Government

Intelligentsia.

Army

Population

The Key Actors in THE REVOLUTION TO COME:

Government 1900

•Patrimonial = inherit

•Absolute Monarchy

•Hierarchy

•Bureaucratic

•Medieval

Nikolaj II 1894-1918:

•Owned Russia!

•Of average intelligence

•Without a strong will

•Not a very happy little bear

•“Family man”

Alexandra Fjodorovna, The Czaresse:

•Grand daughter of Victoria I.

•Born in Germany.

•Very willful.

•Believer in the absolute Monarchy.

•“Russia loves to feel the whip”

Problems were solved with oppression.

The Czar used five tools to govern Russia:

1. The Civil Government

– The Adminstration

2. The Secret Police

3. The aristocracy

4. The Army.

5. The Orthodox Church.

Did these five groups support the Czar?

The Government:

You followed orders.

Radicals were shut up.

Economy were run by the owners, the capitalists.

So the Czar had no control over the Economy.

The Secret Police:

Suspicious about everything that wasn’t State.

You were considered an enemy if you didn’t work for the state.

Dual view – the state against its enemies the people.

The aristocracy:

In early 1800’s tried to get more privilligies.

1861 – loss of income

Either liberals or reactionaries

Lost most of their meaningful benefits

No political group – Lenin was noble

The army:

1,4 million men in arms

Biggest army in the world

Huge country no infrastructure

Army non-political by tradition

Served the guy in charge, no questions asked

The church:

55 % were Russian Orthodox

Lost it’s power when Peter the great had put civil servants as heads and Catharine the great took the land

By tradition supporters of the monarch and non-political

Liberal priests growing problem

How did you get a job in the Russian Administration?•Your job was to help the Czar, you were a personal servant to him.•You should please your superiors and the Czar.•You were hired by your superiors and could be fired by him, no right to appeal.•“Never” got fired since that meant that the superior made a mistake hiring you.•No skills required, Loyalty and the ability to follow orders.

Career?

•There were 14 grades, tjin.

•You start at the lowest 14th.

•Grade four and up = nobility.

•To get the “good jobs” you had to earn the higher grades.

Problems caused by this :

•Higher civil servant had no contact with the people.

•Only the adjustable bureaucrat made a career.

•The people with drastic but good ideas never were promoted.

•Democracy never heard of. YOU FOLLOW THE BOSS, PERIOD, NO DISCUSSION!!!!

An image of Russian Administration = A Police-state.

Czar.

Ministry of Interior:Controlled Police.PrisonsCensorshipProclaim state of emergency Secret Police w Agent.

Guvernement, districts.Police department the most powerful.Could send people away up to five years w no trial.

Villages.Village Councils.

Population in Russia 1900

80 % peasants. No private ownership.

Family = ca 15 individuals. No enclosure movement.

Serfdom (livegenskap) until 1861 Very little interference from the State.

What is good for the village is No nationalism = bad soldiers.good for the peasant.

Population growth. Hunger for Land.

The power structure of the villages.

The Village Council:Mir = the village community.Head of Village = Starosta = one person appointed by government.

The Head of the family:Usually the grandfather.He owned everything.Dictator of the family.Bolsjak

Sons of the family And husbands to the daughters.

Women

Problems in the countryside:

The Mir:

What they decided went for the whole village. If they said that everybody should vote for Bolshevik – you voted for Bolshevik.

Since the Starosta could be replaced he never disagreed with government.

They decided on crops

It only mattered what was good for the village.

No feeling for the Nation = Bad soldiers.

The Bolsjak-system:

The young sons and husbands didn’t own the land.

No incitement to improve production.

Growth = getting more land instead of improving methods.

The individual had no idea which part of the land he would get.

Didn’t kick out the unproductive parts of farming society.

No enclosure movement.

The Hunger for Land:

Peasants expected the Czar to give away the privately owned land to the mir and by that solving the problems in the countryside.

Makes it easier for revolutionaries to recruit farmers.

Workers and Capitalists?

WORKERS?

Avery small part of thethe Russian population

Ca 1 million full time workers.

Most “workers” were part timefarmers.

No right to form Unions.

This will mean serious problems for the Bolsheviks

CAPITALISTS?

Witte’s reforms

Foreign investments25 billion in gold 1892-1914

Oil and coal producing giant

The world’s fifth big economy

Impossible to combine withOld ancient structure Police-state

“The smart” civil servant will be radical anti-absolute monarch

THE INTELLIGENTSIA

“Whether the conflicts and the aggressions that exist in every society can be solved peacefully or explodes into a revolution is decided by in great extent by the presence

or absence of democratic institutions capable of remedying discontent with laws, and the presence or

absence of an intelligentsia who have decided to foment popular discontent with the purpose of seizing the power

for themselves. Because it is the radical intelligentsia who transforms a stipulated discontent ... to a relentless

repudiation from the existing order. Revolts occur; revolutions are made. And they are made by groups of professional “revolutionaries”, that is to say the radical

intelligentsia.”

My translation Pipes, Richard “Den Ryska Revolutionen” p 39

The Role of the intelligentsia and the individual Politicians

The Intelligentsia in Russia:

They need an ideology to exist.

A RADICAL IDEOLOGY =

This ideology gives the believers the insight that they have all the answers; They are the keepers of the truth.

They are the social engineers that will save Russia.

In order to do this they have the right to interfere in society

They need money:

The society must have a class of intellectuals, teachers, priests, professors etc.

There superior insight in human life and behavior makes them keepers of a scientific truth, telling them how to raise the population

They need support from finical groups in the society.

We will learn that in Russia a majority of the politicians were radical, why is that?

The farmers and the workers never wanted to overthrow the Czar

Revolution not by the people but for them.

Compromises never worked.

Expressing a different opinion meant jail

Russian civil servants listen to the boss and followed orders

Contact with the ordinary people was a big disappointment, they never wanted a revolution!

Since you were violently oppressed you started using violent methods.

No democracy meant that you took matters in your own hand.

If you disliked a politician he had to be kicked out or killed

Political power = Personal Power

Summing up, how this will help us to understand the future revolutions and how the Bolsheviks could get power so quick:

1. The Czar didn’t want to rule and couldn’t rule. 2. Major areas of the society were strictly hierarchal, most

important the Government. To take power you had to change management, nothing else.

3. No democratic tradition = no democratic expectation. When the politicians are overthrown even if they were democrats nobody reacts.

4. Issues that people cared about were mainly concerning the Land Issue. They don’t care about the right to vote etc.

5. Since the Czar had all the power, at least formally, the political struggle became focused on him and how to get rid of him, not on the actual problems. In a less hierarchal society revolution would have been unnecessary. When the Czar looses his power people are used to listening to one guy, hence they will take orders from the new guy in charge.