Russia1825-1917

Russia

1815 1825 1853 1861 1881 1905

-Dynastic Crisis-Decembrist Revolt

Holy Alliance Formed

Crimean War (1853-

1856)

Official Nationalism

Alexander II (the Great Reformer)

becomes Tsar (1855)

Emancipation Act

Edicts of 1864 (Legal equality,

political representation

Alexander II assassinated by People’s

Will

Count Witte begins

Industrial reform (1882)

Bloody Sunday begins

Revolution of 1905

Russo-Japanese

War

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

Crimean War• Nationalist tensions led to the War • originated over competing claims by

Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox monks to be the guardians of Jerusalem’s 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

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 didn’t want the obvious solution (an autonomous state) to be put into effect as they felt threatened by nationalism

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)

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 Europe…we do not want its proletariat, its aristocratic system..

Autocracy of the Tsar• Russia’s 1st fundamental institution was autocracy

– Monopoly of power by Tsar and Boyars• But it wasn’t 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

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)

• Wasn’t profitable anymore• Made the muzhiks into “illiterate and stolid

drudges, without incentive, initiative, self-respect, or pride of workmanship”

• Made for very poor soldiers

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 Pushkin’s 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 People’s Will (terrorist group)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

• Bukunin’s pamphlet called People’s 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 passion—the 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

The People’s 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 People’s Will

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

Alexander III• Alexander III (1881 to 1894)• Abandoned his father’s

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

Russia after 1881: Reaction and Progress• Alexander III tried to stamp out

revolutionism

• Revolutionaries were exiled

• People’s 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

Konstantin Pobiedonostsev, Reactionary procurator of Holy Synod of Russian Orthodox Church & adviser to 3 Tsarsmain proponent of Russification

Saw West as a doomed cultureAttacked rationalism, liberalismSaid Slavs had unique characterHoped for a theocratic utopia where clergy protected masses from poison of the West  

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• Ex=400 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

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 Russia’s 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

Peasant Demands Liberal

Cadets Demands

Radical Intelligentsi

a

Proletariat demands

Tsarist Russia (1900)Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationalism

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

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

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

Social Revolutionary Party (1900)• Derived from the People’s 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 didn’t think that urban proletariat was only true revolutionary class

– Didn’t 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

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

Russo-Japanese Rivalry• Russia and Japan are opposed to each other’s

interests in Manchuria• Japanese need natural resources• Russians wanted a rail way to Vladivostok• Russia needed a distraction from criticisms of

Tsardom at home• Tsar’s advisors were racist and didn’t 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

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

“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

Reactions to “Bloody Sunday”• Dissolved the moral bond between the people and

the Tsar’s 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

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

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

1905-1917 elsewhere and on outline

Europe on Eve of WWI