VCE History Revolutions Evidence - Unit 1 - Russian Revolution

Introduction to Revolutions

• 1800: Siberian population was at 500,000

• 1800-1897: Over 5 million Russians crossed the Ural Mountains into Siberia

• 1914: Of the total 9 million in Siberia, approximately 1 million were criminals + political exiles

• Gold mines at Kara (a feared threat of the Tsarist regime) were worked by convict labour, where 1000 convicts were in close confinement + 1000 in barracks/cabins around mines

• 1891: Trans-Siberian railway was an economic link.

• 1897 Census of Russia: 82% peasants, 4% industrial working class, 1.5% middle class, 12% upper class, 0.5% ruling class

• 1917: Trans-Siberian railway route to Vladivostok was completed

• 1903-1913: 1 million Russians used the Trans-Siberian railway (Moscow to Vladivostok via Harbin) to migrate to Siberia. Offered quarter fares, but supply of good farming land was limited

Institutional Weaknesses + Tensions

• Emancipation Decree of 1861: Ex-serfs were entitled to buy land, but found the price too high due to shortage of farming territory + taxation

• 1894: Imperial Russia covered over 8 million square miles

• Autocracy: All political power held by the Tsar

• Romanovs had ruled since 1613

• Population quadrupled from 40 million (1815) to 165 million (1914) were concentrated in European Russia

• 1881: Criminal offence to oppose tsar/government

• 13 March 1881: Tsar Alexander II was blown by a bomb through by ‘The People’s Will’

• 1891 Russian famine: Killed approximately 400,000 people

• 1900: A Moscow suburb with 40,000 people only had one church and one priest (detachment from growing industrial population)

• 1800s: Imperial forces were kept at a strength of approximately 1.5 million men

• Cost of maintaining army + navy accounted for 45% of the government’s annual expenditure

• 4% devoted to education

• With the exception of the Crimean War (1854-6), Russia wasn’t engaged in major conflict with western Europe for a whole century after 1815

• 82% of russians were peasants (1897) compared to 36% in Germany (1995)

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