October Manifesto

Cataclysmic events of 1905 and impacts 

• Tsar’s inaction to the February 1905 protests →  furthered discontent as well as social and political dissent 

• Industrial strikes (400,000 workers in Feb alone) → shut down St Petersburg and Moscow → paralysed the economy 

• Union of Unions formed in May 1905 → an exemplification of how many social classes were ganging up against the regime

• Peasants began attacking nobles and government officials (3000 manors destroyed 

• Troops returning mutinied → running out of support from military
  (Tsar responded to pro-Potemkin protesters in Odessa in July 1905 → around 2000 massacred, over 3000 injured)

• Over 80 soviets had been formed by the end of 1905 

October Manifesto 

• 17th October 1905

• The first time the Tsar concede his absolute divine right and power 

• Promise of
  - civil rights (freedom of speech and assembly)
  - freedom of unwarranted arrest and association
  - elections based on universal suffrage
  - legislative body, the Duma whose members would be elected to approve the laws being made

• Representation of the end of Tsarist autocracy 

Social Classes responses to October Manifesto and everything else