AP EuroSpring 2010

LMHSMontaigne

Outline Combining Palmer and McKay on Russia

  1. Russia 1825-1905

A. The Decembrist Revolt 1825

  1. Alexander I died in 1825
  2. Military fragments somewhat and shows the influence of exposure to liberalism through contact with the west
  3. Constitutionalism
  4. Secret societies
  5. Republicanism
  6. Emancipation of the serfs
  7. There was uncertainty which of his 2 brothers would succeed him (Constatntine of Nicholas)
  8. Army preferred Constantine (Constantine and Constitution)
  9. Uneducated soldiers though Constitution was the name of his wife!
  10. Officers lead an uprising in December 1825
  11. Constantine had already deferred to Nicholas
  12. Nicholas I (1825-1855) puts down Decembrist revolt harshly
  13. Had rebellious officers hanged or sent to Siberia work camps
  14. Overall response is to clamp down on Russia
  15. Revolt foreshadows the Russian Revolution

B. Tsarist Russia after 1856

  1. Outcomes of the Crimean War showed the strength of the western nations
  2. The European examples again become the model for Russian reforms
  3. Two major perspectives in Russia
  4. Westernizers: Russia is destined to become more like Europe
  5. Slavophiles: Russia is destined to be unique (Just not sure what!)
  6. Russia had strong tradition of autocratic rule
  7. European conceptions were missing
  8. Spiritual authority is independent of state authority
  9. People have certain rights or claims for justice
  10. Rule by law was substituted with ukase, police action, and the army
  11. Developing technology was replaced with importing technology and forcing reforms onto the population
  12. Those within Russia that were exposed to western ideals objected to the pure bureaucracy
  13. Press and universities were censored
  14. Russian serfdom
  15. Characteristic of slavery
  16. Serfs that had some mobility had to pay fees to the lord
  17. Serfs lot depended on the personality or economic circumstances of their owners (paternalistic)
  18. Serfdom made the muzhiks into “illiterate and stolid drudges, without incentive, initiative, self-respect, or pride of workmanship
  19. Made for very poor soldiers
  20. Educated Russians
  21. Estranged from the government
  22. Estranged from the Church
  1. Estranged from the uneducated peasants
  2. And felt some guilt for the condition of the peasants
  3. Became the “intelligentsia: a class apart
  4. Free to think, not free to do much
  5. Believed that intellectuals should play a large role in society
  6. Some turned to revolution and terrorism
  7. Government responded with more repression

II. Emancipation Act of 1861 and Other Reforms

A. Emancipation Act

1. 1855 Alexander II eased the controls on the universities

a. Censorship was reduced, which led to a great outburst of expression

b. Liberal and even radical ideas were openly discussed

2. One point of agreement was the emancipation of the serfs

3. How to achieve the goal of emancipation was unclear

4. Needed to avoid throwing the labor system into chaos

5. Did not want to ruin the gentry class

6. 1861: serfdom was abolished by decree

  1. Subjects of the government, not of their owners
  2. No longer could forced or unpaid labor be demanded

B.Land allocation

  1. Half the land went to the gentry
  2. The other half went to the peasants
  3. The peasants had to pay a redemption
  4. Gentry exchanged their difficult economic position of mortgaged serfs for free and clear land with redemption money
  5. Peasant land became mir or village property
  6. The village could demand forced labor from members that defaulted on their portion of the redemption
  7. Land could not be sold outside the village
  8. Discouraged the investment of outside capital
  9. Agriculture in Russia would lag behind the technical advancements of the west

C.Inequality among peasants

  1. Some peasants leveraged their position by renting land from the gentry and hiring other peasants to work (kulaks)
  2. Others ended up displaced from the land and destitute

D.Jurisdiction of land lord was replaced w/ system oflocal courts

  1. Public trials
  2. Right to representation
  3. Class distinctions in judicial matters were abolished
  4. Training for judges on state salaries
  5. Jury trials

E.Zemstvos 1864

  1. Regional governments
  2. Took care of education, medical relief, public welfare, food supply and road maintenance
  3. Some called for a Duma
  4. Liberal rumblings in Poland caused Alexander II to pull in the reigns of reform

F.Revolutionism in Russia

  1. Several assassination attempts were made against Alexander II
  2. 1881 Alexander was killed in a bombing
  3. Revolutionaries were not pleased with the reforms
  4. Reforms only strengthened the existing order
  5. Peasants were saddled with heavy redemption payments
  6. Intellectuals fanned the peasant discontent
  7. Socialists came to believe that the future of socialism was with Russia
  8. Weakness of capitalism in Russia
  9. Kind of collectivism was already established in the village communes
  10. Bakunin and anarchism
  11. Promoted terrorism to remove the existing government
  12. In order to stem the rise of radical socialist the Czar turned to the liberals
  13. Liberals demanded follow through with earlier reforms
  14. Czar abolished the secret police of Nicholas I
  15. Allowed more freedom of the press
  16. Agreed to a pseudo-parliamentary system
  17. March 13, 1881 Alexander II was assassinated by the People’s Will
  1. Alexander III 1881 to 1894
  2. Brutal resistance to liberal and revolutionary interests
  3. Reforms of Alexander II had made some progress
  4. But the two walls of autocracy and revolutionism had made for a tentative and halting advance of the reforms
  5. Three Strains in Russian Politics:

1. Liberals/Decembrists (1825)

2. Zemstvos (1864) –the Cadets

3. Const. Democratic Party (1903)

a. wanted a Duma, got one

briefly in 1905

E. People’s Will- Agrarian, utopian Marxist (1887)

1. Had assassinated Alex II in 1881

2. Formed Social Revolutionary Party (1901)

3. political dead end (loved the Mir, believed in violence)

F. Social Democrats (1898)

1. Industry vs. Proletariat

G. London Congress of Russia’s Social Democratic Party (1903)

1. Led to: Mensheviks vs. Bolsheviks

2. Mensheviks were small elite professional gr.

3. Bolsheviks wanted mass proletarian party

4. Bolsh. stirred up prol. and peasants; Believed, contrary to Marx, that Russiacould skip the capitalistic stage

VI. Nicholas II: 1894-1917

A. The Russo-Japanese War and Its Consequences

1. Introduction

2.Russia and Japan are opposed to each other’s interests in Manchuria

3. Japanese need natural resources

4. Russians wanted a railway to Vladivostok

B. Russo-Japanese War

1.1904 War broke out

2. Japan attacked Port Arthur

3. Armies entered Manchuria

a. 624,000 men were engaged

b. Russia was defeated on land

4. Russians sent the Baltic fleet to Japan

a. TsushimaStrait: the Russian fleet was destroyed

b .Russia was defeated at sea

5. Treaty of Portsmouth

a. T. Roosevelt

b. Japan received Port Arthur

c. Preferred position in Manchuria

d. Southern half of the island of Sakhalin

C. Consequences of Japanese victory

1. Russian government shifted its attention back to Europe and the Balkans provoking WWI

2. The Tsarist government was weakened, collapsed and followed by the Communist government

3. Japan emerged as the first “modern” non-western power

a. Served as a model for other nations under imperial control

b. Get rid of western control

i. Bring science and industry in

ii. New Nationalism

iii. Movements within imperial colonies toward independence

D. The Kadets

1.Constitutional Democratic Party (1905)

2.Named derived from abbreviation of Constitutional Democrats(KD)

3. Formed by business, professional class and capitalistic landowners, lawyers

4. Liberal, progressive, constitutionalists

5. Came to favor constitutional monarchy

6. Not connected to issues/concerns of the urban worker or peasant

7. Remember Frankfurt Assembly in 1848

E. Social Democratic Labor Party

1. Founded by Marxists in 1898

2. Not much different than other Social Revolutionaries except:

a. More inclined to an international movement

b. Expected world revolution to break out in West

c. Admired German Social Democratic (Lassalians)

d. More oriented toward Europe

e. Many of their spokesmen lived in exile

f. Thought Russia must develop capitalism and an industrialist proletariat (class struggle) before revolution (Orthodox Marxist)

3. Leaned toward the urban proletariat as a support base

4. Ridiculed the mir and abhorred the Social Revolutionaries

5. Disapproved of sporadic assassination, terrorism

6. Seemed less dangerous (to Russian police) than Social Revolutionaries

F. Social Revolutionary Party (1900)

1. Derived from the People’s Will

2. Favored a catastrophic overthrow of the tsardom

3. Had mystical faith in the might of the Russian people (peasants)

4. Saw the mir as a viable form of communism

5. Like Marx and Engels, but didn’t think that urban proletariat was only true revolutionary class

6. Didn’t think that capitalism and its evils were necessary for Russia to move into revolutionary socialism

7. They believed Russia could skip capitalism and go directly to a socialistic society

a. Wouldemerge after 1905 as the Bolsheviks

G. Bloody Sunday 1905

1. Police allowed a priest, Father Gapon, to lead St. Petersburg factory workers in hope of a counter propaganda move

2. Uneducated peasants, they believed that Little Father would rectify the evils

3. Asked for 8 hrs workday, minimum wage (1 ruble), recall of bad officials, a Constituent Assembly

4. 200 thousand unarmed men, women, children marched to WinterPalace on Sunday (1/1905)

5. Sang “God save the Tsar”

6. Troops shot and killed hundreds

H. Reactions to Bloody Sunday

1. Dissolved the moral bond between the people and the Tsar’s government (Little Father)

2. Tsar was force behind their grievances

3. Political strikes broke out

4. Councils or soviets were formed in Moscow and St. Petersburg

5. Peasants erupted in revolt

6. Burned manor houses, beating up land owners

a. Remember the Great Fear

7. Social Revolutionaries tried to direct the peasant revolts

8. Constitutional Democrats tried to seize leadership of the revolution

a. All wanted more democratic representation

9. August 1905 the Tsar called for an Estates General

10. Peasants, landowners and city people would vote as separate classes

11. Revolt continued as St. Petersburg Soviet (workers’ council) led by Mensheviks called for a general strike in October

12. RR stopped, banks closed, newspaper stopped

13. Paralyzed government

I. The October Manifesto

1. Tsar issued the October Manifesto

2. Called for a constitution, civil liberties, and a Duma to be elected by all powers alike with powers to enact laws

3. Tsar hoped to split the opposition (which it did)

4. Constitutional Democrats moved to solve problems in the Duma

5. Liberals feared the revolutionaries

6. Revolutionaries (correctly) believed that the October Manifesto was a deception which the Tsar would renege on

7. Peasants and workers were not satisfied

8. Peasants wanted more land and less taxes

9. Workers wanted a shorter working day and a living wage

10. Middle-class liberals were pacified

11. Mutinies at Kronstadt and sailors on Black Sea fleet

12. Order is demanded by middle class liberals

13. Peace was made with Japan

14. Troops were moved back to keep order

15. Revolution was pushed underground

J. Results of 1905: The Duma

1. 1905 Revolution made Russia into a parliamentary state

2. 1906-1916 Russia was a Pseudo/semi constitutional monarchy

3. Nicholas II announced the Duma would have no power

over foreign policy or government personnel

4. The Budget

5. Tsar would not allow any real participation in government by the public

6. Right wing opposition favored autocracy, Orthodox Church

7. Formed the Black Hundreds and terrorized peasants to boycott the Duma

8. Left wing had formed Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats (Bol. and Men.)

9. All urged workers to boycott Duma

K. Russia and the Great War

1. Russians enthusiastic for war

2. Sang “God save the Tsar” (they must have liked that song  )

3. Conservatives

a. Opportunity for expansion in Balkans

4. Liberals & Socialists

a. Alliance with GB and France would spawn democratic reforms

5. All shared a sense of Slavic brotherhood and a duty to defend the Serbs

L. Poor leadership of Czar

1. Russia’s industry was unable to supply soldiers by 1915

2. Soldiers sent to front without rifles

3. Disasters (Tanneberg+MasurianLakes)

4. 2 million casualties by 1915

5. Middle class (in Duma) supported the war effort and organized war activities

6. Formed Commercial and Industrial Committee (in Petrograd) to increase production

7. Total War mobilization less effective than Germany

a. Why?Poor leadership of Tsar Nicholas II

b. Devoted family man

i. Tsarina Alexandra (German) took control of government

ii. She had contempt for Russians & Parliament

iii. Encouraged husband to be tough

iv. Rasputin, Alexandra’s most trusted adviser (rumored to be A.’s lover)

and self-appointed holy man, was believed to possess supernatural powers and got friends appointed to prominent positions of power

v. Religious sect mixed sexual depravity with religious mysticism

vi. Apparent hypnotic power over sickly (hemophiliac) Alexis

c. Held autocratic power (Could veto & dissolve Duma)

d. Retained belief in Divine Right

8. September 1915 Duma’s Progressive Bloc called for new government responsible to the Duma

a. Tsar adjourned Duma and left for the Front

b. Duma criticized the operations of the war

c. Tsar, under Rasputin and reactionaries, adjourned the Duma (9/1915)

d. Duma reconvened and voiced outrage

e. Tsar armed police with machine guns

f. Rasputin: “If I die or you desert me, in six months you will lose your son and the throne.”

g. 3 aristocrats murdered Rasputin 12/1916

VII. The Collapse of Russia and the Intervention of the United States

  1. The Withdrawal of Russia: Revolution and the

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

1.Introductions

a.War in Europe led to the Revolution of 1917

b.Tsarist regime lost the loyalty of its people

  1. Gov was bunglers, dishonest, secretive
  2. Forced thousands of peasants into battle without rifles

c.1917 troops in St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd during war) mutinied

d.Nicholas II abdicated on March 15

2.Provisional government was established

a.Generally democrats and constitutionalists

b.Provisional government continued the war

  1. Russian army collapsed

c.Ordinary Russians did not identify with the westernized intellectuals leading the provisional government

d.Turned toward socialism

3.Bolsheviks return from Exile

a.4/1917 German government grants safe passage through Germany to Lenin hoping the resulting rebellion would pull Russia out of the war

  1. Lenin had been in Switzerland during the war
  2. Germany hoped for a psychological war

b.Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power 11/1917

4.Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3/3/1918)

a.Bolsheviks regarded the war as struggle between capitalist and imperialists powers (let them kill each other)

b.Loss of Poland, Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic provinces (all declared independence)

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