Where’s my
green sweatshirt
Nationalism in
Russia
1825-1905
The Modernization of
Russia:
McKay (835-838)
Palmer 13.67, 16.84
18.92
Russia 1815-1905
-Dynastic Crisis
-Decembrist
Revolt
Alexander II
(the Great
Reformer)
becomes Tsar
(1855)
Edicts of 1864
(Legal equality,
political
representation
Count Witte
begins
Industrial
reform
(1882)
RussoJapanese
War
Official Nationalism
1815
1825
Holy
Alliance
Formed
1853
Crimean
War (18531856)
1861
Emancipation
Act
1881
Alexander II
assassinated
by People’s
Will
1905
Bloody
Sunday
begins
Revolution
of 1905
•
•
•
•
Russia under Nicholas I
Decembrist Revolt (1825)
– Liberal officers led coup in favor of:
• Constantine & Constitution
• Elimination of serfdom
– Crushed by Nicholas I (1825-1855)
Nicholas I
– Ruled as autocrat
– Disliked serfdom but was afraid of angering
Boyars
– Utilized censorship, secret police (Third Section)
Reform
– Codified Russia Law (1833)
Official Nationality
– Program of state controlled Russian nationalism
– “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationalism”
– Slogan found in schoolbooks, newspapers, etc.
– Russian Orthodox Church
• Charged with education & morality
– Russians taught to accept place in society (no
upward mobility)
– Taught to view Tsar of father figure & protector
– Taught to see Mother Russia (language, culture,
customs) as a safeguard against the immorality of
the West
It is our common obligation to
ensure that the education of
the people be conducted,
according to Supreme
intention of our August
Monarch, in the joint spirit of
Orthodoxy, Autocracy and
Nationality. I am convinced
that every professor and
teacher, being permeated by
one and the same feeling of
devotion to the throne and
fatherland, will use all his
resources to become a worthy
tool for the government and to
earn its complete confidence.
Sergey Uvarov, Minister of
Education
Crimean War 1853-1856
• War between Russia and England/ France
– Also Ottoman Empire, Piedmont-Sardinia
• Exposed how woefully behind Russia was to
the West
• Immediate Cause
– War began over dispute between Roman
Catholic and Greek Orthodox monks over
guardianship of Jerusalem’s holy places
– France pressured the Ottoman sultan to
grant Catholics special privileges
– Russian demanded Orthodox monks be
given priviledges
• Long-term Causes
– Napoleon III also looking for glory
– The Eastern Question
• weakness of Ottoman Empire
– Russia’s desire for war water port,
Constantinople
– Great Britain concern of Russian expansion
• When negotiations broke down, Britain and
France sent their fleets to the Aegean Sea, and
in October 1853 the sultan declared war on
Church of Holy Sepulcher
Characteristics of Crimean War
• War noted for tactical and logistical
ineptitude on both sides
• Considered first “modern” war
– Use of telegraph, RR
– Florence Nightingale
• Founder of modern nursing
• Called attention to poor
hygiene of medical staff
treating wounded
• “Lady with the lamp”
– Title given for her nightly
visits to wounded
• 1st War documented, photographed
and reported daily
– British press kept public informed
Results of Crimean War
• Russia lost
• Religious issue settled
– Orthodox and Catholics
share hoy sites
• Congress of Paris (1856)
– Russia forced to cede
some territory
– accepts a ban on
warships in the Black
Sea
• exposed the weakness of
Russia
– Leads new Tsar to
embark on major
reform movement
Tsarist Russia after 1856
•
Outcomes of the Crimean War
showed the strength of the
western nations and the
backwardness of the
“enormous village”
•
Huge empire (Poland to Pacific)
was unable to repel the limited
but efficient attacks of the West
•
Illiterate & unmotivated serfs
were unproductive famers and
poor soldiers
•
Alexander II (1855-1881)
– Assumed Tsardom during
the war
– Not a born liberal but knew
he had to act
Westernizers v. Slavophiles
• Two major perspectives of what Russia was:
– Westernizers: Russia is backward
• Should be more like the West
• Petr Chaadayev
– Philosophical Letters said that Russia
had lagged behind Western countries
and had contributed nothing to the
world's progress
– Slavophiles: Russia is special
• Rejected West (Industrial Revolution,
selfish capitalism)
• Celebrated Orthodox faith & extended
family of Russian serfs
• “We (AP European Students of LM) are a
backward people and therein lies our
salvation. We must thank destiny that we
have not lived the life of Europe…we do
not want its proletariat, its aristocratic
system..
Uniqueness of Russia
• “Three Fundamental Institutions”
– Autocracy of Tsar
– Serfdom
– Intelligentsia
Autocracy of the Tsar
• Russia’s 1st fundamental institution was
autocracy
– Monopoly of power by Tsar and Boyars
– Controlled press, education
• But it wasn’t exactly like absolutism (Louis XIV)
• European conceptions were missing
– West viewed spiritual authority as
independent of state authority (separation of
Church and State)
– West believe People have certain rights or
claims for justice (English Bill of Rights,
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen,
absolutist limited by reason or social contract)
• Rule by law was substituted with ukase (arbitrary
laws created by tsar), police action, and the army
• Developing technology was replaced with
importing technology and forcing reforms onto the
population
• “the Russian empire was a machine
superimposed upon its people without organic
connection (bureaucracy pure and simple)”
Russian Serfdom
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
2nd fundamental institution was serfdom
Majority of population were serfs
Resembled American slavery
–
Serfs were owned, could be bought
and sold, used in occupation other
than agriculture (factories,
mechanics, evening migrating city
workers)
Since Pugachev Rebellion, Boyars had
nearly absolute control of lives of their
serfs
Many absentee landlords
–
Not interested in agricultural
improvements
Wasn’t profitable anymore
Made the muzhiks (like Kelly Duffy and
Gabriel Castor) into “illiterate …drudges,
without incentive, initiative, self-respect,
or pride of workmanship”
Made for very poor soldiers
Intelligentsia
•
3rd fundamental institution (arose in mid 1800s was
the intelligentsia
•
Educated Russians were full of Western Ideas
–
But unlike the West they were estranged from the
government, from the Church, from the
uneducated peasants, gov. occupations (unlike
England and France)
–
Free to think but had no vehicle to bring change
•
Made up of students, university graduates, people
who had time to read
•
tended to adopt sweeping & all-embracing
philosophies
•
Land and Freedom- chief radical society
–
Intelligentsia radicals
–
Looked for the “Real Russia” among the peasants
(serfs) during the 1870s
–
Hoped to instruct them of their role in upcoming
revolution
–
Most turned over to police
•
People’s Will
–
Splinter group from Land and Freedom
–
Violent Revolutionaries
•
•
•
•
The Emancipation Act of 1861
Serfdom was abolished
by an imperial ukase of
1861 decree
But what would happen
to the labor system, the
food supply? How would
the Boyars be
appeased?
Needed to avoid
throwing the labor
system into chaos
Alexander II set up a
special branch of gov to
figure this out
Act of Emancipation of 1861
• It did:
• End serfdom
• Allocated about
50% of cultivated
land to gentry and
50% to former
serfs
• Serf had to pay
redemption to
gentry
• It did not:
• Really “Free” the
peasant
– Bound to Mir
• Weaken the gentry
– Now had
possession of ½
arable land,
received
redemption $, free
of serf
responsibility
The Mir
•
•
•
•
•
•
Peasants did not own property in western
sense (private individual)
Peasant land became Mir or village
(collective) property
Village Elders were responsible to the gov
for payment of the redemption
–
Could demand forced labor from
members who defaulted on their
portion of the redemption
–
Could prevent peasants from moving
away (would leave them with burden of
paying redemption)
Mir periodically reassigned lands to
village members (depending of family
size) & supervised cultivation (Open field
& Three Field system)
Land could not be sold outside the village
–
Discouraged the investment of outside
capital
–
Discouraged individual initiative
Result: Agriculture in Russia would lag
behind the west
The Kulaks
•
•
•
Most peasants belonged to a Mir
A few became individual landowners
called Kulaks
Kulaks
– Came to mean "tight-fisted"
– More well-to-do peasants
– Owned and/or rented land from the
gentry
– hired other peasants to work
– Led to growing resentment
– Held up a paradigm by Stolypin
during 1890s
– Labeled as “class enemies” by
Marxist-Leninists
– Eventually “liquidated” by Stalin in
1931
Ukase of 1864
• Ukase (Edict) of 1864
allowed for:
– Public trials
– Right to representation (with
lawyers of their own
choosing)
• Class distinctions in judicial
matters were abolished
– clear sequence of lower and
higher courts was established
– Training for judges on state
salaries
– Jury trials
– IE. Established the rule of law
Zemstvos
• Another edict of 1864
– established a system of
provincial and district
councils (IE. Local
government)
• Called Zemstvos
– Members were elected by
peasants and other elements
– A group of Mirs made up a
Volost
– A group of Volost made up a
Zemstvos
– Took care of education,
medical relief, public welfare,
food supply and road
maintenance
– Began to develop a sense of
civic responsibility among its
members
LM Cafeteria
Zemstvo having a dinner by Grigoriy
Myasoyedov. 1872
Ukase of 1874 (Military Reform)
• Largest army humiliated in
Crimean War
• 25 year conscription service
– Village held dirge-like procession
for departing soldiers
• Illiterate serfs (like Jordan
Freed) did not know their left
from their right
• Told to use their “bayonets
before bullets”
• Often seized (impressments)
serfs from families
• Harsh & brutal discipline
• Edict of 1874
– Lessened service to 6 years
active (9 years in reserve)
Rise of Revolutionaries
•
•
•
Mikhail Bakunin
–
Russian Intelligentsia
–
Broke with LaSallian Socialist and Marxist at
the First International in Geneva (1866)
–
Believed there was no compromising with
existing government
–
Believed that violence was necessary
•
Marxism rejects terrorism because
socialism needed no prodding (it was
inevitable)
People’s Justice
–
Bukunin’s pamphlet called for terrorism
against tsarist officials and liberals too!
Catechism of a Revolutionist stated
–
that true revolutionary is “devoured by one
purpose, one thought, one passion—the
revolution.”
–
“Everything that promotes the success of the
revolution is moral, everything which hinders it
is immoral.”
Bakunin speaking to
members of the IWA at the
Basel Congress in 1869
Assassination of Tsar Alexander III
• In order to stem the rise
of radical socialist the
Czar turned to the
liberalism 1880
– Liberals demanded
follow through with
earlier reforms
• Czar abolished the secret
police (Third Section) of
Nicholas I
• Allowed more freedom of
the press
• Agreed to a pseudoparliamentary system on
March 13, 1881
• March 13, 1881 Alexander
II was assassinated by
the People’s Will
The assassination of Alexander II. Drawing by G. Broling 1881
Alexander III(1881 to 1894)
•
Reactionary son of
Alexander II
• Abandoned his father’s
idea of parliamentary-like
gov
• allowed peasant
emancipation, judicial
reform and zemstvos to
continue
– Exiled Revolutionaries
– People’s Will was
crushed
– Jews were subjected to
pogroms
Russification
• Alexander III’s forced assimilation into
Russian culture
– Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians,
Armenians, Germans in the east,
Muslims in the south central regions
made to adopt Russia language and
culture
– Konstantin Pobiedonostsev
• Russian nationalist and Reactionary
procurator of Holy Synod of Russian
Orthodox Church
• Adviser to Alexander II, III, and
Nicolas II
• A Russian Fitche/ Turnvater Jahn
• main proponent of Russification
– Saw West as a doomed culture
– Attacked rationalism, liberalism
– Said Slavs had unique character
– Promoted idea of Tsar as divine
Industrialization before 1914
• Russia began to industrialize during the 1880s
– Financed by European capital
– $4 billion in Russia by 1914
• Count Witte
– reform minister
– put Russia on gold standard
• made Ruble convertible into other
currencies
– Railway mileage doubled between 1888-1913
– Built RR to Vladivostok (transcontinental)
– Exports and imports increased
• Ex=400 million rubes (1880) to 1.6 Billion in
1913
• Imports rose 5xs same period
• Factories
– Largely foreign (French) owned
• highly concentrated into large factories (500+)
• Was easier for workers to mobilize politically
The shell-shop of the
Putilov works,
St Petersburg 1903
Russian Tsardom build over a
volcano of repressed isms
Peasant
Demands
Liberal
Cadets
Demands
Proletariat
demands
Radical
Intelligentia
demands
Political Parties (1900)
“Political Parties” began to
emerge by 1900
• Included
1. Constitutional Democrats
2. Social Revolutionaries
3. Social Democrats
• reflected mounting discontent
• Not parties in western sense
– not organized to get a
candidate elected
– No elections in Russia
except Zemstvo
• Parties were really
propaganda agencies
• Worked underground
The “Kadets”
• Constitutional Democratic Party
(1905)
• Named derived from abbreviation
of Constitutional Democrats (KD)
• Formed by business,
professional class and
capitalistic landowners, lawyers
• Liberal, progressive,
constitutionalists
• Favor constitutional monarchy,
written constitution, limited
enfranchisement
• Not connected to
issues/concerns of the urban
worker or peasant
– Remember Frankfurt
Assembly in 1848
Later
disparaged
as party
controlled by
Jews in this
anti-Semitic
poster by the
Bolsheviks
Social Democratic Labor party
• Orthodox Marxist
• Nonviolent
• Admired German Social
Democratic (Lassalians)
– Thought Russia must develop
capitalism and an industrialist
proletariat, (class struggle)
before revolution (Orthodox
Marxist)
– Looked to urban proletariat as
a support base
– Ridiculed the mir
• Disapproved of assassination,
terrorism
• Later called the Mensheviks
Tsar Policy
• Government refused to make any concessions
• 1894 Nicholas II
– Had narrow outlook
– Little Father was taught by Pobiedonostsev
(Pobie) that any criticism as un-Russian &
democracy was "the insupportable
dictatorship of vulgar crowd".
– Pobedonostsev condemned elections,
representation and democracy, the jury
system, the press, free education, charities,
and social reforms
– Nicholas II
• Similar to Louis XVI (Family man, trained
to rule, but too young, too indecisive)
• Promoted autocracy
– God-given, best and only form of gov in
Russia
• With growing discontent Nick needed a
distraction
• Plehve, the Chief Minister hoped for quick war
with Japan that would forge patriotism
Russo-Japanese War
• Russia and Japan both wanted Manchuria
– Japanese need natural resources
– Russians wanted a rail way to
Vladivostok
• Russia needed a distraction from criticisms
of Tsardom at home
• Tsar’s advisors were racist and didn’t believe
an Asian nation could mount an fight against
the Russia Bear
• Russo-Japanese War (1904)
– Japan attacked Port Arthur
– Armies entered Manchuria
– Battle of Mukden
• 624,000 men were engaged
• Largest battle ever
• Russia defeated on land
– Russians sent the Baltic fleet to Japan
• Tsushima Strait the Russia lost 2/3 of
its navy
• Russia humiliated
The Russian Navy socks the
Japanese Fleet in the kisser.
One of many over-confident pre-war
Russian propaganda cartoons
“Bloody Sunday” 1905
• Father Gapon
– Orthodox priest
– lead peaceful procession
of 200 thousand factory
workers & their families to
Tsar’s Winter Palace in
St. Petersburg
– believed that Little Father
would rectify the evils
– Asked for 8 hrs workday,
minimum wage (1 ruble),
recall of bad officials, a
Constituent Assembly
• Sang “God save the Tsar”
• Troops shot and killed
hundreds
Reactions to “Bloody Sunday”
• Dissolved the moral bond between the
people and the Tsar’s government (Little
Father)
• Councils or soviets were formed in
Moscow and St. Petersburg
• Peasants erupted in revolt
– Burned manor houses, beating up
land owners
• Remember the Great Fear
• Social Revolutionaries tried to direct the
peasant revolts
• Constitutional Democrats tried to seize
leadership of the revolution
• All wanted more democratic
representation
• 8/1905 the Tsar calls for an Estates
General
– Peasants, landowners and city people
would vote as separate classes
The October Manifesto
• October Manifesto
• Tsar proclamation meant to placate the Revolution of 1905
• Grants
– Constitution
– civil liberties
– Duma
• Parliamentary gov. to be elected by all powers alike
with powers to enact laws
• Tsar’s real intention was to divide opposition (which it did)
• Constitutional Democrats (Kadets)
– Liberal Bourgeoisie liked the the Duma
– Feared Social Democrats
– Did not identify with workers or peasants
• Social Democrats
– (correctly) believed that the October Man was a
deception which the Tsar would renege on
• Peasants and workers were not satisfied
– wanted more land and less taxes
• Workers wanted a shorter working day and a living wage
• Social Democratic party splits
Social Revolutionary Party (1906)
• Derived from the People’s Will
and Social Democratic Party
• Admired mir as a viable form of
communism
• Unorthodox Marxist
– Violent Marxist revolutionaries
– Believed capitalism stage could
be skipped
– Did not need to go from
agricultural to industrial stage
to socialist-communist stage
– Russia skip capitalism and go
directly to a communist society
– Later known as the Bolsheviks
Europe on Eve of WWI