Tsarist Regime, 1905-1917
Area of Study One
Richard Malone
HTAV Student Lectures
OVERVIEW OF
Revolutionary Stages
Stage 1: 1905
“Dissatisfaction Erupts”
Stage 2: 1906-1913
“Tsarism Stabilised”
Stage 3: 1914-Feb 1917
“Crises Exacerbated by WW1”
Stage 4: March-Oct 1917
“Failure of Dual Government”
Stage 5: Oct 1917
“Bolshevik Victory”
Stage 1: 1905
“Dissatisfaction Erupts”
1. Causes of 1905 Crisis
• Russia a backward agricultural society
• Witte (Minister of Finance) implemented industrial reforms in 1890s
to strengthen Russia’s military power
2. Results
• rapidly increased industrial production
• built Trans-Siberian railway
…but…
• poor working conditions
• severe overcrowding in cities like Petrograd
• radically heightened social and economic discontent
1. Workers’ Solution = mass action
• Workers’ Petition & march
• mass strikes in October
2. Troops’ solution = military action
• defeated in Russo/Japanese War
• mutiny by navy crew on Battleship Potemkin
• army troops mutiny & controlled portion of Trans Siberian railway
3. Liberal Solution = political action
• shared power between the Tsar and an elected parliament
• Duma was ‘principal request’ in workers’ petition
1. Social Significance
• creation of a permanent rift between Tsar & his people
2. Political Significance
• Tsar grants representative ‘Duma’ through October
Manifesto
Stage 2: 1906-1913
“Politically Stabilised”
1. Unwillingness to compromise system of autocracy
• in his opening manifesto of 1894 he declared that “I shall adhere as
unswervingly as my father to the principal of autocracy.”
• reasserted autocracy in his Fundamental State Laws in 1906 issued
four days before opening of First Duma
2. Tsar unwilling to support radical political reform
• dismissed First and Second Dumas in 1906 & 7 for radical reforms
3. Rising and unmet expectations
• Tsar changed electoral laws in 1907
• Third & Fourth Dumas completed full 5 year terms
Stage 2: 1906-1913
“Economically Stabilised”
1. Stolypin’s agricultural reforms
• Stolypin replaced Witte as Prime Minister in 1906
• “As the revolution is so strong… I must face revolution, resist it &
stop it.”
• reforms aimed to solve problems of land with overall aim of
increasing the size of peasants land holdings
• aimed to create wealthy class of land-owning peasants to stimulate
the agrarian economy
2. Results
• 5 million peasants began farming independently
• number of primary schools doubled
• increased expenditure on health & poor in countryside
Stage 2: 1906-1913
“Socially Stabilised”
1. Suppression of revolutionaries
• belief in autocracy resulted in a willingness to use violence to
suppress opposition to his regime
• oppression of revolutionaries under Stolypin
• further revolts temporarily avoided
2. Tsarism strengthened
• political, economic and social peace restored
Stage 3: 1914-Feb 1917
“Crises Exacerbated by WW1”
1. Militarily Damaging • significant defeats due to lack of ammunition, poor internal
organisation, demoralisation & impact of socialist propaganda
• assumed that personal control of army would unite the troops & the
nation
2. Politically Damaging • Tsar’s role in army symbolically isolated him from Petrograd and
made him directly responsible for nation’s problems
• left Alexandra in charge of government who was heavily influenced
by Rasputin
• Tsar’s main mistake was not recognising the extent to which he and
his government were losing their traditional support base.
3. Economically Damaging •
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food shortages
fuel shortages
inflation & price increases
unemployment
4. Socially Damaging –
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all the above led to significant social depression
violent resistance to conscription
socialist agitation amongst industrial workers
British Ambassador Lockhart, “it was his failure to harness the
loyalty of his own people which eventually cost him his throne”
Significant Outcomes:
1. Tsar unwilling to recognise his government’s isolation
• a politically and socially fatal division emerged between the upper
classes and the Tsar. By 1917, the Tsar’s support had dwindled to
the bureaucracy. Tsar unable to create a new support base.
2. Tsar unwilling to implement necessary reforms
• Tsar had been unable and to unwilling to bridge the gap between his
autocratic and agrarian society and the modern industrialised world.
3. FEBRUARY REVOLUTION
• Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, ending 304 years of Romanov role
• formation of Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet
Nature of Nicholas II’s Leadership:
Perspective 1
George Kennan, 1967
There was of course, eventually, the Duma…[but] it was obvious
that the granting of it by Nicholas II came far too late and
precisely in the wrong way – under pressure, that is, and with
obvious reluctance and suspicion on his part…Poorly
educated, narrow in intellectual horizon, a wretchedly bad
judge of people, isolated from Russian society at large, in
contact with only the most narrow military and bureaucratic
circles, intimidated by the ghost of his imposing father and the
glowering proximity of his numerous gigantic uncles, helpless
under the destructive influence of his endlessly unfortunate
wife: Nicholas was obviously inadequate to the demands of his
exalted positions.
Stage 4: March-Oct 1917
“Failure of Dual Government”
1. Why did the Provisional Government fail to win support?
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weak political & popular foundation
continued fighting WW1
failure of June Offensive
lack of focus on economic problems
alienation of both upper & working class supporters
2. How did the Bolsheviks grow in popularity?
• Lenin’s return and April Theses
• Kornilov Revolt overturned failure of July Days
• Growth in political support
Nature of Dual Government:
Perspective 1
Sheila Fitzpatrick, 1994
In February 1917, the autocracy collapsed in the face of popular
demonstrations and the withdrawal of elite support for the
regime. In the euphoria of revolution, political solutions
seemed easy. Russia’s future form of government would, of
course, be democratic…yet within eight months the hopes and
expectations of February lay in ruins. ‘Dual power’ proved an
illusion, masking something like a power vacuum. The popular
revolution became progressively more radical, while the elite
revolution moved toward an anxious conservative stance in
defense of property and law and order.
Nature of Dual Government:
Perspective 2
Rex Wade, 2000
The discussion of the Bolshevik plans and calls for Soviet power
took place within the context of deepening social and economic
crisis and the growing popular demand for change. By late
summer [July and August 1917] the revolution clearly had thus
far failed to meet the aspirations of the people of the former
Russian Empire. Indeed, unsolved political, social and
economic problems created a mood of anxiety and tensions
that fed directly into the growing clamor for a radical change of
government.
Stage 5: October 1917
“Bolshevik Victory”
Lenin’s plot publicly revealed & criticised in a
revolutionary newspaper by prominent Bolshevik leaders
Zinoviev & Kamenev.
So why didn’t the government stop the Bolsheviks?
1. Inadequate suppression
• On 23 October, closed down Bolshevik newspapers & telephone
wires to their headquarters were cut. Too little, too late.
2. Inadequate defenses
• Members of the Cadets, Women’s Battalion and Cossacks sent to
guard the Winter Palace, but without heavy artillery or machine guns
Stages of Takeover:
1. Capture of key communication centres, like telegraph
station & post offices
2. Capture of key installations like electric companies
3. Capture of key vantage points like bridges & railway
stations
4. Capture of Provisional Government in Winter Palace
Significance:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Fulfilled Lenin’s April Thesis
Ideologically motivated revolution
Ended capitalist stage of Russian history
Vertical transfer of power from monarch to proletariat
Opportunity for Bolshevik dream of socialist utopia
Broken dream of a socialist coalition government
Began intense civil war
Nature of Bolshevik take-over:
Perspective 1
Trotsky, 25 October 1917
What has taken place is an uprising not a conspiracy. An
uprising of the masses of the people needs no
justification. We have been strengthening the
revolutionary energy of the workers and the soldiers. We
have been forging, openly, the will of the masses for an
uprising. Our uprising has won.
Nature of Bolshevik take-over:
Perspective 2
Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, 1967
It was the triumph of Marxism-Leninism and demonstrated the
significance and role of the revolutionary Marxist party. The
working class and all other working people of Russia were led
by the Bolshevik Party, which was guided by the revolutionary
theory of Marxist-Leninism. The people saw that the party was
devoted to them and provided them with judicious leadership
and recognized it as their leader.
Nature of Bolshevik take-over:
Perspective 3
AJP Taylor, 1967
Revolutions in short are made in the name of the proletariat, not
by it, and usually in countries where the proletariat hardly
exists. What is more, these revolutions do not bring the
triumph or dictatorship of the proletariat. They bring the
dictatorship of a new managerial class, or sometimes the old
class under a new name. In any society, a few men will aspire
to run things, and the great majority will allow them to do
it…The Communists, from Marx onwards, were the chosen few
who really knew what the proletariat wanted. They knew only
because they said they knew. This was enough to convince
them that they would always be right. Someone called Marxists
‘God’s prompters’. Lenin was the most confident and persistent
of those prophets.”
Nature of Bolshevik take-over:
Perspective 4
Pipes, 1994
argues that since both Lenin and Trotsky felt that the revolution was not
inevitable, then communism is also not inevitable, which disproves
Marxism.
The ease with which the Bolsheviks toppled the Provisional Government
– in Lenin’s words, it was like “lifting a feather” – has persuaded many
historians that the October coup was “inevitable”. But it can appear as
such only in retrospect. Lenin himself thought it an extremely chancy
undertaking. In urgent letters to the Central Committee in September and
October 1917 from his hideaway, he insisted that success depended
entirely on the speed and resoluteness with which the armed insurrection
was carried out: “To delay the uprising is death,” he wrote on October 24,
“everything hangs on a hair.” These were not the sentiments of a person
prepared to trust the forces of history. Trotsky later asserted – and who
was in a better position to know? – that if “neither Lenin nor myself had
been in Petersburg, there would have been no October Revolution.” Can
one conceive of an “inevitable” historical event dependent on two
individuals?
Nature of Bolshevik take-over:
Perspective 5
Edward Acton, 1990
The central drama of the revolution was precisely the
attempt of the Russian masses to assert direct control
over their own lives… October marked the moment at
which power began to move from the hands of the mass
movement, then at full tide, into the hands of an
organisation determined to exercise control from above.
The popular vision paled, dimmed and faded away.