Russia 1825-1917

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Russia1825-1917
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Russia
Alexander II (the Great Reformer) becomes Tsar
(1855)
Edicts of 1864 (Legal equality, political
representation
Count Witte begins Industrial reform (1882)
-Dynastic Crisis -Decembrist Revolt
Russo-Japanese War
Official Nationalism
1815 1825 1853 1861
1881 1905
Bloody Sunday begins Revolution of 1905
Alexander II assassinated by Peoples Will
Emancipation Act
Holy Alliance Formed
Crimean War (1853-1856)
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Russia under Nicholas I

• Decembrist Revolt (1825)
• Liberal officers led coup in favor of
• Constantine Constitution
• Elimination of serfdom
• Crushed by Nicholas I (1825-1855)
• Nicholas I
• Ruled as autocrat
• Disliked serfdom but was afraid of angering
  Boyers
• Utilized censorship, secret police
• Reform
• Codified Russia Law (1833)
• Official Nationality
• Program of state controlled Russian nationalism
• Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationalism
• Slogan found in schoolbooks, newspapers, etc.
• Russian Orthodox Church
• Charged with education morality
• Russians taught to accept place in society (no
  upward mobility)
• Taught to see Mother Russia (language, culture,
  customs) as a safeguard against the immorality of
  the West

It is our common obligation to ensure that the
education of the people be conducted, according
to Supreme intention of our August Monarch, in
the joint spirit of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and
Nationality. I am convinced that every professor
and teacher, being permeated by one and the same
feeling of devotion to the throne and fatherland,
will use all his resources to become a worthy
tool for the government and to earn its complete
confidence. Sergey Uvarov, Minister of Education
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Crimean War

• Nationalist tensions led to the War
• originated over competing claims by Roman
  Catholic and Greek Orthodox monks to be the
  guardians of Jerusalems holy places
• France (supporting the Catholics) pressured the
  Ottoman sultan into giving the Catholics special
  privileges
• caused the Russians (supporting the Greek
  Orthodox) to demand a protectorate over Orthodox
  churches w/in the Ottoman Empire
• then the Russians occupied Wallachia and
  Moldavia,
• Danubian lands that were under the Ottomans
• Concerned by the Russian expansion, the English
  urged the sultan to resist the Russian demands
• When negotiations broke down, Britain and France
  sent their fleets to the Aegean Sea, and in
  October 1853 the sultan declared war on Russia

Florence Nightingale
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Peace of Paris (1856)

• In the end, England (BalOfPow), France (defend
  Catholics), Sardinia (to elevate its prestige)
  Turkey fight Russia in the Crimean
• exposed the weakness of Austria and Russia
• Congress of Paris
• Russia forced to cede some territory, surrender
  its claims in Turkey and accept a ban on warships
  in the Black Sea
• big issue at the conference had to do w/national
  claims (who should get the Danubian
  principalities?
• postponed b/c the Austrians didnt want the
  obvious solution (an autonomous state) to be put
  into effect as they felt threatened by
  nationalism

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Tsarist Russia after 1856

• Outcomes of the Crimean War showed the strength
  of the western nations and the backwardness of
  the enormous village
• Huge empire (Poland to Pacific) was unable to
  repel the limited but efficient attacks of the
  West
• Illiterate unmotivated serfs were unproductive
  famers and poor soldiers
• Alexander II (1855-1881)
• Assumed tsardom during the war
• Not a born liberal but knew he had to act
• European examples again become the model for
  Russian reforms (Peter, Catherine)

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Westernizers v. Slavophiles

• Two major perspectives of what Russia was
• Westernizers Russia is destined to become more
  like Europe
• Petr Chaadayev
• Philosophical Letters said that Russia had lagged
  behind Western countries and had contributed
  nothing to the world's progress
• Slavophiles Russia is destined to be unique
  (Just not sure what!)
• Celebrated Orthodox faith extended family of
  Russian serfs
• Rejected Western materialism
• We are a backward people and therin lies our
  salvation. We must thatk destiny that we have not
  lived the life of Europewe do not want its
  proletariat, its aristocratic system..

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Autocracy of the Tsar

• Russias 1st fundamental institution was
  autocracy
• Monopoly of power by Tsar and Boyars
• But it wasnt exactly like absolutism (Louis XIV)
• European conceptions were missing
• Like that spiritual authority is independent of
  state authority (separation of Church and State)
• People have certain rights or claims for justice
  (English Bill of Rights, Declaration of the
  Rights of Man and Citizen)
• Rule by law was substituted with ukase (arbitrary
  laws created by tsar), police action, and the
  army
• Developing technology was replaced with importing
  technology and forcing reforms onto the
  population
• the Russian empire was a machine superimposed
  upon its people without organic connection
  (bureaucracy pure and simple)
• Those within Russia who were exposed to western
  ideals objected to the pure bureaucracy
• poisoned with foreign ideas (liberty,
  fraternity, just and classless society, value of
  the individual, freedom of consciousness)
• Huge government actually afraid of its own people
• Press and universities were censored

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The Severity of Russian Serfdom

• 2nd fundamental institution was serfdom
• Majority of population were serfs
• Resembled American slavery
• Serfs were owned, could be bought and sold, used
  in occupation other than agriculture (factories,
  mechanics, evening migrating city workers)
• Serfs who had some mobility had to pay fees to
  the lord
• Serfs depended on the personality or economic
  circumstances of their owners (paternalistic)
• Gentry served as local government of sorts
• Law did little to interfere with gentry privilege
  over his serfs
• Many conservatives and liberal Russians began to
  feel that serfdom must end (mid 1800s)
• Wasnt profitable anymore
• Made the muzhiks into illiterate and stolid
  drudges, without incentive, initiative,
  self-respect, or pride of workmanship
• Made for very poor soldiers

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Western Ideas and Education

• 3rd fundamental institution (arose in mid 1800s
  was the intelligentsia
• Educated Russians were full of Western Ideas
• Estranged from the government, from the Church,
  from the uneducated peasants (unlike England and
  France)
• And felt some guilt for the condition of the
  peasants
• Westerizer Alexander Pushkins mother sent 2 to
  Siberia for not bowing as she passed by
• Became intelligentsia felt themselves a class
  apart
• Free to think, not free to do much
• Made up of students, university graduates, people
  who had time to read
• tended to adopt sweeping all-embracing
  philosophies
• Headed movement called populism
• Believed intellectuals should play a large role
  in society
• exaggerated view of influence thinkers have had
  on historical events
• Land and Freedom- chief radical society
• 1870s hundreds of students went to the
  countryside to live with and teach the peasants
  their role in upcoming revolution
• Most turned over to police
• 1879 split into the Peoples Will (terrorist
  group)

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The Emancipation Act of 1861 Other Reforms

• 1855 Alexander II became tsar and sought the
  support of intelligentsia
• He eased the controls on the universities
• Censorship was reduced and followed by a great
  outburst of public opinion
• Polar Star of Alexander Herzen (a revolutionary)
  in London gained wider audience
• One point of agreement was the emancipation of
  the serfs
• Even reactionary Nicholas I (who hated liberalism
  and used the Third Section (secret political
  police) wanted to alleviate serfdom
• How to achieve the goal of emancipation was
  unclear
• Alexander II set up a special branch of gov to
  figure this out
• Needed to avoid throwing the labor system into
  chaos
• Did not want to ruin the gentry class
• Serfdom was abolished by an imperial ukase of
  1861 decree
• Subjects of the government not of their owners
• No longer could forced or unpaid labor be demanded

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Act of Emancipation of 1861

• It did
• Allocated about 50 of cultivated land to gentry
  and 50 to former serfs
• Serf had to pay redemption to gentry

• It did not
• Weaken the gentry
• Now had possession of ½ arable land, received
  redemption , free of serf responsibility

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Land allocation

• Peasants did not own property in western sense
  (private individual)
• Peasant land became Mir or village (collective)
  property
• Village was responsible to the gov for payment of
  the redemption
• Could demand forced labor from members who
  defaulted on their portion of the redemption
• Could prevent peasants from moving away (would
  leave them with burden of paying redemption)
• Mir periodically reassigned lands to village
  members (depending of family size) supervised
  cultivation (Open field Three Field system)
• Land could not be sold outside the village
• Discouraged the investment of outside capital
• Result Agriculture in Russia would lag behind
  the technical advancements of the west

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Inequality Among Peasants

• Most peasants belonged to a Mir
• Kulaks
• Came to mean "tight-fisted"
• More well-to-do peasants
• Owned and/or rented land from the gentry
• hired other peasants to work
• Led to growing resentment
• Later labeled as class enemies by
  Marxist-Leninists
• Later liquidated by Stalin in 1931
• None possessed full individual freedom of action
  in the western sense in the late 1800s

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Legal Reforms

• Edict of 1864 allowed for
• Public trials
• Right to representation (with lawyers of their
  own choosing)
• Class distinctions in judicial matters were
  abolished
• clear sequence of lower and higher courts was
  established
• Training for judges on state salaries
• Jury trials

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Political Reform

• Another edict of 1864
• established a system of provincial and district
  councils (IE. Local government)
• Called Zemstvos
• Members were elected by peasants and other
  elements
• A group of Mirs made up a Volost
• A group of Volost made up a Zemstvos
• Took care of education, medical relief, public
  welfare, food supply and road maintenance
• Developed a sense of civic responsibility among
  its members

Zemstvo having a dinner by Grigoriy Myasoyedov.
1872
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Military Reform

• Largest army humiliated in Crimean War
• 25 year conscription service
• Village held dirge-like procession for departing
  soldiers
• Illiterate serfs did not know their left from
  their right
• Told to use their bayonets before bullets
• Often seized (impressments) serfs from families
• Harsh brutal discipline
• Edict of 1874
• Lessened service to 6 years active (9 years in
  reserve

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Bakunin and Anarchism

• Mikhail Bakunin Ultra radical
• Former army officer who left Russia frequented
  radical meetings with Georgia Sand and Karl Marx
  in Paris Germany
• Participated in Rev of 1848 in Prague
• Prisoner in Siberian labor camp
• Broke with LaSallian Socialist and Marxist at the
  First International in Geneva (1866)
• Believed there was no compromising with existing
  government
• Believed that violence was necessary
• Marxism rejects terrorism because socialism
  needed no prodding (it was inevitable)
• Bukunins pamphlet called Peoples Justice called
  for terrorism against tsarist officials and
  liberals too!
• Catechism of a Revolutionist stated
• that true revolutionary is devoured by one
  purpose, one thought, one passionthe
  revolution.
• Everything that promotes the success of the
  revolution is moral, everything which hinders it
  is immoral.

Bakunin speaking to members of the IWA at the
Basel Congress in 1869
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The Peoples Will

• In order to stem the rise of radical socialist
  the Czar turned to the liberalism 1880
• Liberals demanded follow through with earlier
  reforms
• Czar abolished the secret police (Third Section)
  of Nicholas I
• Allowed more freedom of the press
• Agreed to a pseudo-parliamentary system on March
  13, 1881
• March 13, 1881 Alexander II was assassinated by
  the Peoples Will

The assassination of Alexander II. Drawing by G.
Broling 1881
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Alexander III

• Alexander III (1881 to 1894)
• Abandoned his fathers idea of parliamentary-like
  gov
• Brutally resisted liberal and revolutionary
  interests
• He did allow peasant emancipation, judicial
  reform and zemstvos to continue
• Even Russia (with autocracy on the right
  revolutionaries on the left) was caught up in the
  liberalism of the times

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Russia after 1881 Reaction and Progress

• Alexander III tried to stamp out revolutionism
• Revolutionaries were exiled
• Peoples Will was crushed
• Jews were subjected to pogroms (part of
  tri-partite approach)
• Government adopted policy of Russification
• Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Armenians,
  Germans in the east, Muslims in the south central
  regions subjected to forced assimilation into
  Russian culture

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Konstantin Pobiedonostsev, Reactionary
procurator of Holy Synod of Russian Orthodox
Church adviser to 3 Tsars main proponent of
Russification Saw West as a doomed
culture Attacked rationalism, liberalism Said
Slavs had unique character Hoped for a theocratic
utopia where clergy protected masses from poison
of the West  
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Industrialization before 1914

• Russia began to industrialize during the 1880s
• Financed by European capital
• 4 billion in Russia by 1914
• Count Witte
• reform minister
• put Russia on gold standard
• made Ruble convertible into other currencies
• Railway mileage doubled between 1888-1913
• Exports and imports increased
• Ex400 million rubes (1880) to 1.6 Billion in
  1913
• Imports rose 5xs same period
• continued to lag behind in industrial development
• No machine tool industry or chemical plants

Sergei Yulevich Witte
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Industrialization before 1914 Continued

• Unique feature of Russia proletariat (factory
  worker) was that it was highly concentrated into
  large factories (500)
• Was easier for workers to mobilize politically
• Russian business class was weaker than in the
  west
• Why?
• Much of Russias largest industries were foreign
  owned
• Large percentage of the economy was owned by the
  Tsarist government
• Largest state operated economic system in the
  world
• Government was deeply in debt to the West

The shell-shop of the Putilov works, St
Petersburg 1903
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Tsarist Russia (1900)Orthodoxy, Autocracy,
Nationalism
Peasant Demands
Liberal Cadets Demands
Proletariat demands
Radical Intelligentsia
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Political Parties (1900)

• Political Parties began to emerge by 1900
• Included
• Constitutional Democrats
• Social Revolutionaries
• Social Democrats
• reflected mounting discontent
• Not parties in western sense
• not organized to get a candidate elected
• No elections in Russia except Zemstvo
• Parties were really propaganda agencies
• Worked underground
• Popular unrest began to grow in 1900
• Peasants were trespassing on gentry lands
• local insurrections against landlords
• local insurrections against tax collectors
• Factory workers refused to work at times

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The Kadets

• Constitutional Democratic Party (1905)
• Named derived from abbreviation of Constitutional
  Democrats (KD)
• Formed by business, professional class and
  capitalistic landowners, lawyers
• Liberal, progressive, constitutionalists
• Came to favor constitutional monarchy
• Not connected to issues/concerns of the urban
  worker or peasant
• Remember Frankfurt Assembly in 1848

Later disparaged as party controlled by Jews in
this anti-Semitic poster by the Bolsheviks
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Social Democratic Labor party

• Founded by Marxists in 1898
• Not much different than other Social
  Revolutionaries except
• More inclined to an international movement
• Expected world revolution to break out in West
• Admired German Social Democratic (Lassalians)
• More oriented toward Europe
• Many of their spokesmen lived there in exile
• Thought Russia must develop capitalism and an
  industrialist proletariat, (class struggle)
  before revolution (Orthodox Marxist)
• Leaned toward the urban proletariat as a support
  base
• Ridiculed the mir and abhorred the Social
  Revolutionaries
• Disapproved of sporadic assassination, terrorism
• Seemed less dangerous (to Russian police) than
  Social Revolutionaries

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Social Revolutionary Party (1900)

• Derived from the Peoples Will
• favored a catastrophic overthrow of the tsardom
• Had mystical faith in the might of the Russian
  people (peasants)
• Saw the mir as a viable form of communism
• Like Marx and Engles but didnt think that urban
  proletariat was only true revolutionary class
• Didnt think that capitalism and its evils were
  necessary for Russia to move into revolutionary
  socialism
• They believed
• Russia skip capitalism and go directly to a
  socialistic society
• Will emerge after 1905 as the Bolsheviks

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Tsar Policy

• Government refused to make any concessions
• 1894 Nicholas II
• Had narrow outlook
• Little Father was taught by Pobiedonostsev
  (Pobie) that any criticism as un-Russian
  democracy was "the insupportable dictatorship of
  vulgar crowd".
• Pobedonostsev condemned elections, representation
  and democracy, the jury system, the press, free
  education, charities, and social reforms
• Nicholas II
• Similar to Louis XVI (Family man, trained to
  rule, but too young, too indecisive)
• Promoted autocracy
• God-given, best and only form of gov in Russia
• With growing discontent Nick needed a distraction
• Plehve, the Chief Minister hoped for quick war
  with Japan that would forge patriotism

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Russo-Japanese Rivalry

• Russia and Japan are opposed to each others
  interests in Manchuria
• Japanese need natural resources
• Russians wanted a rail way to Vladivostok
• Russia needed a distraction from criticisms of
  Tsardom at home
• Tsars advisors were racist and didnt believe an
  Asian nation could mount an fight against the
  Russia Bear
• Russo-Japanese War (1904)
• Japan attacked Port Arthur
• Armies entered Manchuria
• Battle of Mukden 624,000 men were engaged
• Largest battle ever
• Russia was defeated on land
• Russians sent the Baltic fleet to Japan
• Tsushima Strait the Russian fleet was destroyed
• Russia was defeated at sea
• Lost 2 of 3 fleets

The Russian Navy socks the Japanese Fleet in the
kisser.One of many over-confident pre-war
Russian propaganda cartoons
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Treaty of Portsmouth

• T. Roosevelt
• Japan received Port Arthur
• Preferred position in Manchuria
• Southern half of the island of Sakhalin
• Consequences of Japanese victory
• Russian government shifted its attention back to
  Europe and the Balkans provoking WWI
• Tsarist government weakness was exposed
• Led to widespread discontentment

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Bloody Sunday 1905

• Police allowed a priest, Father Gapon to lead St.
  Petersburg factory workers in hope of a counter
  propaganda move
• Only recently uneducated peasants they believed
  that Little Father would rectify the evils
• Asked for 8 hr. workday, minimum wage (1 ruble),
  recall of bad officials, a Constituent Assembly
• 200 thousand unarmed men, women, children marched
  to Winter Palace on Sunday (1/1905)
• Sang God save the Tsar
• Troops shot and killed hundreds

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Reactions to Bloody Sunday

• Dissolved the moral bond between the people and
  the Tsars government (Little Father)
• Tsar was force behind their grievances
• Political strikes broke out
• Councils or soviets were formed in Moscow and St.
  Petersburg
• Peasants erupted in revolt
• Burned manor houses, beating up land owners
• Remember the Great Fear
• Social Revolutionaries tried to direct the
  peasant revolts
• Constitutional Democrats tried to seize
  leadership of the revolution
• All wanted more democratic representation
• 8/1905 the Tsar calls for an Estates General
• Peasants, landowners and city people would vote
  as separate classes
• Revolt continued as St. Petersburg Soviet
  (workers council) led by Mencheviks called for a
  general strike in October
• RR stopped, banks closed, newspaper stopped
• Paralyzed government

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The October Manifesto

• Tsar issued the October Manifesto
• Called for a constitution, civil liberties, and a
  Duma to be elected by all powers alike with
  powers to enact laws
• Tsar hoped to split the opposition (which it did)
• Constitutional Democrats moved to solve problems
  in the Duma
• Liberals feared the revolutionaries
• Revolutionaries (correctly) believed that the
  October Man was a deception which the Tsar would
  renege on
• Peasants and workers were not satisfied
• Peasants wanted more land and less taxes
• Workers wanted a shorter working day and a living
  wage
• Middle-class liberals were pacified
• Mutinies at Kronstadt and sailors on Black Sea
  fleet
• Order is demanded by middle class liberals
• Peace was made with Japan
• Troops were moved back to keep order
• Revolution was pushed underground

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The Results of 1905 The Duma

• 1905 Revolution made Russia into a parliamentary
  state
• 1906-1916 Russia was a Pseudo/semi constitutional
  monarchy
• Nicholas II announced the Duma would have no
  power
• Over foreign policy
• The Budget
• Or government personnel
• Tsar would not allow any real participation in
  government by the public
• Right wing opposition favored autocracy, Orthodox
  Church
• Formed the Black Hundreds and terrorized peasants
  to boycott the Duma
• Left wing had formed Social Revolutionaries and
  Social Democrats (Bol and Men) urged workers to
  boycott Duma

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1905-1917 elsewhere and on outline
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Europe on Eve of WWI