Transcript Liberalization in Tsarist Russia: Alexander II

Russia
1825-1917
Russia
-Dynastic Crisis
-Decembrist
Revolt
Alexander II
(the Great
Reformer)
becomes Tsar
(1855)
Edicts of 1864
(Legal equality,
political
representation
Count Witte
begins
Industrial
reform
(1882)
RussoJapanese
War
Official Nationalism
1815
1825
Holy
Alliance
Formed
1853
Crimean
War (18531856)
1861
Emancipation
Act
1881
Alexander II
assassinated
by People’s
Will
1905
Bloody
Sunday
begins
Revolution
of 1905
Russia under Nicholas I
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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
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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
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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
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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, selfrespect, or pride of workmanship”
Made for very poor soldiers
Western Ideas and Education
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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
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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
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1870s hundreds of students went to the countryside to
live with and teach the peasants their role in upcoming
revolution
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Most turned over to police
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1879 split into the People’s Will (terrorist group)
The Emancipation Act of 1861 & Other Reforms
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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
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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
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Could demand forced labor from
members who defaulted on their
portion of the redemption
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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
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Discouraged the investment of outside
capital
Result: Agriculture in Russia would lag
behind the technical advancements of the
west
Inequality Among Peasants
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Most peasants belonged to a
Mir
Kulaks
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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
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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)
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Believed there was no compromising with
existing government
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Believed that violence was necessary
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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
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that true revolutionary is “devoured by one
purpose, one thought, one passion—the
revolution.”
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“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 pseudoparliamentary 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
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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 Tsars
main proponent of
Russification
Saw West as a doomed
culture
Attacked rationalism,
liberalism
Said Slavs had unique
character
Hoped for a theocratic
utopia where clergy
protected masses from
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
Tsarist Russia (1900)
Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationalism
Peasant
Demands
Liberal
Cadets
Demands
Proletariat
demands
Radical
Intelligentsi
a
Political Parties (1900)
“Political Parties” began to emerge by 1900
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– 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
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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 prewar 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
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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