Nationalism in Russia 1825-1905

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Nationalism in Russia1825-1905
Wheres my green sweatshirt

• The Modernization of Russia
• McKay (835-838)
• Palmer 13.67, 16.84
• 18.92

2
Russia 1815-1905
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
  Boyars
• Utilized censorship, secret police (Third
  Section)
• 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 view Tsar of father figure protector

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 1853-1856

• War between Russia and England/ France
• Also Ottoman Empire, Piedmont-Sardinia
• Exposed how woefully behind Russia was to the
  West
• Immediate Cause
• War began over dispute between Roman Catholic and
  Greek Orthodox monks over guardianship of
  Jerusalems holy places
• France pressured the Ottoman sultan to grant
  Catholics special privileges
• Russian demanded Orthodox monks be given
  priviledges
• Long-term Causes
• Napoleon III also looking for glory
• The Eastern Question
• weakness of Ottoman Empire
• Russias desire for war water port,
  Constantinople
• Great Britain concern of Russian expansion
• When negotiations broke down, Britain and France
  sent their fleets to the Aegean Sea, and in
  October 1853 the sultan declared war on Russia

Church of Holy Sepulcher
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Characteristics of Crimean War

• War noted for tactical and logistical ineptitude
  on both sides
• Considered first modern war
• Use of telegraph, RR
• Florence Nightingale
• Founder of modern nursing
• Called attention to poor hygiene of medical staff
  treating wounded
• Lady with the lamp
• Title given for her nightly visits to wounded
• 1st War documented, photographed and reported
  daily
• British press kept public informed

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Results of Crimean War

• Russia lost
• Religious issue settled
• Orthodox and Catholics share hoy sites
• Congress of Paris (1856)
• Russia forced to cede some territory
• accepts a ban on warships in the Black Sea
• exposed the weakness of Russia
• Leads new Tsar to embark on major reform movement

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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

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Westernizers v. Slavophiles

• Two major perspectives of what Russia was
• Westernizers Russia is backward
• Should be more like the West
• Petr Chaadayev
• Philosophical Letters said that Russia had lagged
  behind Western countries and had contributed
  nothing to the world's progress
• Slavophiles Russia is special
• Rejected West (Industrial Revolution, selfish
  capitalism)
• Celebrated Orthodox faith extended family of
  Russian serfs
• We (AP European Students of LM) are a backward
  people and therein lies our salvation. We must
  thank destiny that we have not lived the life of
  Europewe do not want its proletariat, its
  aristocratic system..

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Uniqueness of Russia

• Three Fundamental Institutions
• Autocracy of Tsar
• Serfdom
• Intelligentsia

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Autocracy of the Tsar

• Russias 1st fundamental institution was
  autocracy
• Monopoly of power by Tsar and Boyars
• Controlled press, education
• But it wasnt exactly like absolutism (Louis XIV)
• European conceptions were missing
• West viewed spiritual authority as independent of
  state authority (separation of Church and State)
• West believe People have certain rights or claims
  for justice (English Bill of Rights, Declaration
  of the Rights of Man and Citizen, absolutist
  limited by reason or social contract)
• 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)

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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)
• Since Pugachev Rebellion, Boyars had nearly
  absolute control of lives of their serfs
• Many absentee landlords
• Not interested in agricultural improvements
• Wasnt profitable anymore
• Made the muzhiks (like Kelly Duffy and Gabriel
  Castor) into illiterate drudges, without
  incentive, initiative, self-respect, or pride of
  workmanship
• Made for very poor soldiers

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Intelligentsia

• 3rd fundamental institution (arose in mid 1800s
  was the intelligentsia
• Educated Russians were full of Western Ideas
• But unlike the West they were estranged from the
  government, from the Church, from the uneducated
  peasants, gov. occupations (unlike England and
  France)
• Free to think but had no vehicle to bring change
• Made up of students, university graduates, people
  who had time to read
• tended to adopt sweeping all-embracing
  philosophies
• Land and Freedom- chief radical society
• Intelligentsia radicals
• Looked for the Real Russia among the peasants
  (serfs) during the 1870s
• Hoped to instruct them of their role in upcoming
  revolution
• Most turned over to police
• Peoples Will
• Splinter group from Land and Freedom
• Violent Revolutionaries

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The Emancipation Act of 1861

• Serfdom was abolished by an imperial ukase of
  1861 decree
• But what would happen to the labor system, the
  food supply? How would the Boyars be appeased?
• Needed to avoid throwing the labor system into
  chaos
• Alexander II set up a special branch of gov to
  figure this out

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Act of Emancipation of 1861

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

• It did not
• Really Free the peasant
• Bound to Mir
• Weaken the gentry
• Now had possession of ½ arable land, received
  redemption , free of serf responsibility

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The Mir

• Peasants did not own property in western sense
  (private individual)
• Peasant land became Mir or village (collective)
  property
• Village Elders were 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
• Discouraged individual initiative
• Result Agriculture in Russia would lag behind
  the west

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The Kulaks

• Most peasants belonged to a Mir
• A few became individual landowners called Kulaks
• 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
• Held up a paradigm by Stolypin during 1890s
• Labeled as class enemies by Marxist-Leninists
• Eventually liquidated by Stalin in 1931

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Ukase of 1864

• Ukase (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
• IE. Established the rule of law

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Zemstvos

• 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
• Began to develop a sense of civic responsibility
  among its members

LM Cafeteria
Zemstvo having a dinner by Grigoriy Myasoyedov.
1872
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Ukase of 1874 (Military Reform)

• Largest army humiliated in Crimean War
• 25 year conscription service
• Village held dirge-like procession for departing
  soldiers
• Illiterate serfs (like Jordan Freed) 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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Rise of Revolutionaries

• Mikhail Bakunin
• Russian Intelligentsia
• 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)
• Peoples Justice
• Bukunins pamphlet 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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Assassination of Tsar Alexander III

• 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(1881 to 1894)

• Reactionary son of Alexander II
• Abandoned his fathers idea of parliamentary-like
  gov
• allowed peasant emancipation, judicial reform and
  zemstvos to continue
• Exiled Revolutionaries
• Peoples Will was crushed
• Jews were subjected to pogroms

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Russification

• Alexander IIIs forced assimilation into Russian
  culture
• Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Armenians,
  Germans in the east, Muslims in the south central
  regions made to adopt Russia language and culture
• Konstantin Pobiedonostsev
• Russian nationalist and Reactionary procurator of
  Holy Synod of Russian Orthodox Church
• Adviser to Alexander II, III, and Nicolas II
• A Russian Fitche/ Turnvater Jahn
• main proponent of Russification
• Saw West as a doomed culture
• Attacked rationalism, liberalism
• Said Slavs had unique character
• Promoted idea of Tsar as divine  

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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
• Built RR to Vladivostok (transcontinental)
• Exports and imports increased
• Ex400 million rubes (1880) to 1.6 Billion in
  1913
• Imports rose 5xs same period
• Factories
• Largely foreign (French) owned
• highly concentrated into large factories (500)
• Was easier for workers to mobilize politically

The shell-shop of the Putilov works, St
Petersburg 1903
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Russian Tsardom build over a volcano of repressed
isms
Peasant Demands
Liberal Cadets Demands
Proletariat demands
Radical Intelligentia demands
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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

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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
• Favor constitutional monarchy, written
  constitution, limited enfranchisement
• 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

• Orthodox Marxist
• Nonviolent
• Admired German Social Democratic (Lassalians)
• Thought Russia must develop capitalism and an
  industrialist proletariat, (class struggle)
  before revolution (Orthodox Marxist)
• Looked to urban proletariat as a support base
• Ridiculed the mir
• Disapproved of assassination, terrorism
• Later called the Mensheviks

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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 War

• Russia and Japan both wanted 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 defeated on land
• Russians sent the Baltic fleet to Japan
• Tsushima Strait the Russia lost 2/3 of its navy
• Russia humiliated

The Russian Navy socks the Japanese Fleet in the
kisser.One of many over-confident pre-war
Russian propaganda cartoons
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Bloody Sunday 1905

• Father Gapon
• Orthodox priest
• lead peaceful procession of 200 thousand factory
  workers their families to Tsars Winter Palace
  in St. Petersburg
• believed that Little Father would rectify the
  evils
• Asked for 8 hrs workday, minimum wage (1 ruble),
  recall of bad officials, a Constituent Assembly
• 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)
• 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

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The October Manifesto

• October Manifesto
• Tsar proclamation meant to placate the Revolution
  of 1905
• Grants
• Constitution
• civil liberties
• Duma
• Parliamentary gov. to be elected by all powers
  alike with powers to enact laws
• Tsars real intention was to divide opposition
  (which it did)
• Constitutional Democrats (Kadets)
• Liberal Bourgeoisie liked the the Duma
• Feared Social Democrats
• Did not identify with workers or peasants
• Social Democrats
• (correctly) believed that the October Man was a
  deception which the Tsar would renege on
• Peasants and workers were not satisfied
• wanted more land and less taxes
• Workers wanted a shorter working day and a living
  wage
• Social Democratic party splits

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Social Revolutionary Party (1906)

• Derived from the Peoples Will and Social
  Democratic Party
• Admired mir as a viable form of communism
• Unorthodox Marxist
• Violent Marxist revolutionaries
• Believed capitalism stage could be skipped
• Did not need to go from agricultural to
  industrial stage to socialist-communist stage
• Russia skip capitalism and go directly to a
  communist society
• Later known as the Bolsheviks

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Europe on Eve of WWI