inNO+julies+2013.+10.12.10+part+1

=PART 1:= //THIS IS TSAR ALEXANDER, HE WAS THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. HE RULED RUSSIA AS AN AUTOCRACY, HE HAD ALL THE POWER AND DIDN'T SHARE IT. MARCH 1881 A BOMB WAS PLACED UNDER HIS CARRIAGE AND WHEN HE GOT OUT A TERRORIST THREE A BOMB AT HIM AND HE BLED TO DEATH. //THIS IS ALEXANDER II, TSAR ALEXANDER 'S GRANDSON. WHEN TSAR DIED NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDER TOOK OVER AND RULED RUSSIA. THEY DIDN'T FOLLOW HIS WAY OF RULING AND DIDN'T USE HIS IDEAS.

__Chapter 1: The Russian Empire in 1900__

 * Russia is a big country

The land and the climate An empire of many peoples
 * Most of Russia is cover by 'taiga' - thick pine forest
 * Land = useless
 * South border
 * high mountains = good defense against foreign invaders, kept warm air out
 * Known for farming
 * Arctic Ocean --> land = tundra = nothing grows
 * South of tundra --> Taiga
 * South-west areas warmer --> can farm
 * Cold climate was bad for farming and industry and commerce
 * Rivers
 * the Ob
 * the Yenisey
 * the Lena
 * 1900 Russia was ruled by Tsar or emperor Nicholas II
 * 125 million people
 * Most people were Poles and Ukrainians who had been conquered
 * had their own language, customs, way of life
 * Everyone lived close together

__Chapter 2 - The Of Russia__
The autocracy Nicholas and Alexandra
 * Tsar Nicholas II = emperor = autocrat
 * autocrat - a monarch who does not have to share power
 * He had all the power
 * Couldn't control everyone by himself --> hired civil servants
 * put into army ranks "table of ranks" (sorta like social rankings)
 * At the top were the ministers
 * At the bottom were minor officials
 * Collected taxes from the people
 * Workers weren't paid, therefor taking brides
 * People weren't allow to question him and his way of ruling
 * Tsar had a secret police keeping an eye out on the people of Russia, made sure no one would go against him
 * "Protection Section
 * Took all books and newspapers
 * Spied on the gov't, whoever talk bad about them would get arrested
 * Political prisoners, were trailed in court with no juried, and most likely were sent to jail
 * ** Okhrana ** couldn't take all the females with the opponents of Tsar, riots broke out
 * Workers protested and strike
 * Peasants in the countrysides attacked their land owners
 * ** Cossacks ** protected Tsar
 * They were mounted soldiers and had very good armor
 * Fast runners
 * Church also helped Russia: ** The Russian Orthodox Church **
 * taught people to respect others and be royal to Tsar
 * Gov't had control over the church
 * He took over when his father died
 * He said he wasn't ready and didn't want to take over
 * He had a German wife, she had a good character
 * She encouraged Nicholas to rule as an autocrat and ignore new ideas about sharing power
 * Happily married
 * 5 kids
 * Their fifth child (only boy, Alexis) had hemophilia, a blood disease
 * Very religious
 * Alexandra had her own chapel
 * Alexi's disease was a secret

__Chapter 3 - Russian Society__
The Peasants Town Workers
 * 1900 - 4/5 were peasants --> farmers
 * Until 1861 - peasants had been ** serfs ** (slaves of their landlords with no rights, no freedom and no land of their own
 * 1861 - Tsar Alexander II and Nicholas II's grandfather --> freed the peasants
 * Had their own land, grew own food
 * The deal wasn't all good there
 * 1) The land given to the peasants, was given to ** mir ** (village commune) and then they had to share land
 * 2) Peasants had to pay for land every year for the next 49 years
 * After 49 years the land would officially be the peasants and they didn't have to pay for it anymore
 * Being freed didn't improve the peasants lives
 * The land was split between all the peasants according to needs each year
 * Each year their land would get smaller because of the increase in population
 * Each year it became harder to support their families
 * At the same time they had to pay for the land
 * Half of all new born babies died before they reached 5 years old, life expectancy was only 55 years old
 * Diseases and malnutrition were very common
 * Peasant thought that if they worked in the city they would earn more money
 * work in factories or mines until harvest time
 * Largest City in Russia in 1900 was St. Petersburg, the capital, almost a million people lived there
 * Life for cotton workers in the city:
 * received miserable wages
 * lived in a overcrowded state
 * 11 and 1/2 is the normal working day
 * Poor workers had no chance in improving their lives
 * Trading was illegal and so was striking

The Rich
 * Not everyone in Russia was poor, there were also the rich people
 * The nobles were the rich, very rich
 * Tsar was the head of nobility and had 8 different palaces and had 15,000 workers working for him
 * Nobles were only 1 % of Russia, owned 25 % percent of the land
 * By 1900, a new class was developing in Russia, these people were also rich - the ** capitalists ** - made money from banking
 * It was easy for them to make money

__Chapter 4 - Opponents of the Tsar__
Terrorism The Socialist Revolutionary Party The Social Democratic Party Liberals
 * Russians believed that God had appointed Tsar to rule Russia
 * Some people didn't believe this and wanted to over thrown Tsar
 * Wanted big change in the government and society
 * March 1881, on a Sunday afternoon, a bomb explored under Tsar's carriage
 * He wasn't hurt
 * When he got out to check if his carriage was okay, a man threw a ball looking like a snowball at his feet
 * This snowball was a bomb, one of his legs got ripped of and ripped his belly open
 * He bled until he died
 * The assassination of Tsar was lead by a group called the "People's Will"
 * This assassination didn't get rid of the autocracy --> Tsar's son Alexander III and his grandson Nicholas II took over
 * Used the Okhrana to arrest critics and opponents
 * They didn't succeed in getting rid of all the opponents
 * There were only three opponents groups left
 * They wanted the peasants to have more land
 * Take land away from Tsar, nobles and church
 * The SR'd had a fighting group "Fighting Organization"
 * This group organized tourist campaigns
 * 1900 - 1905 SR killed 3 government ministers and dozens of other government officials
 * SR gained support from millions of peasants
 * Followed the ideas of ** Karl Marx **, a german writer, he wrote the book Communist Manifesto
 * The goal of this party was to take away factories, mines, machinery and raw materials from the capitalist and would share it equally among themselves.
 * Marx called this sharing of wealth ** socialism **.
 * Marx wanted people to work together
 * ** Communism ** would come into existence, people were paid according to their needs and everyone was working together
 * Was set up in 1898
 * Leaders began to argue on how the party should be run
 * 1903 split into two groups --> ** Bolsheviks ** and the** Mensheviks **
 * __Bolsheviks__ believed that everyone should be divided into small groups of dedicated and skilled
 * The people would lead
 * Leaders: ** Vlasimir Ilyich Lenin ** argued that if the Mensheviks had their way, it would take years to start a revolutions, waste time on discussion and argument
 * __Mensheviks__ believed that the party should be a mass party with as many working class members as possible
 * Run democratically
 * Leader: Julius Martov, replied that if they didn't have the support of the whole working class the revolution would fail
 * The two groups never agreed
 * 1903 - there were three revolutionary groups in Russia - the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries
 * Not all of the opponents were violet
 * Many law-abiding Russians, those who owned land were liberals
 * Supported Tsar but wanted him to share his power
 * Wanted democratic system government

__Chapter 5 - The 1905 Revolution__
War Against Japan: Bloody Sunday The 1905 Revolution
 * 1904 Russia went to war with Japan
 * Fighting for control of Korea and Manchuria in the Far East
 * Tsar Nicholas was glad to go to war, he thought that if he won the battle easily then he would become popular among the people and they would critics his government
 * Russian army got defeated one after another
 * To help the arm Nicholas sent the Russian Baltic fleet on a seven month voyage half way round the world to Manchuria
 * During the ** Battle of Tsushima ** the Japanese destroyed the Russian battle ships
 * Tsar got into more trouble than before, losing to Japan just made him less popular
 * War made condition for working people worse
 * Less food supplies
 * Factories closed down
 * Raw Material was short
 * Sunday 22 January 1905, 200,000 workers with their families marched through the streets of St. Petersburg toward Tsar's palace
 * They were suggesting a petition asking for
 * better working
 * living conditions
 * end the war with Japan
 * shorter working days
 * and other reforms
 * ** Father Gapon ** led the march
 * Soldiers and police tried to stop them but couldn't
 * Soldiers began to fire at the people
 * 500 marchers were killed
 * Thousand were wounded
 * This massacre was known as ** Bloody Sunday **
 * Riots started in the countryside
 * Strike in towns
 * Hundreds of government officials were killed
 * Started the revolution against Tsar
 * June 1905 - the workers on battleship Potemkin over took the ship and three officers over broad
 * This was mutiny
 * The mutiny became very threatening to Tsar
 * Couldn't trust his army
 * Peasants started to rebel, butchering their landlords and burning their farms
 * Georgians and Poles declared their independence from Russia
 * September 1905 a huge strike began
 * Factories, offices, shops, railways, hospitals and schools closed
 * In many cities and towns strikers set up a council called ** Soviets **
 * Soviets were the alternative government - strikers obeyed them
 * October 1905 - he issued a doc called the ** October Manifesto **
 * Russia would now have a ** Duma **, an elected parliament to help run the country
 * Russian people had basic rights now
 * Right to form political parties
 * Right of free speech
 * Libers loved the October Manifesto but the revolutionary parties didn't trust Nicholas with any of this
 * December 15 members of the revolutionary parities were sent to jail in Siberia
 * In Moscow an army was sent to crush the Soviet and more than a thousand people died
 * 1906 - Tsar crushed other ares of revolution
 * The worst of the revolutionaries were the Black Hundreds
 * Organized a massacres
 * In 100 cities anyone who had joined the revolution were put to death
 * Police or armies did nothing to stop this
 * March 1906 the revolution was over
 * Elections for their Duma was held in March 1906
 * When the Duma met for a meeting first time in May, Nicholas discussed the Fundamental Laws
 * 1) 'To the Emperor of all the Russians belongs supreme autocratic power'

__Chapter 6 - The Aftermath of the 1905 Revolution__
The Dumas The Stolypin Reforms Rasputin
 * The Dumas didn't really have any power
 * The Duma only lasted 75 days and Nicholas got rid of them
 * 1907 - a second duma was elected
 * The duma was made up of liberals, socialist revolutionaries and social democrats --> all wanted to get rid of the autocracy
 * 1907 - the third Duma met, lasted one year
 * The voting laws had changed, made sure the revolutionaries weren't elected
 * Behaved and did what ever they were told
 * 1906 - a new Prime Minister was elected --> make sure no outbreaks of revolution
 * His name was ** Peter Stolypin **
 * Believed in strick government
 * First action was stopping the terrorism
 * 1908, 1008 terrorists were arrested, tried by special courts and executed
 * Same year 21,000 people were sent to jail in Serbia
 * He realized he couldn't stop all the violence alone
 * He feared more outbreaks of violence
 * He helped the peasants get more land
 * Peasants no longer had to pay for their land
 * New law was set up and the peasants had control over their land
 * Hoping the peasants would help prevent the revolution
 * Conditions in Russia began to improve
 * Peasants started buying their own land
 * 1911 - one of Stolyin's police agents who had been investigating terrorist turned out to be a terrorist himself: and shot Stolyin dead
 * At the same time as Stolypin was Prime Minister, Nicholas and his wife had gotten to know a Siberian peasant
 * This peasant said he was Starets - a holy man of god
 * 1905 - Alexanders prayers had been answered
 * This holy man was going to help heal their son
 * His name was Gregory Efimovitch
 * Alexis had internal bleeding, Gregory Efimovitch prayed by his bed one night and the next day he was healed
 * Gregory Efimovitch became a very trusted man
 * In his own country Gregory Efimovitch wasn't very popular - was nicknames ** Rasputin **
 * Because he drank a lot and had affairs with many women
 * He was proved 'disreputable' in the count in St. Petersburg
 * Nicholas and Alexander still trusted him
 * After Stolypin died Gregory Efimovitch influenced them even more
 * He gave political advice
 * The Russians started to hate him more and more

//THIS MAN IS GREGORY ELFIMOVITCH, FROM SERBIA, HE CLAMED THAT HE WAS A HOLY MAN OF GOD. HE HEALED ALEXANDEXR AND NICHOLAS'S SON. MOST PEOPLE IN RUSSIA DIDN'T REALLY LIKE HIM. BACK IN HIS HOME COUNTRY HE WAS KNOWN AS A RASPUTIN BECAUSE HE DRANK ALOT, HAD AFFIARS WITH WOMEN AND HE WAS ALSO KNOW AS 'DISREPUTABLE.'

** Summary: **
Russia was ruled by Tsar Nicholas II as an autocrat, he had all the power. There were poor and rich people in Russia, the poor's conditions were very bad. Tsar Alexander got assassinated in March 1881. The three main opponents that Tsar had were the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Social Democratic Party and the Liberals. 1905, the Russian Revolution started.

Questions:
1) Who was Stolypin and what did he do? 2) What happened on Bloody Sunday and why? 3) What were the three groups of opponents that existed in 1900? Explain each of them. 4)_ ruled Russia as an Autocrat. 5)True or False Tsar Alexander II was shot in the head and died?