Political authority government and Tsar

📌 The 1905 Revolution

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By the end of 1903, the situation in Russia was becoming increasingly volatile:

• Poor policies
• The conditions of the workers were appalling
• There were failed reforms and Trade Unions – complete backfire: trade unions became a cover for revolution plan meetings

The Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905

Causes:

• The Russian expansionist policy in the Far East wanted to exploit the area in and around Manchuria, which was rich in resources and markets, and also to control the ice-free Port Arthur
• The Japanese, already in control of the Korean peninsula, were not welcoming of the Russian intrusion on an area they had marked out for expansion
• When Japan proposed a compromise where Russia could have predominance in Manchuria if Japan could control Korea, the Russians treated the Japanese with disdain
• Japan soon afterwards launched an attack on Russian Ships at Port Arthur on Jan 26th, 1904

Key Events:

• Battle of Yalu River, April 30 - May 1, 1904
• Battle of the Yellow Sea, August 10, 1904
• Jan 1905: Russians lose control of Port Arthur to the Japanese, causing an uprising in public disdain towards the government back in Russia

Why was Russia defeated?

• They completely underestimated Japan
• The Japanese army and navy were better trained and highly disciplined
• The Japanese had more effective intelligence and was much closer to the action
• The Russians suffered several defeats in early 1904 and had to retreat

Reactions and effects

• By July 1904 the gov was in disarray and had lost most of the people's support
• The assassination of the Minister of the Interior, Plehve, garnered minimal attention
• Zemstvo meetings were organised by liberals
• 5000 delegates pushed for constitutional change such as the extension of the franchise, a national representative body, and civil liberty reforms
• The Union of Liberation organised a number of 'banquets' to meet in secret
• The press openly reported these banned meetings with an anti-gov tone to their reporting
• The economic downturn was worsened by the war
• The 1904-05 winter was one of large-scale discontent

Father Gapon

• In 1903 was allowed by police to set up the Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers as he was a loyal monarchist
• He genuinely wanted to help workers, but his union was infiltrated by ex-social democrats
• As the situation in St Petersburg deteriorated, he helped write the petition and organise the march
• When the violence erupted he is alleged to have shouted "There is no God! There is no Tsar!"
• He went into hiding and later fled abroad
• He returned to St Petersburg but was murdered in 1906, probably by the Okhrana but possibly by SRs

Bloody Sunday 1905

• Four workers were sacked at the Putilov Engineering works
• 100,000 workers carried out a strike in solidarity
• Father Gapon organised a petition and a march to the Winter Palace to seek the help of the Tsar
• 9th January 1905: up to 150,000 workers marched in their Sunday best clothes, carrying images of the Tsar and his family
• They marched in good spirits towards the Winter Palace
• As they approached, they were charged by cavalry and troops opened fire. Around 130 were killed and 300 seriously wounded. After this, the tone of the demands was changed: political rather than economic
• Orlando Figes: "in the one vital moment the popular myth of a Good Tsar which had sustained the regime through the centuries was suddenly destroyed"
• By the end of Jan, over 400,000 were on strike
• On Feb 4th, the Tsar's own uncle, Grand Duke Sergei, was assassinated
• The regime had lost control of the country

The course of the Revolution

Union of Unions

• Several professional organisations (lawyers, engineers etc) and trade organisations (clerks, book-keepers etc) came together to form the Union of Unions
• An umbrella body
• Pressed the cause of liberal political reform
• Requested a national representative assembly elected by universal suffrage
• Meetings were held in universities thrown open by students
• Hundreds of city councils and Zemstva sent in petitions demanding political change

Peasant action

• Took advantage of the upheaval
• In June and July, peasants began seizing land, grain and animals
• They burned landlord's houses
• Cut timber illegally
• Refused to pay rent and taxes
• General demands were land, the end of redemption payments and a reduction in rents
• No coordinated movement
• A range of unions and societies appeared
• End of July All-Russian Peasant Union met near Moscow
• Army was used to put down rebellions, but it was mainly composed of peasants, so mutinies began to spread as units refused to carry out orders

Response of Minorities

• Took advantage of government disarray
• Demanded autonomy, democratic gov and the end of Russification and the Poles and Finns demanded outright independence
• In many areas the struggle became violent
• In the Caucasus, officials were attacked
• Strong nationalist character to demands
• Demand for local language and culture to be taught in schools
• The Tsar dispatched 10,000 troops to Georgia to try to keep it under control
• In Poland, there was a virtual state of civil war, and the tsarist regime had to keep a force of 300,000 soldiers there
• Troops shot 93 Poles who took part in demonstrations sparked by Bloody Sunday
• This provoked more demonstrations
• Popular unrest in the Baltic States followed a similar pattern

The Mutiny of the battleship Potemkin

• On June 14th the crew of the Battleship Potemkin mutinied over harsh conditions and being given rotten meat to eat
• They seized control of the ship and sailed to Odessa, which was in a state of turmoil with daily demonstrations
• The arrival of the ship was warmly received by huge crowds
• Troops were ordered to disperse the crowd and opened fire
• Around 2000 citizens were killed
• The Battleship escaped but failed to find support for other mutinies
• The sailors surrendered the ship in a Romanian port in exchange for safe refuge
• This was an embarrassment and a wake-up call for the government.
• The Tsar realised he had to end the war between Russia and Japan since the loyalty of the armed forces was decreasing.
• The Treaty of Portsmouth, negotiated by Sergei Witte, was released on August 29, 1950

General Strike

• In September, a general strike was called
• It started with printers and spread to railway workers, bringing the system to a halt
• Up to 2 million workers supported the strike in cities like Moscow and St Petersburg
• Food and medical supplies ran short
• Unburied bodies piled up
• There was an explosion of criminality
• Middle-class professionals and some industrialists supported the strikers
• Barricades went up, manned by a mix of workers, students and professionals
• This initiated clashes with the Police and the Cossacks
• The strike carried on into October

The St Petersburg Soviet

• Formed on October 13th
• Mensheviks prompted the soviet (soviet in Russian means 'council') of workers' deputies to meet
• The meeting was set up to coordinate the activities of workers in the general strike
• It was made up of mainly representatives elected from factories

The St Petersburg Soviet

• Leon Trotsky became deputy chairman and was noted for his fiery speeches
• Directed the general strike and then informed workers through its newspaper_Izvestia_
• Sorted out food supplies with Urban workers emerged as an organised force confronting autocracy

The October Manifesto

The October Manifesto

• The Tsar tried to ignore the strike, but the country was on the edge of disaster, and the advisers persuaded him that something had to be done
• He turned to Witte, who told Nicholas that he had two choices of action:
• put down the uprising brutally
• introduce reforms (Witte's favoured option) Nicholas preferred a military dictatorship to a constitutional government, but most of his advisers and generals were with Witte

Nicholas was reluctantly dragged to agree with the October Manifesto on the 17 of October

This conceded:

• Civil liberties

• Freedom of speech (end of the censorship of the press) and conscience, freedom of association and the end of unwarranted arrests

• An elected Duma (parliament) The aftermath of the October Manifesto

• Liberal shailed the manifesto as the first step towards constitutional government, so the main aim of the campaign had been achieved and moved to support the Tsar

• The St Petersburg Soviet called off the strike since it brought hardship to most of those involved

• After the manifesto, there was a brief period of celebration: political meetings were held in the streets and parks, new newspapers and publications flourished Two important new liberal political parties were formed:

• The Constitutional Democrats/Kadets

• The Octoberists

• At the end of October, there was an explosion of violence

• There was fighting between right and left

• Right-wing parliamentary gangs called the Black Hundreds marched around with portraits of the Tsar and were supported by the police. They carried out revenge attacks on anybody perceived to be on the left or anti-Tsar

• There was a concerted attack on Jewish communities. This involved the burning of Jewish houses and businesses, rape and looting and over 3,000 Jews were murdered in the last two weeks of October 1905

📌 What was the most significant reason the Tsar survived?

The divided opposition was the most significant reason the Tsar survived because the people of Russia continued to disagree on their opinions and views on the government and how they wanted to change it. They couldn't agree on whether to overthrow the Tsar and government with violence and revolution, or with peaceful protests for reform.

The views and ideas varied from place to place since Russia was a vast country – the differing views conflicted with each other and limited the progress the more radical political groups could make in overthrowing government, because many were actually satisfied with the reforms carried out, especially those done by Witte, as he overall was successful in his aim to industrialise Russia and increased the income and export of the country. The government was divided too, with liberals and peasant representatives becoming more prominent. The opposition being unable to decide on an overall view shared by everyone caused conflict on how reform of the government should be carried out.

Some wanted reform, some wanted to completely throw out the Tsar and the government. These conflicting views and ideas also meant that a clear overall opinion of the people could not be reached, as compromise was made difficult because of this.

The Constitutional Experiment: 1906 – 1917

Significance of the 1905 Revolution

• The first challenge to Tsarist regime
• Showed the importance of military loyalty to propping up the Tsar
• The creation of Dumas and liberal political parties appeased the middle classes
• The Tsar and his regime massively underestimated the wider disenchantment in society
• The myth of 'The Good Tsar' was destroyed
• The People had tasted political and social freedoms
• Abraham Ascher: 'An Incomplete Revolution'

The Dumas

• Promised as part of the October Manifesto
• Russian parliament was far from democratic
• April 1906 Fundamental Law: 'The Sovereign Emperor possesses the initiative on all legislative matters… The Sovereign Emperor ratifies all laws. No law can come into force without his approval'
• Article 87: in 'exceptional circumstances the Tsar could pass laws without consulting the Duma
• The State Council: second, upper chamber, equally as powerful as the Duma, with half its members chosen personally by the Tsar
• All laws must be agreed upon by both houses before going to the Tsar
• Liberals outraged by the unequal franchise – this was weighted in favour of the upper classes
• 2,000 landowners and 90,000 workers each collectively represented by 1 deputy in the Duma
• Ongoing role of Stolypin: President of the Council of Ministers in 1906 – a strong conservative but also believed reform was needed to maintain the system in Russia

Kadets

Mainly liberal intelligentsia, wanted a democratically elected assembly, civil rights for all, end of censorshipTrudoviks – loose grouping, main aim was agrarian reform. Consisted mainly of deputies representing the peasants because the SRs had boycotted electionsThe National Groups – represented national minorities, such as the Poles, Finns, the peoples of the Caucasus and central Asia. Most were nationalists seeking to further the interests of their group and more self-government. Some wanted to preserve the Empire, as they were Russian nationalists from the western provincesThe Rightists – loose collection of groups on the right wing of the political spectrum, with a wide-ranging set of viewsThe Octoberists – thought that constitutional gov. should go no further than set out in the October Manifesto. They wanted new legal order and cooperation between gov and the public. Favoured moderate political reforms. More of an association of different groups than one defined group

The Progressists

mainly businessmen and members of the Zemstva who wanted to take the programme of reform much further than the Octoberists

The First Duma

The First Duma

• April 1906, the Tauride Palace
• Despite the electoral system bias, the Kadets won the most seats: 182 out of 448
• The second largest party was the leftist Trudoviks with 107 seats
• Other groupings were fluid with many deputies not joining any party clearly
• The Kadets demanded that the powers of the duma should be increased, and elections should be universal and secret
• Rightists had a much smaller representation and there was an air of hostility directed mostly towards the Tsar and his government
• They wanted guarantees of free speech and assembly
• Two months of bitter disagreement and fierce debates on issues such as civil rights and land ownership followed
• The Tsar was horrified by the hostility and lack of respect so dissolved the Duma, considering it unworkable
• It is reported that he said "Curse the Duma. It is all Witte's doing."
• Two hundred Kadet deputies took themselves off to Vyborg in Finland
• They issued the Vyborg Manifesto urging Russians not to pay their taxes
• The government responded by closing down Kadet offices and dismissing members of the party from gov service
• Many rebellious deputies were later arrested and disbarred from re-election
• This hurt them in the second Duma elections

The Second Duma

• Despite the failure of the first Duma, peasants and workers still had high hopes for the second Duma and flocked to the polls in huge numbers
• Over 70% of eligible workers in St Petersburg voted
• The second Duma met in February 1907

The Second Duma

• This was largely because revolutionary parties had joined the elections for the first time
• The left ran out the winners with over 200 deputies
• The Trudoviks were the largest group with 104 deputies
• The right-wing groupings had also increased their number - they had over 60 deputies, the Octoberists had 42
• It was much more radical than the first – named 'the Duma of national anger'
• Right and left-wing deputies provoked each other
• Fierce attacks were made on government ministers, and they were interrupted when speaking in the Duma
• After three months the Duma was dissolved again under the excuse of the discovery of a plot by Social Democrats to assassinate the Tsar.

The Third Duma

The Third Duma

• Stolypin worked with the Octoberists and those in the centre
• Relations between the Duma government were much more cooperative.
• It was, however, not subservient, it was critical of the government, in particular, matters to do with state finances
• The right-wing groups tried to put a break on Stolypin's reforms especially his plan to extend the zemstvo system to western Russia
• by 1911 relations were breaking down but at least it showed the Duma could work positively with the government
• Government ministers were coming to the Duma to answer questions whereas before they'd only explained themselves to the Tsar
• Education law in 1908, laid the foundations for universal education, especially compulsory primary schools for 8- to 11-year-olds Improvements in the army and Navy
• Restoration of justices of the peace
• Progressive National Health insurance scheme which would pay sickness benefits to workers

"Stolypin's era marked a significant shift in Duma-government relations, fostering cooperation while also facing resistance, especially regarding reforms and finances, with notable achievements in education, health, and military improvements."

The Fourth Duma

• Fourth Duma interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War
• Composition was much the same as the third Duma although rightists were stronger and Octoberists weaker
• Continued support and money for the law of 1908, provided universal education, a number of primary schools had risen significantly up to 1914 - improvement in literary rates
• Reforms of the Orthodox Church, and the reduction of state control - Nicholas would make no final decisions on this before the war intervened
• Talk to reducing huge consumption of vodka, because of its impact on public health but no action was taken because the government got so much revenue from it
• It was critical of the gov's handling of the increasing social unrest, especially the Lena goldfields massacre
• The Duma met briefly in 1915 when Nicholas was persuaded to recall it
• A 'progressive bloc' was formed - offering the Tsar a real chance to work with the people
• Nicholas would not countenance it and the Duma was suspended