Opposition (OCR A-Level History A): Revision Notes

Opposition

Political Opposition 1895 – 1905

Liberals Origins

• Can be traced back to the liberal intelligentsia in the 1850s and 1860s
• They were active in arguing for the emancipation of the serfs and representative "People's" assemblies
• The Zemstva have been identified as 'the seedbeds of liberalism'
• Included liberal-leaning members of nobility and middle class representatives
• Worked at the interface with peasants and workers

Ideology and main beliefs

• Civil rights and freedom of the individual
• Rule of law
• Free elections
• Parliamentary democracy and limitation of the Tsar's powers
• Self-determination for the national minorities
• Some believed the concept of the Zemstvo should be extended to regional and perhaps national level

Methods utilised

• Reform rather than violent action
• Political channels through Zemstva
• Articles in newspapers
• Meetings and reform banquets

Support base

• Main support came from middle-class intelligentsia
• Lawyers, doctors, professors, teachers, engineers and other professional groups
• Also had support among progressive landowners, industrialists and businessmen

Socialist Revolutionaries Origins

• Grew out of the Popularist movement
• A loose organisation accommodating groups with a wide variety of views
• More moderate groups followed the same lines as the Black Partition
• More extreme terrorists followed the tradition of The People's Will
• These two groups merged in 1901 – 02 to form the Socialist Revolutionary Party

Ideology and main beliefs

• Placed central hope for revolution with the peasants who would support a popular rising to overthrow the tsarist government
• Land would be taken from landlords and divided among peasants
• Unlike the Popularists, accepted the development of capitalism was a fact
• The leading exponent of these views was Victor Chernov
• Accepted that the growth of capitalism would promote the growth of a working class who'd rise against their masters
• Saw no need for peasants to pass through capitalism
• Believed they could move to a form of rural socialism based on the peasant commune
• Chernov saw the SRs as 'all labouring people'

Methods utilised

• Agitation and terrorism
• Including the assassination of as many as 2,000 gov. officials between 1901 and 1905
• One of these assassinated officials was the Minister of the Interior, Plehve, in 1904

Support base

• Peasants provided large support base
• By 1905 workers formed around 50% of the membership
• Many workers were ex-peasants
• Many had regular contact with their villages
• SRs often bemoaned their lack of strength in villages
• Most SR committees were run by students and intellectuals in towns
• Were recognised as the party representing the peasants

Social Democrats Origins

• George Plekhanov was the father of Russian Marxism – translated Karl Marx's work into Russian and saw it as the answer where Popularism had failed
• Like most radicals, Plekhanov was in exile having left Russia in 1880
• In 1898 he met with a small group of socialist exiles in a house on the outskirts of Minsk
• They formed the Social Democratic Labour Party
• In December 1900 the party published a newspaper to unite revolutionaries around the Marxist programme
• Lenin was on the editorial board
• There were disputes in the early years of the direction of the party
• In 1903 it split into two factions – Bolsheviks and Mensheviks

Lenin believed a revolutionary party should:

• Be made up of a small number of highly disciplined professional revolutionaries
• Operate under centralised leadership
• Have a system of small cells (made up of three people) so it would be more difficult for police to infiltrate and weaken the group

They believed it was the job of the party to bring socialist and class consciousness to the workers and lead them through the revolution. Critics warned that a centralised party like this would lead to dictatorship.

Support

• Mainly working class
• Bolsheviks tended to attract younger, more militant workers who liked discipline, firm leadership and simple slogans

Mensheviks

Believed the party should:

• Be broadly based and take in all those who wished to join
• Be more democratic
• Allow members to have a say in policy-making
• Encourage trade unions to help the working class improve their conditions

Mensheviks took the Marxist line that there would be a long period of bourgeois democratic government during which workers would develop a class and revolutionary consciousness until they were ready to take over in a socialist revolution

Support

• Mainly working class
• Tended to attract different types of workers and members of the intelligentsia
• More non-Russians
• Jews
• Georgians