Russia+Revo.+caroline.norgreen+Part+1

NOTES

The Russian Empire in the 1900

The Land and the Climate


 * Russia, although big, is mainly useless land
 * Greatly affects industry
 * Seas and Rivers are frozen throughout a long winter
 * Only 5% is good for farming
 * Use of railway became extremely popular – only half complete in 1900

An Empire of Many Peoples


 * 1900 – rules buy Tsar, Nicholas 2nd
 * Less than half his people were Russian (125 million people total)
 * Majority of people were conquered by tsar’s ancestors
 * 6/10 people, Russian was a foreign language & Russians were foreigners
 * Had their own customs, language
 * Population lives in 5% of land good for farming
 * Streets and cities often overcrowded

The Government of Russia

The Autocracy


 * Tsar was an Autocrat
 * ** Autocrat **– Monarch who doesn’t have to share his power
 * No limit to his power – no parliament to limit power
 * Could sack any adviser/minister who disagreed.
 * Could not govern 125 million Russians by himself
 * Employed thousands of civil servants
 * Organized into 14 ranks
 * Table of Ranks
 * Top – ministers of government departments
 * Bottom – minor officials (post office clerks & custom inspectors)
 * (Took bribes often because they were unpaid)
 * ** Okhrana ** (Protective Section)– secret police force that helped ensure people did not question authority or challenge him
 * Censored all books and newspapers
 * Agents spied on political groups – arrested anyone criticizing the government
 * Brought to special courts with no juries – usually sent into exile (to Siberia)
 * ** Cossacks ** – helped when Okhrana could not cope
 * Mounted soldiers armed with sabres – trained to break up mobs – butchered everyone who didn’t run away fast enough
 * Church also helped maintain the authority of the Tsar
 * ** Russian Orthodox Church ** – taught people to respect autocracy and to be loyal
 * Government minister gave orders ---> bishops (passed order on) ---> priests
 * Controlled minds of Russian churchgoers

Nicholas and Alexandra


 * Nicholas – weak and uneducated (apart from this own autocracy)
 * Alexandra – German wife, strong-willed
 * Encouraged him to ignore ideas about sharing power – focus on autocracy
 * Were happily married – 4 girls 1 boy.
 * Happy until the found that Alexis (final child and heir) had **haemophilia**
 * (Prevent blood clots – smallest cut cause bleeding to death)
 * Alexandra got anyone to that knew to swear an oath of secrecy

Russian Society

The peasants


 * 4/5 citizen were peasants – country people who farmed
 * Up till 1861 – peasants had no rights, freedom, or land – were ** serfs ** (like slaves)
 * 1861 – (Nicholas 2nd) freed peasants from serfdom – allowed to own land and grown own food
 * Land was given to them as village communes, ** mir ** (not individuals)
 * Peasants had to pay for land, yearly payment – redemption payments (49 years)
 * Only if peasants paid 49 years would the land become his/hers
 * Freed from serfdom did not improve the lives of peasants
 * Mirs were divided up each year according to families’ needs that year
 * As years went by, population grew, plots became smaller and smaller
 * Between 1861 and 1900 average plots halved
 * Harder to support family each year
 * On top they had to keep up with yearly redemption payments
 * Peasant Facts:
 * Half of newborn children died before age of 5
 * Life expectancy was only 50
 * Diseases & malnutrition was common
 * Best they could hope for was a god harvest
 * Have food to eat and a little extra to sell

Town Workers


 * Tired to improve lives by going to cities to work until harvest
 * Worked in mines or factories – then return to commune
 * Largest city – St. Petersburg (1900)
 * Nearly a million came to get a job
 * Cotton works fx. Miserable wages, overcrowded, 11.5 hours of work
 * Workers were not able to improve their lives & trade were not allowed by the law & striking was illegal& easy to replace worker who complained

The Rich


 * Russian nobles were extremely rich
 * Tsar owned 8 palaces & employed 15,000 servants
 * When royal family moves – 20 railway carriages needed to carry their luggage.
 * Nobles 1% - 25% of land
 * If they were bothered to farm – made great profits in the market
 * If they were not bothered to farm – could sell land to pay for lifestyle
 * ** Capitalists ** (earned money from banking, industry, trade) – 1900 started becoming rich
 * Minister of Finance (Sergei Witte) gave them gov. contracts, loans, and cut taxes
 * Capitalist got rich easy
 * Many started to hate capitalist

Opponents of the Tsar

Terrorism


 * March 1881, bomb exploded under Tsar Alexander 2nd’s carriage
 * Unhurt he got out – a “snowball” got thrown at his feet, exploded too, tearing his leg off and ripping stomach open.
 * Assassination watched by Alexander (son) & Nicholas (grandson)
 * Carried out by a terrorist group – “People’s Will”
 * One of many groups who tried to destroy autocracy
 * Alexander 3rd and Nicholas 2nd were determined not to have the same happen
 * Used Okhrana to arrest people or send them into exile
 * Did not fully succeed in wiping out opponents
 * There were still three important groups in 1900

Socialist Revolutionary Party


 * SR party believed all land should be given to the mirs – taking land from Tsar nobles & church
 * Had a “Fighting Organization” – organized terrorist campaign
 * Gained support from peasants

The Social Democratic Party


 * Followed ideas of Karl Marx (1848 – Communist Manifesto)
 * Idea: Working class overthrew capitalists
 * Workers would split factories, mines, etc equally among themselves (socialism)
 * Work according to ability, paid according to needs (communism)
 * Were one group set up in 1898 – but split into two in 1903
 * ** Bolsheviks ** – revolution should be organized by small group of revolutionaries
 * ** Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ** – argued it would take too long to start a revolution if they followed Mensheviks
 * ** Mensheviks ** – mass party with people from the working class (elected leaders)
 * Julius Martov – argued revolution would fail without support from everyone

Liberals


 * They supported the Tsar, but wanted him to share his power
 * Democratic system, elected parliament shares power with the monarch

The 1905 Revolution

War Against Japan


 * Tsar Nicholas – happy to go to war, thought it’d be quick and make him popular
 * From very start Russian army suffered one defeat after another
 * ** Battle of Tsushima ** – sent Russian Baltic fleet (7 month voyage) to Manchuria
 * All but 3 got destroyed
 * Food supplies to cities broke down – factories closed
 * People were hungry, jobless, and without a home

Bloody Sunday


 * Sunday, January 22nd, 1905 – 200,000 workers & families marched through St. Petersburg ---> Tsar’s winter palace
 * Had a petition – asked for better working and living conditions, end to the war, shorter work day, etc
 * Led by ** Father Gapon ** (priest who pitied poor workers)
 * Police and soldiers tried to stop them – opened fire
 * 500 marchers dead – thousands wounded
 * Known as Bloody Sunday
 * After this, riots all over broke out, government officials were killed – it was the start to the revolution against the Tsar

The 1905 Revolution


 * June 1905 – crew of Potemkin (black sea fleet) threw officers overboard
 * Mutineers had no plans – but the mutiny showed the Tsar he could not trust his armed forces
 * Same time – peasants were butchering landlords & burning farms – Poles and Georgians declared independence
 * September 1905 – general strike began, strikers set up councils – ** Soviets ** – to run the town during strike
 * Soviets became a different form of government – people would obey them but not the Tsar
 * October 1905 – issued the ** October Manifesto **
 * Stated Russia would have a ** Duma ** (elected parliament), and everyone had basic rights
 * Revolutionaries did not trust him (they were right)
 * December 1905 – he arrested the St. Petersburg Soviets – sent 15 into exile
 * Early months of 1906 – Sent armies to crush all areas of revolution
 * Black Hundreds – took laws into own hands – organized massacres of revolutionaries
 * Police & army did nothing to stop it
 * March 1906 – Revolution was over – Election for the Duma was held, and met first time in May
 * Issued ** Fundamental Laws ** – as far as he was concerned, Russia was still an autocracy

The Aftermath of the 1905 Revolution

The Dumas


 * Tsar Nicholas did not really allow the parliament any power
 * If they demanded splitting up power he’d surround meeting place with troops
 * First Duma only lasted 75 days
 * 1907 – second Duma elected
 * Disliked this Duma more, had liberals, revolutionaries, and democrats who wanted to destroy autocracy
 * Lasted 3 months
 * 1907 – third Duma (lasting 5 years) did a lot better
 * Consisted of conservative politicians (made sure no revolutionaries elected)
 * 1906 – appointed new Prime Minister – wanted no more revolutionary
 * Peter Stolypin

The Stolypin Reforms


 * Believed in a strict gov. – clamped down on terrorism
 * 1008 terrorists arrested in 1906, tried by special military courts & executed
 * Gallows nicknamed “Stoylpin’s Necktie”
 * 21,000 people were also exiled
 * Terrorism was no longer a serious threat to the autocracy
 * Stolypin realized people is the countryside would not stop violent breakouts if they remained poor
 * Helped peasants own their land (abolished redemption payments)
 * Mirs no longer had control over the land
 * Hoped villages would set up their own farms and in time get rich (also hopefully creating peace)
 * Things were looking up – good wages, harvest, and industry
 * 1911 – Stolypin’s police agent shot him dead (was a terrorist)

Rasputin


 * Rasputin – claimed he was a Starets – holy man from God (actual name – Gregory Efimovitch)
 * Alexis (son of Nicholas and Alexandra) fell – internal bleeding started
 * Rasputin prayed by his bed all night – next morning fully recovered
 * After this he became the most trusted member of the court
 * Rasputin (meaning the disreputable one) was known for having affairs with the local women and also drank heavily
 * Even raped a nun once
 * Alexandra and Rasputin did not listed to this
 * After death of Stolypin – Rasputin’s influence over royal family increased
 * Passed political advise onto Alexandra (who passed it onto Nicholas)
 * Many businessmen who were friendly with Rasputin tended to gain contracts easier
 * Rasputin’s influence grew – so did hatred for him

Awesome Stuff (

media type="youtube" key="Osgyf6hia_U?fs=1" height="385" width="480" This video shows how Bloody Sunday came about and how in made a difference in the lives of Russians



Summary

Russia is not in a healthy state, many are poor and dying of famine daily and when they want change the Russia government kills of many of them because they are afraid of Revolution. The Tsar has people that influence him badly and is becoming a worse and worse Tsar, and people start to rebel and revolt when the Tsar kills of so many in, for example, Bloody Sunday.

Questions

How did Rasputin gain power? What did he do to abuse that power? How did the Stolypin reforms help the Russian government? How did the Stolypin reforms help the citizen? Did the Dumas work at all during Russian history?