds sang the national anthem. The people and the tsar were one once again. The German sounding St Petersburg was changed to the more Slavonic Russian sounding Petrograd. But the initial enthusiasm did not last long.

At the Front

-The Russians had the largest army and gained some early successes against the Austro-Hungarians. But it was a different story against the Germans. In August 1914 at the Battle of Tannenberg and in September at the Masurian Lakes the Russians took heavy losses and were driven back. There followed a long retreat and by autumn 1915 they were forced out of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Between May and Dec 1915 1 million Russians were killed and a similar number taken prisoner. The Russian recovered during the winter 1915-16 and in the summer of 1916 General Brusilov launched a brilliant offensive which brought the Austrians to their knees with over half of them killed or captured. But the German troops moved to reinforce them and the Russians were pushed back once more.

-The real problem for the Russians was at the top: quality of leadership was poor with notable exceptions such as Brusilov. Many of the top officers had been appointed because of their loyalty to the Tsar. They had no experience in fighting and little military expertise. There was no clear command structure and no war plan was developed. The performance of the War ministry was dire compounded by the breakdown of the distribution system.: lack of supplies and equipment especially rifles, ammunition and boots. The shortage of the rifles was so bad that some men on the Front had to rely on picking up rifles of shot soldiers. Often the war materials were available but not where they were needed.

-When Mikhail Rodzianko President of the Duma went on a special fact finding tour he received complaints about the lack of basic supplies and found wounded soldiers left in cold, rain, filth and dirt, pleading to have their wounds dressed. The morale of the soldiers was hard hit by the incompetence of their officers and lack of regard for their welfare- tens of thousands were deserted.

-However the Russian war effort was not a total disaster it has sometimes been portrayed as. The Russian soldiers fought valiantly and had considerable success against the Austrians. By 1916 the Russians had matched German in terms of shell production and there had been a 1000% growth in the output of military artillery and rifles. They had contributed significantly to the Allied victory by mounting attacks on the Eastern Front to relieve pressure on the Western Front. The army was not on the verge of collapse in 1917 it was still an intact fighting force.

The home front

-The war put a huge strain on the Russian economy and exposed its structural weaknesses. The railways which were barely able to cope with freight trains in peacetime were now overwhelmed. Moscow at the centre of the railway system became a huge bottleneck and the signalling system collapsed. The goods and supplies were available but not getting where they were supposed to be; instead ended up in trucks waiting for engines or lines to be unblocked. Food rotted and factories closed as they were starved of raw materials. The war had a huge impact on Russians at home:

-It took its toll in a personal way. Around 8 million casualties meant there was hardly a family ego had not been affected by their son killed or captured.

-There were several shortages of food because the railway system had collapsed, food was being sent to the front as a priority, lack of grain coming onto the market. Partly this was due to food diverted to the military. But peasants were not selling it as conversion of factories to military work meant there was little for peasants to by. They could buy less with their money due to inflation so many hoarded food and grain products. (Russia abandoned grain standard as war was expensive and the gov needed money for wages, supplies and businesses. Instead the printed more notes.)

-Inflation hit people hard in rough terms the price of food and fuel quadrupled between 1914 and 1916 whilst wages only doubled. This meant that people could not afford to pay for basic items.