KQ: How did a revolutionary tradition develop in Russia?
Popular unrest was the main type of protest seen until the second half of the nineteenth century. These riots and rebellions were spontaneous, caused by famine or overly-harsh feudal dues.
By the middle of the nineteenth century however three key issues were being argued by the small group of Russian intellectuals.
The relationship between the individual and autocracy
The relationship of Russia to Europe.
Upper and Lower classes could not decide where Russia’s future lay.
By the 1840s these issues were beginning to merge into two debates. The two sides became known as the SLAVOPHILES and WESTERNISERS.
Both groups idealized the MIR, wanted to see some form of consultative representative institution, and feared the incompetence of the current regime. But Slavophiles were conservative compared to Westernisers who wanted to see development spurred on by a class struggle within a capitalist system.
Slavophiles emphasized ‘Slavic’ values of togetherness whilst Westernizers valued Western ideas like industrialisation and urbanisation.
Slavophiles were devout Orthodox Christians – Westernisers were non-believers opposed to state religions.
Slavophiles opposed individualism as it was linked to freedom – Westernisers valued individual rights including democracy.
What did Slavophiles and Westernisers agree upon?
Slavophiles argued that Eastern European Slavs should be united into a Russian Empire with a capital at Constantinople (Tsargrad). Obviously this was dangerous as it upset those empires containing Slavs, like Austria, Turkey and Prussia. Tsars, who tended to marry into German ruling families, preferred Westernisers, but their challenges to autocracy, orthodoxy and nationalism made them difficult to deal with. Both groups were only a fringe of intellectuals and their ideas were insignificant in their time. However their influence was enormous as their ideas were carried into the universities and from there spread to future generations.
What problems did Slavophiles and Westernisers pose for the Tsars?
Slavophiles and Westernisers
By the middle of the 19th C intellectuals debated three key issues:
The relationship between the individual and autocracy
The relationship between Russia and Europe
How the gulf between the nobility and the peasantry ought to be addressed: i.e. what was Russia’s future?
Two groups emerged who were described as Slavophiles and Westernisers.
Shared a love of Russia
Idealised the peasantry and wanted their emancipation
Saw the Mir and the commune as a basis for future development
Agreed on the need for social reform and some sort of consultative assembly
Put the following descriptions into the right box above:
Emphasised the unity of Tsar and people
Non-political and conservative
Believed future development would be based on the class struggle within a capitalist system
Valued industrialisation and urbanisation
Devout Christians who believed in Orthodoxy
Opposed to individualism and excessive individual freedom
Supported the rights of the individual and democracy
Non-believers & opposed to the idea of a state religion
KQ: What was the Populist movement and why was it significant?
Despite the policy of repression in the 1870s the revolutionary activity continued. The Populist movement was the major opposition group. They were composed of two parts, the Narodniks (means ‘To the People) and the Narodnya Volya (‘The Peoples Will’).
They planned to achieve their ideal of the perfect society based on the MIR (village commune) and so sent 2000-3000 educated Populists from the nobility and the intelligentsia to live with the people and educate them between 1873 and 1874. They were to explain to the peasants what they truly wanted and encourage them to rise up against the Tsar and form a Populist state.
What was the Populist aim?
But the peasants regarded the Populists with deep suspicion and either beat them up or reported them to the police. Populism had failed. Two major trials of 243 young revolutionaries were held in 1877-8. Only those who escaped into exile kept Populist ideas alive.
The remaining Populists became by necessity much more hard headed in their approach, developing into a close knit revolutionary group. They continued going to the peasants but increasingly it became clear the peasants would not revolt against the Tsar en masse.
By 1879 the revolutionary group had reached a crossroads. There were two main groups:
Black Partition – led by Plekhanov this group planned to advance the interests of the peasantry by political reform and mass agitation rather than violence.
People’s Will – believed in political terrorism and directed all their attention to the assassination of the Tsar which they achieved on 1st March 1881 when Alexander was fatally wounded in the second of two bomb attacks.
It was this division that brought Populism to an end.
What two groups did Populism divide into?
What the People’s Will believe in? What did they do?
Why was Populism significant?
It was significant because despite its failures (e.g the fact that its members were repeatedly lost after each outrage and its activities alienated many members of the public) it inspired political awareness in many people and influenced in particular the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs).
(SRs believed in the right of the people to govern themselves. As heirs to Populism they attached importance to peasant organisations like the MIR which accounts for the support they got from the peasants.)
Who were the heirs of Populism?
Where was their main area of support and why?
KQ: What had encouraged the growth of a liberal movement in Tsarist Russia?
Liberalism is defined as the belief in individual rights of freedom of speech, the rule of law and participation of the people in government.
Initially encouraged by Alexander II’s liberal reforms of the 1860s although he eventually rejected proposals for consultative government based on the ZEMSTVA (local representative councils). Nicholas II dismissed their proposals as a ‘senseless dream’ but the moderates continued their campaign through the zemstva whilst a separate group called the THIRD ELEMENT campaigned more vigorous on a more extreme platform of demanding universal primary education and an end to separate legal status for peasants (only they could be recruited for the army for example).
What encouraged the Liberals?
Unfortunately Russia’s lack of an entrepreneurial middle class, the natural home of the bourgeois liberal, mean that Russia’s liberal groups were very small in size and therefore almost completely insignificant in terms of their actual political effect.
Why were the Liberal influences insignificant?
Assess the reasons for the development of opposition and revolutionary groups in the reign of Nicholas II
Introduction: brief outline of groups in question:
Revolutionaries – Populists (1870’s +), SD’s (1898), SR’s (1901)
Reformers – Liberals (1905)
This essay will argue that key reasons …… are
Russia’s economic, social and political backwardness embarrassed and concerned many and led to debates between Westerners & Slavophiles: should Russia follow a Western path or her traditional Slavic heritage?
Reforms of Alex II led to more reformist and revolutionary demands. E.g.:
Emancipation led to greater poverty and calls for social change
Zemstvos – a limited opportunity for political participation
Universities (1860 – 1914 students grew from 5,000 to 69,000) , press (newspapers grew from 13 – 856), growth of public bodies (250 – 16,000) all led to growth of civil society and an intelligentsia
Reaction: Alex II still an autocrat and reaction set in later in his reign and, after his assass’n, under Alex III – which N II would continue
Influence of 1891 famine (“the defining event of the decade” (John Hutchinson) ) in raising people’s awareness of social conditions amongst the peasantry and of the regime’s incompetence and hostility to those who tried to help. “Even the young Lenin only became converted to the Marxist mainstream in the wake of the famine crisis” (Figes, p.162)
Development of Marxism as a science that:
Helped people understand Russia’s backwardness
Provided a roadmap for a bright future – revolution and social justice!
But NB also Russia’s own Populist revolutionary tradition was also a key influence on early 20th C revolutionaries
“Nicholas the Unready” (Hutchinson):
mindset: referred to zemstvo requests to be heard as “senseless dreams”
influence of Pobedonostsev (democracy: “the greatest lie of our time”).
Nicholas ‘s early policies: impact of Russification and anti-Semitism
Economic growth under Witte and his own repressive style (he was known as ‘the hangman’) contributed to culture of political assassination and led to conditions in the cities in which unrest, strikes and revolution would flourish. His reforms highlight contradiction of economic modernisation going hand in hand with political repression.
Government incompetence and humiliation: 1904 – 05 Russo-Japanese War leads to 1905 Revolution
1905 Revolution, October Manifesto and NII’s concessions creates Duma and splits opposition. 1905 later referred to as ‘dress rehearsal’ for 1917, but at the time Trotsky concluded that the regime came out of it ‘alive and strong’ and revolutionaries played very little role. Importance of St. Petersburg Soviet as a model for the Bolsheviks (April Theses)
Stolypin’s reforms:
uneven impact of his agrarian reforms creates peasant underclass
high-handed treatment of Duma antagonises liberal opposition
Growth of tensions after Stolypin (Lena Goldfields 1912 etc) leads in part to
revival of Bolsheviks
despair of moderates (Guchkov etc)
Impact of World War One
Prolonged military failure, economic dislocation and incompetence of the Tsar and his government (+ influence of Tsarina & Rasputin) leads to February Revolution
NB: opposition and revolutionary groups do not experience steady development – fortunes rise and fall (e.g. 1907 – 1912 the Bolsheviks are in limbo; Dec 1916 Lenin says he will not see revolution in his lifetime etc)
The most significant reasons for the development of opposition and revolutionary groups are ……