-InNo+Ho+Soo's+Notes+(Part1)+Notebook+10.17.10

** Awesome Part!!! **


This is a chart i made about the peasants. During the 1900's the Russian peasants were treated very badly. They tried to change it but, peasants still had to suffer from the new law. They established a new law but it failed. They basically had no freedom. This i a picture of Gregory Rasputin. The Tsar family believed that he cured their son Alexis. Nicholas and his wife Alexandra became involved with a strange Siberian peasant who claimed to be a Starets- a holy man of god.

The Russian Empire In 1900 1.

** The land and the climate ** - Most of the lands in Russia are useless. - The high mountains are good defense against foreign invaders. - In fact, they keep out warm air trying to spread from the south. - Russia is mostly useless for farming. - In a land called ‘tundra’, only moss and small shrubs grow there. - 1000 km south of the tundra stretches the ‘taiga’, cold land covered in forests of pine trees. - In 1900 only 5 percent of all Russian land was used for farming, and the rest laid waste. - The cold climate affected Russia’s industry and commerce as well as her farming. - Due to the cold weather in Russia, the coast and the rivers stayed locked in ice throughout the long winter. - Sea and river trade were impossible until spring arrived. - In 1900 the ice-breakers were not so powerful. - A new railway, the Trans-Siberian, was being built to allow trade between east and west all year round, but in 1900 it was still only half-built.

** An empire of many peoples ** - In 1900 Russia was a great empire ruled by a Tsar, or Emperor- Nicholas II. - About 125 million people lived under the Tsar Nicholas’s empire. - Less than half of the populations were Russians. - The majority were peoples such as the Poles and the Ukrainians. - The ancestors of Tsar Nicholas II conquered them. - These peoples each had their own language, their own customs and their own way of life. - Russians were treated as foreigners. - Most lived on the 5% of land that was good for farming. - The cold lands of Siberia, east of the Ural Mountains, were therefore thinly populated. - The fertile land of the southwest and the streets of the cities were often overcrowded.

The Government of Russia 2.

** The autocracy ** - Tsar Nicholas II, the Emperor of Russia, was an autocrat (a monarch who does not have to share power) - He could do whatever he wanted to without consulting anyone. - No parliament to limit his power. - He could sack any minster. - To run the affairs of his vast empire, he employed many thousands of civil servants. - They were organized into 14 ranks. - ‘Table of Ranks’ was ministers in charge of government departments. - At the bottom were minor officials, such as post office clerks and customs inspectors. - Tsar’s civil service collected taxes from the Russian people and made sure that his decisions were carried out. - Many civil servants made ends meet by taking bribes. - To make sure that nobody opposed Nicholas, he had a secret police force, the Okhrana, or ‘Protective Section’. - The Okhrana censored all books and newspapers. - They arrested people who criticized the government. - Political prisoners were tried by special courts without juries, and were usually exiled. - When there were riots, Okhrana couldn’t handle all those citizens. - Cossacks were there to rescue Tsar. - Cossacks were fierce mounted soldiers armed with sabers who specialized in breaking up mobs by butchering anyone not able to run away fast enough. - Churches also helped Tsar. - The priests of the Russian Orthodox Church taught people to respect the autocracy and to be loyal to the Tsar. - The head of the Church was a government minister. - This way, the government had control over the minds and souls of many Russian churchgoers.

** Nicholas and Alexandra ** - Nicholas was a gentle man, but he wasn’t that intelligent. - Alexandra, Nicholas’s German wife was confident and strong willed. - She encouraged Nicholas to rule as an autocrat. - They had four girls and one boy. - His son had hemophilia. - Alexandra ordered people to keep this a secret.

Russian Society 3.

** The Peasants ** - In 1900, 4/5 citizens of the Russian Empire were peasants. - Until 1861, they were serfs (slaves of their landlords with no rights, no freedom and no land of their own.) - In 1861, Tsar Alexander II allowed peasants to own the land on which they grew their food. - In fact, there were strings attached to this deal. 1. The land on which the peasants grew their food was not given to them as individuals: it was given to the village commune, or mir, in which they lived. 2. The peasants had to pay for the land given to the commune in yearly installments, called redemption payments, over the next forty-nine years. Only when a peasant had paid all forty-nine installments would the land become his or her personal property. - Being freed from serfdom on these conditions did not improve the lives of the peasants. - The bigger the family, the bigger the plot of land it was given. - The plots of land grew smaller as the population grew. - Between 1861 and 1900 the average size of plots halved. - Nearly half of all new-born children died before the age of five.

** The town workers **
- Peasants would work in factories or mines until harvest time. - The largest city in Russia in 1900 was the capital, St PEtersburg. - Workers had very hard time, lots and lots of labors, but low wages.

- Russian nobles were very rich. - Tsar Nicholas owned eight different palaces and employed 15,000 servants. - Nobles were only 1% of the Russian Population but owned around 25% of all the land. - The capitalists were starting to get rich from money from banking, industry and trade. - The Minister of Finanace, Sergei Witte helped capitalists gain lost of money from new factories, cut taxes... - People started to hate Capitalists - Some people didn't accept the idea of the God giving Tsar the power. They were ready to throw over the government.
 * The Rich**

4.
- In March 1881 a bomb exploded beneath the carriage of Tsar Alexander II. - A young man threw a snow ball which had a bomb inside and killed him - It was carried out by a terrorist group called the 'People's Will'. - They wanted to destroy the autocracy by any means. - In fact, the assasination did not destroy the autocracy. - His sone Alexander III and his grandson NIcholas II, who both watched him dead were determined not to let the same thing happen. - They both used Okhrana to arrest critics and opponents. - Many thousands ended in prison or exile in Siberia.
 * Terrorism**

- In 1900 there were three important groups of opponents in existence. - The first was the Socialist Revolutionary Party. - The members wanted all land in RUssia to be given to the mirs, the village communes so that peasants could have a bigger share of the land. - This meant steal lands from the nobles, churches, and from the Tsar. - SRs had a 'Fighting Organisation' whose job was to organise terrorit campaigns. - Between 1900 and 1905, they killed three government ministers and dozens of other government officials. - SRs gained fame from the peasants.
 * The Socialist Revolutionary Party**

- Another important revolutionary group in 1900 was the Social Democratic Party. - The Social Democrats followed the ideas of Karl Marx, A German writer who in 1848 had written a book called //the Communist Manifesto// - Marx called the sharing of wealth **socialism**. - No selfishness, a system of **communism** would come into existence, a society in which people work according to their abilities and are paid according to their needs. - In 1903 they split into two groups, the **Bolsheviks** and the **Mensheviks**. - Bolesheviks believed that the revolution should be organised by a small groupo of dedicated and skilled revolutionaries. - Mensheviks believed that the Party should be a mass party with as many working class members as possible. - It should be run democratically, with members electing the leaders and deciding on its politics. - The leader of Bolsehviks was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, argued that if the Mesheviks had their way, it would tke years to start the revolution. - Lenin and his supporters failed to reach agreement with Martov and his supporters.
 * The Social Democratic Party**

- Many law- abiding Russians, particularly those who owned property, were liberals. - They wanted ademocratic system of government, like the one in Britain where an elected parliament shared power with the monarch. - Alexander II hd made plans for a Russian parliament the day before he was blown up by the 'People's Will'.
 * Liberals **

5.
- They were fighting for control of Korean and Manchuria. - Russian army got defeated. - All the Russian ships were dead (only three left) in the battle of **Tsushima**.
 * War against Japan **
 * - ** In 1904 Russia went to war with Japan.

- On Sudnay 22 Jan, 1095, a crowd of 200,000 workers and their families marched through the streets of St Peterburg towards the Tsar's Winter Palace. - The marchers were led by **Father Gapon**, a priest who sympathised with poor workers. - When the marchers reached the center of St Petersburg, soldiers and police tried to stop them. - Around 500 marchers were killed and thousands more were wounded. - This massacer quickly came to be known as **Bloody Sunday**. - Hundreds of government officials were murdered. - Bloody Sunday had started a revolution against the Tsar.
 * Bloody Sunday **

- In June 1905 the crew of the battleship **Potemkin**, pride of the Black Sea fleet, threw their officers overboard and took control of the ship. - In many areas peasants had rebelled, butchering their landlords and burning their farms. - In September 1905 a general strike began. - All schools, factoires, offices, shops, railways closed down. - In many towns and cities the strikers set up councils called **Soviets** quickly becam and alternative form of the government. - In October 1905 he issued a document called the **October Manifesto**. - This said that Russia could have a **Duma,** an elected parliament, to help run the country. - It also allowed the Russian people basic rights, such as the right to form political parties and the right of free speech. - In the early months of 1906 the Tsar crushed all other areas o revolution. - Worse, bands of thugs known as Black Hundreds decided to take the law into their own hands. - They organsed massacers of revolutionaries. - By March 1906 the revolution was over. - Elections for the Duma were held in Mach 1906 and a mojority of anti-government candidates gained office. - But when the Duman met for the first tim in May, Nicholas issued a set of **Fundamental Laws**. - The first one said 'To the Emperor of all the Russias belongs supreme autocratic power'. - Russia was still an autocracy.
 * The 1905 revolution **

The Aftermath of the 1905 Revolution
6. - Tsar Nicholas made it perfectly clear in his Fundamental Laws that he would not allow the Duma, Russia's parliament, any real power. - Russia's first Duma had lasted for precisely seventy-five days. - A second Duma was elected in 1907, but it was even less to Nicholas's liking. - He broke up the second duma after three months. - The third Duma, which met in 1907, did better than its two predecessors, lasting a full five years. - In 1906 he appointed a new, tough Prime Minister to make sure there were no more outbreaks of revolution, his mane was **Peter Stolypin.**
 * The Dumas **

- Had strict governing system. - He wanted to ban all terrorism. - In 1906, 1008 terrorists were arrested, tried by special military courts, and executed. - He feared hat there would be further outbreaks of violence in the countryside if the peasants remained poor. - He helped the peasants to have their own lands. - He was shot by a terrorist.
 * The Stolypin reforms **

- Nicholas and his wife Alexandra became involved with a strange Siberian peasant who claimed to be a Starets- a holy man of god. - Gregory Efimovitch helped Alexis recover. - His nickame was **Raputin** - because he was a heavy drinker. - As Rasputin's influence increased, hatred of him grew.
 * Rasputin **

Part one in this book covers about the Russian emperor Tsar in the 1900, Russia's government and how people lived. It also vivdly shows how the peasants were treated unfairly and the reason why the Russian citizens especially the people like peasants wanted revolution. It also covers about the war with Japan and the Bloody Sunday.
 * Summary**

2. What kind of illness did Alexis have? 3. Who is Rasputin? 4. What is the Bloody Sunday? 5. Why did Russia and Japan have war? 6. Why was Gregory Rasputin treated well from the Tsar family while other citizens hated him? Do you think he actually helped Alexis cure his symptom? 7. Why didn't the Tsar family want other people to know that their son had hemopholia? What happend if other people knew about this? And why was their son so important to them?
 * Questions**
 * 1.** What is an autocrat?