Explain the overall Lenin/Bolshevik take on 1905
Heroic scenario: Russian worker, elevated to the head of all democratic elements, will overthrow absolutism (essence of Bolshevism)
GENERAL ECONOMIC DISCONTENT INTO COORDINATED SOCIALIST ASSAULT (Gapon)
- Would pave road for socialism by removing absolutism (and Tsar) -> replace by democratic republic
- “all democratic elements” / everyone with a STAKE in attaining political freedom (peasants, etc) -> could only succeed as a people’s revolution then.
- Proletariat therefore need to spread ideas across the people-> where the underground comes in. Rev channels / orgs need to be kept functioning to operate here. THREAD APPROACH
PROOF:
- revolutionary language and demands in Father Gapon’s worker-led petition
- massive munitions strike in Jan spirals into march of 100,000 people
- Demand redistribution of land to peasants, political freedoms in order to agitate for freedom and labour rights -> exactly what Bolsheviks wanted
- Confirmation of Lenin’s heroic scenario for the proletariat.
radicalization of soliders -> proven by Potemkin (Tsentralka), and Nick’s geerals advising him against army loyalty in October 1905
Further radicalization post Bloody - Sunday
- works exactly like PIRA
- Now, how to protect freedoms?
October:
- Spoke publically at GATHEIRNGS (unprecedented) in SPB
- Wrote articles LEGALY and openly talks with other revs
- Moscow uprising December 1905 -> insurrection -> led by Bolsheviks but crushed -> TRYNA CONSOLIDATE THESE FREEDOMS
OVERALL:
1905 evidence that workers rose up and started revolution. Confirms Lenin’s heroic scenario.
- workers creating Soviets (SPB Soviet in December) and various peasant committees popping up
Explain the influence military matters had on starting and worsening 1905
OVERALL:
- Paints regime as foolish, incompetent -> can’t control own troops or handle external affairs
- Especial implications for Nick since he directly intervened in R/J
RUSSO JAPANESE WAR:
- Goals: acquire warm water port (Port Arthur), Nick wants to consolidate IMPERIAL expansion/control of far east and unify territories (securing Autocracy). Unity among working class around nationalism against racist depictions of Japanese
- Expands alongside Trans Siberian Railway ->
- Not prepared
- Japan provoked by Russia’s behaviour to war -> Nick’s DIRECT AUTOCRATIC INTERVENTION: appointment of Alekseev to Viceroy of Far East -> Navy Officer -> further threat to Japanese (because he wanted warm water base)
- assumption that Japan was “inferior” racially
- Didn’t even TRY to get foreign loans for financial support -> don’t have money.
- Japan attacks Port Arthur 1904 lay siege. Bottom of Manchuria. Sank Pacific fleet
- Battle of Mukden, defeat. 1905. Constant defeats. -> directly after Bloody Sunday
- 1905 also Tsushima. Destruction of Baltic fleet.
- Winds down in 1905
- NICK NEEDS TO PULL BACK TROOPS -> lose Port Arthur and vast claims to Manchuria, part of railway
- Troops radicalized on way because revs propagandizing them at each station along the tramway. -> BECAUSE OF RAIL STRIKE AND RADICAL MESSAGES
OVERALL: insecurity of autocracy (undermines troop loyalty by exposing to revs, image of weak international actor)
POTEMKIN MUTINY
- June 1905
- Flagship of black sea fleet in Crimea
- Rise up and patrol black sea -> make contact w/ striking workers in Odessa -> finally end up in Romania and surrender ship to Romania
- WHY the navy? Well educated sailors than army. BUT service harsher (sailors had much to resent -> OS not officers) Discipline and physical punishment -> allowed officers to do this.
- Sailors couldn’t marry on active duty (but ye officers) See CLASS divisions -> hotbed for rev orgs
- Navy had own rev group -> Tsentralka (cell structure) 1905 -> reading rev literature on boats
- Large org by 1905 Resolution of the Black Seas Sailors demands 1905
- State therefore INSECURE
- Potemkin happens a MONTH after Mukden
GOAL was to take over Sevastopal military base and START NATIONWIDE ANTI-AUTOCRATIC REVOLUTION FROM HERE
These combine with:
- Bloody Sunday -> ineptitude/shutting down of dialogue w/ people
CONSEQUENCE:
- Nick struggles and deliberates while choosing Witte’s suggestions. Consults generals first, they advise him to reform because there’s no guarantee that soldiers will remain loyal.
- Therefore -> OCTOBER MANIFESTO
With an ACTUAL high level overview, explain the various causes of 1905 and how they’re linked
OVERALL: state/autocracy finally shatters own myth of divine confidence and right/relationship with peasants.
OVERREACHING -> THREATENS SELF
Military insecurity:
- Disasters, Potemkin
- direct appointment of Alekseev, both want imperial expansion into far east
Nationalisms:
- Sees Jews and Poles as “aliens” getting in way of power base (relationship between Tsar and Narod)
- Pardons pogrom perpetrators of 91 under Sergei -> agreeing and supporting Sergei’s pogroms
- Forcing Poles to learn Russian
State crackdowns and false promises:
- Consultation bluster
- Bloody Sunday
- nationalisms like Jews
Overreaching in INDUSTRY
- Trans siberian railway
- industrial neighbourhoods created to catch up -> 10,000s workers after buyouts guaranteed to capitalist investors
- Overall industrial investment creates new working class which is propagandized by revolutionaries
- 1896 Cotton strike -> munitions strike
- also made industries better connected -> domino effect if railway into general and munitions into 100,000 demonstration led by Gapon
- Abandonment of Zubatov plan after 1903 strikes leads to unrepented capitalist takeover -> harsher conditions more likely to rebel. in effort to catch up industrially
What role did media play in the 1905 revolution?
Just a couple examples:
October 1905 railway strike allows general one -> disruption of all communication lines because telegram workers and postal workers join in. -> massive spread into general strike because railway workers spread and provoke unrest along the lines, spreading of rev messages
Photography and causing widespread dissemination of Bloody Sunday images
Give a brief timeline of 1905 itself
Jan 1905
- strike at munitions factory on Jan 7 spreads out half of city’s workers
- Nick refuses to meet with father Gapon -> shutting out of dialogue as an option
- Petition will be presented, march of 100,000 -> soc dems influence petition (of all estates, land redistribution, political freedoms)
- WE OF ALL ESTATES -> COORDINATED SOCIAL STRUGGLE LIKE HEROIC SCENARIO
- Crackdown -> finally breaks Tsar/peasant connection Populists had sought to destroy. EVIDENCED BY -> assassination of Grand Duke Sergei 1905 Feb (no outpouring of support) -> NO PERSONAL SHRINES LIKE ALEX II
- Strikes spiral out of control, students join, Zemstvo assemblies radicalized -> this disater struck home by Tsushima and Mukden disasters later on -> cements regime’s incompetence
Feb 1905 -> gesture for consultative body
- Nick ULTIMATE reconciliation gesture -> proposes CONSULTATIVE body which would involve “members of public” -> seen as weak and too late by Liberationists -> double down on constitutional demands
- Consolidation of radicalization of protestors ->- (using Union of Unions)
- Union of Unions: unions of profs, professionals, writers, etc. Also unions for Jews and women equality and Zemstvo constitutionalists. National collection of all these
- meant nothing to those who wouldn’t be represented on it (non elites)
- electorate law stipulates peasants will get at least 51 deputies in Duma -> eliminates literacy requirement -
- “Lower depths” of society too emboldened to accept this -> All-Russian Peasant Union called for abolition of private land
June 1905: Potemkin uprising, joins striking workers in Odessa, had planned on launching nationwide rev from Sevastopol
- Battles of mukden, Tsushima disastrous
August 1905:
- Govt wants to regain control, by August publishes NEW ELECTORAL law -> consultative assembly that had been promised in feb
- Only for peasants, LLs and townsmen with property (therefore based on property)
- Strikes last until October spike and manifesto
October:
- general strike spirals from the railway and telegram industries -> communication along route key for spreading msg, provoking revolts in country -> postal workers -> industrial workers.
October:
- Nick calls Witte back -> two options
- Go full autocrat (consults generals, say they fear army undermined by revolutionary messages along railway, Potemkin
- Concede and grant controlled reform. Reluctantly takes this
October manifesto:
Tsar will institute civil liberties, extend voting franchise for Duma, and make all laws subject to Duma approval
Actually works -> moderate unions like railwaymen return to work -> means other industries face lockouts if they don’t go back
Splitting of rev support
- POLITICAL FREEDOM -> censorship repealed, assembly, speech
December:
- Armed Moscow uprising instigated by Bolsheviks
- continued peasant unrest in countryside
- First SPB Soviet (worker’s council) rises up and crushed
- Therefore, despite new const era -> Autocracy still as autocratic as ever
1906: Repeals
- By 1906, revisions to Fundamental Laws with severe cut backs
- Had promised all laws subject to Duma, but whole areas remained in Tsars direct control like foreign policy, defence, etc
- ARTICLE 87: gave govt power to proclaim laws when Duma not in session
- Also called for upper house that was mostly APPOINTED to have equal power in terms of legislation w/ Duma -> basically re skinned state council
Article One sats his power is “autocratic and unlimited”
Post 1906:
- Bomb goes off in villa, killing dozens 1907
- Nick ENCOURAGES him to find ways to realize his “inexorable desire to eradicate sedition and retsore order”
- Leads to establishment of Stolypin field court martials
- issued UNDER ARTICLE 87 of Fundamental Laws (Duma not in session?) 1906
- Evidence that actually effort to satisfy Tsar’s desire for revenge
- Gave governor generals power to try revs before military courts and issue summary executions/exiles
- Between 1906-09, field court martials sentenced 2700 to death. In three years alone, more people killed for political crimes than during ENTIRE NINETEENTH CENTURY
- Second Duma meets 1907, sliiiiiiiiiiiiiide to the left -> refuse new laws, want DIVISION of land into communes / communal tenor
- Nick dissolves second Duma 1907 -> new electoral law AGAIN UNDER ARTICLE 87 -> DIRECT VIOLATION OF FUNDAMENTAL LAWS BECAUSE YOU CAN’T USE ARTICLE 87 TO CHNAGE ELECTORATE LAWS
Explain how the Autocracy sought to preserve itself throughout 1905.
DURING 1905:
Gapon:
- refuses dialogue/to meet with Gapon following munitions strike.
- Bloody Sunday finally severes autocratic / peasant connection
- No pubic morning for assassination of Grand Duke Sergei in Feb 1905.
February control:
- Tsar retains veto power, reps would help the government FORMULATE plans
- Following the big crises (Japan, Bloody Sunday, etc) accepts popular participation -> cast in form of assembly of the land -> Would REPRESENT all aspects of society, but not elevate their leaders -> Let there be, as there was of old, that unity between Tsar and Rus” THEREFORE -> NICK SEES THIS AS UNIFYING TSAR AND PEOPLE BOND WITHOUT COMPROMISING AUTOCRATIC AUTHORITY
October control:
State Duma elected by all classes -> need agreement of all classes for laws to take effect -> basic civ liberties, freedoms of religion, speech, and assembly
Favours Tsar/peasant bond -> 51 peasant deputies in Duma -> eliminates literacy requirement
Entire working class and most urban people left w/o franchise -> Duma LATER made consultative
Overall: balancing of needs of people with auocratic power
- ASSERTS autocracy apparently -> reform a GIFT to the people from his daddy position
- Appeared in his eyes as FOUNDER of new order / system -> therefore like God and ENTITLTED TO CHANGE WHAT HE WANTS
CHANGES: 1906:
- Formalizing promise of October manifesto -> reveals autocratic intent
- Fundamental Laws of 1906
- Article One says his power is “autocratic and unlimited”
- 1906 New State Council -> half elected, half APPOINTED BY EMPEROR DIRECTLY as explicit counter force to Duma
- Article 87 allows direct creation of laws while Duma not in session
Stolypin:
- Evokes article 87 to clamp down on revolutionary activity post October split
- In reaction to bombing at Stolypin, Nick directly encourages him to make haste
- Field Martial courts -> 2700 dead over a number of years
- 21,000 more exiled w/o evidence
White Terror:
- 41 provinces marshall law remember -> suspension of civ liberties and uses miliyary courts instead of “reformed” system
- Also suppress December Moscow uprising
Explain the immediate pre context of 1905 in a timeline like way
Background: CATCH UP Industrialization 1900-03
- 80s and 90s industrialization policy sets the scene -> mainly railway, also looking for raw materials -> expand to the east
- to UNIFY country (under autocracy/imperial expansion) AND find new markets for products
- Couldn’t disrupt western markets, untapped region was CHINA
- Because Russ Late to industrialization -> guarantee operations and to BUY products being built by start ups, massive investment -> creation of industrial suburbs (10,000s of workers)
- Can spread REAL quick and involve entire pop./industries
- Abandonment of Zubatov plan (police monitored unions) for unrestricted capitalist control 1903 Odessa strike
- OVERALL: autocracy trying to secure itself (empire, industry -> backfires)
1904 - Japanese invade, defeat of Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur
- Russ unprepared, provoked by Nick by appointing Alekseev
- Nick has opportunity to provide reform, appoints moderate Mirskii -> sparks desire for left leaning policies among Zemstvos, etc -> Liberationists now demand elected assembly w/ universal suffrage
How did the autocracy seek to preserve itself PRIOR TO 1905 (NEW bonus challenge!)
OVERALL: UNDERSTOOD RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND HIS ROLE IN IT VIA THE LENS OF THE MYTH OF THE BENEVOLANT TSAR/PEOPLES RELATIONSHIP AND PRESERVATION OF AUTOCRACY
After Alex II, Alex III blamed educated western officials within govt for laxity that caused assassination -> national break intended to BREAK with the west
- Nick emphasizes religious and ethnic bond between Tsar and Narod
Nick’s bond:
- “with the true children of our beloved Church” celebrating easter mass w/ worshippers -> drew strength for serving Russia from this
- Nick’s reign LIKE A LINK MANDATE
- Trying to assert/cultivate deep bond w/ peasants (contribs)
- Also the religious mandate -> direct bond with God and people
Antisemitisms and nationalisms:
- Russification campaigns also begin here -> bad times for Jews (one of the “subordinate” nationalities)
- Seen as aliens WITHIN state against / unwelcome obstacles between Tsar/Narod bond
- Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich -> govn of Moscow in 1891 requested with Tsar’s support that Jews be removed -> expulsions of 2/3
- Nick AGREES with Sergei
- Poland governed as a province
- ALSO wants to secure autocracy through military means -> imperial expansion into Asia through China. Racial supremacy over Japan (yellow skinned)
- Wants warm water port for military security.
- DIRECTLY / AUTOCRATICALY Appoints Alekseev to Viceroy of Far East -> Navy Officer -> further threat to Japanese (because he wanted warm water base)
- UNITE people around nationalism as well against racist charicatures of Japanese -> reflects Russification policies
- STOP DISSENT OF WORKING CLASS -> UNIFY RUSSIAN SPIRIT AROUND CRUSHING “flea bite”
INDUSTRY:
- reforms catching up (y’know)
- creates working class problems quickly to catch up too fast
- Wants to retain control over workers -> Zubatov approach -> abandoned following strikes -> abandons workers to whims of capitalist employers in effort to catch up industrially
