Czarist Russia

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Czarist Russia

• Presentation created by Robert Martinez
• Primary Content Source Prentice Hall World
  History
• Images as cited.

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By 1815, Russia was not only the largest, most
populous nation in Europe but also a great world
power. Since the 1600s, explorers had pushed the
Russian frontier eastward across Siberia to the
Pacific.
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Peter the Great and Catherine the Great had added
lands on the Baltic and Black seas, and czars in
the 1800s had expanded into Central Asia. Russia
had thus acquired a huge multinational empire,
part European and part Asian.
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Other European nations looked on the Russian
giant with a mixture of wonder and misgiving. It
had immense natural resources. Russias vast size
gave it global interests and influence. But
Western Europeans disliked its autocratic
government and feared its expansionist aims.
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Despite efforts by Peter and Catherine to
westernize Russia, it remained economically
undeveloped. By the 1800s, czars saw the need to
modernize but resisted reforms that would
undermine their absolute rule. While the czars
wavered, Russia fell further behind Western
Europe in economic and social developments.
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A great obstacle to progress was the rigid social
structure. Landowning nobles dominated society
and rejected any change that would threaten their
privileges. The middle class was too small to
have much influence. The majority of Russians
were serfs, laborers bound to the land and to
masters who controlled their fates.
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Most serfs were peasants. Others might be
servants, artisans, or soldiers forced into the
czars army. As industry expanded, some masters
sent serfs to work in factories but took much of
their pay.
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Many enlightened Russians knew that serfdom was
inefficient. As long as most people had to serve
the whim of their masters, Russias economy would
remain backward. Landowning nobles had no reason
to improve agriculture and took little interest
in industry.
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For centuries, czars had ruled with absolute
power, imposing their will on their subjects. The
changes brought about by the Enlightenment and
the French Revolution had almost no effect on
Russian autocracy.
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When Alexander I inherited the throne in 1801,
however, he seemed open to liberal ideas. The new
czar eased censorship and promoted education. He
even talked about freeing the serfs.
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By the time Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812,
Alexander had drawn back from reform. Like
earlier czars, he feared losing the support of
nobles. At the Congress of Vienna, he joined the
conservative powers in opposing liberal and
nationalist impulses in Europe.
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When Alexander I died in 1825, a group of army
officers led an uprising known as the Decembrist
Revolt. They had pick up liberal ideas while
fighting Napoleon in Western Europe and now
demanded a constitution. The new czar, Nicholas
I, suppressed the Decembrists and cracked down on
all dissent.
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Nicholas used police spies to hunt out critics.
He banned books from Western Europe that might
spread liberal ideas. Only approved textbooks
were allowed in schools and universities. Many
Russians with liberal or revolutionary ideas were
judged to be insane and sent to mental hospitals.
Up to 150,000 others were exiled to Siberia.
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Still, Nicholas realized that Russia needed to
modernize. He issued a new law code and made some
economic reforms. He even tried to limit the
power of landowners over serfs. But he could see
no way to change the system completely without
angering Russian nobles and weakening the power
of the czar.
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Before Nicholas I died, he told his son, I am
handing you command of the country in a poor
state.
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Alexander II came to the throne in 1855 during
the Crimean War. The war had broken out after
Russia tried to seize Ottoman lands along the
Danube. Britain and France stepped in to help the
Turks, invading the Crimean peninsula that juts
into the Black Sea.
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A widespread popular reaction followed. Liberals
demanded changes, and students demonstrated for
reform. Pressed from all sides, Alexander II
finally agreed to reforms. In 1861, he issued a
royal decree that required emancipation of the
serfs.
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Freedom brought problems. Former serfs had to buy
the land they had worked for so long. Many were
too poor to do so. Also, the lands allotted to
peasants were often too small to farm efficiently
or to support a family. As a result, peasants
remained poor, and discontent festered.
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Still, emancipation was a turning point. Many
peasants moved into the cities, taking jobs in
factories and building Russian industries.
Equally important, freeing the serfs boosted the
drive for further reform.
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Along with emancipation, Alexander set up a
system of local government. Elected assemblies,
called zemstvos, were made responsible for
matters such as road repair, schools, and
agriculture. At the local level, Russians gained
some experience of self-government.
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The Crimean War ended in a Russian defeat,
revealed the countrys backwardness. It had only
a few miles of railroads, and the military
bureaucracy was hopelessly inefficient. Many felt
that dramatic changes were needed.
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The czar also introduced legal reforms based on
ideas such as trial by jury. He eased censorship
and tried to reform the military. A soldiers
term of service was reduced from 25 years to 15,
a brutal discipline was limited. Alexander also
encouraged the growth of industry in Russia,
which still relied almost entirely on
agriculture.
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Alexanders reforms failed to satisfy many
Russians. Peasants had freedom but not land.
Liberals wanted a constitution and an elected
legislature. Radicals, who had adopted socialist
ideas from the West, demanded even more
revolutionary changes. The czar, meantime, moved
away from reform and toward repression.
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In the 1870s, some socialists carried the message
of reform to the peasants. They went to live and
work among the peasants, sometimes preaching
rebellion. These educated young men and women had
little success. The peasants scarcely understood
them and sometimes turned them over to the police.
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The failure of this Go to the People movement,
combined with renewed government repression,
sparked anger among radicals. Some turned to
terrorism. A revolutionary group calling itself
the Peoples Will assassinated officials and
plotted to kill the czar. Their first attempts
failed.
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On a cold March day in 1881, terrorists hurled
two bombs at Alexanders carriage. One struck
down several guards. The second killed the leader
known to some as the czar emancipator.
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Alexander III responded to his fathers
assassination by reviving the harsh methods of
Nicholas I. To wipe out liberals and
revolutionaries, he increased the power of the
secret police, restored strict censorship, and
exiled critics to Siberia..
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The czar also launched a program of Russification
aimed at suppressing the cultures of non-Russian
peoples with the empire. Alexander insisted on
one language, Russian, and one church, the
Russian Orthodox Church.
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Poles, Ukrainians, Finns, Armenians, and many
others suffered persecution. The Russification
campaign also targeted Jews and Muslims in the
empire.
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Russia acquired a large Jewish population when it
carved up Poland and expanded into Ukraine. Under
Alexander III, persecution of Russian Jews
increased. The czar limited the number of Jews
who were allowed to study in universities and
practice professions, such as law and medicine.
He revived old laws that forced Jews to live in
certain restricted areas.
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Official persecution encouraged pogroms, or
violent mob attacks on Jews. Gangs beat and
killed Jews and looted and burned their homes and
stores. The police did nothing to stop the
violence. Faced with savage persecution, many
Jews escaped from Russia. They became refugees,
or people who flee their homeland to seek safety
elsewhere.
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Large numbers of Russian Jews went to the United
States. Though they often faced prejudice and
great hardship there, they were safe from pogroms
and official persecution. Jewish immigrants sent
joyful news back to Russia There is no czar in
America!
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Under Alexander III and his son, Nicholas II,
Russia finally entered the industrial age. In the
1890s, Count Serge Witte, finance minister to
Nicholas, focused on economic development. Witte
encouraged railroad building to connect iron and
coal mines with factories and to transport goods
across Russia.
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Witte secured foreign capital to invest in
transportation systems and industry. Loans from
France helped build the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
Begun in the 1890s, it linked European Russia to
the Pacific Ocean.
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Russian workers laid more than 5,000 miles of
track to build the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the
longest railroad in the world at that time.
Siberias harsh landscape and climate challenged
workers. Iron, stone, hardwoods, and food had to
be shipped thousands of miles to the crews.
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In the chilling winters, many workers died from
hypothermia. With no safety devices, some fell to
their deaths onto frozen rivers. To lay tracks in
some areas, workers had to dynamite permanently
frozen soil. These explosions, often proved
fatal, as did epidemics of bubonic plague,
anthrax, and cholera.
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Industrialization created new social ills as
peasants flocked to cities to work in factories.
Instead of a better life, they found long hours
and low pay in dangerous conditions. In the slums
around the factories, poverty, disease, and
discontent multiplied.
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Radicals sought supporters among the new
industrial workers. At factory gates, socialists
handed out pamphlets that preached the
revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx.
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Among the revolutionaries of the 1890s was young
Vladimir Ulyanov, whose older brother had been
executed for plotting to kill Alexander III. Like
many revolutionaries, Ulyanov used an alias,
Lenin. In 1917, Lenin would take power in a
revolution that transformed Russia.
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War broke out between Russia and Japan in 1904,
Nicholas II called on his people to fight for
the Faith, the Czar, and the Fatherland. But
despite their efforts, the Russians suffered one
humiliating defeat after another.
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News of the military disasters unleashed pent-up
discontent created by years of oppression.
Protesters poured into the streets. Workers went
on strike with demands for shorter hours and
better wages. Liberals called for a constitution
and reforms to overhaul the inefficient, corrupt
government.
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As the crisis deepened, a young Orthodox priest,
Father George Gapon, organized a march for
Sunday, January 22, 1905. Father Gapon felt
certain that the Little Father, as many
Russians called the czar, would help his people
if only he understood their sufferings.
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The parade flowed through the icy streets of St.
Petersburg toward the czars lavish Winter
Palace. Chanting prayers and singing hymns,
workers carried holy icons and pictures of the
czar. They also brought a petition for justice
and freedom, which was addressed to Nicholas.
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Fearing the marchers, the czar had fled the
palace and called in soldiers. As the people
approached, they saw troops lined up across the
square. Suddenly, gunfire rang out. Men and women
ran and fell. More shots left hundreds dead or
wounded in the snow.
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A woman stumbling away from the scene of the
massacre moaned The czar has deserted us! They
shot away the orthodox faith. Indeed, the
slaughter marked a turning point for Russians.
Bloody Sunday killed the peoples faith and
trust in the czar.
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In the months that followed Bloody Sunday,
discontent exploded across Russia. Strikes
multiplied. In some cities, workers took over
local government. In the countryside, peasants
revolted and demanded land. Minority
nationalities called for autonomy from Russia.
Terrorists targets officials, and some assassins
were cheered as heroes by discontented Russians.
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At last, the clamor grew so great that Nicholas
was forced to announce sweeping reforms. In the
October Manifesto, he promised freedom of
person, conscience, speech, assembly, and union.
He agreed to summon a Duma, or elected national
legislature. No law, he declared, would go into
effect without approval by the Duma.
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The manifesto won over moderates, leaving
socialists isolated. These divisions helped the
czar, who had no intention of letting strikers,
revolutionaries, and rebellious peasants
challenge him.
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In 1906, the first Duma met, but the czar quickly
dissolved it when leaders criticized the
government. Nicholas then appointed a new prime
minister, Peter Stolypin. Arrests, pogroms, and
executions followed as the conservative Stolypin
sought to restore order.
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Stolypin soon realized that Russia needed reform,
not just repression. To regain peasant support,
he introduced moderate land reforms. He
strengthened the zemstvos and improved education.
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As prime minister, Stolypin used harsh measures
to silence opposition. On his orders, trials of
terrorists were held within 24 hours of arrest
executions were held immediately upon conviction.
More than 1,000 suspected terrorists were
executed in less than a year. The noose used to
hang them came to be known as Stolypins
necktie.
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These reforms were too limited to meet the broad
needs of most Russians, and dissatisfaction still
simmered. Stolypin was assassinated in 1911.
Several more Dumas met during this period, but
new voting laws made sure they were conservative.
By 1914, Russia was still an autocracy, simmering
with unrest.
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