Russian revolution

Aos 1, unit 3

Russian empire formatation and demographic

• The Russian Empire was declared by Peter the Great in 1721

• It was one of the largest empires in the world at the time, stretching from Europe to Asia and covered extremes of all geographical kinds.

• It was a very ethnically and linguistically diverse nation, with nationalist hostility very prevalent between different ethnic groups

• The majority of people were serfs (indentured peasants), though by 1890, there were more in the cities due to an industrial boom.

• Imperial Russia was led by the Romanov dynasty, who had been in power since 1613. The Tsar’s power was autocratic and was supported by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Empire demographics and geography

• the first census in 1897, showed the population to be 126 million

• There had been a huge population boom in the late 19th/early 20th century.

• 60 nationalities made up the population - ‘Great Russians’, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Jews, Tartars, Kazaks, Cossacks, Germans and Armenians.

• 4/5 of the population were peasents, who lacked formal education and had a low standard of living

• the emerging working class in the late 19th century were just as under privledged

• the middle class were somewhat more comfortable and enjoyed more social mobility, they were also called the ‘intelligentsia’.

• the nobility and ruling class made up just 12% of the population but controlled the vast majority of wealth and land

the early romonovs

• The Romanov dynasty began in 1613, when Michael Romanov was made tsar, the first leader enjoyred autocratic power by he was popular with the people

• Peter the great (1682-1725) initiated modernisation across Russia

• His reign however featured many wars and conflicts and the burders fell first to the peasents through taxes and conscription

• catherine the Great expanded the empire and encouraged the intelligentsia classes to flourish

Middle romanov family

• Nicholas I was extremely authoritarian and enforced strict censorship during his reign

• His regime was built on the ideal of service

• Landowning nobility were obliged to serve the tsar, the peasants were obliged to serve the landowner.

• Under this model, there was very little social mobility for peasants and serfs - who also relied on very outdated machinery and techniques.

• Industry increased throughout his reign, more than doubling in workers numbers.

• Alexander II of Russia was Nicholas II’s grandfather

• His most significant reform as emperor was emancipation of Russia's serfs in 1861, for which he is known as Alexander the Liberator.

• He also reformed the judicial system and gave power of the zemstvos (rural, local governments).

• He survived an assassination attempt in 1866, but was killed by a revolutionary from ‘The People’s Will’ in 1881. His death had a major effect on his son, Alexander III.

late Romanov family

• In responce for his fathers death, Alexander III was a tough ruler

• He limited the power of the zemstvos and engaged in a ‘Russification’ campaign to build a nation composed of a single nationality, language, and religion, all under one form of administration.

• He had an erratic, often short sighted approach to foreign policy - he signed the Triple Entente Treaty in 1894.

• Nicholas II was also distraught by the death of his father, telling his cousin ‘What is going to happen to [...] Russia? I am not prepared to be tsar.’

• Nicholas’ wife, Alexandra, was very influential over her more mild-mannered husband. Though passive, Nicholas was a strong advocate for autocracy

• He was a patriotic family man. However, he was a ‘wretchedly bad judge of character’ (Hite) and was very out of touch with the people’s needs.

Tsar politics

• Richard Pipes attests that the stratist regime was ‘an artificial construction without organic unity, held together by wires all of which converged in the person of the monarch’

• centrals to the tsars power were the concepts of divine right and autocracy. The tsar’s word was law, unlimited exc, leg and judicial power

• the fundamental laws of the empire (1832) oulined this, stating ‘god himself commands his supreme power to be obeyed’.

• This style of ruling was an anomaly in Europe by 1896, when Nicholas II came to the throne.

• The government was made up of three key bodies - the State Council of Imperial Russia, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Senate. None could question or overrule him.

• The State Council of Imperial Russia were advisors to the tsar.

• The Cabinet of Ministers had portfolios of responsibility such as infrastructure, police, trade and so on.

• They generally worked independently rather than as a whole group.

• The Senate were responsible for turning the Tsar’s will into law.

• All of these representatives were picked from the noble class and were handpicked by the Tsar. This reduced their accountability and their legitimacy.

Administration and local governments

• The civil service was introduced during the reign of peter the great to assist with the running of such a vast empire

• however it soon became corrupt and inefficient. Issues took years to solve, if at all.

• 14 levels of ranks were distinguished by uniform and were responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Tsar’s laws at a local level.

• There were considerable benefits to the role which made officials reluctant to push for reforms.

• Bribery and ‘proizvol’ (at the whim of the individual) were common. The inconsistencies and inequities of this system impacted the ordinary people the most.

• Russia was divided in 96 local areas, which was overseen by a governor

• These governors reported directly to the tsar and were generally noble born themselves.

• The provinical governmnet was responcible for the adminitration of public works, police, education and health in their local area

• The Provincial Governments were elected bodies that worked with the peasant zemstvos, but often favoured initiatives that benefited the wealthier classes.

Church and Police

• The Russian Orthodox Church was made the official religion of the Russian Empire in 988. It came under the control of the Empire in 1721.

• The monastic vows of the Orthodox Church included a promise to ‘defend, unsparingly, all the powers, rights and prerogatives of [...] his Majesty’

• He appointed the Procurator of the Holy Synod. The Church reinforced conservative values and gave legitimacy to the tsar’s claim to divine right.

• The Tsar’s will was enforced by two separate police forces. The first were the regular police force, in charge of law and order on the streets of Russia. There were not many police officers, so severe measures were employed to maintain control.

• The second was the Tsar’s secret police, the Okhrana. This group monitored political groups, suspected enemies of the state and agitators. Anyone found or suspected guilty of these were imprisoned or exiled. 

• Separate from the police, but also involved with maintaining control were the Cossacks. This was a militia group from the Black Sea. They were called in to quell protests or uprisings. 

Crisis before the revolution, crimean war and famine

• in 1853, russia was involved in the Crimean War. The Crimeans were seeking independence from the Ottoman Empire, Russia saw itself as the ‘defender of the Slavs’ wanted to defend their Orthodox friends from their Muslim rulers.

• the war was disaterous and in-effecient with transport, supplies and mititray technology and tecniques

• The economy suffered enormously as a result of this conflict and 200,000 were killed.

• in 1891, russia was hit with a famine, most people died from malnutrition and other diseases rather than starvation its self, 350,000-500,000 died in the volga river region

• the effects of the famine were worsened mainly due to the inefficient response from the government, the us had to send aid to the region to prevent more deaths

• large disconnect between st. peterburg and rural areas

Western influence, terrorism, Abolition of serfdom

• wetsern ideas began to filter into Russia, great divide between westernised, educated nobility and the serfs

• uncertanty over the sucsession of the throne in 1895 emboldened nationalist groups like decemberists, who the french revolution had inspired, this led to a brutal crack down by Nicholas the first

• the growing influence of western ideals led to an increase of terrorism to counteract the strictness of the tsars

• populism was the most common school of thought

• But by the late 1870s, the terrorist rebel group Narodnaya Volya (The People’s Will) was formed. This group assassinated Alexander II in a brutal attack in 1881 in St Petersburg..

• This led to ‘The Reaction’, a period of harsh crackdowns against any form rebellion - censorship and repression by the Okhrana eventually forced political groups underground.

• in 1861 alexander the second issued the Edict of Emancipation. He intended to modernise agriculture and transform Russian society. 40 million + serfs were freed, given houses on 49 year loans

• These arrangements were monitored by the ‘mir’ or village commune, despite these new reforms life did not improve for the serfs

Russification

• the size of the russian empire meant that there were many groups of ethnic groups in russia, they were largely left alone by the regime provided they abided by the laws of the state.

• However, the tsarist government became concerned as ‘Great Russians’, people with Russian nationality and language accounted for less than half of the population. This could lead to nationalist groups agitating for independence in certain regions.

• Alexander III was determined to quash any forms of threats like the one that had assassinated his father.

• Alexander III expanded and strengthened a cultural assimilation policy known as ‘Russification’, which originated in the 1770s. This program imposed the Russian culture and values on the peoples in the empire. Thousands of Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Finns and others were forced to learn or use the Russian language.

• A fervent anti-Semite, Alexander encouraged if not ordered the harassment of Russia’s five million Jews, banning them from some areas and prohibiting their participation in local elections.

• A key supporter of this program was Konstantin Pobedonostsev, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, furthering cementing the connection between the tsar and church.

Reforms

• foreign investment in the russian economy for mines and oil feilds, was heavily encouraged by sergei

• foreign food imports were very limited and heavily taxed

• The Russian rouble stabilised and was comparable against ‘the gold standard’ which made investment in Russia even more attractive.

• Investment in the railways during the ‘Great Spurt’ was key to Witte’s plan.

• Construction for the Trans-Siberian Railway began in 1891 and it was designed to connect east and west of the Empire.

• The project would enable migration from the isolated central and eastern regions, boosting the growing industrial workforce.

Challenges to reforms

• The project was extremely expensive and made more difficult by the existing poor infrastructure. The railway remained unfinished in 1914 when WWI broke out.

• depsite the economic growth in the great spurt, the impact on the cities was rough

• The main cities were not prepared for the massive influx of people (St Petersburg grew from 50%, to 1.5 million by 1900, Moscow went from 1 million to 1.4 million). Accomodation was hard to find, with up to 16 people sharing an apartment, usually all strangers to each other.

• The new manufacturing industry had very little regulation or supervision - workers were exploited, put in dangerous conditions and had no protection for their rights. The breakneck urbanisation created social problems and led to the formation of a potentially revolutionary class: the industrial proletariat.

Outbreak of war

• The origins of the Russo-Japanese War go back to 1905

• the two nations had been fighting over manchuria for years

• Russia had struck a deal with China to continue the railway contructions through manchuria, but then annexed the area in 1903

• japan tried to avoid the conflict by declaring clear ‘spheres of influence’ over Korea and Manchuria. Russia rejected this deal.

• Nicholas II did not take japan as a serious threat

• However, Japan had been outpacing Russia for decades. Their navy was small, but one of the best in the world. The Emperor signed the Anglo-Japanese (1902) to ensure Britain would not come to Russia’s aid in the event of war.

• In February 1904, diplomatic relations between Japan and Russia were broken off completely. Admiral Togo sent a naval fleet to Chemulpo, where Russian ships were stationed.

Siege of port Arthur and military humiliation

• a six-month siege at the strategic town of Port Arthur, resulting in the Japanese sinking most of the Russian Asiatic fleet

• The Japanese also took around 20,000 Russians as prisoners-of-war. The loss of Port Arthur, Russia’s only military stronghold in the region, was both strategically decisive and politically humiliating.

• Russia’s baltic fleet had been deployed early on in the war

• the world’s press monitored their every move and every bungle made along the way (including mistaking a British fishing trawler for a Japanese warship in disguise).  The Japanese had plenty of time to prepare for their arrival.

• Eight long months after setting sail, the 28 battleships arrived in May 1905 at Tsushima. It was defeated in less than 24 hours. The Russian navy was almost entirely destroyed

land war

• Russias land army did not fare well, the army fought against the the Japanese over two and a half weeks in February 1905 in Mukden, inland.

• 340,000 Russian men were sent to battle against 270,000 Japanese. 90,000 Russians were killed and 22,000 taken captive.

• More rounds of ammunition were fired in ten days than in the entire Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s. At the time, it was the biggest battle the world had ever seen.

• in june 1905 word of the disaterous battle of tsushima had reached the small Black Sea fleet of the Russian navy.

Potkemin

• On 27 June 1905, Potemkin was off the Ukrainian coast when many refused to eat the borscht made from rotten meat

• The ship's second in command threatened to shoot crew members for their refusal. He killed a member of the crew, Valenchuk, for speaking out, which triggered the mutiny where officers were killed and the ship sailed around the bleack sea

• the ship then docked in odessa where they had been protests and disturbances for two weeks prior to the mutiny, the crew socialised with the crowds until martial law was declared.

• The Cossacks dispersed the crowds with force. Some people were shot and some jumped or fell into the water and drowned. There were  casualties of 2,000 dead and 3,000 seriously wounded. The mutiny petered out soon after.

Impact of the war and calls for a constitution

• the war with Japan was meant to be positive and morale-boosting but instead was the opposite

• in july 1904, plehav the ministor for interior, was assassinated as a result of his support for the russo war

• He was replaced by Prince Mirskii, who had a much more liberal approach to politics. Mirskii relaxed censorship, abolished corporal punishment and restored some of the powers of the zemstvos.

• His attitude was that the state and people must trust one another to function effectively. This approach inspired hopes in political circles, however he urged people to not publicly for for a constitution and to still meet in secret

• In september 1904, many political groups met in the conferance

• Groups such as the Union for Liberation and the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) formed a united front against autocracy.

• Prince Mirskii presented these plans to Tsar Nicholas in December. Nicholas was incensed and declared to Sergei Witte “I shall never, under any circumstances, agree to the representative form of government because I consider it harmful to the people whom God has entrusted to my care.”

Putilov steel works

• Between 1903 and 1904, wages had decreased by ¼ and terrible working conditions, coupled with poor harvests and food shortages, led to work agitation.

• In January 1905, there were 120,000 industrial workers on strike in St Petersburg. They had gone out on strike after 4 workers had been fired from the Putilov Steelworks factory in December 1904

• The Assembly of Russian Factory Workers was founded by a ‘renegade priest with police connections’ (Fitzpatrick) named Father Georgiy Gapon, who organised a partitian and march for the workers who were fired for being associated with group

• Gapon wrote letters to Mirskii and the tsar himself, explaining his intentions and the route of the march. The date was set for Sunday 9th January, 1905.

March and partition prep

• On January 8, Gapon met with the Minister for Justice who later met with Prince Mirskii, the police department and the head of the St Petersburg regiment

• Troops were deployed around St. Petersburg, the people hoped to offer the partition to nichloas directly, however he had already left the city

• The petition, drafted in respectful terms by Gapon, made clear the problems the workers faced and called for improved working conditions, fairer wages, and a reduction in the working day to eight hours

• it got 150,000 signatures

• The majority of Russian workers retained their traditional conservative values of Orthodox faith in the autocracy, and therefore in their eyes, the tsar was their representative who would help them if he was made aware of their situation. God appointed the tsar, therefore the tsar had an obligation to protect the people and do what was best for them.

Bloody sunday

• At 10 am on 9th January, 150,000 people marched peacefully towards the Winter Palace. Figes describes the crowd as forming ‘something more like a religious procession than a workers’ demonstration’.

• Father gapon led the protest at 10am on the 9 january carrying a crusifix and a banner that said do not shoot, 150,000 protesters followed him singing and holding portraits of the tsar, symbolising their hope that their ‘Little Father’ would help them with their plight.

• a few warning shots fired into the crows by the troops before the Cossack cavalry charged forward into the crowds. The people fled as hundreds were killed by being shot or trampled. The official government figure was 96. More recent estimates are between 500 to 1000.

Bloody sunday reactions

• The events sparked a strong backlash in russia, Nicholas II was blamed for the event, he was given the nickname ‘Bloody Nicholas’

• He was dubbed the people's executioner by socialist revolutionaries

• Alan Wood explains that “the revulsion following the slaughter soon engulfed the whole nation and there were widespread manifestations of popular grief, indignation and anger against the guilty tsar. Not just the industrial workers but the middle classes, intellectuals, professional organisations and the whole of Russian society were roused to fury.”

• in st petersburg 400,000 were on strike in january alone

• 800,000 more joined them across the empire, in moscow 3000 uni students attended a rally where nichloas’s portraite was burnt, in march all higher education was closed

• Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the tsar’s uncle and brother-in-law and the former governor of Moscow has victem of a socialist bomb attack in his carrage

• Mutinies, like on the Potemkin in the Black Sea, further rattled the monarchy, whose ‘fate hung by a thread’ (Service). Troops arriving home from Manchuria mutinied on their journey home, seizing control of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Terrorism and workers

• Terrorism spread following bloody sunday

• the tsarist regieme was unable to regainrural controll as regional governments were ineffective and corrupt and there fore unable to deal with the 1905 challenges

• Minority groups, like Jews and Georgians, which had been repressed for years, seized the opportunity to launch independence campaigns. 

• in march nicholas agreed to a state duma with consultatives power, but it was not enough

• the svaing grace of the monarchy was the scattered nature of the protests

• oposition groups coninued to grow

• The unions of key industries organised themselves in a national alliance, called the Union of Unions. This connected the intelligentsia with the ordinary working people. Calls for voting rights and a Constituent Assembly grew increasingly louder.

• in major cities workers formed ‘soviets’

• In St Petersburg, It contained about 500 delegates elected by 200,000 workers in almost a hundred different factories. By the end of 1905, there were almost 80 soviets across the Empire.

the 1905 October revolution/ october manifesto

• by october russia was at a stand still, vast industries had workers largely on strike

• Sergei Witte wanted substancial reforms

• Together with the Minister for Education, Alexei Obolensky, Sergei Witte drafted the October Manifesto in the hopes of appeasing the masses.

• The October manifesto promised:
  - Civil liberties such as freedom of speech, conscience, association and assembly
  - Formation of a State Duma with elected representatives from every demographic
  - Universal male suffrage
  - The confirmation that no law could be passed or enforced without the consent of the State Duma.

Reaction to the manifesto

• The recation was mixed

• he St Petersburg Soviet, staged an armed uprising - in which 1000 people died - the workers association lost considerable influence in the city

• Industrial workers felt that the october manifesto adresses

Octoberists

Kadets

Socialist revolutionaires

Mensheveks

Bolsheviks

First duma elections

• Despite Nicholas’s reluctance, election for the duma in march 1906 and ended in april

• Unions and political parties were legalised during this time, however most political clubs (including the SRs and SDs) boycotted the elections.

• Unaligned peasants made up 38% of the seats, while 37% was held by Kadets (Constitutional Democrats) - a few more radical representatives were also elected.

• The first nationally-elected representative body in Russia’s history opened on 27th April 1906.

• Nicholas showed his contempt for the duma from the onset, his first item of businessthe construction of a new laundry and greenhouse at a university in Estonia.

• The outraged Duma ignored the petty agenda and began debating issues of land reform, military funding and constitutional change. It urged Nicholas to rescind or amend the Fundamental Laws, which he flatly denied.

• The Kadets and unaligned peasants formed a coalition, and issued an ‘Address to the Throne’ - pursuing rights for the people.