Alexander II (1855 - 1881)
Introduction
Alexander II came to the throne in March 1855 at the age of 36, having been well prepared and
trained to take over from his father, Nicholas I. Historian Lionel Kochan described him as "the best
prepared heir the Russian throne ever had".
On his deathbed Nicholas famously told Alexander to ‘hold on to everything!’ and Alexander was
committed to retaining the autocratic powers of the tsardom.
However, Alexander was less of a disciplinarian than his father and was more open to the
arguments of others around him. Deeply influenced by defeat in Crimean war and by liberal
ministers, Alexander II undertook extensive reforms of Russian society and government. In
particular, he emancipated the serfs, which has been described by Tim Chapman as "the single most
important law or decree issued by any tsar in nineteenth-century Russia" and is generally seen as
one of the most significant social reforms of the nineteenth century.
Yet, the fundamental inconsistency between Alexander’s commitment to autocracy and his moves
towards liberal reform isolated him from both reformers and conservatives alike. The growth of
radical political opposition during his reign, partly made possible by his liberal reforms, eventually
led to his assassination by terrorists of The People’s Will group in 1881.
Situation when Alexander II came to power: what problems faced the new tsar of the Russian
Empire?
Defeat in Crimean war (1854 - 1856, fought on Russian territory against British, French and Turkish
troops over territorial control over the Holy Land) exposed how serious Russia’s problems were in
terms of communications (only 60,000 of its 1 million soldiers summoned to battle), industry
(unable to equip Russian troops with the modern weapons used by British and French soldiers),
administration (corrupt and ineffective) and the military (poorly equipped and suffered huge losses
due to illness and disease). Such embarrassing proof of Russian backwardness in relation to the
Western powers challenged the Slavophiles' argument that Russian greatness was best maintained
through autocracy and the status quo. The loss in Crimea showed Alexander the need to modernize
in order to strengthen Russia and retain its status as a Great Power.
Increasing criticisms of the institution of serfdom that constituted the basis of Russian society and
the biggest problem facing the government - how to deal with this? Moral objections to serfdom
existed (with even Nicholas I having recognized it as “an evil” that needed to be addressed),
alongside economic arguments for its reform (with Westernizers seeing it as responsible for Russian
backwardness as it acted as a brake on industrial and agricultural development through preventing
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enterprise and free movement of labour) and crucially military objections (with serfs serving for 25
years making urgently needed army reform an impossibility). Increasingly abolition of serfdom was
seen as necessary to allow progress and modernization in Russia, but the question was how was this
to be done?
There was significant peasant unrest and social instability, with over 350 peasant revolts between
1844 and 1854. When Nicholas I tried to recruit troops for the Crimean war from the peasantry this
peasant unrest increased considerably, and the levels of violence demanded that the army had to be
used to restore order.
Defeat in the Crimea and the succession of a new, younger tsar created a political climate more
favourable to reform. Many people in Russia, especially intellectuals, nobles and administrators,
were convinced that change was necessary and the early months of Alexander's reign saw an
unusual consensus in favour of reform. Alexander II encouraged this optimism and hope for reform
by relaxing press censorship and allowing free discussion of the serfdom issue. For those wanting
change, Alexander's reign started well.
What were Alexander II's aims in embarking upon his social and political reforms?
Historians have been divided over Alexander's motives for emancipating the serfs (see
historiography section below for further details), but his general programme of reforms can be
understood in relation to his desire to strengthen and consolidate the tsarist autocracy. It should
not be forgotten that Alexander's childhood readings in history had firmly embedded his belief in
his own autocratic powers as tsar. In support of this view there is Alexander's comment to the
nobles in 1856 that it "is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will
begin to abolish itself from below." Rather than any liberal desire to emancipate the serfs, this
suggests a pragmatic concern with maintaining the powers of the tsarist state in a time of complex
challenges.
In carrying out his reforms, Alexander hoped to secure Russia's position as a great power following
the humiliation in the Crimea, through improving the position of the Russian state both internally
and externally. He hoped for a peace and stability in the countryside, with a prosperous and
contented peasantry, and for a degree of industrial growth that would strengthen and modernize
the army and the economy. In a nutshell, Alexander wished to chart the delicate middle-path of
making the changes necessary to modernize Russia without losing the support of the conservative
nobles who supported the Romanov autocracy. Given the far-reaching and complex nature of the
reforms' effects, it is an open question as to how far Alexander's reforms created more new
problems than they solved old ones (see below for further discussion of these effects).
In short, and to summarize, Alexander II wished to modernize Russia as a means of strengthening
the autocratic tsarist state. He wanted to achieve the social and economic modernization of Russia,
with all the benefits this would bring for the state, without allowing the political modernization of
allowing greater power to 'civil society' and the wider population beyond the government (esp. the
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educated middle class and intelligentsia) as had already occurred in Western Europe. Put simply, he
wanted to have his autocratic cake and eat it!
The process of emancipating the serfs: what obstacles did Alexander face, 1855 - 1861?
Though Nicholas I had recognized the 'evil' of serfdom, and the government had been aware of the
problem for at least 50 years, little had been done to tackle the issue due to the following reasons:
The hostility of the nobility and the landowners to such a measure prevented reform. As their
financial and social status depended on how many serfs they owned, these groups were reluctant to
lose status and wealth in favour of the peasants. As the tsar relied upon the nobility to rule the
country he could not afford to lose their support by forcing through this reform against their will.
The stability of the Russian social system was deeply dependent on the institution of serfdom, and
their were fears from the nobility and Slavophiles that emancipating the serfs would lead to chaos
and anarchy if the peasants were to be freed from the control of their serf-owning masters.
Trying to resolve these complex issues and agree on a law to emancipate the serfs involved a long
process of reaching compromise with the different powerful interests that feared they would lose
out, and it took Alexander five years to complete his Emancipation edict from March 1856 to
February 1861. As the above obstacles suggest, the central issues at stake were land and control:
should the serfs be freed from their feudal obligations? How was society to be kept under control
without these obligations? Should the serfs be given any land? Should the nobles be compensated
for the loss of their land? How should this be paid for given the poverty of the country following the
Crimean war? When should any such measure take effect?
Ultimately, given the autocratic nature of political power in Russia, Alexander must have exercised a
personal commitment to emancipating the serfs (whatever his motives in doing so), as any changes
or reforms were obviously dependent upon his approval to be implemented. Without his consent,
no reform would have been possible. Facing social and economic problems and the Crimean defeat,
Alexander chose to listen to reformers and personally played an important role in bringing about this
major reform.
Details of the Emancipation Edict (February 1861)
Serfs granted personal freedom within 2 years, allowing them to own land, marry without
interference, use law courts and set up their own businesses.
Freed peasants were granted ownership of their houses and the plot of land they had worked on.
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Each serf was guaranteed a minimum size of allotment, but 75% of serfs received allotments 20%
smaller than the land they worked before and 80% of the size considered necessary to feed a
peasant family.
The government then compensated landlords for land lost to peasants, on a very high valuation of
the land. Freed serfs were to repay the state this in the shape of ‘redemption dues’ over 49 years at
6% interest.
The local mir was made responsible for collecting and paying the redemption taxes, and thus
exercised considerable control over each peasant.
State serfs were granted the same terms, but the transition period was 5 years not 2 and they
generally received larger plots of lands. Household serfs came out worst of all: they received no
land, just their freedom.
Responses to emancipation
Emancipation was both criticized and praised at the same time. Prince Kropotkin, a serf-owner and
anarchist, said that peasants met the reforms with 'enthusiasm' and celebrated their liberation.
However, other radicals hoping for greater change argued that the reforms pleased no-one.
Peasants tended to be dissatisfied with what they saw as the shortcomings of the deal - i.e. they
thought the land they worked was theirs by right and did not see that they should have to pay
landlords for it. There were in total 647 incidents of peasants rioting following the Edict, with a
notable example in Bezdna (where a peasant urged his fellow serfs to seize land for themselves, and
was then arrested and executed for his part in the disturbances that followed).
Nobility resented their loss of social importance and felt betrayed that Alexander II had not fully
consulted them in the process of drawing up his final draft.
Effectively, then, the nobility were angered by what they saw as a radical document while the
peasants were disappointed by what they say as a moderate document. This clearly shows the
difficulties Alexander and his ministers faced in trying to emancipate the serfs.
Evaluating the emancipation: what were its successes and failures?
As Terry Morris and Derrick Murphy point out, viewing the emancipation as a 'success' or a 'failure'
depends very much on what criteria it is judged against.
+ Viewed in legal terms of rights and liberties, the emancipation was a monumental success: 40
million Russians were liberated overnight, and Russia made a dramatic break with its social and
economic past to an extent unparalleled in nineteenth-century Europe.
+ Some historians (Hugh Seton-Watson, David Moon) have compared emancipation favourably with
USA’s abolition of black slavery in 1865 as it guaranteed land to the former serfs and did more to
guarantee the personal freedom of those liberated than occurred in the States.
- Immediate impact of the emancipation was lessened by practical problems of implementing the
reform at local level. As the process was dependent upon the support of the nobility, it was often
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slow and carried out in a way that favoured the interests of landowners at the expense of the
peasants.
- Land settlements were thus unfavourable to the peasants: areas granted to the peasants were too
small, and landlords charged inflated prices. This left peasants with less land than before, paying
redemption taxes beyond the productive value of the land for land they thought was theirs by
right. Furthermore, former domestic serfs who hadn’t previously worked the land didn’t receive any
land at all under the terms of the Edict. In the short to medium-term, then, the emancipation
probably (and ironically) actually worsened the wealth and living standards of former serfs in many
cases.
- Though freed from the landlord, peasants were still under control of the mir (peasant commune),
which could restrict travel and freedom of enterprise in the village. The mir tended to be backwards
looking in terms of perpetuating traditional farming techniques: by sharing land inefficiently in
narrow strips, it helped to prevent the transformation of former serfs into individual peasant land
owners.
- Emancipation therefore failed to solve industrial backwardness: lacking land, facing economic
difficulties and often prevented by the mir from being able to leave the village for towns, the
peasants were not transformed into a new class of prosperous consumers.
+ On balance, even if emancipation did not improve peasants' living standards in the short term it
did lead to over 85 % of former serfs becoming landowners in some shape or form within 20 years of
the reform. Furthermore, historian David Christian argues that emancipation was a success in
achieving its immediate objectives: peasant disturbances were reduced for the next 40 years, and
serfdom was abolished without provoking an immediate major rebellion.
Alexander II's further reforms
As serfdom had been central to the functioning of the Russian state before 1861 (in terms of the
military, political, administrative and social structure of the country), its repeal demanded a further
series of reforms to enable to tsarist system of government to operate effectively.
Legal Reforms
Previously local legal issues had been handled by the landlord in his position of owner of the serfs,
while the formal legal system was characterized by secrecy and corruption. With no lawyers or juries
in courts, and presumed guilty until proven innocent, the poor had little chance of securing justice.
In 1864 Alexander introduced a modern Western-style system that aimed to be an independent
judiciary that was "equal for all our subjects". This included the introduction of juries, judges to be
well-paid to avoid bribery and courts open to the public.
+ Possibly the most liberal and progressive of Alexander's reforms, this new system offered
Russians the chance of a fair trial for the first time. The court-rooms offered many from the rising
intelligentsia a new and exciting career option, and the court-rooms enjoyed considerable freedom
of expression. As Hugh Seton-Watson argues, "the court-room was the one place in Russia where
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real freedom of speech prevailed"
- However, it should also be noted that political cases were removed from these courts and the
Secret Police could still arrest people at will. On balance, though, these were remarkable reforms.
Local Government Reforms
With the abolition of serfdom removing the legal basis of gentry’s control of the peasantry,
Alexander saw the need for changes in the governmental system. In 1864 local government
assemblies called zemstva were set up, followed by urban assemblies called dumas in 1870.
These zemstva were potentially a radical liberal measure towards a system with a degree of local
self-government - a radical measure in a centralist autocracy. However, Alexander intended them to
support the traditional system of government rather than to move away from this. In effect,
Alexander was appeasing local nobility by giving them some local political power in response to
their perceived loss of status with the serfs' emancipation.
+ The zemstvas and dumas had local power over public health, prisons, roads, agriculture, and
education, which provided new opportunities for local political participation in ways they had not
previously been possible. These local officials therefore had the chance to engage in Russia's real
social problems.
- On the other hand, and revealing the clear limitations of this new form of 'local power', the police
remained under central control, the provisional governor could overrule all zemstva decisions, the
zemstva were permanently short of money, which limited their practical options, and the voting
system was heavily weighted towards local landowners (they were far from democratic
institutions!), which made it easy for the conservative nobility to and their interests to dominate
assemblies.
Army Reforms
Given that the military humiliation in the Crimean was effectively the catalyst to Alexander's
reforms, modernizing Russia's army was seen as crucial.
Carried out by the liberal Minister of War, Dmitri Milyutin, these military reforms included reducing
the length of service for conscripts from 25 years to 6 years in service (and 9 years in reserve) and
introducing universal military service for all males over 20 (no longer allowing the wealthy to
escape this).
+ Milyutin's reforms made the army more civilized and efficient - training and discipline no longer
included brutal punishments, and shorter services meant that the army was no longer a 'life
sentence'.
Education Reforms
New atmosphere of toleration and reform, as seen with relaxation of press censorship, was also
notable with more liberal education policies.
Important university reform meant that universities were given much greater autonomy in their
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affairs (1863): lectures on European law and philosophy were allowed, scholars were allowed
abroad to study and a new breed of liberal professors replaced many of the conservatives in place in
Nicholas I’s reign. Furthermore, poor students did not have to pay fees, and by 1859 2/3 of students
at Moscow university were exempt from fees.
+ The number of children attending primary school increased considerably as the zemstva played a
key role in increasing the number of elementary schools. Between 1856 and 1878, the number of
children in primary school more than doubled from 450,000 to over 1 million.
- The government's liberal policies made universities into a "powder keg" - student radicalism grew
and teaching lectures "appeared to be serving not only academic and economic purposes but also the
promotion of political instability" (David Saunders).
Economic Reforms
Crimean defeat demonstrated that economic modernization was an urgent priority - military failure
and inefficiency clearly had its roots in the backwardness of the Russian economy in relation to
those of the European Great Powers. In particular, the government focused on trying to develop
railways and increasing coal and iron production and pursued a more vigorous policy of
industrialization than Nicholas I did.
+ The Russian railway system developed from 1,600 km in 1861 to over 22,000 in 1878 (though this
was still small compared internationally and given Russia's immense size). This growth in railways
helped to provide the empire with greater internal coherence (through improved communications)
and to stimulate internal trade ( chiefly though reducing the price of grain in the key cities of the
north, which in turn encouraged urbanization and further industrialization).
+ There were considerable increases in oil and coal production and new industrial areas were
emerging, though much of these were dependent upon foreign investment (such as the Nobel
brothers).
+ Steady population growth led to a growing market in the countryside for manufactured goods however, this 'peasant market' was extremely fragile as it was dependent on a good harvest, and
transport difficulties still hindered further market development.
- One area that saw little reform was the government's taxation policies - the peasants were still
forced to bear the heavy burden of the poll tax, which the gentry were exempt from and which rose
by 80% over Alexander's reign.
+/- On balance, though Russia made important steps towards industrialization and economic
modernization during Alexander II's reign, the rate of development was still slow and uneven and
Russia remained relatively backwards in this area.
Responses to Alexander II's reforms and the growth of opposition
Instead of strengthening and stabilizing the regime, Alexander’s reforms led to greater political
opposition: trying to choose a delicate middle path Alexander upset both conservatives (resenting
loss of influence) and liberals (wanted reform to go further). On the one hand, the reforms led to a
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‘crisis of rising expectations’: Alexander's reforms had raised hopes which he could not fulfill
without undermining the autocracy, in particular calls for a national assembly (parliament) and a
written constitution defining and limiting the Tsar’s powers. On the other hand, his later
reactionary impulses that attempted to reduce and damper these expectations only angered
reformers further and encouraged the growth of radical extremism against the state.
Furthermore, the freer and more open political atmosphere of the reforms, and the toleration of
Western liberal ideas in the university lecture-rooms, led to the growth of a more radical opposition
who demanded fundamental changes to Russian autocracy and society, particularly among students
influenced by the growing flood of radical ideas in this period.
The growth of dissatisfaction and opposition to Alexander for not continuing the process of reform
that he had started, and his failure to deal with radical political opposition, eventually led to his
assassination by terrorists in 1881.
Why did Alexander II's reforms slow down after 1866? Was there a shift from "reform to
reaction"?
Having made key reforms in the 1860’s Alexander effectively stood at the crossroads between
autocracy and liberal reform, but he opted against further reform and remained firmly committed to
autocracy in the later stage of his reign.
Indeed, following the growth of opposition to his regime (including terrorism and assassination
attempts of Alexander himself) and with the more radical political climate of the 1870's, Alexander
enacted a series of more conservative measures that some historians have described as a
reactionary "swing to the right" in contrast to his earlier "liberal" reforms.
Key examples of Alexander's repressive policies between 1866 and 1881 are: liberal reforming
ministers in his government were replaced with conservative ministers who opposed further
reform, including the reactionary Dmitri Tolstoy who as Education Minister clamped down on the
universities' independence and introducing tougher entrance requirements. There was also less
freedom of the press and greater censorship. Also, following the first assassination attempt in 1866,
the Secret Police ("Third Section") were given greater powers to arrest and clamp down on radicals,
and by the 1870's the country's prisons were full and an estimated 150, 000 opponents were exiled
to Siberia in Alexander's reign.
Thus by 1880, historian W.E. Mosse has suggested, Alexander was "isolated from the Russian people,
unpopular with the educated public, and cut off from the bulk of society and the Court. His fate had
become a matter of indifference to the majority of his subjects". This lack of support and popularity
can be explained largely in terms of Alexander's inconsistency and his contradictory policies.
Some historians have argued that Alexander's 'conservative shift' and his ending of reforms can be
related directly to the first assassination attempt on the tsar's life made in 1866 by Dmitri Karakozov,
a disillusioned student radical. According to this argument, this radical act shocked Alexander II into
taking more repressive action against opposition, and he spent the rest of his reign increasingly
disillusioned with reform and conservative in outlook. So in this interpretation, Alexander's reign
can effectively be split into two distinct phases: (i) an early liberal phase committed to reform (c.
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1855 - 1866), and (ii) a later conservative phase (c. 1866 - 1881), in which he turned against his
earlier reformism.
However, as Jonathan Bromley points out, this 'early liberal/late conservative' argument, switching
with the first assassination attempt in 1866, is too simplistic, as it ignores the fact that the later part
of Alexander's reign also included various liberal measures. For instance, in response to
revolutionary political violence of the late 1870's Alexander responded both conservatively, with
execution of radicals, and liberally with the appointment of a liberal Minister of the Interior, LorisMelikov. The Loris-Melikov ministry replaced the reactionary Tolstoy, abolished the Third Section
and persuaded Alexander II to make the most fundamental reform of his reign.
Indeed, far from Alexander being a bitter conservative in 1881, just before his assassination he had
agreed in principle to one of the reformers and radicals' key demands: a national assembly
(parliament). Admittedly, this was only a limited step away from autocracy, as a partly-elected body
with some members still appointed by the tsar, but it could conceivably "have been the beginning of
the establishment of a parliamentary system in Russia" (Soviet historian, P.A. Zaionchkovsky).
Ironically then, Alexander II was assassinated by radicals just as he had conceded further, and
potentially far-reaching, liberal reform for Russia.
Rather than two separate phases, of reform and then reaction, Bromley argues that Alexander's
reign can be viewed as a consistent attempt to enact a more or less coherent programme of
"controlled reform". Reforms did slow down after 1866 but this did not mean a shift from reform
to reaction. Instead, states Bromley, the essentials of a limited programme of reforms had been
achieved and "it was time for the state to exert some discipline to keep the process under control".
Historiography: how far does Alexander II deserve the title of ‘Tsar liberator’?
The key historiographical debate concerning Alexander is how far he deserves the title he received
of being the 'Tsar Liberator'. The central issue that historians have disagreed upon is what
Alexander's motives were in carrying out his reforms? Does it make sense to refer to Alexander II as
a 'liberator'? Important to think about here is what does the term 'liberator' mean or imply? A fullyformed Western liberal that believed in individual liberty and representative government? Or
perhaps something more limited, such as emancipating those formerly held in legal bondage?
Some historian have denied Alexander’s role as a great reformer and liberal.
What evidence do they support their argument with? They point out that Alexander was motivated
by a desire to strengthen autocracy not replace it. As W. Bruce Lincoln claims, by the end of his
reign and even after all of his reforms “the concept of the state embodied in the person of the
autocracy was in no way altered”.
Soviet historians also rejected Alexander's title of 'liberator' and claimed that he emancipated the
serfs to benefit the nobles rather than serfs, as a way of providing them with income and thereby
regenerating the landowning class. This view stresses the economic reasons for emancipation, and
argues that there was a "crisis in the servile economy": i.e. that the economic system of serfdom was
not functioning and failure to reform it could have led to either a mass rebellion or economic
collapse.
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Why do Soviet historians argue this? Because as Marxists these historians place a greater emphasis
on the role of long-term, structural economic factors rather than the role of individuals and their
decisions (i.e. Alexander's) in explaining historical events. They also had a clear political agenda to
justify the Bolshevik revolution and the consolidation of the Communist State, which meant that
they tended to also regard any attempts to reform the tsarist system as doomed to fail as it was a
backwards and repressive system.
The problem with the Soviet argument, then, is that it presupposed a Marxist interpretation of the
past and found evidence that fitted with and confirmed this view, rather than first looking at the
evidence and then forming a balanced view. Western historians, such as Jerome Blum, have
disputed the basis of the 'economic crisis' argument put forward by the Marxists that suggested the
Russian economy was in crisis and that landlords were severely indebted by inefficient agriculture
and the serf system. Blum argued instead that serfdom remained profitable for both nobles and
serfs and there was no 'crisis' that forced Alexander's reforms.
Some historians have even stressed the military benefits of reform, also beneficial to the ruling
class, in explaining the motivation for reform. A.J. Rieber goes as far as stating that the
emancipation and reform process was motivated solely by military considerations and the desire to
strengthen and protect the state through a strong, modernised army. This is probably going too far,
but it does point to the strategic concerns that influenced Alexander, which speaks against any
simple view of him liberating the serfs simply due to moral/ altruistic/ liberal, reasons.
Most historians now agree that Alexander was not cynically exploiting reform for political
advantage, and instead argue that the inconsistent nature of his reforms can be related to the
specific strengths and weaknesses of Alexander’s character: sometimes brave, sometimes confused
and not especially intelligent: “the laws which freed the serfs emerged from a process that the Tsar
barely understood and over which he had only partial control” (David Saunders).
As an autocrat he recognized his duty to try and fix a system that had clearly failed Russia in the
Crimea, yet he was not sure as to the best way to do this, and he became scared whenever he saw
potentially radical consequences to his reforms. Thus Hugh Seton-Watson saw Alexander at the
crossroads between autocracy and modern liberal constitutional development, and judged him a
failure for seeking an unrealistic compromise between the two and refusing to abandon autocracy.
David Saunders, a recent authority on this period of Russian history, offers a more balanced
assessment of Alexander’s achievements: though his reforms didn’t solve all of Russia’s problems,
they did cause far-reaching change. As Saunders concludes, even if his reforms were “conceptually
limited, poorly executed, incomplete, unsustained and insecure, the measures enacted by
Alexander II nevertheless transformed the Russian Empire”.
Russia of Alexander III
Alexander III succeeded his father in 1881 when Alexander II was assassinated. Many historians see
this event as the point of no return for the Russian monarchy. The assassination was felt through
every layer of Russian society. It also clearly demonstrated the two choices Russia had after
Alexander II’s murder – total and vigorous repression on the one hand or wholesale reform of Russia
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on the other. Any reform to Russia would almost certainly lead to the decline in the power of
Russia’s autocracy. Any reduction in the power of Russia’s autocracy might also impact the power of
Russia’s monarchy. Alexander II’s assassination showed that any reforms that were deemed halfhearted would not be tolerated by those who wanted a lot more. The two choices for any future tsar
of Russia were simple – repression or total reform.
Russia had a society that was nearly bereft of a typical middle class. The vast bulk of Russians in the
C19th were extremely poor; a few were extremely rich. The educated middle class were small in
number and invariably outside of politics. Though small in number, the middle class did have one
great advantage – it was an educated class and many in the middle class saw that Russia could not
carry on as it was before Alexander III. It is not surprising that Lenin and Trotsky came from the
middle class.
That the middle class was educated put a barrier between them and the peasants in the fields and
the workers in the factories. Their ideas must have seemed totally alien to the vast bulk of Russia’s
population that was still very much under the influence of the church. The church was very much a
believer that your rank and status on Earth was determined by God and if you were poor, it was
because He ordained it. Such a view swept throughout Russia in the early to mid-C19th. Only the
educated middle class saw fit to challenge such notions. The Russian Church also preached that the
tsar was the father of his people and many of the poor followed the tsar with seeming blind
obedience. Clearly this was not a view shared by those who murdered Alexander II.
Those who wanted change knew that they would have to take it as they could not expect major
reform to come from the government of Russia. To take what they wanted, they needed the support
of the masses. To get this, they had to break the stranglehold the establishment had in the psyche of
the poor. These reformers themselves were also facing serious problems as each revolutionary
group that developed in Russia had different ideas as to what to do and they were, at times, more at
war with themselves than they were with those who governed Russia.
Russia pre-1880 was primarily an agricultural nation with all the social conservatism and
superstitions this brought. This very much played into the hands of those who wanted Russia to
remain as it was. However, after 1880, Russia started to industrialise and all the problems associated
with a quick transition flooded into the main cities of Russia. The urban proletariat was a social class
Russia had not witnessed before– they were to play a major part in supporting those who wanted
major change in Russia. By 1910, Russia had an industrial growth rate of 10% - the fastest in Europe.
In the short term, it brought riches to those who owned the industries that thrived – coal, oil steel
etc. It also brought a huge amount of social misery to those who were to turn to the revolutionaries.
However, such was the outrage and shock created by the murder of Alexander II, that the upper
hand lay with those who wanted to repress society even more than before. The assassination of the
father of the people was the simplest excuse that was needed to introduce even more draconian
measures into Russia. This view was also supported by the new tsar –Alexander III.
Alexander III had an uncompromising view as to the powers that he believed he had as of right of his
position. He had seen one tsar murdered and he was determined that he would not be next. He
made it very clear to those who served in his government that he wanted Russia rid of anyone
associated with what the government would determine as revolutionary views. Repression became
the rock of Alexander III’s reign.
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Russification
Russification was the name given to a policy of Alexander III. Russification was designed to take the
sting out of those who wanted to reform Russia and to bind all the Russian people around one
person – the tsar.
Russification was first formulated in 1770 by Uvarov. He defined three areas of Russification –
autocracy, orthodoxy and ‘Russian-ness’. Of the three, Russian-ness was the most important. Before
Alexander III, Russification meant that all the tsar’s subjects, whatever their nationality, should be
accepted by the tsar as being ethnic groups in their own right provided that they acknowledged their
allegiance to the Russian state, which included the government and the church.
Under Alexander III, Russification took a new turn. He believed that all cultures and nationalities
within the empire should be wiped out (though not physically) and that all the people within the
empire should become ‘Great Russians’. Russification had no time for small ethnic groups that were
more concerned about their culture at the expense of Russia’s as a whole. To be loyal to Russia and
therefore the tsar, you had to be a Russian first rather than, for example, a Kazak or Cossack.
Why did Alexander III pursue such a belief? Russia had, at times, been a dominant force in Eastern
Europe – the era of Peter the Great is one such example. By the second half of the C19th, Russia had
ceased to play a major part in Europe’s foreign affairs. Germany and Britain were the dominant
players. Alexander III wanted to get Russia in to this league. To do this, Russia had to develop.
Alexander II had used Western European ideas in his attempt to modernise Russia. However, these
caused confusion as such ideas struggled against centuries of Russian peasant conservatism. This is
why Alexander III wanted Russian ideas to move Russia forward. If the ideas were Russian, no-one
would have the right to obstruct them.
Ironically, Russia’s elite also looked to the growing power of Germany and identified that Germany’s
rise to dominance in Europe had been swift and effective. Therefore, there must be something
within Germany’s system that allowed for this. As a result, despite the efforts of Alexander to make
all in his empire Great Russians, Russia looked to the German model – or, more precisely, the
Prussian model, for it was Prussia that dominated Germany.
It was arranged for 500 Russian civil servants to go to Berlin to be trained in the German methods
within their civil service. These 500 men, it was believed, would bring back modern ideas that could
be ‘Russified’. The end result would be a modern Russian civil service that could be used to further
expand the power of the tsar. The process of sending 500 men to Germany to be trained continued
right up to 1914 and ended because of World War One. Clearly, the system could not continue when
both were on opposite sides of the war!
The biggest supporters of this attempt to modernise Russia’s civil service was the army’s hierarchy.
They were particularly concerned that Russia had so many national minorities. They viewed them as
a threat to the internal security of Russia – especially areas such as the Baltic coast and
Transcaucasia. Any success in improving the quality of the civil service to advance the standard of
government in these areas was well supported by the army’s leaders.
The Church also supported Russification in that the policy called on Poles to convert to the Orthodox
Church from Catholicism and for Muslims in Central Asia to do the same. All Russians under the
same church would have done a great deal to expand the power of the Holy Synod, a body that was
created to give its support to an expansion in the power of the tsar.
Supporters of Russification did not try to intellectualise the belief. They believed that it was for the
greater good of all of Russia – and that was enough.
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The victims of Russification were those who were of non-Russian nationality but lived within the
empire. Any weakening of their culture had to lead to resentment. As there were no constitutional
means by which they could voice their anger, the Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians etc turned to
revolutionary action. Any support for the national minorities was seen as support for a weakening of
Russia’s true identity.
Those in power had two ways of dealing with those who were deemed to be enemies of
Russification. First they had outright repression. With an improving police force and a civil service
that was being modernised, this could prove to be effective. The second method of dealing with
‘enemies of the state’ was to use the chauvinism of the Great Russian people themselves in support
of the tsar. These people could be used to advance the cause of Russification – playing the race card
was not just a C20th phenomenon! If things were going well, the Great Russian people got the
credit; if things went wrong, the blame went on the disloyal national minorities who were antiRussian. The government encouraged groups to form that openly displayed their loyalty to the tsar.
The most famous was the Union of Russian People founded in 1904.
The Union of Russian People was a very active party – as active as any revolutionary group. It
believed in the use of peaceful propaganda and the major figures in it were Prince Gagarin and Dr
Dubrovin Purishkievich. They made direct appeals to the workers to root out of factories and coal
mines those who were anti-Russia. They made the same appeal to the peasants. But their work was
passive. This was not enough for some.
In September 1905, the Union of Russian Men was founded by the brothers Sheremetiev. They had a
much more direct approach and believed in action. In this they received the support of Vladimir,
Archbishop of Moscow. Those who joined took an oath to bring the tsar and the Russian people
together. The more militant joined the Black Hundred gangs. The men in these gangs went around
the countryside urging the peasants to rise up against anyone they knew who hated Russia. The Jews
took the full brunt of the work of the Black Hundred gangs. In the autumn of 1905 and the spring of
1906, pogroms took place in the Ukraine and an estimated 21,000 Jews were killed for being ‘antiRussian’. The Black Hundred gangs also took part in assassinations. They murdered Professor
Herzenstein in July 1906. He was a Kadet deputy and a journalist. Some of his articles were deemed
to be‘anti-Russian’. While it is generally considered that Peter Stolypin was assassinated by members
of the Social Revolutionary Party in 1911, some believe that the Kiev Black Hundred may have been
responsible. Some saw Stolypin as weak as he wanted reform. Bogrov, the man who killed Stolypin,
had a very complicated past. He may well have laid the blame for Stolypin’s death on the Social
Revolutionaries as it would have further blackened their name. However, there is vague evidence
that he may have been a member of the Kiev Black Hundred and carried out the assassination on
their behalf.
Before his murder, few could have claimed that Stolypin was soft. He gave governor-generals the
right to hand over an accused person to a court made up of a chairman and four army officers. Such
courts were responsible for 8,856 executions in Russia between 1906 and 1911. An estimated 40,000
more died in prison. The bulk of these deaths/executions were in Russia’s outlying regions where
there had been opposition to Russification. The Baltic area executed the most during this time – 993
in six years. Second was Poland with 979 executions. Areas such as Yaroslavl, an area where
Russification was well received, executed no-one during this time.
Stolypin also used the law to strengthen the tsar’s position. Stolypin especially distrusted the Poles.
In 1907, all Polish schools had to teach in Russian. In 1908, all Poles had to register their place of
occupation – this was an attempt to control their movement. The senior posts within the Polish civil
service were given to Russians and all council business had to be done in Russian. When the Poles
complained that their treatment made them second class citizens, Stolypin told them to become
Russian citizens after which they would be treated as first class citizens. He used similar methods on
other national minorities.
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Political Views in Russia
Russia from 1850 to 1917 was littered with numerous political views that ranged across the whole
political spectrum. Whereas there were many groups that supported the working class and wanted
to advance their cause, there were fewer groups that came out in support of the tsar – though these
were small in number, they wielded huge power and included the hierarchy of the military and
church. Those on the left wanted wholesale change including an abolition of monarchy. Those in
charge within Russia, viewed any change as a potential sign of weakness.
What did the working class actually think about those political groups fighting for their cause? When
actual figures are studied, the number of people who took part in the November Revolution of 1917
is actually small relative to the population of Russia. One of the defining moments of the C20th,
actually involved a small number of people. Does this prove that the Bolsheviks did not have the
support of the mass of the people? Or was it more a sign of the way Lenin worked – advancing a
cause with a small number of well-trained people? If there was overwhelming support for Lenin and
the Bolsheviks, why was there a bloody civil war after November 1917?
Was Russia pre-1917 split between the right and left? In fact, a solid political centre existed in Russia
that represented a middle way in politics. They believed that fundamental reforms were needed to
secure the most basic of freedoms but they did not want a parliamentary monarchy. The whole
group was represented by politicians such as Peter Stolypin and by parties such as the Duma
Conservatives and Cadets. The rich peasants – the Kulaks – would also come within this centrist
group.
Those on the right of politics wanted reform – but reform that strengthened the monarchy. They
believed that any reforms that aided the lives of the poor could be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
On the far left were the Social Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats. They wanted the wholesale
shake-up of Russia’s society to advance the cause of the poor at the expense of the rich and those in
government.
One could not sit comfortably with the other. The right had the aristocrats, the military and church
hierarchy and the nation’s senior civil servants on its side. Any one of these groups was small in
number. Combined, they remained small in number, but with vast power at their disposal. The left
had none of these advantages – ironically, it was these people it wished to overthrow – but it had
the potential support of the vast majority of Russia’s population, as long as their power could be
harnessed. In a country the size of Russia, this was a very difficult problem.
Revolutionary Ideology
In the lead up to the revolution, Russia was enveloped by a number of revolutionary ideologies.
These revolutionary beliefs were mostly beyond the understanding of the workers and peasants as
they were driven by academics and intellectuals such as Martov, Plekhanov, Lenin and Ttosky.
Marxism:
This is the political theory of the development of society. Man’s existence in society is
predetermined to a logical succession, each stage succeeding the other. The mechanism of change is
predetermined by economic functions. Change is brought about by economic suppression, which
leads to revolution. The history of Man, stated Karl Marx, is one of economic class conflict.
Populism:
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Populism was the alternate route to a socialist state and it was applicable to a society with a large
peasantpopulation. It had its origins in Russia with the Narodnik movement and the key men in its
original state were Herzen and Chernishevski. It was a belief characterised by private enterprise and
a hatred of capitalism and a hatred of an industrial society, which controlled people’s lives. Populism
believed that the path to socialism lay in the toil of peasants. Populists believed that a free and
prosperous community where everybody helped one another out would overthrow autocracy.
Populism had support in England by men like William Cobbett.
Revisionism:
Revisionism is sometimes known as Economism. It was the great political opponent to Marxism.
Those who supported Revisionism believed that a socialist society could be achieved with a
revolution. It could be achieved by education and by using the masses to support an economic
struggle fort he workers interest. Revisionists believed that the ultimate truth of their belief would
eventually lead to a socialist state and that people would support it when they realised that it was a
good belief. Revisionists were strong in Western Europe but not in Russia, possibly because it ruled
out the use of violence in an effort to get change, and Russia post-1850 was experiencing frequent
violence by the workers.
Lenin and Julius Martov were not keen on Revisionism (as it was a clear challenge to their position as
the leaders of Russia’s working class) and both portrayed the belief in a negative manner.
Revisionism’s most powerful offshoot was the belief that struggle should be conducted by the
workers themselves who knew best their own interests – and not by the bourgeois intellectuals who
believed that they knew best what the working class wanted.
Famous Revisionists were Takhtarev who founded the paper ‘Worker’s Thoughts’ in 1897; Struve, a
former tsarist minister, and Anna Kuskova. They were opposed to Marxism and were frequent public
critics of the belief.
Permanent Revolution:
Permanent Revolution was the great enemy of Marxism. Parvus, a German Jew, was the main leader
of the group. The man who is given the greatest credit with developing the ideas of this group is
Leon Trotsky.
Permanent Revolution envisaged the missing out of the bourgeois state on the Marxist road to
socialism. It recognised that certain societies were backward and did not have an advanced political
structure. Therefore, the workers could not grasp or understand the political beliefs of the
intellectual bourgeois who claimed to represent the workers on their behalf. Therefore, Permanent
Revolution simply cut out this part of the revolutionary dream. As society itself was bound to
develop as a revolution advanced, the best way to deal with this development was for the revolution
itself to be sustained – i.e. be permanent. Mao Zedong used this belief in the Chinese Revolution.
Permanent Revolution believed that the road to true democracy had to include a phase of the
dictatorship of the proletariat. This is missing in Marxism. Permanent Revolution believed that
power had to pass from the autocracy to the workers in order to forcibly form a socialist – what
Lenin referred to as “giving History a push”. Permanent Revolution also believed that revolution had
to occur throughout Europe so that all the workers of Europe could support one another, and that
no nation existed that posed a direct threat to the workers after the revolution. The workers would
unite to support those in another nation who might be under threat from entrenched powers in that
nation.
Terrorism:
Terrorism was common in Russia after 1850. It was a very simple belief. Those in power would not
voluntarily change a society that so enriched them. Therefore, they had to be forced to change and
15
only violence could do this. Terrorism targeted any feasible target – though the nobility and rulers
were the most favoured target as their deaths had a bigger impact. Hence the assassination of
Alexander II. Terrorism hoped to spark off a spontaneous uprising – that the death of a prominent
figure would spur on the workers to go for more. It also succeeded if there was repression after an
assassination (such as Alexander II’s and Stolypin’s), as this would be blamed on those who imposed
such oppression – those in power. In this sense, terrorism could not fail – it killed people who were
anti-change, so in the minds of the terrorists this was a positive move, and it also brought them
support when, as invariably happened, repression followed such murders.
In 1862, the Young Russian group was formed by Zaichnevsky. Its principle belief was the murder of
the royal family.“Any revolutionary afraid to go too far is not a revolutionary.” (Zaichnevsky)
In Russia, the People’s Freedom was the most important terrorist group in the late C19th. Ironically,
it officially ceased to exist after 1883, but those who followed this belief did not know this because
of the secrecy within the movement! In 1902, Sypiagin, the Minister of the Interior, was assassinated
by Balmashev, a member of the People’s Freedom. In 1904, Plehve was assassinated. Terrorism
reached a peak in 1905 when a number of Jews were killed in Bialystok and Odessa – 350 in total.
Small terror cells could not be infiltrated and groups were established to take on the terrorists using
like-mined tactics. The Black Hand targeted all non-Russians, Jews and Freemasons as being enemies
of Russia and supporters of socialist revolutionary groups.
Socialist Revolutionaries
The Socialist Revolutionaries were the most influential group in Russia up to 1917.
Various groups had the title‘Socialist Revolutionary’ but they combined in 1900 to form one Socialist
Revolutionary Party with its headquarters in Karpov. The Socialist Revolutionaries developed out of
the Narodniks and with this developments came a support for acts of terrorism. After 1900,
Gershuni and Azef took the lead in developing the terrorist element with the Socialist
Revolutionaries. Though Azef was a police agent, the Socialist Revolutionaries took part in many
assassinations.
The Socialist Revolutionaries played little part in the 1905 Revolution. In December 1905, the
Socialist Revolutionaries held their first formal congress in Finland and came up with their Four
Points:
1) Russia needed an armed uprising.
2) Russia needed a federal republic.
3) All private estates were to be expropriated.
4) Terror could be used to advance the cause of the Socialist Revolutionaries if it was sanctioned by
the highest authority within the Socialist Revolutionaries.
The Socialist Revolutionaries took no part in the elections for the Duma in 1906. In the next election,
they got 36 seats. When the Second Duma dissolved, they took no part in the elections for the third
Duma.
In March 1917, when the first revolution took place, the Socialist Revolutionaries were in a strong
position. The army looked to them for help in the nation’s time of crisis. However, this was the
Socialist Revolutionaries high spot. After the March Revolution, the Socialist Revolutionaries never
had so much power – and Lenin was not going to allow them the regain their old power.
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During the era of the Provisional Government under Kerensky, the Socialist Revolutionaries tried to
court a stronger relationship with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. In this they failed and in 1919, the party
even proposed an overthrow of Lenin – on paper a farcical belief, but in the reality of the Russian
Civil War, a possibility. Such plans came to nothing.
Why did the Socialist Revolutionaries fail?
They first failed to gain the support of the peasants - the largest social group in Russia. Also the
party’s hierarchy was also divided by belief. Some wanted a greater input into terrorism while others
wanted a move towards Marxism. As a party, the Socialist Revolutionaries never became an
organised group as they had off shoots at nearly every level – beliefs, campaigns etc. One of the
biggest factors in explaining why the Socialist Revolutionaries failed to developed was the simple
fact that they could not decide as a party on how to move Russia on. Should they use violence?
Political rhetoric? A combination?
In November 1917, the actions taken by the Bolsheviks left the Socialist Revolutionaries bereft of
any political credibility. They had failed to absorb the political significance of 1917 and in November
1917, Lenin was not in a position where he had to bargain for support with the Socialist
Revolutionaries.
In January 1918, the Socialist Revolutionaries meekly disbanded after a meeting of the Constituent
Assembly. Lenin held all the political aces and by now the Socialist Revolutionaries held none.
Though the beliefs of the Socialist Revolutionaries might have been popular, their grass roots
support was weak. After November 1917, the Socialist Revolutionaries were doomed to history.
Populism
The most influential person in the early days of Populism was Bakunin. While Bakunin was able to
stir up the peasant’s revolutionary fervour, he was a poor organiser. Bakunin believed that once the
peasants had been suitably educated in revolutionary ideas, they, through their own endeavours,
would overthrow the tsarist regime. Therefore, the role of the Populists was to act as agents of
propaganda but at a level the people could understand. Peter Lavrov, a Populist, believed that the
intelligentsia were bad for the average person of Russia as they were unable to get their message
across because of their intellectual abilities.
The Populists lived and worked among thepeasants in an effort to spread their message and ideas. In
particular they got the peasants to ask for more land to work and live off – a demand that they knew
no landlord would agree to. This, the Populists believed, would only increase the peasant’s anger
and resentment and thus push Russia even further towards a revolution.
However, the Populists had one major disadvantage. Many of them were university students who
wanted to help the peasants. The peasants distrusted the motives of those who could only have
some vague idea as to the lives peasant families had led for centuries.
The Populists also misunderstood the peasants at another level. They assumed that all peasants
were natural socialists and that they only had to be pushed in that direction. In this they were
wrong. The peasants were keen to own their own land and farm it accordingly- as Lenin found out
when the New Economic Policy replaced War Communism. The principle of land ownership did not
sit well with the Populists.
The failure of the Populists is best summarised with the Chigirin Affair of 1876. In the Chigirin area of
the Ukraine, the Populists told the peasants that the tsar wanted them to rise up against the
17
landowners in the region. The revolt was a dismal failure and led to a breach between the peasants
and the Populists that was never to be mended.
The Populists split in 1875-1876. Some formed the ‘Land and Freedom’ group. This developed into a
terrorist organisation – it was not uncommon for a small political group to turn to violence once it
had become clear that those who they believed should support its beliefs, did not do so. ‘Land and
Freedom’ also split into two factions in 1879 – the‘People’s Will’ and Black Partition.
The ‘People’s Will’ wanted the creation of a constituent assembly – something the authorities would
never agree to at that time in Russia’s history. It also believed that it could only achieve this by
assassinating the tsar and using terrorist tactics on a regular basis to force the authorities to listen to
them.
Black Partition had a much more simple message – land should be redistributed to the peasants.
The repressive measures brought in by Alexander III after 1881, did a great deal to break up the
Populist movement and its offshoots
The Russian Church
The Russian Church was the social cement of autocracy in Russia. However, even such a powerful
body as the church was not unaffected by the 1905 Revolution and there were some in the church
who wanted a programme of modernisation. This was primarily found in the seminaries and
religious academies. It was the religious academics of Russia who saw the need for change. Such a
belief was seldom found at parish level.
The hierarchy of the church itself was split. The spiritual leaders of St Petersburg were seen as semireformers while the equivalent bodies on Kiev and Moscow were seen as reactionaries. In December
1904, Witte invited those who led the church in St Petersburg to express their views as to the
direction the church should go. As a result of this, Witte proposed to Nicholas II that an assembly (a
Sobor) of clergy be called so that issues could be raised in a public debate. Witte also proposed that
the clergy at parish level should receive a regular salary and that parishioners should be allowed to
select their priest and that they should have some say in the running of the parish. Witte also
suggested that the subjects taught in church schools be broadened. Church schools were still
teaching the views on the universe as stated by Aristotle and Geography as stated by Ptolemy.
Pobedonestsev, Procurator of the Holy Synod, opposed these changes, as he believed that there was
no need for them. When Witte managed to persuade Nicholas to agree to a pre-Sobor conference
(Nicholas was not yet agreeable to a Sobor as he felt that it would lead to a church being ruled by an
assembly), Pobedonestsev resigned, thus ending his domination of the Russian Church from 1881 to
1906. Pobedonestsev had been a supporter of Russification – so his loss was quite marked for
Nicholas.
In 1906, a pre-Sobor conference met. 10 bishops and 25 professors of theology attended it. There
were no representatives from the lower clergy present. The new Procurator of the Holy Synod,
Prince Obolenski, led the proceedings. He proved to be an enlightened choice as Procurator as it was
Obolenski who prompted the pre-Sobor to propose that a Sobor should be the ruling body of the
church as a whole. Obolenski even supported the idea that the Procurator should become a mere
observer of proceedings.
The future Sobor was to consist of one priest and one layman from each diocese elected by a bishop
from a list of people chosen from a diocese conference. Only bishops would have the right to vote in
a Sobor. Bishops themselves would be elected by assemblies that were to held in the metropolinates
found in St Petersburg, Kiev, Moscow etc. Obolenski planned to increase the number of
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metropolinates from 4 to 7. The church was to have a patriarch who would preside at the meetings
of the Sobor and of the Holy Synod. The Holy Synod was to remain the main liaison between the
church and the government.
In fact, a Sobor was never called and the planned for reforms never materialised in full. In 1912,
another pre-Sobor was planned. This never took place. In 1913, the 300th anniversary of the
Romanov’s coming to power, it was expected as part of the celebrations, that a Sobor would be
announced. It never was.
The Duma questioned the new Procurator about this in 1913 and 1914. Sabler, appointed in 1911,
gave evasive and non-committal answers. Sabler admitted that reform of the dioceses was needed
but told the Duma that he did not know how to go about it.
The curriculum in religious academies remained just about the same. In 1909, the Holy Synod
abolished the ruling that only 10% of pupils in religious academies could come from non-priestly
families. This failed to attract any more recruits.
Though much was spoken about with regards to church reform, there was clearly a lack of
commitment to any genuine reforms that would change the church for the better.
In the immediate aftermath of the 1905 Revolution, the Holy Synod pleaded for bishops and priests
to ask for civil peace and obedience to the tsar. This was not a call that linked the Holy Synod to one
side or the other. It was a call simply for peace. When in October 1905, the Metropolitan Vladimir
called on his people to crush the revolutionaries, he was formally reprimanded by the Holy Synod.
The abbot Arseni of Yaroslavl was exiled in 1906 for anti-Semitic agitation among his people. He was
also said to have called the liberal Bishop of Yaroslavl, Yakob, a “dung smelling Jew”.
However, such examples are rare. When Peter Stolypin came to power, the Holy Synod’s policies
dropped into line with the government, which was to give its full support to Russification. Yakob was
sent to Simbirsk, some 800 miles east from Yaroslavl. Other liberal bishops were also sent to remote
places in Russia – far enough away not to cause trouble. The monastery at Pochavskaya in Volhynia
became notorious for its anti-Semitic paper called ‘Listok’. In August 1907, the Holy Synod stated
that the people of Russia had to conform to the rules of the Orthodox Church.
With pressure from the government, the hierarchy of the church was forced to conform to support
the status quo. The suggested reforms of Obolenski were a thing of the past. The Holy Synod
returned to as it had been under Pobedonestsev between 1881 and 1906 – a stringent supporter of
Russification and the government.
There is little evidence of what the lower clergy felt about this. Their position in the church
depended on those in higher authority. If those above you were concerned that you might be liberal,
you could be removed to a parish far away from European Russia. Such a threat was usually enough
to persuade priests to conform. However, the call for reform in the countryside had to be led by
educated men – and only the parish priest would fit this description. Therefore, it seems likely that
there were liberal priests who did not move in the manner the Holy Synod wanted, but that they
were difficult to police in such a vast country where transport and communication was poor.
Much of the evidence points to the fact that the hierarchy of the Russian Church had little desire to
make far reaching changes and that the suggested reforms of Obolenski were no more than
suggestions made in the full knowledge that they would never be implemented. Ironically, amongst
this seeming conservatism was the Decree of 1905 that gave all Russians the right to leave the
Orthodox Church and join another church without penalties or loss of civil rights.
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Russia and Agriculture
Agriculture was a major component of Russia’s economy for many decades leading up to 1917. Even
with industrialisation, the majority of Russians were peasants working the land. To remain in power,
the Romanovs had to keep the peasants on their side.
In 1861, Alexander II had emancipated the serfs. However, such a move had not run smoothly and
by the start of the C20th, land problems remained a major issue for the government. The 1905
Revolution had shown that the people in the cities were discontented. The government could not
take for granted the loyalty of the peasants. If they lost the support of both groups, then the
government was in extreme trouble.
Before becoming the Minister of the Interior, Peter Stolypin had been involved in land issues, which
led to the establishment of land organisation commissions. These commissions were meant to
supervise more thoroughly the land reforms that were meant to have taken place after 1861. When
Stolypin was appointed Minister of the Interior, he forced the commissions to speed up their work –
such was the importance he attached to successful land reform. Their work led to the two decrees of
1906. The October decree dealt with personal rights while the November decree was considered so
important that it was called the ‘Great Land Decree of 1906’. At 800 pages, it was an enormous piece
of work.
The October 1906 Decree stated that a communal assembly in a village no longer had the right to
impose forced labour on any person from that village who had defaulted on his public obligations.
The head of a household and elected peasant officials were also forbidden from denying passports
from would-be seceding peasants.
The November 1906 Decree stated that any head of a peasant family who held allotment land by
communal tenure, had the right to claim his share to himself as private property. The amount of land
was determined as follows:
1) Where no general redistribution of land had taken place in the last 24 years, the head of a family
had the right to claim all the land he worked within the communal tenure at the time when he made
his claim to become a private property holder.
2) Where land redistribution had taken place in the last 24 years, the head of a family could claim his
land if the area claimed was smaller than the actual land he worked. If he claimed more than the
land he worked, he could buy this land at a price set out in 1861.
3) Peasants who took the opportunity to own land, were not denied the right to use land used
communally by the whole village, such as pastures for communal grazing, woods etc.
4) Peasants who took the opportunity to own land, were allowed to have whole blocks of land not
just strips. If they owned scattered strips, they had the right to have these strips consolidated.
5) All land held in private ownership was held by the head of the household and not the whole
household.
6) If two-thirds of a commune wanted to secede and take ownership of land, the commune itself
would come to an end and complete land redistribution would take place.
What was the impact of the November Decree?
20
In the 1915 Year Book up to May 1st, in the 40 provinces of European Russia there had been
2,736,172 applications for land ownership of which 1,992,387 had been confirmed. This represented
22% of all householders living under communal tenure in these 40 provinces and 14% of the land
held under communal tenure in European Russia.
In June 1910, a new land decree was issued. It stated that all communes in which there had been no
general distribution of land since 1861 were declared dissolved. Documents of private ownership of
land would be issued to anyone who applied. Land held by the commune, such as pastures, woods
etc, were to be shared out if a simple majority in the village voted for this.
This decree had the potential to impact 3.5 million households. If this figure is added to the figure
from 1906 and to those who had gained land since the 1861 emancipation decree, somewhere in
the region of 7 million households were affected by these land reforms – about 50% of the total
number of peasant households in Russia. In European Russia, there were an estimated 80 million
peasants. Therefore, these reforms affected about 40 million people.
On paper, Stolypin’s reforms were remarkable by any standards. However, they did not do anything
to affect the ownership of land by the monarchy. In 1905, the monarchy owned 145 million desyatin
of land. By 1914, this had fallen to 143 million. The nobility were slightly more affected as their total
land holding fell by 10 million desyatin. Land owned by the peasants increased from 160 million
desyatin to 170 million. However, when the number of peasants is taken into account, this increase
actually represented just 1/8th of a desyatin per peasant family. Such a paltry increase did nothing
to alleviate hunger in the countryside.
Nor could Stolypin’s reforms do anything to modernise farming techniques in the countryside. The
use of artificial fertiliser was minimal and year in year out from 1905 to 1916, there was no increase
in production per acre in Russia. Production of grain was so low that Russia had to import grain just
to feed itself. The peasants still grew for themselves. As Russia had an expanding industrial
workforce, this clearly was a concern. Skilled workers in the cities had to spend their time growing
their own food where possible. 40% of the workers in the Moscow printing trade had their own land
to grow their own crops – despite being involved in what was considered to be a highly skilled
profession.
Did Stolypin succeed in bringing the peasants onto the side of the government?
The land reforms ended in 1915, when about 50% of all peasant households were still under a form
of communal tenure. There was still a great deal of poverty in rural areas, which the reforms could
not address. The mentality of the peasants was to grow for themselves with any extra being sold
locally. The rich peasants did well out of the land reforms. The so-called Kulaks could use their
comparative wealth to buy up land and modern equipment and become even richer (by the
standards of the peasant society they lived in). An estimated 15% of all households could be classed
as Kulaks. These men were supportive of the government. But the evidence would indicate that for
all his work, Stolypin failed in his desire to bring on board the majority of the peasants.
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Nicholas and Alexandra
Nicholas II was a highly sensitive man who preferred to be with his family than involve himself in the
day-today running of his nation. A weak man, he was frequently bullied into doing things by his
overbearing wife, Alexandra.
Nicholas had married Princess Alexandra in 1894. She was the daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse
and a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria. The daughter who came from a small German state, found
herself married to the position of Empress of all Russians. She embraced the orthodox faith with all
the fanaticism of a convert and she decided to convince all at court that she was more Russian than
the Russians. She was a very strong supporter of Russification introduced by Alexander III and to all
intents she bullied her husband. Nicholas was a family man – his wife wanted him to display the
talents of his father – to be aggressive, strong and resolute.
Alexandra was never popular in Russia. Her personality upset and angered very many of the people
she met. However, despite her attempts to get her husband to be more resolute, she was a devoted
wife to Nicholas. Alexandra was also determined to produce a male heir for the Romanov dynasty. In
1904, amidst much celebration, Alexis was born – a male heir to ensure the continuation of the
Romanovs. However, the happiness of Nicholas and Alexandra was short lived as Alexis was
diagnosed as a haemophiliac and was not expected to live long. Both parents devoted much time to
the boy and left the government of Russia to others. Alexandra was a very protective mother, but
she was also determined to see that her son became tsar. Alexandra believed that she was more
suited to do this than her husband:
“The emperor unfortunately is weak, but I am not and I intend
to be firm.”
Alexandra, writing in 1905
After the years of repression under Alexander III, people in Russia hoped for a new start under
Nicholas. However, the reign got off to a bad start from the first day. At the coronation ceremony in
1894, the crowd gathered for the traditional distribution of gifts. The crowd was understandably
large and the police had to force a way through for Nicholas. This caused a stampede and 1,300
22
people were crushed to death and many more were injured. Despite this tragedy, Nicholas and
Alexandra acted as if nothing had happened and attended the coronation ball that evening just
hours after the deaths. This event showed that Nicholas, the sensitive family man, had less
sensitivity for those not in his gilded circle.
As a ruler, Nicholas had many failings. However, the most important was his inability to dominate
events and take charge. As an example, his coronation address was merely a repeat of what
Alexander III had said. The domination of his father was also shown in the fact that he kept most of
his father’s ministers rather than appoint his own. However, these men did have the tried and tested
experience of knowledge of government; they also knew how Alexander’s mind worked and what he
wanted for Russia. With Nicholas, they had a tsar who wanted to continue his father’s policies but
had neither the driving force nor the abilities of him. Senior ministers such as Plehve and Witte
started to carry out their own policies as opposed to what Nicholas might have wanted. He, in turn,
was more concerned with family issues and was seemingly bewildered by major affairs of state.
Nicholas had inherited a nation undergoing enormous changes. Whether Russia would have
experienced serious social unrest under Alexander III is open to speculation. However, the
industrialisation of Russia was starting to create serious social problems in the cities which the
authorities were not dealing with – and probably could not deal with. The speed of industrialisation,
financed by French and other European money, had developed a momentum of its own. Therefore,
Nicholas had inherited, in 1894, a nation that may well have rebelled without the input of Lenin and
other revolutionaries. What would Alexander have done in such a situation? At least he would have
been decisive even if his decisions may have been wrong. Nicholas simply could not be decisive.
His position was not helped by the fact that his wife had a series of favourites who used their
position to influence him via his wife. The influence of her most favourite was a disaster for Russia–
Gregory Rasputin.
The three most senior government ministers under Nicholas who dominated Russia were
Pobedonestev, Witte and Plehve.
Count Witte was foreign minister. He had alienated many in government because he did not come
from old landed stock –he was a nouveau riche who had made his money as a railway entrepreneur.
As a man who had been born into a low middle class family, his rise to power had been spectacular,
even if it had brought with it jealousy within the royal court. However, his business acumen had led
to large sums of foreign capital being invested in Russia. He also got foreign loans for the
government.
Pobedonestev continued with the Holy Synod’s policy of preaching obedience.
Plehve was a hard-liner. He was seen as a government enforcer who was solely guided by doing
what he thought was best for the tsar. In 1900, Russia was threatened by a series of industrial
strikes. Plehve’s only policy to answer these strikes was “execute, execute, execute”. In July 1904, he
was killed by a bomb.
Only Witte tried to introduce policies that reflected the growing complexity of Russia’s society in the
reign of Nicholas. However, a great deal of his time and energy was taken up with taking on Plehve –
a man he hated, and the hatred was mutual.
From 1900 to 1904, Russia was spiralling into chaos. There was widespread discontent in the
countryside, despite the work of the Holy Synod and the traditional conservatism of the peasantry.
This discontent was also seen in the cities. Newly created political parties hoped to tap into this
discontent - groups such as the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats Party.
Before he was killed, Plehve is known to have said:
23
“What we need to hold Russia back from revolution is a small,
victorious war.”
Russia was to get its war with Japan. It was relatively small, but it was anything but victorious and
was to have a disastrous impact on the nation.
The Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks were born out of Russia’s Social Democrat Party. When the party split in 1903, the
Bolsheviks only had one obvious leader – Lenin.
In the last years of the C19th, the Social Democrats had competed with numerous other ideologies
in Russia. Included in these ideologies were the Socialist Revolutionaries andPopulists. As with many
movements based on pure ideologies, the Social Democrats frequently spent their time arguing
about their beliefs and where they should go to further them. The intellectuals in the movement,
men such as Plekhanov and Julius Martov, spent their time in debate as opposed to actually getting
their beliefs out to the workers and peasants. It was as a result of this that Lenin wrote “What is to
be done” in 1902. The work was smuggled into Russia and clearly expressed his views regarding
what the Social Democrats should be doing as a party. Lenin attacked party members who “were
content to wait while history took its predetermined course.” Rather than wait, Lenin wanted to
kick-start the issue he believed in to get things done rather than wait on polemics.
“What is to be done” was an attack on Revisionism – the great opponent to Marxism. It was the start
of what is referred to as Marxist-Leninism. Lenin rejected terrorism and he saw the way ahead as the
Social Democrats creating a supreme organising body abroad (where it would be more safe from the
Russian police) with a subordinate central committee being based in Russia itself. The primary
purpose of the central committee would be to carry out the instructions of what was called the
‘Iskra Board’ as the heart of the supreme body was made up of Lenin, Martov, Plekhanov and Vera
Zasulich – all members of Iskra’s editorial board.
When the leaders of the Social Democrats met in London in 1903, it seemed that the ideas of Lenin
as laid out in “What is to be done” would be accepted. However, disagreements soon occurred as to
how the party should proceed – with a revolutionary elite as favoured by Lenin or with a less
organised base that would not be elitist. The delegates from the Jewish Socialist Union (the Bund)
walked out of the congress. They believed that anything that had been said at the congress would do
nothing to alleviate the suffering of the Jews in Russia. The next cause of friction was when Lenin
argued that to make the editorial board of ‘Iskra’ more effective, it should be reduced from six
people to three. His view got the support needed to be passed, but not from Martov who was on
board of the paper and who was to split the Social Democrats and initially lead the Mensheviks.
While Martov and Lenin may have been in the same party and shared similar beliefs before the split,
they both disliked each other. In particular, Martov distrusted Lenin – especially his methods and his
uncompromising demands that things be done his way. As a result of the split, Lenin resigned from
‘Iskra’ and resisted all the attempts that were made to mend the Bolshevik-Menshevik split.
The Bolsheviks financed their work by party supported robberies – what Lenin referred to as
“regrettable necessities”. Only individuals or institutions carrying state funds were targeted.
The Bolsheviks played a minimal part in the 1905 Revolution. Their impact and influence on the
workers in that year was weak. In St Petersburg in March 1905, the Bolsheviks admitted that they
could only muster 200 supporters in the whole of the city whereas the Socialist Revolutionaries
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claimed that they could call on the support of 10,000 – almost certainly an exaggeration – but an
indication that the Socialist Revolutionaries had much more support in a city that the Bolsheviks had
to have on their side if the revolution was to succeed.
Why was there this lack of support for a party that wanted to improve the lifestyle of the poor?
There are several reasons. First, the activities of the police meant that the Bolsheviks had to operate
very discreetly as any slip would have been pounced on by the authorities; secondly, why would the
workers in the city support a party when they had the seemingly more popular Socialist
Revolutionaries to support? Finally, there is little doubt that Lenin himself was not fully trusted when
compared to the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionaries.
By April 1905, the split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks had become permanent. The
Bolshevik hierarchy held a meeting in London to decide what to do next, whereas the Mensheviks,
as if to emphasise the split, held a meeting at the same time – but in Geneva, Switzerland. No
Menshevik went to London and no Bolshevik went to Geneva. Curiously, despite the obvious signs,
the Bolsheviks in London voted their support for a reunification of the Social Democrats but then
proceeded to elect a central committee that was dominated by the one man who assumed that no
such reunification would take place unless it was on his terms - Lenin.
Lenin also knew that if the Bolsheviks were to have credibility, they had to appeal to the working
class in Russia. That meant not making promises that could not be kept.
“If we were now (in 1905) to promise to the Russian proletariat that
we can seize full power, we would be repeating the error of the
Socialist Revolutionaries.” (Lenin)
Why did the Bolsheviks succeed?
Probably the most important factor was Lenin himself. He was a driven man who believed that those
who would lead the workers had to be an educated elite capable of doing things that an uneducated
majority could not. He also developed a set of beliefs that would appeal to the working class.
The Bolsheviks did not have an ideology that stressed high ideals. They had an immediate
programme for the time when they would attain power but had made few plans for what to do after
they had gained power. In the immediate aftermath of getting power, the Bolsheviks promised that
they would take Russia out of World War One and sue for peace with the Germans, they would
redistribute land to the peasants and give them power within their rural communities and they
would set up workers soviets in factories which would work to improve the working conditions and
general lifestyles of those who worked in the industrial cities. Such a mixture of beliefs was
genuinely popular in both urban and rural areas and it also ensured that the Bolsheviks appealed to
the two largest social groups in Russia.
Whereas the Mensheviks were unwilling to force through events, the Bolsheviks were the opposite.
Lenin believed that not even the masses could be relied on to move in the way he wished –
therefore, the Bolsheviks had to be the party that initiated action.
“We cannot be guided by the mood of the masses; that is changeable and
unaccountable. The masses have given their confidence to the Bolsheviks
and ask from them not words but deeds.” (Lenin)
To Lenin, practical issues were more important than the development of ideological theories.
Whereas the masses could assist in practical issues, they almost certainly would not understand
theoretical debate nor understand why time was being wasted on theory. Lenin always had one goal
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– to achieve his aim. To do this, Lenin did not have a set way of working and effectively, he believed
that any method was acceptable as long as the aim was achieved.
Lenin’s great strength was an ability to organise the party – and much of this had to be done in
secret before November 1917. Though he was a ruthless man, he was also someone who recognised
another’s talent. Leon Trotsky had joined the Mensheviks in the 1903 split but was later welcomed
into the Bolsheviks and became a vital member of the party. Trotsky’s skills as a military leader, his
rousing oratory and devotion to the revolution, combined with Lenin’s skill as an organiser who
could understand the most minute detail, led to a very potent combination. Their skill infected the
rest of the party with enthusiasm and vigour which was vital in November 1917 and the months that
immediately followed the Bolsheviks rise to power in Russia.
The November 1917 Revolution is a classic example of how Lenin and Trotsky worked together. The
planning for the revolution was done by Lenin, the actual execution of what Lenin had planned was
all but carried out by Trotsky. However, none of this would have been meaningful, if what the
Bolsheviks offered the people had no appeal to them. Thousands of soldiers were deserting the
army and returning home – they certainly supported any party that called for an end to the war. The
war had also caused much hunger in the cities and discontent in the countryside. The Socialist
Revolutionarieshad traditionally been strong in the countryside, but they had failed to achieve
anything concrete by 1917. Now Lenin promised land to those people. The message was unequivocal
and was quickly absorbed. Lenin’s message of “Peace, bread and land” found widespread
acceptance.
The Mensheviks
The Mensheviks formed the minority of the Socialist Democrat Party when they split in 1903. Lenin
had called for a small tightly knit elite who would lead the revolution on behalf of the people. The
majority of Socialist Democrats went with Lenin and were called the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks
wanted to make their movement less elitist than the Bolsheviks in the belief that it would attract the
support of the uneducated workers and peasants. How could a movement appeal to the workers
and peasants if it was elitist, they argued? One of the Socialist Democrats most associated with the
party’s early days, Plekhanov, joined the Mensheviks. Its first leader wasJulius Martov.
The organisation of the Mensheviks also accounted for their failure in Russian history. Lenin believed
that he and his followers were better equipped to take on the fight for equality in Russia –they were
educated, focused and diligent; an elite. The Mensheviks had a far less disciplined approach to the
revolution that Lenin envisaged was coming to Russia – but it was this more open approach that
initially got the Mensheviks far more support than the Bolsheviks, along with such slogans as “eight
hours work, eight hours play, 8 hours sleep and eight bob pay.”
In 1917, out of a total of 822 delegates in the Constituent Assembly, the Mensheviks had 248
delegates – far more than the Bolsheviks. However, people sitting around discussing the way ahead,
did not equate to getting things done – and getting things done was Lenin’s main quality. He got
things done as a result of meticulous organisation. The Mensheviks were skilled philosophers but
failed to carry things out at a grass roots level.
The Mensheviks also had a major internal weakness. Their openness allowed Mensheviks to hold
differing views to other Mensheviks within the party. Therefore there was open disagreement in the
party that was not only tolerated but, in the spirit of democracy, encouraged. If the Mensheviks had
one belief, it was the support of pure Marxism as laid down by Karl Marx in his publications.
The Mensheviks also made a number of practical errors. While Lenin wanted to pull Russia out of
World War One, the Mensheviks wanted Russia to continue fighting in this highly unpopular war.
26
As the Bolsheviks became more popular with the working class in the major cities of Russia, so the
Mensheviks became less popular. As one rose, the other had to decline. The Mensheviks also
suffered from people in the party joining the Bolsheviks when it became obvious that they were
winning over the people.
During the days of Kerensky’s Provisional Government, the Mensheviks made the mistake of
associating themselves with Kerensky – as they deemed that the Bolsheviks were more of an enemy
to Russia than the leader of the Provisional Government. Kerensky was from a comfortable middle
class family, did not want the redistribution of land and wanted Russia to continue in the war. To be
associated with such beliefs was bound to lose the Mensheviks even more support among the
workers
The Russo Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was a disaster for Russia in many senses - not just military. The RussoJapanese War showed up Russia as it was - as a nation living on past glories and blind to the chronic
problems that were developing in agriculture and industry.
The concept of diverting your people’s attention away from difficult domestic issues with a
successful war is nothing new. In Russia, such a war was to have the opposite effect – the war
against Japan was meant to rally the people around the Tsar in a display of patriotic fervour.
Ultimately, it was to create a divide between Nicholas and his people.
The war was never popular in Russia. The public had not been prepared for war. It suddenly
happened and it did not lead to an outbreak of spontaneous patriotism. Why?
The war was fought in the very far eastern reaches of the country. The bulk of the population lived
many hundreds of miles from the war and must have felt removed from it. Those in Moscow and St.
Petersburg were 7,500 miles from the war zone. As news was slow to reach from one side of the
nation to the other, there was little public enthusiasm for it as it felt too remote.
The new political parties felt that there was no justification for the war. The Social Revolutionaries
indulged in terrorism while the Social Democrats agitated in the factories for strikes. The Liberals
restricted their actions to petitions and verbal protests.
The acts of violence reached a climax on July 28th 1904, when Plehve was assassinated. Shortly after
this, Grand Duke Sergius was also murdered.
The actual war was a disaster for Russia. Even a successful long drawn campaign was likely to be
disastrous for Nicholas. However, the campaign was long but it was also a military disaster.
The Russian’s naval ‘might’ was destroyed at Tsushima Bay and Port Arthur, Russia’s only all year
naval base in the Far East was captured in January 1905.
When news of these disasters did reach the likes of Moscow and St. Petersburg, it acted as a
stimulus for further social unrest. Years of repression combined with a failed military campaign could
only be bad for Nicholas. A strong and decisive leader may have coped with this scenario. Nicholas
appointed Prince Mirsky to be Minister of the Interior. It was a disastrous appointment. Mirsky’s
only claim to fame was that he had been one of the favourites of Alexandra. He believed in his own
importance –he must, in his mind, be able to be appointed by the tsar to such an important position.
In Mirsky’s first press conference, he asked for the people to be confident in the government and to
those present seemed to offer the chance of reform. This led to him being reprimanded by the tsar
but the damage had been done. Many now expected reform and would accept nothing less.
Ironically, Mirsky’s statement seemed to unite the political parties that were opposed to the
government. In Paris, the leadership of the Social Revolutionaries and the Liberals met in the self27
titled Union of Liberation. They decided on a common programme of action. Their programme
would best be headed, they decided, by the zemstvo. On their behalf, the president of the Moscow
zemstvo, Shipov, called for a national conference of all zemstvo. Mirsky agreed to this. He informed
Nicholas that he saw no harm in allowing people to talk:
“It may draw the revolutionary sting out of these windbags.”
(Mirsky)
In fact, Mirsky’s lack of political experience was exploited here. In the past, a tsar had refused all
calls for any form of a national meeting to discuss “issues”. Such a meeting might lead to calls for a
national assembly. The fact that Mirsky did allow such a meeting to go ahead, was a sign that
autocracy was starting to be challenged – and effectively challenged.
The national conference of zemstvo met from November 19th to the 22nd in 1904. It called for
nothing unusual: freedom of speech, freedom of person, freedom of the press, civil rights etc.
Nothing of this was new.
Nicholas responded to these demands in two ways. First, he asked the men in the zemstvo to keep
out of politics. Secondly, Nicholas announced his own intention to introduce reforms. However, he
announced no time limit to these suggested reforms and he made no mention of a national
assembly which could discuss national issues.
What he said pleased no-one. Those who believed in autocracy saw what he said as a sign of
weakness. Those who believed in reform were not impressed with what they heard.
The national conference dispersed after its allotted three days. However, it had set a marker. Those
in professions (lawyers, journalists etc) started to organise themselves. They were excluded from the
zemstvo and many of them also failed to get into government as they were not from the right
background. Industrial workers also started to organise themselves. Small cells of Social Democrats
had started to organise the workers in places such as the Putilov steelworks in St. Petersburg.
Combined with a 35% increase in bread prices in 1904-1905, the ingredients were there for turmoil.
The workers were still disastrously organised. Curiously, they could be in a trade union called the
Zubatov Unions, after Zubatov, the prefect of Moscow’s police. He believed that if the workers
wanted to be in a trade union, they should be in one – a state trade union! Any union founded by
the state was bound to be infiltrated by Zubatov’s spies, so it was an obvious tool for keeping a close
eye on revolutionary movements within industry. Despite the fact that the Zabatov unions were an
obvious tool of the government, the workers seemed blind to this. Zabatov had a simple formula.
Plehve would condemn trade unions, and he would create them. When they were banned, he would
resurrect them under a different name. The public side of the government was one of
condemnation; the covert side of it was the creation of that said unions in an attempt to find out
who was doing what in the revolutionary movements. Zabatov occasionally had to arrest union
leaders in a show of government strength, but the Zabatov unions continued, despite their change
of names. The main link Zabatov had with the unions was Father Gapon. His role in 1905 is still far
from clear and it is likely that it will never be clarified. Was he a man of the workers? Or was he a
government agitator who gave information to Zubatov?
Gapon did lead the 1905 Revolution. He was a well-respected man at the Putilov steelworks and it
seemed fitting that he should lead a protest in front of those he represented. The protestors called
for a fair wage and more bread. As they marched to the Winter’s Palace they sang patriotic songs.
Soldiers at the Winter’s Palace, confronted with such a large crowd, understandably panicked and
28
fired on the protestors. Over 200 were killed and many more were wounded. After this event,
Nicholas II was no longer called the ‘father of his people’
The 1905 Russian Revolution
The 1905 Russian Revolution was sparked off by a peaceful protest held on January 22nd. This
protest may well have been the turning point in the relationship the tsar, Nicholas II, enjoyed with
his people. Led by a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Gapon, 150,000 people took to the cold and
snow covered streets of St Petersburg to protest about their lifestyle. They were not intent on
making any form of political protest in the sense of calling for the overthrow of the government or
royal family. The petition they carried clearly shows that they wanted Nicholas to help them.
The petition they carried stated:
"Oh Sire, we working men and inhabitants of St. Petersburg, our
wives, our children and our parents, helpless and aged women
and men, have come to You our ruler, in search of justice and
protection. We are beggars, we are oppressed and overburdened
with work, we are insulted, we are not looked on as human
beings but as slaves. The moment has come for us when death
would be better than the prolongation of our intolerable
sufferings.
We are seeking here our last salvation. Do not refuse to help Your
people. Destroy the wall between Yourself and Your people."
None of this could be considered to be a call for a political overhaul, merely a plea for Nicholas to
hear their call for help.
As the huge crowd marched through St Petersburg to the Winter Palace, they were confronted by
troops who were understandably nervous having to face such a large crowd. The evidence as to why
the soldiers fired on the peaceful crowd is patchy - such as who gave the command (if one was ever
given) - but after the firing had finished several hundred protestors lay dead. The tragedy was
quickly called "Bloody Sunday". Revolutionary partiesinflated the number of deaths to thousands.
Rumours were spread that there were so many deaths, that soldiers disposed of the bodies in the
night to disguise the real number killed. The government figure was less than 100 deaths.
"The present ruler has lost absolutely the affection of the
Russian people, and whatever the future may have in store for
the dynasty, the present tsar will never again be safe in the
midst of his people."
The American consul in Odessa
News of what happened quickly spread throughout Russia. Strikes occurred throughout the country
involving about 400,000 people; peasants attacked the homes of their landlords; the Grand Duke
Sergei, the tsar's uncle, was assassinated in February; the transport system all but ground to a halt.
Russia seemed to be on the point of imploding. Sailors on the battleship 'Potemkin' mutinied in June
and to add more woes to the government, it became clear that on top of all of this, Russia had lost
the Russo-Japanese War - a war that was meant to have bound the people in patriotic fervour to
Nicholas.
29
In January the demonstrators in St Petersburg had merely wanted the tsar to help improve their
living standards. By the summer, the demands had become far more political. Protestors called for
freedom of speech to be guaranteed; they demanded an elected parliament (Duma) and they
demanded the right to form political parties. The Finns and Poles demanded their right to national
independence.
In October 1905, a general strike took place in Moscow and quickly spread to other cities. All manner
of people took to the streets demanding change - students, factory workers, revolutionaries, doctors
and teachers. On October 26th, the St Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies was formed. This
example of working class unity and strength quickly spread to other industrial cities.
Nicholas had two choices. He could use force to put down the rebellions but he had no guarantee
that this would be successful as he could not fully trust the military or he could make a conciliatory
offer. He did the latter by issuing the October Manifesto on October 30th.
By December, troops had arrived back in European Russian from the Russo-JapaneseWar. Nicholas
used loyal troops to put down the St Petersburg Soviet and to crush those on strike in Moscow. Loyal
troops were also sent into the countryside to restore law and order. While the October Manifesto
had seemingly brought rewards to the protestors, the tsar's reaction in December showed where the
government really stood.
The October Manifesto
'Bloody Sunday' in 1905 had severely weakened any hope Nicholas II had of calling himself the
‘father of his people’. By the end of the year, St Petersburg had been affected by many strikes and
political agitation in the factories was rife. On the first Sunday in March, an estimated 300,000
people had taken to the streets of the capital shouting out a variety of slogans. The most worrying
for the authorities must have been “All power to the Soviets” while “God save the tsar and open his
eyes to our wants” would have given the glimmer of hope that some of the people still
demonstrated loyalty to Nicholas II. Even more worrying for the government was the fact that the
demonstrations were spontaneous and not pre-planned and involved a curious mix of political
aspirants. They called for a general change in how Russia should be governed but were not specific
with details of what they actually wanted.
A year of arbitrary arrests, strikes and political agitation did not bode well for the government.
By the end of 1905, Nicholas could not even depend on the loyalty of his military. In June 1905, the
crew of the battleship ‘Potemkin' mutinied and the disaster that was the Russo-Japanese War
compounded all the problems that the military was suffering. There is evidence that men in the
army refused to move out to the east to fight the Japanese, fearing that any such move would result
in their death. The fact that men in the army had not been paid for three months hardly helped
matters.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Nicholas II was adamant that the autocracy would not
surrender any of its authority. Therefore, as far as Nicholas was concerned any form of constituent
assembly to represent the views of the people was considered to be a non-starter. However, such
was the weakness of his position that he, characteristically, caved in. In March 1905, Nicholas
promised that he would authorise the convening of a duma. This was exactly what Nicholas had
promised would not happen.
The first duma was weighted in favour of the landed class and had no share in legislative
administration. But many saw it as an ominous sign that all was not well in the government.
30
What of the workers of St Petersburg? At the end of 1905, the Union of Unions met. Paul Milykov
was its president. In the early months of 1905, the factories of St Petersburg had witnessed a great
deal of union activity. Some 46 out of a total of 87 unions in the city had joined the Union of Unions.
Most of the people in it could be classed as left-wing liberals. The Union of Unions had two main
beliefs. It wanted to use its power to demand reform in the working conditions in the factories and it
also wanted to extend its activity beyond St Petersburg and to try and mobilise peasant support in
the vast rural areas of Russia. However, the Union of Unions found that they had little support in the
countryside. Many of the leaders in the Union of Unions were middle class liberals. They could not
begin to empathise with the lives experienced by those in the countryside and by the spring of 1906,
the Union of Unions had stopped most activity/agitation in the countryside.
Russia appeared to be polarising. The duma was a major issue of debate. Some saw it as a climb
down by Nicholas II; others realised that its powers were remarkably limited. However, what the
first duma did was to split those who wanted change. Right wing liberals saw the duma as a major
victory while moderate socialists saw it as an intermediary success but one to be built on. They
announced that they would boycott the elections for the first duma. Such a split played into the
hands of the government. Those who opposed the tsar and failed to unite and organise themselves,
played into the hands of the government. United, they would have been an awesome opponent. But
while the many strands of opposition remained divided, the tsar remained apparently strong.
However, in October 1905, a strike developed in St Petersburg that was spontaneous. The
government in St Petersburg was up against a rival government within the city – a government of
the workers. It was during this strike that Leon Trotsky came to the fore. Nicholas was faced with
two choices – more repression or some form of constitutional reform. He turned to Count Witte for
advice. Witte believed that the military could not be fully trusted and advised Nicholas to go for
reform. Witte drew up these reforms and Nicholas signed them on October 17th 1905. They
promised the people of Russia:




Civil liberties
Freedom of speech
Freedom of assembly
No laws to be introduced without the agreement of the Duma.
However, the October Manifesto did not include any reference to the point that the Duma could not
initiate legislation.
The First Duma
The First Duma met for the first time on May 10th, 1906 in the Tauris Palace. The First Duma was
dominated by the Kadets who wanted Russia to have a parliament based very much on the British
model with legislative powers. Those who held the reins of power wanted it to be no more than a
discussion chamber – one in which the government could easily identify its critics as speeches in the
Duma were made in public.
31
The First Duma was meant to have been a consultative body. Many interpreted the October
Manifesto as being conciliatory and as if to emphasise the conciliatory nature of the government an
amnesty was granted to all political figures except to those who had taken part in revolutionary
activities.
The Duma put forward to Nicholas II a programme of reform that they believed would benefit all of
Russia. No one knew if Nicholas would even receive the programme. In the event, the Duma was
told that most of its programme of reform was inadmissible to the government. This immediately
provoked a response from the Duma and the consultative/discussion body suddenly turned on the
government and verbally attacked every conceivable government abuse they could identify. Most
government ministers reacted to this attack in a negative and uncompromising manner – all except
Stloypin. He looked on the attack favourably as it clearly identified to him who were the main
opponents to the government. He also identified those who criticised the government but in a far
more mellow manner – people, he believed, he could work with at the expense of those who he felt
were a danger to the government, and to his mind, Russia.
The Duma’s vote of censure was passed but it had no impact on the government. The Duma tried to
rally public support by calling for reforms (and symbolically passing them in the Duma), which they
knew the government would reject. However, they were playing a dangerous game as the
government could not allow the Duma to stir up public anger and on July 21st, after just 42 days in
office, the Duma was dissolved.
Equally as important, peasants were declared the legal owners of their plots of land within the
framework of their commune. Redemption payments were effectively got rid of.
What was intended as a gesture was to have deep social and political implications over the nest few
years in Russia. As part of the reforms brought in by Witte, peasants were allowed to leave their
village and, if they remained in their village, they were permitted to share their land. However, by
allowing peasants to leave their village, Witte was effectively exporting discontent around Russia.
Those peasants who went to the cities for work, simply imported into that city their tales of woe and
furthered any discontent against the regime.
The First Duma witnessed a split in the Liberals. The Octobrists were a group that wanted to accept
the October Manifesto and saw it as a way forward. The Kadets wanted a parliament based on the
British model – a discussion and legislative chamber, something that Nicholas would not accept.
Witte may well have helped Russia out of her difficulties if Nicholas had listened to him. However,
Witte had many enemies in court. Some saw him as weak, a man who offered reforms to the
enemies of the government. The Minister of the Interior, Durnovo, was appalled by what he saw as
Witte’s weakness. Above all else, Alexandra did not agree with what Witte wanted.
The one hold Witte had over Nicholas was his ability to raise capital abroad – especially from France.
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The government had to work in an atmosphere of distrust and industrial strife. In November 1905, a
general strike was called in St Petersburg. The response was poor and in December, Witte ordered
the arrest of the entire St Petersburg’s Soviet – 270 people.
This act of repression provoked an uprising in Moscow, which took the government 10 days to quell.
Witte was clearing frightened at the growing unrest in Russia and he took it upon himself to offer
what many interpreted as his own October Manifesto. This, to those who read it, appeared to offer
universal suffrage to all taxpayers. It also seemed to allow all meetings of political parties. Witte had
done this off of his own back –and the royal court was never to forgive him.
Russia and World War One
World War One was to have a devastating impact on Russia. When World War One started in August
1914, Russia responded by patriotically rallying around Nicholas II.
Military disasters at the Masurian Lakes and Tannenburg greatly weakened the Russian Army in the
initial phases of the war. The growing influence of Gregory Rasputin over the Romanov’s did a great
deal to damage the royal family and by the end of the spring of 1917, the Romanovs, who had ruled
Russia for just over 300 years, were no longer in charge of a Russia that had been taken over by
Kerensky and the Provisional Government. By the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks led by Lenin had taken
power in the major cities of Russia and introduced communist rule in those areas it controlled. The
transition in Russia over the space of four years was remarkable – the fall of an autocracy and the
establishment of the world’s first communist government.
Nicholas II had a romantic vision of him leading his army. Therefore, he spent much time at the
Eastern Front. This was a disastrous move as it left Alexandra in control back in the cities. She had
become increasingly under the influence of the one man who seemingly had the power to help her
son, Alexis, afflicted by haemophilia. Alexandra believed that Rasputin was a man of God and
referred to him as “Our Friend”. Others, appalled at his influence over the tsarina, called him the
“Mad Monk” –though not in public unless they wanted to incur the wrath of Alexandra.
Rasputin brought huge disrepute on the Romanov’s. His womanising was well known and he was
considered by many to be debauched. How many of the stories are true and how many exaggerated
will never be known, because after his death people felt free enough from his power to tell their
own stories. However, his simple reputation while he was alive was enough to do immense damage
to the Romanov’s.
33
Rasputin was a great believer in the maintenance of autocracy. If it was to be diluted, it would have
negatively affected his position within Russia’s social hierarchy.
Ironically, with the devastation that World War One was to cause in Russia, it was Rasputin who
advised Nicholas not to go to war as he had predicted that Russia would be defeated. As his
prophecies seemed to be more and more accurate, his influence within Russia increased. Rasputin
had always clashed with the Duma. They saw his position within the monarchy as a direct threat to
their position. Alexandra responded to their complaints about Rasputin’s power by introducing
legislation that further limited their power.
The Duma took their complaints directly to the emperor. In September 1915, their representatives
met Nicholas at his military headquarters to express their discontent that there was no government
ministry back in the cities that had the confidence of the people. He told them to go back to St
Petersburg and carry on working. At the end of September, another group went to see Nicholas to
ask for a government that had the people’s confidence. Nicholas would not see them. After this,
Rasputin’s power in St Petersburg was unchallengeable. As long as he had the support of the tsarina,
he had power as Alexandra all but dominated her husband. As long as Alexis, the sole male heir to
the throne, was ill, Rasputin had power over Alexandra.
When the Duma was dissolved in September 1915, Rasputin took charge of just about all aspects of
government in St Petersburg. He held audiences on matters of state and then forwarded the
problem discussed onto the relevant minister. Protected by the tsarina, Rasputin also involved
himself in the war itself. He insisted that he looked at the plans for prospective campaigns and that
he knew about the timing of the plans so that he could pray for its success. This was a gift for the
sophisticated German Intelligence Service.
Ministers who criticised Rasputin or who disagreed with his policies were summarily dismissed.
Scheratov (Interior), Krivosheim (Agriculture) and Gremykim himself were all dismissed for daring to
criticise “Our Friend”. Gremykim was replaced by Sturmer who simply agreed with everything
Rasputin said. While he had the support of Alexandra because of the position he had adopted
towards Rasputin, Sturmer put his energy into embezzling the Treasury. Protopopov was appointed
Minister of the Interior –he had spent 10 years in prison for armed robbery.
While chaos ensued at home, the war at the front was going badly. Poland was lost to the Germans
in 1916 and they advanced to just 200 miles from Moscow. It became clear that the morale of the
ordinary Russian soldier was extremely poor and desertion became a growing problem. Food
supplies were poor and erratic. As the front line got closer to the home front, it became obvious to
many that both fronts were in total chaos.
In October 1916, rail workers in Petrograd (St Petersburg) went on strike in protest about their
working conditions. Soldiers were sent from the front to coerce the strikers back to work. They
joined the rail men. Sturmer, having recalled the Duma, was alarmed by this development but he
also seriously misunderstood the implications of what had happened.
“We can allow these wretches to talk themselves out of existence and
draw the sting of unrest and draw up loyal troops.”
Sturmer
The Duma met on November 14th 1916. Milykov, the leader of the Progressives, made an attack on
the government, asking at the end of each comment he made about the government “Is this folly or
treason?” Far more disturbing for the government was when the conservative Shulgin and the
reactionary leader Purishkavitch made attacks on the government. Milykov would have been
expected – but not the other two.
34
Sturmer wanted Milykov arrested. But in a rare example of decisiveness, Nicholas dismissed him on
December 23rd 1916. He was replaced as premier by Trepov – a less than competent conservative.
Alexandra also remarked that “he is no friend of Our Friend.”Trepov lasted only until January 9th
1917, when he was allowed to resign. Government was on the verge of a complete breakdown.
Nicholas was isolated at the war front but was frequently too indecisive to be of any use. Alexandra
still tried to dominate the home front with Rasputin. Food was in short supply as was fuel. The
people of Petrograd were cold and hungry – a dangerous combination for Nicholas.
On December 30th 1916, Rasputin was assassinated by Prince Yusipov. Alexandra bullied her
husband into ordering an imperial funeral – something reserved for members of the royal family or
senior members of the aristocracy or church.
Senior members of the royal family touted for how much support there would be for Alexis to rule
with a regent –a clear indication that they recognised the reign of Nicholas could not go on. Grand
Duke Paul sent a letter to the army generals at the front to ascertain their views on whether
Nicholas should be replaced. However, there was so much intrigue taking place that it is difficult to
exactly know who said what to whom.
By January 1917, it was clear that Nicholas had lost control of the situation. Yet in this month, amidst
what must have seemed like chaos, a congress of Allied powers met to discuss future policies.
On February 27th, the Duma met for the first time after the Christmas recess. It met against a
background of unrest in Petrograd. There was a general strike in the city, which had been called as a
result of the arrest of the public representative of the Public Munitions Committee. The city had no
transport system. There was food stored in the city, but no way of moving it around. Food shortages
and food queues brought even more people out onto the streets.
On March 12th, those in a bread queue, spurred on by the cold and hunger, charged a bakery. The
police fired on them in an effort to restore order. It was to prove a very costly error for the
government as around the city about 100,000 were on strike and on the streets. They quickly rallied
to the support of those who had been fired on. Nicholas ordered that the military governor of the
city, General Habalov, should restore order. Habalov ordered the elite Volhynian Regiment to do just
this. They joined the strikers and used their might to disarm the police. The city’s arsenal was
opened and prisoners were freed from prisons that were later burned. What had been a small
disturbance at a city baker’s, had turned into a full-scale rebellion – such was the anger in Petrograd.
On March 13th, more soldiers were ordered on to the streets to dispel the strikers. They saw the size
of the crowds and returned to their barracks, thus disobeying their orders.
The Duma appointed a provisional committee, which was representative of all parties. Rodzyanko
was selected to lead it. Alexander Kerensky was appointed to take charge of troop dispositions in an
effort to defeat any effort that might be made by the government to dissolve the Duma. Kerensky
was an interesting choice as he was a member of the Petrograd Soviet and had links with many
factory workers committees within Petrograd.
It is known that Rodzyanko telegraphed Nicholas requesting that he appoint a Prime Minister who
had the confidence of the people.
“The last hour has come when the destiny of the country had the dynasty is being decided.”
Rodzyanko received no answer to his telegraph.
On March 14th, rumours swept through the city that soldiers from the front were being sent in to
put down the uprising. The Duma established a Provisional Government in response to this
perceived threat. The important Petrograd Soviet gave its support to the Provisional Government on
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the condition that it summoned a constituent assembly, universal suffrage was to be guaranteed and
that civil rights were to be enjoyed by all.
In reality, the Provisional Government in Petrograd had little to fear from troops at the front.
Discipline was already breaking down and thousands of soldiers deserted. The Petrograd Soviet had
sent an instruction to the front that soldiers should not obey their officers and that they should not
march on the capital.
At this moment in time, Nicholas was caught between the war front and Petrograd. He received
news of small disturbances in his capital and gathered together a group of loyal soldiers to put them
down. He had no idea of the sheer scale of the ‘disturbances’. He also had no idea of the political
input into this uprising. Nicholas did not make it to Petrograd because of a heavy snow storm. He
was forced to stop at Pskov. It was only here that Nicholas received a copy of Rodzyanko’s telegram.
It was also at Pskov that Nicholas learned that all his senior army generals believed that he should
abdicate. On the night of March 15th, two members of the Provisional Government also arrived to
request the same. With as much dignity as he could muster, Nicholas agreed and handed the throne
to his brother, Michael. He confirmed the existence of the Provisional Government and asked that all
Russians everywhere support it so that Russia would win her fight against Germany.
Michael refused the throne unless it was handed to him after the people had voted for him. This was
never going to happen and Romanov rule over Russia came to an end.
The March revolution was not a planned affair. Lenin was in Switzerland, the Bolsheviks did not even
have a majority in the Petrograd Soviet and the Duma had not wanted the end of the Romanovs. So
why did it happen?
The ruling dynasty must take a great deal of the blame. Nicholas was an ineffective ruler who had let
his wife dominate him to such an extent that the royal family became inextricably linked to a
disreputable man like Gregory Rasputin. Such an association only brought discredit to the
Romanovs.
The ruling elite also failed to realise that the people would only take so much. They took their loyalty
for granted. In February/March 1917, lack of food, lack of decisive government and the cold pushed
the people of Petrograd onto the streets. The people of Petrograd did not call for the overthrow of
Nicholas – it happened as a result of them taking to the streets calling for food. People had to burn
their furniture to simply get heat in their homes. Very few would tolerate having to queue in the
extreme cold just for food – food that might run out before you got to the head of the queue. The
spontaneous reaction to police shooting at protestors in a bread queue showed just how far the
people of Petrograd had been pushed. That it ended with the abdication of Nicholas II was a political
by-product of their desire for a reasonably decent lifestyle.
Russian and War
There was no united front in Russia when war was declared on Germany and Austria. The Prime
Minister, Goremykin, followed the patriotic line and had greater access to Nicholas than most other
ministers. However, ministers such as Sazinov, the Foreign Minister, were far more cautious. Even
the War Minister, Sukhomlinov, was unsure of whether Russia was capable of fighting a war against
Germany. The memory of the disastrous Russo-Japanese War was still strong and it is possible that
psychologically Russia had not got over the defeat.
Goremykin managed to persuade Nicholas to address a crowd in front of the Winter’s Palace. The
tsar received a very warm reception as did his announcement that St Petersburg’s, named after
Peter the Great, would be re-named Petrograd as St Petersburg was considered to be too German
36
sounding. Goremykin had correctly sensed that the people of the city would rally to the tsar in his
nation’s hour of need. Therefore, the actual announcement of war did not speed up the
revolutionary process.
The war did a great deal to cement the relations between Britain, Russia and France. French
investment in Russia’s industry was effectively financing its development. It was believed that
Britain’s naval might and the armies of Russia and France would be more than a match for Germany.
Almost overnight, strikes stopped in Russia as the people rallied to the tsar. The declaration of war
had also divided the revolutionaries. Many also rallied to the patriotic call, the most prominent being
Plekhanov. For the time being, those calling for peace were sidelined.
However, the fears of Sukhomlinov soon manifested themselves. Russia simply was not ready for
war against a nation as powerful as Germany. No plans had been drawn up to put Russia’s economy
on a war footing. Her industrial growth had been in heavy industries but not in producing modern
weapons.
When Russia entered the war, her army stood at 1.5 million men – far larger than the British Army
and numerically a match for the German Army. With 3 million reservists, on paper Russia was an
awesome military force. However, figures can be misleading. Many were simply no more than
cannon fodder.
The Russian Army had 60 heavy artillery batteries. The German Army had 381. Russia had 2 machine
guns per battalion. Germany had 36.
Russia also ran out of ammunition for its infantrymen in December 1914. The Russian Army
averaged one surgeon for every 10,000 men. Many wounded men died from wounds that would
have been treated on the Western Front. With medical staff spread out across a 500 mile front, the
likelihood of any Russian soldier receiving any form of medical treatment bordered on zero.
To start with, the Russian Army was successful against both the Germans and Austrians. Germany
was attacked via East Prussia and Austria via the Carpathians. When soldiers ran out of ammunition,
they fought with their bayonets. No one doubted the courage of the Russian soldier. The initial
successes also managed to mask the chronic problems in the Russian Army.
No army could withstand 3,800,000 casualties in the first 10 months of the war. This figure also
included a vast number of officers who went into battle wearing their ceremonial uniforms –
therefore making them an easy target for any German sniper or machine gunner. By 1915, a Russian
officer had an 82% chance of being killed and in some areas of the campaign their life expectancy
was between 4 to 5 days. One German machine gunner wrote home “they just kept coming and we
just kept shooting. Periodically, we had to push the bodies aside in order to fire at the fresh waves.”
The Russians lost 100,000 men in one day of the Battle of Tannenburg.
Ironically, the greatest impact the Russians had was on the Western Front. The Germans was so
concerned at the unexpected advances into Prussia that the Russians had made, they moved two
divisions from the Western Front to the Eastern Front. This was not part of the Schlieffen Plan and it
gave the French the breathing space they needed at the Marne to stop the Germans advance on
Paris.
The Brusilov Offensive was very successful but only in the short term. It was also against the Austrian
Army –not the German Army.
Conditions in the Russian Army were poor. Combined with the appalling death rate, there were food
shortages and shelter depended on where you were at any particular moment in time. As the war
progressed, desertion became more common – as did the killing of officers by their own men.
Agents from the soviets brought propaganda to the war front to encourage mutiny and to spread
37
revolutionary ideas. They found that many were willing to listen. When the tsar called for loyal
troops to put down the March 1917 Revolution, he found few that were prepared to obey.
The calamitous campaign could easily have been pinned on the generals in the Russian Army.
Nicholas need not have been linked to their failings. However, when he decided to go to the war
front to take personal command of the Russian Army himself as commander-in-chief, he shouldered
all the blame for the defeats on himself. To some it was a heroic action – to others it was a very
foolish one.
March 1917
March 1917 saw major changes in Russia. Rasputin was dead and Lenin was out of the country. By
the start of 1917, the people of Russia were very angry. Why?
1.
2.
3.
4.
The First World War had cost Russia millions of lives.
Those not actually fighting had to face serious food shortages.
The winter of 1916-17 was very cold and fuel was in very short supply.
Cold and lack of food create an environment that leads to trouble for those blamed for these
problems.
By March 1917, discontent came to a head in Petrograd - this was St. Petersburg but the name
sounded too German so in 1914 the name was changed to the more Russian sounding Petrograd.
Petrograd became St. Petersburg.
March 4th: workers in the city’s largest factory (the Putilov engineering factory) demanded a 50%
wage increase so that they could buy food. The management refused so the workers went on strike.
March 8th: 30,000 workers were locked out of work. They were not paid and could not afford any
food now. The strikers persuaded other workers to come out on strike. Demonstrations occurred
throughout the city. Nicholas II was in Petrograd at this time but he left to inspect troops at the war
front thinking that the demonstrations were the work of hooligans and that they would end shortly.
He was very wrong.
March 9th: the riots got worse and were getting out of hand. Nicholas was informed about the
situation and the Russian Parliament (the Duma) pleaded with him to order the release of
emergency food supplies. He refused and ordered that the riots should be put down by March 10th!!
March 10th: the police tried to carry out the orders of Nicholas. Unfortunately, people got killed and
the rioters became even more angry. The rioters opened up prisons and released those in them. For
the first time there were calls for the tsar to quit. The head of the Duma informed Nicholas that law
and order had broken down as soldiers brought in to put down the rioters had, in fact, joined them!!
Nicholas then did something very foolish. He ordered that the Duma was no longer to meet.
March 11th: the Duma disobeyed Nicholas - this is usually considered the first act of the Russian
Revolution. The members of the Duma met in chaos. One person in the Duma, Alexander Kerensky,
shouted out that 25,000 soldiers had mutinied and were marching to where the Duma was meeting
to support them. With this support, the Duma decided to form a temporary government (the
Provisional Government) to take the place of the tsar. In a bizarre move, Alexandra, the tsar’s wife,
phoned him to tell him that he had nothing to worry about!!
March 12th: The leader of the Duma was a man called Rodzianko. He persuaded Nicholas that things
had got very bad for the royal family. Nicholas then decided to return to Petrograd to restore law
and order. The Provisional Government by this time had got some degree of control and they
38
stopped the royal train outside of Petrograd. The government wanted to talk terms with Nicholas.
The first plan was for Alexis - the son - to take over but Nicholas refused this as he felt that the boy
was too weak. The throne was offered to Grand Duke Michael but he did not want it. It became clear
to Nicholas that the Provisional Government did not want a tsar and he was forced to give up the
throne.
Thus royalty came to an end in Russia. There had been a tsar since 1480. Now in March 1917 the
title came to an end.
Do note that for the whole of this important event, Lenin was out of Russia. Even he was unprepared
for this.
What became of the royal family?
Once the communists had taken over in November 1917, the royal family became a problem as
there were many thousands who still believed in royalty and were willing to fight to have the family
restored to power.
To stop this from happening, an order was made for them to be executed. In the summer of 1918,
the Romanov family was under house arrest in Ekateringburg. It is said that they were told to get
ready to go to Germany because they were to leave Russia. They were taken to a cellar and shot by
the Communist secret police. Their bodies were thrown down a series of wells in a forest so that it
was impossible for any relics of them to be found.
The Provisional Government
The Provisional Government came into being on March 14th 1917. Based in the capital, Petrograd,
the Provisional Government was first led by Rodzyanko and was formed in response to the fear that
the old tsarist government in Petrograd would call in frontline troops to put down the rebellion that
had occurred in the city. When Grand Duke Michael refused to take on the crown after the
abdication of Nicholas II, the Provisional Government became the de facto government in Russia.
Government ministers had sworn an oath of loyalty to Nicholas. Now that the royal family was no
longer in existence, these men had no authority.
The Provisional Government was to last for 8 months. It was immediately recognised as the
legitimate government of Russia by the Allies – not necessarily because they approved of the
collapse of the Romanovs, but because they needed the Russians to keep open the Eastern Front so
that the German Army was split and thus weakened. The Provisional Government kept Russia in the
war – this was to be a huge error of judgement.
Within Russia, the Provisional Government ‘inherited’ a dire situation. The Duma had always been a
chamber for discussion but it had never been in a position to make policy and then carry it out. The
old established props of the tsarist regime, such as the civil service, crumbled away. The Provisional
Government had a few competent people in it but not many. Laws were passed that seem to
promise a new era for Russia –universal suffrage was introduced, Poland was given its
independence, all people were declared equal and all government officials had to be elected by the
people. But none of these got to grips with the immediate problems that Russia was experiencing
and the leaders of the Provisional Government argued amongst themselves as to the way ahead.
This lack of unity led to Rodzyanko resigning. Prince Lvov replaced him. Lvov clashed with Kerensky
over the issue of land being given to the peasants and he resigned in May. Kerensky became leader
of the Provisional Government in July.
By now, Lenin had returned to Petrograd. Though the Bolsheviks were not the biggest political party
in Petrograd, they had a leader who had a very clear idea as to what was needed. Lenin called for
39
land to be given to the peasants, an end to the war, complete power to the soviets and bread for the
workers in the cities.
Kerensky offered the people Russia’s continued participation in the war and no land deals for the
peasants. In September, the Bolsheviks won a majority on the Petrograd Soviet. The rise in their
power could only be at the expense of Kerensky’s power. In a last ditch effort to save his position
and weaken that of Lenin’s, Kerensky issued a decree that called for an election to a constituent
assembly, which would meet in January 1918. Lenin had no guarantee that the Bolsheviks would win
this election. This pushed him into seizing power in November.
November 1917
In November 1917 Russia got the world's first communist government. Lead by Lenin, communists
took over the vital city of St Petrograd and removed the Provisional Government from power.
Lenin had already proved himself to the workers of the city with his slogans "Peace, bread and land"
and "All power to the soviets". His middle class background was not held against him as he had been
in prison for his beliefs and he was seen by the workers as the man to lead them.
Lenin had already decided that the workers were incapable of leading themselves as they did not
have the necessary skills. He and other trained revolutionaries would do it.
Lenin promised the people of Russia a number of things. The first was that he would pull Russia out
of the war. This proved extremely popular especially among soldiers. Secondly he promised land to
the peasants. This was also popular as the Provisional Government had refused to do this. Third, he
promised that the workers and soviets would control the factories. With these three promises, it is
not surprising that support for Lenin grew at a great speed.
By October 1917, Lenin felt the time was right for a revolution. He returned in disguise from Finland
and set the date for 6th/7th November. The actual details for the revolution were left to Leon
Trotsky but the actual date for it to begin was left to Lenin.
November 6th/7th:
Most of what we know about these two nights comes from an American journalist who was in
Petrograd at the time. The man was called John Reed and he wrote about what happened in "Ten
days that shook the world".
The Petrograd Soviet was meeting in the Smolny Institute -a former girls school. Speeches were
made by Trotsky as to why people should support the communists. While he was giving these
speeches, he knew that the Red Guards and armed workers were actually taking over key points in
the city. By the time that the speeches had finished most of the city was in the hands of the
Bolsheviks (communists led by Lenin) - as Trotsky had planned.
The telephone and telegraph buildings were taken over, as were the power stations. Bridges were
captured. So were the railway stations.
There was very little bloodshed and it is probable that many people in Petrograd were unaware of
what had happened when they woke up in the morning. In fact, while the communists were taking
power, theatres and cinemas were still open!!
November 7th/8th:
Now Lenin had to find the leaders of the Provisional Government and arrest them. He also had to get
the support of the other political parties that existed in Petrograd then.
40
Throughout the 7th the Red Guards kept on occupying important buildings. By mid-afternoon, the
only building not held by the Bolsheviks was the Winter Palace, the old home of the tsar. It was here
that the Provisional Government met. In fact, the troops who were meant to be defending the
building had gone home and only the Women’s Battalion remained.
The sign for the Red Guards to attack the Winter Palace was a shell fired by the naval ship the
"Aurora". The attack was short lived and any opposition was easily overcome. The Provisional
Government surrendered to the Red Guards. The attack took longer than it might have done
because there were 1000 rooms in the Palace that they had to search.
In the Smolny Institute, those politicians who did not agree with what had happened and did not
want the Bolsheviks in power walked out of the building. Trotsky said that they were going to where
they belonged - the waste-paper basket of history.
At 1 a.m. on November 8th, a shabbily dressed man got to his feet and rose to speak. He took away
a handkerchief from his face and was instantly recognised as Lenin. He told those in the Smolny
Institute that he was forming a government of Bolsheviks and that it would contain no middle class
people. The government would work to help the workers and peasants.
By the end of the day the members of the Provisional Government were under arrest, the tsar and
his family were also under house arrest. Lenin's statement that he would overturn the government
of Russia - made after his brother had been executed - was fulfilled.
But Lenin may have controlled Petrograd. Russia was a vast country and he did not control vast
areas. These areas were openly hostile to the Bolsheviks.
Vladimir Lenin
Lenin's real name was Vladimir Illych Ulyanov. He changed it to Lenin while on the run from the
secret police to avoid arrest. Lenin's importance to Russia's history cannot be overstated; in
November 1917, Lenin established the first communist government when he overthrew the
Provisional Government. Russia had the first communist government in the world.
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Lenin led the Russian Communists to power in November 1917. Strictly this should read Russian
Bolsheviks as the party Lenin had joined as a young man split in two in 1903. Those who left the
party were few in number and became known as the Mensheviks. The majority stayed with Lenin
and they became known as the Bolsheviks which means majority in Russian.
Lenin was born in 1870. His family was reasonably well off and Lenin wanted for nothing. At school,
Lenin was a very gifted pupil but bossy. In 1887, Lenin’s elder brother - Alexander - was arrested for
plotting to kill the tsar (king) of Russia. He was hanged. The people where Lenin lived refused to have
anything to do with the family as Alexander had brought great shame on the town. At this time
nearly all Russians saw the tsar as a god. It is claimed that when Lenin heard about the execution, he
said "I’ll make them pay for this. I swear I will." Many years later, Lenin’s wife said that it was this
event that turned Lenin into a revolutionary with a desire to rid Russia of the system that had been
responsible for Alexander’s execution.
In 1887, Lenin was expelled from his university for starting a student riot. In 1890, he got into
another university and got a law degree in one year when the course usually took three years. He
became a lawyer. He also started to visit communists in the city of St. Petersburg.
In 1895, he went on a visit to Europe. When he returned he brought back communist books and
leaflets. This was strictly forbidden in Russia and he was arrested and sent to prison. He was exiled
to an area called Siberia. He had to stay there until 1900. After his release, he spent much of his time
out of Russia living in Europe. He produced a newspaper called "Iskra" (The Spark) which was
smuggled into Russia by supporters of Lenin. He worked very long hours working out the detail of
how to bring down the Russian government.
However, his face was too well known by the secret police for Lenin to have been safe in Russia. In
1914, he moved to Switzerland still planning how to bring down the Russian government.
So what did Lenin believe in?
He felt that the rich abused the poor and that they should help them; he believed that anybody
making a profit was abusing everybody else; he believed that everybody was equal; he wanted a
government that truly represented the people; he wanted the overthrow of the Russian government
as it supported a system that kept the huge majority of Russian people in misery
His beliefs were developed from those of a man called Karl Marx who is considered the father of
communism. Lenin saw what the Russian government was like in 1905 when 150,000 protesters
peacefully went to the Winter Palace - home of Nicholas II - in St. Petersburg, and were fired on by
the tsar’s soldiers. A thousand people were killed and the actions of the soldiers was blamed on
Nicholas. All they had been protesting about was the lack of food in Russia.
Lenin realised that the millions of poor Russians were incapable of organising themselves if only
because they had had no education. Therefore, it was his idea to form an elite group of intellectuals
to lead them on their behalf. It was these type of people who gathered around Lenin.
The March 1917 revolution which lead to the fall of Nicholas II took Lenin by surprise. He was still in
Switzerland. By the end of the year he was in charge of Russia. How did this occur?
The Bolsheviks in power
When the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd in November 1917, they faced many problems. Not
least was the fact that the Bolsheviks only controlled a very small part of Russia – basically the land
between Petrograd and Moscow, a rectangular band of territory 30 miles by 400 miles. Outside of
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this territory, there were many groups that were opposed to the Bolsheviks. Some areas broke away
from Russia to become semi-autonomous regions. Even in the land between Moscow and Petrograd,
the Bolsheviks were far from being free of enemies.
However, the Bolsheviks did have a number of major advantages over their opponents. They had a
leader who was driven by energy and desire – Lenin. His military commander was equally as gifted –
Leon Trotsky. The party was actually reasonably small in numbers. This made party discipline much
easier to control and maintain. The party had a central body of authority called the National Council.
This elected the party’s commissars (ministers) and Lenin was the president. Such tight organisation
was vital for success. No other political party in Russia had such organisation and, as a result, the
Bolsheviks had a major advantage over them.
The first task for Lenin was to withdraw Russia from a highly unpopular war. Both sides benefited
from this. The Germans could shift all their forces on the Eastern Front to the Western Front. Lenin
could concentrate all his resources on what was happening in Russia. On December 14th, 1917, an
armistice was concluded between Russia and the Central Powers.
The start of the negotiations with the Germans did not go smoothly. Trotsky did not share Lenin’s
belief that it should be peace at any price. As Foreign Commissary, Trotsky started the first talks.
Trotsky believed that the Russian Revolution would be the catalyst for a world revolution with the
workers across the world showing their support for the Bolsheviks. He therefore felt that the
Germans were not in the strong position they believed themselves to be as, in Trotsky’s mind, the
workers in Germany would rise up in support of the Bolsheviks. He even appealed to the German
workers directly. When it became clear that he was wrong and he failed to soften the German
demands, he walked out of the negotiations.
The Germans went back on the armistice on February 12th, 1918 and advanced a further 100 miles
into Russia in just 4 days. Lenin then took charge and ordered that there should be peace at any
price. The result was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This treaty took away from Russia all the land
gained since Peter the Great and it separated the Ukraine. Germany was to take from her new
territory what she felt was needed to fight the war. When Germans complained about the terms of
the Treaty of Versailles, many reminded them of the terms the Germans were willing to impose on
the Russians with Brest-Litovsk.
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However, the treaty gave Lenin what he needed – time to concentrate solely on Russia. Many groups
had formed that wanted the Bolsheviks destroyed. In the Russian Civil War, these were to be known
as the Whites. They had little in common, other than a desire to rid Russia of the Bolsheviks.
Lenin also faced an immediate problem in the rectangle of land controlled by the Bolsheviks.
Kerensky had promised elections for a constituent assembly while head of the Provisional
Government. In July 1917, Lenin had called for a constituent assembly, so he could hardly campaign
against one now. Therefore, in December 1917, elections were held for a constituent assembly. The
Social Revolutionaries gained most seats (370 out of 703) while the Bolsheviks only got 168 seats. It
was obvious that the constituent assembly would be highly critical of Lenin and the Bolsheviks –
especially the 100 Mensheviks elected to it. Those voted to the constituent assembly were allowed
to meet in the Tauride Palace. The Palace was then surrounded by Red Guards and those in it were
told to disperse. It was the first and last time it met.
Lenin could now concentrate on the impending civil war. He also needed to introduce an economic
system that was commensurate with his beliefs and one that would benefit those under Bolsheviks
rule. This economic policy was to be called ‘War Communism’.
Social Reforms of 1917
The Bolshevik government passed a plethora of legislation
in the immediate aftermath of the October/November
Revolution. The Bolsheviks had no experience of
government and there was little guarantee that the
Bolsheviks would have maintained power for any length of
time. Kerensky was attempting to bring down the
Bolshevik government while the Military Cadets
attempted an uprising on October 29th and this was
further compounded for Lenin and Trotsky when the civil
service went on strike in protest at the revolution.
However, despite this apparent chaos, the leaders of the
Bolshevik Party managed to meet for six hours every day
for two months in the relatively safety of the Smolny
Institute. In this time they introduced 193 new laws that
were to have a major change on Russian society once they
were implemented.
Some of the immediate laws introduced by the Second
Congress of Soviets were:






Russia was to make a swift exit from World War One and that Bolshevik government and the
people of Russia were to announce that they believed in peace to all nations.
There would be an immediate transfer of land to the peasants.
The workers would take control over the means of production and the distribution of goods.
The Bolshevik government would take control of the banks, foreign trade, large industries and
railways.
Any form of inequality based on class, sex, nationality or religion was made illegal.
In December 1917 a decree on education was issued that stated:
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“Every genuinely democratic power must, in the domain of education, in a country where illiteracy
and ignorance reign supreme, make its first aim in the struggle against this darkness. It must acquire
in the shortest time universal literacy, by organising a network of schools answering to the demands
of modern pedagogics: it must introduce universal, obligatory, and free tuition for all. However
needful it may be to curtail other articles of the people’s budget, the expenses on education must
stand high. A large educational budget is the pride and glory of a nation.”
In the same month a decree called ‘On Social Insurance’ was issued. This had four parts to it:
1. There would be insurance for all wage earners without exception, as well as for all urban and rural
poor.
2. There would be insurance to cover all categories of loss of working capacity, such as illness,
infirmities, old age, child birth, widowhood, orphanage and unemployment.
3. All the cost of insurance would be charged to employers.
4. There would be compensation of at least full wages in all loss of working capacity and
unemployment.
December 1917 also saw a decree that affected the army titled ‘On the Equality of Rank of all
Military Men’. This decree stated that:
1. All ranks and grades in the army, beginning with the rank of corporal and ending with the rank of
general are abolished. The Army of the Russian Republic consists now of free and equal citizens,
bearing the honourable title of Soldiers of the Revolutionary Army.
2. All privileges connected with the formers ranks and grades, also all outward marks of distinction,
are abolished.
3. All addressing by titles is abolished.
4. All decorations, orders, and other marks of distinction are abolished.
The speed of so many major changes did not receive the support of everyone. Clearly those who
remained in Russia who had an aristocratic background would not have agreed with them nor did
many of the intelligentsia. A French diplomat based in Russia at the time, Louis de Robien, wrote
that Russia was a “madhouse” drowning under “an avalanche of decrees”. His main complaint was
the plan to remove children from middle class families and have them brought up in
“establishments” where they would receive a proper working class education and where their
parents could visit them on stated days in the year. Members of other political parties were also
angered. They had believed that when Lenin achieved power that they would have been allowed to
continue. Their belief was that if they could muster enough acknowledged support they would be
allowed to continue and to produce a newspaper. Most other political parties and their newspapers
were closed down within days of the Bolsheviks taking power.
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Bolshevik Land Reforms
Land reform was very important to the Bolsheviks.
Support from the peasants was needed if the fragile
Bolshevik government was going to survive - hence why
they agreed that they would hand over control of the
land to the peasants in the form of state collective
farms. The Provisional Government had failed to do
address the land issue and what the Bolsheviks offered
to the peasants, while not completely acceptable, was
better than having no input on what land could be used
for. The peasants wanted land divided up into millions
of small holdings while the Bolsheviks put their faith in
collective farms worked on by the peasants on behalf of
the people.
By the time of the Russian Revolution more than 80% of Russia’s population lived on the land.
Equipment was still medieval and inefficient as horse-pulled ploughs were commonly used. The
amount of crops produced barely covered what was needed by the families producing it in the
countryside let alone produce the food that was required by those in the cities. Crop failure was
common and it is estimated that 50% of the peasants in Russia lived below the subsistence level.
Lenin knew that if the Bolshevik Revolution was going to succeed he needed to do a number of
things.
1. Win over the peasants by offering them the land that the Provisional Government had failed to
do. While land was not exactly handed over to the peasants, land reform meant that those who
worked on the land after the Bolshevik Revolution had a much greater input into the way that land
was farmed. The state collective farms may not have been ideal for the peasants but they were
better than what had existed before.
2. Make sure that the workers in the cities had enough food to eat to ensure that the factories could
be kept working.
3. Lenin knew that he had to offer a great deal of many things to both workers and peasants if the
Bolshevik Revolution was to embed itself in Russia.
In November 1917, the Bolsheviks issued a land decree, which was one of over 190 decrees issued in
the first six months of the Bolshevik government’s existence. This decree stated that:
· There could be no private ownership of land.
· Land could not be sold, leased or mortgaged.
· All privately owned land was to be confiscated by the government with no compensation paid. This
included monastic land, land owned by the Romanovs, land owned by the nobility, land owned by
government ministers who were not nobles, private estates and church land. All of this land was “to
be placed at the disposition of the workers who cultivate them”.
Confiscated land was handed over the land committees and district soviets. They stated that land
could only be worked on by the people who physically worked on that land. They were not allowed
to hire out labour. In 1921 an unknown person – presumably someone from a landed family – wrote:
“December 23rd: Maria received a telegram from the Second Estate. It is the same there as in the
First Estate: the peasants have taken over the land, the livestock, the house etc. I received a letter
46
from Mary. The peasants came to her father with a copy of the new decrees, which say that the land
must at once be divided up among them, and quite politely asked him to divide it up for them, as
they knew he would do it best.”
One thing that the land reforms did highlight was the disparity that was found among the peasants
in terms of who was successful and who was not. Those who for whatever reason had been
successful – in comparative terms – were seen by the majority of other peasants as being not better
than the land owners who had charged high rents for frequently poor land. Even ‘Izvestia’, the
Bolshevik newspaper, commented about gangs of poor peasants breaking into the seed banks of
successful peasants and taking the grain they wanted. This frequently led to fights and even deaths.
It was, of course, a mutual dislike between the two groups that Stalin was to play on during
collectivisation.
Political Reforms of 1919
Lenin was a great believer that political reforms had to accompany economic reforms. During the
civil war, the Bolsheviks had to have a stranglehold on rights in the areas that they controlled. Few
would have been able to differentiate between the repression of the tsars and the autocratic nature
of the Bolsheviks. For Lenin, the ends justified the means. During the civil war, Lenin acted as much
as a dictator as Stalin was to become in future years.
Ironically, the one person who argued with Lenin over the introduction of more democracy was Leon
Trotsky. It was the Commissar of War who had ordered the soldiers into Krondstadt to put down the
sailors who had mutinied there. It was also Trotsky who had won the civil war at a military level.
Whether the power he had acquired had determined Trotsky’s outlook is open to discussion.
However, he lost out to Lenin who was in favour of so-called ‘resolutions’. These introduced far
more democracy to Russia. They satisfied the intellectual Democratic Centralists who were firm
supporters of 'resolutions'.
Lenin won the day over Trotsky. To symbolise the new moderate era of the Bolsheviks, the three
secretaries of the party (Krestinskii, Preobrazhenskii and Serebriankov) were dismissed. They had to
take the blame for the way the party had moved towards a dictatorial policy. Preobrazhenskii was
also a major opponent of the New Economic Policy.
On the last day of the 10th Party Conference, Lenin put forward two new resolutions: “Party Unity”
and “The Syndicalist and Anarchist Deviation in our Party”.
The first resolution was in response to the belief that the party was splitting up into smaller groups
each with their own discipline and loyalty. Lenin argued that splits in the party only encouraged the
enemies of the party. The resolution called for the immediate dissolution of all groups within the
party. Those who refused would be expelled form the party and the party’s Central Committee was
to have full disciplinary powers in this issue.
The second resolution condemned the views of the Workers’ Opposition on the role of trade unions
in exercising control over industry. Lenin believed that Marxism was the only way to educate, unite
and organise the workers. Lenin argued that the beliefs of the Workers’ Opposition went against
this. The charges against them were unjust but the 10th Congress needed to show unity and Lenin
was supported in both resolutions. In fact, Congress passed them both with huge majorities.
The 10th Congress greatly strengthened Lenin’s power over the party. Having received the support
of the 10th Congress for both resolutions, Lenin dropped both of them.
The death of the Romanovs
47
The Romanov family was murdered at Ekateringburg on July 17th, 1918. After his abdication in
March 1917, Nicholas and his family had been put under house arrest and kept just outside of St.
Petersburg. As the civil war developed, the whole family was sent to Tolbolsk in Siberia and from
here to Ekateringburg in the Urals.
The Romanovs had given Lenina major problem. To many, Nicholas was still the legitimate ruler of
Russia. While he was alive, people would rally to his cause. The simple fact was that many in the
Whitecorner were fighting to restore Nicholas the throne. The tsar, appointed by God, had many
loyal followers. If Nicholas escaped, then his followers would have had someone at their head to
lead them - against Lenin.
In the summer of the 1918, Ekateringburg was threatened by the advancing Whites. The decision
was taken by the Bolsheviks to kill Nicholas and his family. On the night of July 17th, the family was
awoken and told that there was trouble in Ekateringburg. They were told that they would be safer in
the basement of the house they were staying in. The whole family, the family doctor (Botkin) and
three servants went to the basement. A group of twelve Red Army soldiers appeared in the
basement and shot those there. The legend has it that the princesses had to be finished off with
bayonets as they had stuffed jewels in their blouses which had deflected the bullets.
Many rumours quickly spread with regards to the murders.
One was that the youngest daughter, Anastasia somehow managed to survive. Another was that not
all the family were murdered in the basement and that some, primarily the children and Alexandra,
were removed from the house and shot elsewhere. Another was that the first judge appointed by
the Bolsheviks to investigate the murders, Judge Sergeyev, was removed from the investigation as
he was going to go public about what had happened. Sergeyev was certainly removed from the
investigation in 1919 and died in mysterious circumstances shortly afterwards.
It suited the Whites to put out stories about how cruel the Reds were and it may well be that the
Whites themselves were responsible for the many rumours that persisted after the murders.
A second investigative judge, Sokolov, reported that the bodies were removed from the basement
and taken to the 'Four Brothers' mine near to Ekateringburg. Here they were thrown done a mine
shaft and left. Grenades were thrown in the mine shaft in an attempt to make it collapse.
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Such was the fear of the Cheka that the story of the Romanovs deaths was never challenged and the
same remained true under Stalin. However, in September 1918, a number of people claimed to have
seen Alexandra and the four princesses at a house in Perm - this followed the rumour that a heavily
guarded train left Ekateringburg immediately after July 17th, with the four princesses and their
mother on board. Also a doctor in Perm claimed to have treated one of the princesses after she had
fallen ill in September 1918. The actual details of what happened to the Romanovs on July 17th will
never be known and this has led to continual speculation as to what exactly did happen.
The Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was to tear Russia apart for three years – between 1918 and 1921. The civil
war occurred because after November 1917, many groups had formed that opposed Lenin’s
Bolsheviks. These groups included monarchists, militarists, and, for a short time, foreign nations.
Collectively, they were known as the Whites while the Bolsheviks were known as the Reds.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had shown to many how weak the Bolsheviks actually were. Lenin had
called for peace at any price and the Germans had exacted very severe terms – something that was
held against them at Versailles in 1919.
At the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks only effectively controlled Petrograd, Moscow and the territory
between both cities. With the fall of Nicholas II, many parts of the Russian empire took the
opportunity to declare their independence. Finland did so in March 1918 – and collapsed into a civil
war itself. The Whites, led by Mannerheim, were helped by the Germans – Luderndorff even
contemplated putting a German prince in power in Finland once the Whites had won. With German
help, the Finnish Whites pushed back the Finnish-Russo border and Petrograd was almost within
artillery range.
Within Russia itself, those who opposed the Bolsheviks looked to the western powers for help. For
their own benefit, the western powers wanted to re-establish an Eastern Front so that the German
Army would be split once again, thus relieving the problems being experienced on the Western
Front.
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In the south of Russia, the resistance to the Bolsheviks was led by Kornilov. He based himself in
Rostov to start with. Many former officers, who had survived the war, went to join him.
Socialist Revolutionaries, who had been members of the dispersed Constituent Assembly, grouped in
the Lower Volga under the leadership of Chernov. A Socialist Revolutionary group had established an
autonomous regime just east of Omsk which claimed to govern the whole of Siberia. They also
seized the vital eastern city of Vladivostok.
The monarchist, Colonel Semenov, also established his own autonomous government in TransBaikalia where he ruled like a war lord. Semenov was also to cause the Bolsheviks many problems.
In Manchuria, General Horvat, who had been the tsar’s military-governor of the region, established
another conservative government.
Czech prisoners-of-war, who had joined the Russian army after being captured from the Austrian
army, joined the ranks of Kerensky, and it was these men who won Kerensky’s initial successes in the
civil war. Knwon as the Czech Legion, they fought the Germans as a separate unit under the
leadership of Masaryk until Brest-Litovsk ended that fighting. Trotsky gave them his agreement that
they had his permission to travel through Russia to the Western Front so that they could continue
their campaign against the Germans. The one proviso was that the Czechs had to leave their
weapons behind. As soon as the first units of the Czechs surrendered their weapons, the Red Guards
shot them. This was to prove a costly error as it was obvious that the other men could not trust what
Trotsky had promised. The Czech Legion was made up of seasoned soldiers with plenty of fighting
experience. They captured the strategic city of Simbirsk and between May 1918 and August 1918,
captured so much territory that they controlled the Trans-Siberian railway from Simbirsk to
Vladivostok. The Czechs were to prove a serious problem to Trotsky – as the Communist military
commander in the civil war. His task of defeating the Whites was made a great deal more difficult by
the Czechs – if he had kept his word and let them move freely out of Russia, this problem would not
have occurred. The Politburo blamed this solely on Trotsky – and the man who led the critics was
Joseph Stalin.
The success of the Czech Legion may well have sealed the fate of the royal family. They had been
sent by Kerensky to Tobolsk in Siberia where they were under house arrest. As the Czechs had the
power to threaten Tobolsk, they were brought back to Ekateringburg. However, in the early stages
of the civil war, the Whites threatened this city. While the royal family was alive, they could inspire
the Whites. Therefore, Lenin ordered their execution. This was carried out on July 16th, 1918.
To add to Trotsky’s problems, the British seized Murmansk and Archangel in the north and set up
governments led by Socialist Revolutionaries.
A further thorn in Trotsky’s side was Admiral Kolchak, the former Lord High Admiral. He had
established relations with the Allies in an attempt to establish a united Eastern Front. In September
1918, an organisation called the Directory was established in Ufa. This was a combination of various
groups whose sole aim was to defeat the Communists. It was made up of groups that also had few
things in common with one another. On November 18th, 1918, the Socialist Revolutionaries were
pushed out of the Ufa Directorate by former tsarist officers who placed Kolchak at their head.
Kolchak’s ‘government’ was recognised by the Czechs and the Allies. The Ufa Directorate was
financed by the Czechs who had raided Russia's gold reserves that were stored at Kazan. Kolchak
persuaded the Czechs that the gold could be well used for the common cause – the removal of the
Bolsheviks.
In early 1919, Kolchak and the forces he had grouped around him, went on the offensive. They took
the city of Perm and advanced to the Volga. Kolchak could have marched on Moscow from the Volga
but for some reason he did not. The British were advancing from Archangel in the north. A twopronged attack against the Bolsheviks may well have been successful– but it never materialised. The
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British were to shortly pull out of Russia– and the Whites probably lost their best opportunity to
defeat the Bolsheviks.
Why did the Reds win the civil war in Russia against all the odds?
Much credit must go to Trotsky who, despite the criticism aimed at him over the Czech Legion issue,
was a brilliant War Commissar. Untrained in military matters, Trotsky seemed to be a natural leader
of men. His beliefs were simple. If a Red commander was successful in combat, they were promoted.
If a commander failed and survived, he paid the price. Trotsky was willing to use ex-tsarist officers as
he knew that they had the military experience the Red Army lacked. Ironically, though this was a
successful policy, it was later held against him in his battle with Stalin for control of the party after
Lenin’s death.
Trotsky also knew that the first time the Red Army lost a major battle it would spell the end of the
revolution and all that the Bolsheviks had fought for. He visited the Red Army at the front in his
legendary armoured train to instill into them this very simple fact.
Men flocked to join the Red Army - not necessarily because they believed in what the Reds stood for
but because Lenin had ordered that supplies of food went first to soldiers – what was left went to
those who lived in the cities.
Lenin also imposed an iron grip on territory under the control of the Bolsheviks. The party had a
secret police unit (called the Cheka, which was to change its title to the NKVD) which was ruthless in
hunting out possible opponents to Lenin. In many areas of Russia, where the Bolsheviks had control,
the NKVD was judge, jury and executioner. Its power was massively extended after August 30th,
1918. On this day the Socialist Revolutionary Kaplin shot and wounded Lenin.
Trotsky was also not fighting a cohesive unit. The Whites were made up of many groups – groups
that hated each other as much as they hated the Reds. With no cohesiveness to them, the Whites
were on the whole a hopelessly uncoordinated group that fell out with each other. Though on a map
of Russia, it looked as if the Reds were being attacked from all sides, such attacks were disunited and
dislocated. The fact that so many groups existed, meant that no one person could be appointed to
act as their sole commander. With no unified leadership, the Whites were much weakened.
The Whites also had an appalling reputation regarding their treatment of the indigenous people of
any area they controlled. As much of this land was agricultural, these people would have been
peasants – the people Lenin had promised land to. Some of the Whites were known to want to turn
the clock back to the ‘old days’ – such an attitude did not endear them to the peasants. The reestablishment of the old order would have maintained a lifestyle none of the peasants would have
wanted. In this sense, the peasants, though in White territory, were the natural supporters of the
Bolsheviks.
The Whites also suffered a massive blow to their campaign when the Allies withdrew from Russia
after November 11th 1918. With the end of World War One, the Allies were much cooler in their
dealings with the White leaders. Reports reached London that the Whites had committed many
atrocities on innocent civilians – and the government could not afford to be associated with such
things. The senior British observer attached to Kolchak wrote to Lloyd George that Kolchak was a
“disinterested patriot”.In May 1919, Britain refused to recognise Kolchak and France did the same in
May. The Red Army drove Kolchak and his rapidly disintegrating forces back to Siberia where he
surrendered to the Communists. He died in their custody.
White forces in the south of Russia were evacuated from the Crimea from November 1920 on.
After success against forces in Russia itself, Trotskythen faced a challenge from Poland. Granted her
independence in 1918, Poland invaded the Ukraine in 1920. However, the Polish army was not able
to defeat Trotsky’s Red Army and it broke through the Poles lines and advanced on Warsaw. Jozef
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Pilsudski, Poland’s commander-in-chief, led a counter-attack against the Red Army and Lenin
decided to cut his losses and agreed to the Treaty of Riga on March 18th 1921. As a result of this
treaty, about 10 million Ukranians and White Russians were put under Polish rule. The Treaty of Riga
brought to an end the Russian Civil War. Within Russia, the Communist government under Lenin was
now secure.
War Communism
War Communism was the name given to the economic system that existed in Russia from 1918 to
1921. War Communism was introduced by Lenin to combat the economic problems brought on by
the civil warin Russia. It was a combination of emergency measures and socialist dogma.
One of the first measures of War Communism was the nationalisation of land. Banks and shipping
were also nationalised and foreign trade was declared a state monopoly. This was the response
when Lenin realised that the Bolsheviks were simply unprepared to take over the whole economic
system of Russia. Lenin stressed the importance of the workers showing discipline and a will to work
hard if the revolution was to survive. There were those in the Bolshevik hierarchy who wanted
factory managers removed and the workers to take over the factories for themselves but on behalf
of the people. It was felt that the workers would work better if they believed they were working for
a cause as opposed to a system that made some rich but many poor. The civil war had made many in
the Bolsheviks even more class antagonistic, as there were many of the old guard who were fighting
to destroy the Bolsheviks.
On June 28th, 1918, a decree was passed that ended all forms of private capitalism. Many large
factories were taken over by the state and on November 29th, 1920, any factory/industry that
employed over 10 workers was nationalised.
War Communism also took control of the distribution of food. The Food Commissariat was set up to
carry out this task. All co-operatives were fused together under this Commissariat.
War Communism had six principles:
1) Production should be run by the state. Private ownership should be kept to the minimum. Private
houses were to be confiscated by the state.
2) State control was to be granted over the labour of every citizen. Once a military army had served
its purpose, it would become a labour army.
52
3) The state should produce everything in its own undertakings. The state tried to control the
activities of millions of peasants.
4) Extreme centralisation was introduced. The economic life of the area controlled by the Bolsheviks
was put into the hands of just a few organisations. The most important one was the Supreme
Economic Council. This had the right to confiscate and requisition. The speciality of the SEC was the
management of industry. Over 40 head departments (known as glavki) were set up to accomplish
this. One glavki could be responsible for thousands of factories. This frequently resulted in chronic
inefficiency. The Commissariat of Transport controlled the railways. The Commissariat of Agriculture
controlled what the peasants did.
5) The state attempted to become the sole distributor as well as the sole producer. The
Commissariats took what they needed to meet demands. The people were divided into four
categories – manual workers in harmful trades, workers who performed hard physical labour,
workers in light tasks/housewives and professional people. Food was distributed on a 4:3:2:1 ratio.
Though the manual class was the favoured class, it still received little food. Many in the professional
class simply starved. It is believed that about 0% of all food consumed came from an illegal source.
On July 20th 1918, the Bolsheviks decided that all surplus food had to be surrendered to the state.
This led to an increase in the supply of grain to the state. From 1917 to 1928, about ¾ million ton
was collected by the state. In 1920 to 1921, this had risen to about 6 million tons. However, the
policy of having to hand over surplus food caused huge resentment in the countryside, especially as
Lenin had promised“all land to the people” pre-November 1917. While the peasants had the land,
they had not been made aware that they would have to hand over any extra food they produced
from their land. Even the extra could not meet demand. In 1933, 25 million tons of grain was
collected and this only just met demand.
6) War Communism attempted to abolish money as a means of exchange. The Bolsheviks wanted to
go over to a system of a natural economy in which all transactions were carried out in kind.
Effectively, bartering would be introduced. By 1921, the value of the rouble had dropped massively
and inflation had markedly increased. The government’s revenue raising ability was chronically poor,
as it had abolished most taxes. The only tax allowed was the‘Extraordinary Revolutionary Tax’, which
was targeted at the rich and not the workers.
War Communism was a disaster. In all areas, the economic strength of Russia fell below the 1914
level. Peasant farmers only grew for themselves, as they knew that any extra would be taken by the
state. Therefore, the industrial cities were starved of food despite the introduction of the 4:3:2:1
ratio. A bad harvest could be disastrous for the countryside – and even worse for cities. Malnutrition
was common, as was disease. Those in the cities believed that their only hope was to move out to
the countryside and grow food for themselves. Between 1916 and 1920, the cities of northern and
central Russia lost 33% of their population to the countryside. Under War Communism, the number
of those working in the factories and mines dropped by 50%.
In the cities, private trade was illegal, but more people were engaged in this than at any other time
in Russia’s history. Large factories became paralysed through lack of fuel and skilled labour.
Small factories were in 1920 producing just 43% of their 1913 total. Large factories were producing
18% of their 1913 figure. Coal production was at 27% of its 1913 figure in 1920. With little food to
nourish them, it could not be expected that the workers could work effectively. By 1920, the average
worker had a productivity rate that was 44% less than the 1913 figure.
53
Even if anything of value could be produced, the ability to move it around Russia was limited. By the
end of 1918, Russia’s rail system was in chaos.
In the countryside, most land was used for the growth of food. Crops such as flax and cotton simply
were not grown. Between 1913 and 1920, there was an 87% drop in the number of acres given over
to cotton production. Therefore, those factories producing cotton related products were starved of
the most basic commodity they needed.
How did the people react to War Communism? Within the cities, many were convinced that their
leaders were right and the failings being experienced were the fault of the Whites and international
capitalists. There were few strikes during War Communism –though Lenin was quick to have anyone
arrested who seemed to be a potential cause of trouble. Those in Bolshevik held territory were also
keen to see a Bolshevik victory in the civil war, so they were prepared to do what was necessary. The
alternate – a White victory – was unthinkable.
Also the Bolshevik hierarchy could blame a lot of Russia’s troubles on the Whites as they controlled
the areas, which would have supplied the factories with produce. The Urals provided Petrograd and
Tula with coal and iron for their factories. The Urals was completely separated from Bolshevik Russia
from the spring of 1918 to November 1919. Oil fields were in the hands of the Whites. Also the
Bolshevik’s Red Army took up the majority of whatever supplies there were in their fight against the
Whites.
No foreign country was prepared to trade with the Russia controlled by the Bolsheviks, so foreign
trade ceased to exist. Between 1918 and November 1920, the Allies formally blockaded Russia.
The harshness of War Communism could be justified whilst the civil war was going on. When it had
finished, there could be no such justification. There were violent rebellions in Tambov and in Siberia.
The sailors in Kronstadt mutinied. Lenin faced the very real risk of an uprising of workers and
peasants and he needed to show the type of approach to the problem that the tsarist regime was
incapable of doing. In February 1921, Lenin had decided to do away with War Communism and
replace it with a completely different system – the New Economic Policy. This was put to the 10th
Party Conference in March and accepted. War Communism was swept away. During War
Communism, the people had no incentive to produce as money had been abolished. They did what
needed to be done because of the civil war, but once this had ended Lenin could not use it as an
excuse any longer.
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy (NEP) was based around a tax called prodnalog, which was a tax on food.
By introducing a tax, Lenin was essentially admitting that he was taxing something people owned.
Requisition had forcibly taken food under War Communism. Prodnalog taxed people at a lower level
than the level set for requisition and allowed them to keep the rest of what they produced. Food
that was left could be sold – hence, the peasants had an incentive to grow as much as they could
knowing that they could keep what was not taxed. The amount of grain taxed in 1922 was half of the
grain taken by force in 1920-21. The same was true for the tax on potatoes. The tax on food allowed
the cities to be fed and gave the farmers an incentive to produce as much as was humanly possibly.
In 1924, the food tax prodnalog was replaced by a tax on money. This was a natural move. The
peasants still had a very good incentive to grow as much as was possible. They were allowed to
travel to the towns/cities to sell their produce. The process needed a middle man and as a result
private enterprise developed. In theory there were restrictions on private trade but they were not
enforced. Those in power knew that the cities needed feeding and the system that had developed
after War Communism allowed for this.
54
In October 1921, Lenin admitted that there could be no going back to the limitations imposed by the
dogmas of War Communism.
“We are in desperate straights. We must buy from whom we can
and we must sell to whom we can. The party would have to learn
to trade.”
The economic freedom that the NEP introduced restored Lenin and the Bolsheviks to political power
– but it also expanded Russia’s economic base. Lenin admitted that War Communism had been“ a
grievous error”.
The NEP was discussed at the 10th Party Congress. The Congress recognised that drastic measures
were needed in the face of rebellions by both peasants and workers. The Congress supported the
abolition of requisition and the introduction of a food tax. Lenin forced through change by
threatening to resign if his ideas were not adopted.
The NEP represented a radical break with the party’s doctrine. There were those who were
fundamentally opposed to it. The main opponent initially was Bukharin but even he ended up
supporting it after Lenin’s threat of resignation.
There were two reasons why some objected to the NEP:
1) The planned economy that the Bolsheviks had so desired was being sacrificed. Those who most
benefited from the NEP would be the peasant smallholder – the natural enemy of socialism.
2) Marx believed that the political superstructure of every society was based on its economic base. If
the economic base was to become a free market, it seemed inevitable that sooner or later the
political superstructure would have to conform with the economic base. Alongside of revived
capitalism, the political features of the bourgeois state would replace the socialism believed to have
been won in the November 1917 revolution.
Lenin argued that the only way the revolution could be saved was with the support and agreement
of the peasants. Lenin argued that the direct transition to communism had been a mistake and that
the first stage to communism had to be the acceptance of small-scale production with state
capitalism. Lenin then believed that Russia would then proceed to socialism and then to
communism. Lenin claimed that the peasants could not be converted overnight. It would take
“generations but not centuries”. (Lenin)
By 1922, with a tax limited to just 10%, the success of the NEP was obvious. In 1921, Russia had
faced famine. By May 1922, this fear had subsided and by 1923, agricultural production was at a
healthy 75% of the 1913 level. Light industry also benefited from the healthy situation found in
agriculture. They had to produce goods for the peasants and the success of the peasants stimulated
production in light industry. However, heavy industry did not benefit from the success in agriculture.
In 1922, 500,000 were unemployed in the heavy industry sector.
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced to replace the failed policy of War Communism. The
NEP advanced with almost a capitalist approach to economic growth. Wages were paid in cash not
kind and surplus staff were dismissed. Under War Communism, Lenin employed the communist
belief that everybody had the right to a job and people were employed regardless of whether they
55
were actually needed or not. The NEP brought some form of economic sense back to Russia’s
economy. Trade was to operate on an economic and commercial accounting basis. Industry was
divided into ‘trusts’, which controlled various ‘enterprises’. In the first stages of NEP, theoretical
restrictions were placed on a firm’s freedom to buy and sell but by 1922, these limits were dropped
and profit-making became the main aim of those in industry. No industry was obligated to supply
the state and, as Lenin had commented, the Communists had to learn how to trade.
However, the NEP did not totally solve Russia’s economic problems. The disaster that had been
World War One and the tribulations of the civil war and War Communism had devastated the
economy. Any sustained advances in the economy would take centuries. Factories, freed from the
shackles of War Communism, did start to produce goods but few had the money to buy them. As
workers could be dismissed, unemployment started to grow. Lenin allowed industry bosses to use
foreign capital – but few countries were brave enough to invest in the fledgling communist state.
Therefore, money was earned from exporting produce that could not be sold in Russia. The export of
grain and coal helped to kick-start Russia’s economy and by 1924-25, Russia’s imports were nine
times higher than the 1921-22 level. Though this would seem a major achievement in just three
years, the 1921-22 figure was so small that the increase is not as spectacular as would first appear.
However, an expanding economy needed a decent transport system. The civil war had decimated
Russia’s rail system. In 1921, 50% of Russia’s trains were off the tracks due to a lack of repairs and
the skilled men needed to repair them. A huge effort was needed to build up the rail system and by
the end of 1923, the rail system carried 45% more passengers and 59% more goods than two years
earlier. By the end of 1927, the number of people/goods carried by trains passed the 1913 figure. If
advances were made in the rail system, roads remained massively backward with transport being
almost wholly based on horse and cart.
The NEP also needed a stable currency and this was difficult to achieve after such huge economic
dislocation in such a short space of time. The rouble of 1922 had an inflationary value of 60,000 over
the 1913 figure – and the 1922 budget was based on the pre-war rouble. The rouble was discredited
and associated with the old regime. Therefore, a new currency was needed, and a decision to do this
took place in July 1922. It was to be called the chervonets. By 1923, the paper rouble became
worthless. Because the new economy was backed by gold, the demand for the chervonets was high
and it became the sole currency in February 1924. The task of moving Russia over to a new currency
was handed over to the State Bank. Such was the move to this new currency, that the state had a
financial budget surplus at the end of 1925. This was a major achievement – but as with anything in
Russia, it did disguise problems. Many financial transactions in rural areas were still done in a form
of bartering as the economic modernisation being witnessed in the cities had yet to fully transfer
itself to the countryside. This imbalance was to lead to a major economic problem – the so-called
‘Scissors Crisis’.
The Scissors Crisis started in October 1923 when industrial prices were three times higher than
agricultural prices. The incentive to produce more food in the countryside had led to much higher
production. With so much food around, prices for farm produce fell when compared to industrial
prices as industry, by the very nature of it, took longer to recover (the re-building of
factories/equipment etc). Compared to the countryside, costs in industry were high. As farming was
still based around physical labour, there was never a shortage of workers in the countryside.
Equipment remained primitive and cheap. However, the farmers were producing in quantity. Their
produce was food, primarily grain, as they knew that this could be sold in the cities – and the driving
force was legally to make a profit. Industries based on cotton found that they were starved of their
most basic raw material as the farmers knew that food was a much better bet to grow. The
government could not allow the cities to get hungry again. Therefore, the government became the
principle purchaser of food but they used their position to force down the price that the farmers
wanted. With less money, the farmers had less capital to buy products from the cities. The
56
government responded to this by forcing down the prices of manufacturing produce and decrees
were issued that controlled prices. Government interference in the economy was never far away.
The NEP transformed agriculture. War Communism had taken away any incentive to produce as the
state requisitioned all surplus food. NEP brought back the incentive to farm productively as surplus
food could be sold and profits were taxes. The introduction of a food tax –prodnalog – was a simple
recognition that the food produced equalled private property. If it was anything else, how could it be
taxed?
After 1917-18, land was reapportioned. The huge estates of Nicholas II’s reign were now divided up.
By 1927, there were 25 million peasant holdings in Russia (98.3% of all farmed land) and given
decent weather, many of these holdings, post-War Communism, made a reasonable living. The
extremes of poverty and riches in the countryside had diminished.
However, farming was still relatively backward and many peasant communities used strip farming
and the three-field system. Modern crop rotation was rarely used and even by 1928, 5.5 million
households still used the sokha – a wooden plough. Therefore, while the production of food
increased greatly, it could have been so much better. The most powerful of the peasants were the
wealthier kulaks who made extra money by selling their surplus seed to the poorer peasants in times
of need.
Lenin saw the way ahead for the peasants as mechanisation. This would increase food production
and stimulate industrial production in the factories. Above all else, Lenin wanted to restore
agriculture to pre-war levels so that it recovered from the devastation caused by two wars. In this he
was very successful.
In 1913, the area of sown land was 105 million hectares. By 1922, this had dropped to 77.7 million
hectares but by 1925 had recovered to 104.3 million hectares.
In 1913, the number of horses on farms was 35.5 million. By 1922, this had dropped to 24.1 million
but by 1925, the number of horses stood at 27.1 million.
In 1913, the number of pigs on farms was 20.3 million. By 1922, this had dropped to 12 million but
by 1925, the number of horses stood at 21.8 million.
In 1913, the amount of grain grown was 80 million tons. By 1922, it had risen to 50.3 million tons
and by 1925, the figure stood at 72.5 million tons. The government bought 75% of this. What could
be exported was, but this figure declined as the 1920’s advanced as Lenin and his successors wanted
the cities fed. The government hoped to get the perfect solution – the peasants had their produce
bought and the city workers were able to feed themselves.
Can the NEP be classed as a success? Compared to the disaster of War Communism, it was.
Compared to the utter economic dislocation caused by World War One, it can also be seen as a
success. There were many major problems to address post-1918. The NEP had started to do just this
by the late 1920’s. There were still many more problems to solve and Stalin attempted to do this
with collectivisation.
Russia 1918 to 1921
Russia by 1918 appeared to be in the hands of the communists (the Bolshevik Party) led by Lenin.
The Provisional Government had been overthrown and the Bolsheviks had appeared to have gained
power in Russia and that the country’s problems seemed to be over. In fact, those problems had
only just begun.
57
Lenin controlled just a strip of land that ran form Petrograd to Moscow. He did not control any other
area in this vast country. There were also many people who hated the thought of communists having
control over them. There were also many who wanted the tsar back in power. All the groups that
opposed Lenin were called the Whites. A civil war broke out in Russia with the Whites fighting to get
rid of the Reds - the Communists. Russia was also still in World War One.
1. He pulled Russia out of the war with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed in March 1918. This was a
cruel treaty which the Russians had to sign. Trotsky was given the task of negotiating with the
Germans. Russia was to lose a great deal of land which included 60 million people to the Germans.
The land also included 25% of her farming land and 75% of her iron ore and coal deposits. But the
treaty got Russia out of the war and allowed Lenin the time to concentrate on home issues. (Note:
remember this treaty when looking at Versailles and how harsh Versailles appeared to be. Many
thought that if the Germans were willing to hand it out, they should be willing to take similar
punishment.)
2. The forces that were against Lenin in the civil war were never a united group. Each had its own
reason for fighting the communists and the groups that fought the Reds never united into one large
army. As such, the Red Army lead by Trotsky, could pick them off one by one. Also the communists
held the 2 most important cities in Russia (Moscow and Petrograd) with all the main communication
centres in them including rail lines etc. Trotsky also used ex-tsarist officers who had experience in
leading men and fighting battles. Their skill was to prove invaluable and there were 50,000 of them.
Trotsky was also a brilliant leader who instilled into his men a belief in what they were fighting for.
Discipline was harsh. If a unit performed badly in battle, its leader was shot and the men sent to
prison. The Reds also treated the people very well - they were ordered to do this - while the Whites
frequently abused those who lived in areas that they were in. The Reds were usually seen as
liberators when they advanced to an area where the Whites had been. The peasants were also
promised land by the Reds while the Whites promised to restore land back to its original owner.
Using these tactics of picking off one White army and winning the support of the people, the Reds
claimed victory in 1921. With the Whites out of Russia or dead, Lenin now had Russia under his
control.
Any problems were dealt with by the Cheka - the feared communist secret police. They had used
what was known as the Red Terror during the civil war to keep people in order. To survive during the
civil war, Lenin introduced War Communism. What was this?
In the factories, the government took complete control. The workers who had been given to right to
run factories, had that right taken away. Managers ran them and discipline was strict. Food was
rationed. Workers and soldiers received the most while civil servants received little. The workers had
to do what the government said they had to - just as in the days of the tsar!
In the countryside, the Cheka was sent out to take food from the peasant farmers. Anybody found
keeping food from others was shot. The peasants responded by producing food only for themselves
and so the cities were more short of food than before. Life under Lenin appeared to be worse than
under Nicholas II!
The civil war had devastated Russia’s economy. People survived by doing whatever they could there was a great increase in robberies and law and order was on the verge of breaking down.
Agriculture had been ruined by the war and in 1921, after a drought, there was a terrible famine.
Five million people died as a result of this. Cannibalism was common amongst those who survived.
Every part of industry was at a worse level than it had been in 1913 :
1913
1921
58
Grain
80 mill tons
37.6 mill tons
Coal
29 mill tons
9 mill tons
Oil
9.2 mill tons
3.8 mill tons
Iron
4.2 mill tons
0.1 mill tons
Steel
4.3 mill tons
0.2 mill tons
Sugar
1.3 mill tons
0.05 mill tons
Electricity
2039 mill kW
520 mill kW
By 1921, opposition to Lenin had grown. The country was in a disastrous stare when compared to
the state it had been in under the tsar. Workers formed themselves into Workers’ Opposition
demanding a) higher wages b) more food and c) the return of workers control of industry. These
were the same workers who had supported Lenin in 1917!!
Also sailors at a base near Petrograd rose up against the communist government. The base was
called Kronstadt. It needed 20,000 soldiers from the Red Army to put down the rising and those
sailors who had surrendered were executed. This uprising deeply upset the government as sailors
had always been seen as loyal supporters of the communists.
Lenin knew that he had to change the economy if he was to survive. In 1921, War Communism was
scrapped and the New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced. The NEP had 4 main features :
The taking of grain by the Cheka was stopped. The peasant farmers would have to give to the
government a set amount of grain each year in tax but if they produced any extra they could sell it in
the open market and make money.
Traders could buy and sell. This had been illegal under War Communism. Small factories producing
things which the people could buy but were not essential to life, were returned to their original
owner. They could sell goods and make a profit. Larger factories producing essential items remained
under the control of the government.
Did the NEP work? Russia was better off generally by 1928 when it ended but not by much. After the
devastation of the First World War (1914 to 1918) and then the civil war (1918 to 1921), one would
have expected the figures for industry to have improved but there were still major problems.
Unemployment was high, crime was high, some peasants were rich but many were very poor. By
1926, Russia had reached production levels of 1914 but there were many problems still to solve.
Lenin died in 1924 of a stroke. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honour - its third name
change.
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Stalin
Joseph Stalin gained the effective leadership of Russia in 1929. Stalin's time as leader of Russia was
to gain fame for three reasons:
1. The Five Year Plans2. Collectivisation3. The Purges
2.
But what do we know about Stalin?
• he was born in 1879
• he came from a poor background; his father was a cobbler and his mother was a peasant
• his real surname was Djugasvili
• he did well at school and won a scholarship to go to a seminary where priests were trained
• it was at this seminary that Stalin turned to Marxism
• he became a follower of Lenin and went to secret meetings and distributed leaflets
• between 1902 and 1913 he was arrested 8 times and exiled to Siberia. He escaped 7 times!
• in prison he adopted the name Stalin which translated as "Man of Steel". He felt that it would be
good for his image
• he was a very good organiser and the part he played in the November 1917 Revolution was
probably small. But the skills he gained while helping to organise the Bolshevik Party were to prove
invaluable
60
• after 1917, he was rewarded with a number of seemingly unimportant party positions which
nobody else wanted. But they gave Stalin a perfect insight into who could be trusted to support him
and who could not
• Stalin was seen as dull by the intellectual elite of the Bolshevik Party. They all made a fatal mistake
in assuming that he was stupid.
When Stalin became the undisputed leader of Russia in 1929, he realised that Russia was far behind
the west and that she would have to modernise her economy very quickly if she was to survive. Also
a strong economy would lead to a strong military if Russia was going to survive threats from external
forces. A modernised Russia would also provide the farmers with the machinery they needed if they
were going to modernise their farms -such as tractors.
The Five Year Plans:
Stalin introduced the Five Year Plans. This brought all industry under state control and all industrial
development was planned by the state. The state would decide what would be produced, how much
would be produced and where it should be produced. An organisation called Gosplan was created to
plan all this out.
The first five year plan was from 1928 to 1932.
The second five year plan was from 1933 to 1937.
The third five year plan was from 1938 to 1941 when the war interrupted it.
Each plan set a target which industries had to meet. Each factory was set a target which it had to
meet. The targets were completely unrealistic and could not be met but vast improvements were
made. The emphasis was on heavy industries such as coal, oil, iron and steel and electricity.
The following table gives some idea of what progress was made when the base line figure is 1927 before the five year plans. The target for both plans is in brackets.
1927
Coal
35 million tons
1932
1937
64 mt (75 mt target)
128 mt (152 mt target)
Oil
12 million tons
21 mt (22 mt target)
29 mt (47 mt target)
Iron Ore
5 million tons
12 mt (19 mt target)
unknown
Pig Iron
3 million tons
6 mt (10 mt target)
15 mt (16 mt target)
Steel
4 million tons
6 mt (10 mt target)
18 mt (17 mt target)
mt = millions of tons
Though these appear excellent results, it must be remembered that the base line for 1927 was small
by west European standards. However, the improvements did represent a massive jump forward.
61
The second five year plan continued to emphasise heavy industries but there was also a
commitment to communication systems such as railways and new industries such as the chemical
industry.
The third five year plan put an emphasis on weapons production (which required an input from
heavy industries) as wardid seem to be approaching.
Stalin brought in experts from foreign countries to help them, and he introduced single managers to
run factories whereas one of the main beliefs of Lenin had been the running of factories by soviets
(workers councils who would come to a joint decision on how things should be done). These
managers were directly responsible for fulfilling the targets set for their factory. Good managers
were well rewarded. Unsuccessful managers could pay a severe price for failure.
For all the apparent success of the five year plans, there were serious flaws. Parts for industrial
machinery were hard to get and some factories were kept idle for weeks on end simply because they
did not have parts to repair worn out machines. Ex-peasants were used as skilled workers. This
simply did not add up. Despite their valiant efforts, many machines were damaged because those
using them had no idea on how to correctly use these machines. There were also no parts to repair
this damage.
Factories took to inflating their production figures and the products produced were frequently so
poor that they could not be used -even if the factory producing those goods appeared to be meeting
its target. The punishment for failure was severe. A manager could be executed as an "enemy of the
people". Workers could be sent to a prison camp in Siberia. Nobody was allowed to condemn or
criticise the five year plans as they were Stalin’s idea.
Life for the workers:
Life was very hard for industrial workers. Their pay was poor and there was barely anything they
could spend their money on even if they had any. Consumer goods were simply not produced.
Working conditions were very dangerous and the hours were long. The homes that were provided
were poor. So why did they work so hard?
• the young were still idealistic. The whole concept of communism was still intoxicating. Stalin was
known as ‘"Uncle Joe" and they were willing to suffer a few years of hardship if they were going to
get to the promised land of a better society.
• people were encouraged to work hard by propaganda which bombarded the workers in all
directions. This played on the belief that if most did it, the rest would follow on as they did not want
to be seen as different.
• rewards were given to the best workers. Groups of workers were encouraged to compete against
each other. The most famous worker was Alexei Stakhanov. He was said to have mined 102 tons of
coal in one shift. This was fourteen times the amount expected from one person. Logically if he could
do it, so could others. To be rewarded for hard work meant that you were a Stakhanovite. In fact,
Stakhanov was not a popular man with the workers - for very good reasons, as this put the burden
on them of working harder. Stakhanov, in fact, was frequently not mining after this record. He was
allowed to tour Russia to be greeted as a hero and to give lectures on how to work hard and there is
no clear evidence that he did what was claimed.
• another way of persuading the workers to work hard was to pay by results. Successful managers
were also paid more though whether this extra money was shared by the workers in a factory or
mine is unknown.
• punishment was also used by those who did not work hard. The fear of the labour camps was
usually enough to get people working hard. Absenteeism from work was punishable by being fined
or having your ration book taken from you. In 1940, it carried a prison sentence. All workers had to
62
carry labour books which stated whether you had worked hard or not. Bad comments from your
manager could also lead to prison
• a lot of hard physical labour was done by prisoners. It did not matter if they died - only that the
task was completed. The fact that these people were in prison, was enough for the government to
use them as it saw fit.
For all the problems and hardship caused by the Five Year Plans, by 1941, Stalin had transformed
Russia into a world class industrial power. This was to be vital for Russia as the war was about to test
her to the extreme.
Collectivisation of Agriculture in Russia
Collectivisation was Stalin's answer to his belief that Russia’s agriculture was in a terrible state. Stalin
believed that Russia had to be able to feed itself - hence collectivisation - and that at the very least
the peasant farmers should be providing food for the workers in the factories if the Five Year Plans
were going to succeed.
In 1928 Stalin had said:
"Agriculture is developing slowly, comrades. This is because we have about 25 million individually
owned farms. They are the most primitive and undeveloped form of economy We must do our
utmost to develop large farms and to convert them into grain factories for the country organised
on a modem scientific basis."
Stalin’s description of the state of Russia’s farming was very accurate. There was barely any
mechanisation, the use of scientific measures was minimal and peasant farmers produced usually for
themselves and the local area. This was not good enough for Stalin.
To change all this and update Russia’s agriculture, Stalin introduced collectivisation. This meant that
small farms would be gathered together to form one large massive one. These bigger farms would
be called collectives. As they were large, there was every reason to use machinery on them. The
more food that could be grown the better, as the cities and factories could suitably be fed. Hungry
factory workers would not be in a fit enough state to work effectively. If this happened the Five Year
Plans would not succeed.
If this happened then Russia would not advance.
The key to collectives would be the use of science and machinery. Tractors stations were created to
hire out tractors, combine harvesters etc. Collectives were up and running by 1930 when over 50%
of all farms had been grouped together.
How did the peasants react to this policy?
Lenin had given the peasants their land in 1918. By 1924, even the poorest peasant owned land.
There were those who had worked hard and done well. These were richer peasants and were called
kulaks. This group in particular was very much against collectivisation. They felt that their hard work
was being taken advantage of. Stalin tried to turn to poorer peasants against the kulaks. In 1928, he
said at a speech:
"Look at the kulaks farms : their barns and sheds are crammed with grain. And yet they are
holding onto this grain because they are demanding three times the price offered by the
government."
However, many peasants, ‘rich’ or poor, were against collectivisation. The land that Lenin had given
them was now being taken away by Stalin. Villages that refused to join a collective had soldiers sent
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to them and the villagers were usually shoot as "enemies of the revolution" or "enemies of the
people". The land, now freed from ownership, was handed to the nearest collective farm.
Those villages that were due for collectivisation but did not want to join a collective killed their
animals and destroyed their grain so that they could not be taken by the soldiers and secret police.
Thus began an era of almost unparalleled slaughter of farm animals and the systematic destruction
of grain.
Grain
Cattle
Pigs
Sheep and goats
1928 = 73.3 million tons
1929 = 70.5 million
1928 = 26 million
1928 = 146.7 million
1934 = 67.6 million tons
1934 = 42.4 million
1934 = 22.6 million
1934 = 51.9 million
Agricultural changes under Stalin from 1928 to 1935
The Great Famine
The Soviet Union’s ‘Great Famine’ between 1932
and 1933 may have resulted in the deaths of nine
million people. The ‘Great Famine’ was a man-made
affair and was introduced to attack a class of people
– the peasants –who were simply not trusted by
Joseph Stalin. There is little doubt that Joseph
Stalin, the USSR’s leader, knew about this policy. He
had once stated in front of others that given the
opportunity he would have liked to have removed
the whole Ukrainian peasant population of twenty
million but that this was an impossible task.
The ‘Great Famine’ – known as the ‘Holodomor’
(Hunger) in the Ukraine – was based on the fear
Stalin had that the peasants simply could not be
trusted to support his government in Moscow and
uphold the revolutionary ideals of the Bolsheviks.
Stalin ordered in to agricultural areas troops and
the secret police, who took away what food they
could find and simply left rural villages with none.
Those who did not die of starvation were deported
to the gulags. What happened was kept as a state
secret within the USSR. This happened in the
Ukraine, the Urals, to the Kazakhs – anywhere where there was a large peasant population.
There is little doubt that the peasants of what was to become the USSR welcomed the revolutions of
1917. This does not mean that they were ideological supporters of Bolshevism, but that they
recognised that the revolutions meant that the great land estates that existed at the time would be
broken up and that they would benefit by becoming the new owners of that land. Very many
peasants regardless of where they lived were conservative in their outlook. They believed that what
they grew was theirs and that they could do with it what they pleased. A profitable year meant that
more animals or seed could be purchased with the possibility of even more land. However, this did
not fit in with the beliefs of either Lenin or Stalin. Fearing that the cities would be starved of food
after the disaster of War Communism, Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP). However,
to him it was only ever going to be a temporary measure. Lenin viewed the city workers as being the
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powerhouse of the Russian Revolution and on one occasion wrote “let the peasants starve” when it
became clear that they had embraced what Lenin would have viewed as anti-Bolshevik beliefs – such
as private land ownership, making profits etc.
In 1927, the USSR faced a food shortage. This had been brought about by a poor harvest that year
but Stalin became convinced that the peasants themselves were responsible for the grain shortages
in the cities as a result of hoarding and keeping the market short of food thus increasing its price. He
ordered thousands of young Communists from the cities to go to the countryside and seize grain.
This was the start of a policy, known as the ‘Great Turn’ that left millions to starve.
Stalin developed a win-win strategy. If a peasant handed over his surplus grain, the state would get
what it wanted. Any who did not were labelled ‘kulaks’ and, therefore, were ‘enemies of the state’
and suitably punished – along with their grain being confiscated.
Collectivisation was introduced to restructure the USSR’s agriculture. However, it soon became clear
that this policy was not going to end the grain shortage. Stalin blamed the kulaks and ordered “the
destruction of the kulaks as a class.” No one was quite sure as to what determined a ‘kulak’ but no
one in Moscow was willing to raise this issue with Stalin. The kulaks were divided into three groups;
those to be killed immediately, those to be sent to prison and those to be deported to Siberia or
Russian Asia. The third category alone consisted of about 150,000 households, one million people.
Stalin believed that such a brutal policy would persuade others in agricultural regions to accept the
rule of Moscow and that resistance would end. Stalin wrote to Molotov, “We must break the back of
the peasantry.”
The deportations started in 1930 but sparked off numerous localised rebellions. These were brutally
suppressed by the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, and when it became clear that the peasants
and the government were effectively at war, the peasants responded by slaughtering their animals
(26 million cattle and 15 million horses) and destroying what grain they had. This confirmed in the
mind of Stalin what he had long thought – that the peasants could not be trusted and that they had
to be eradicated or brought to heel.
This clash between Moscow and the agricultural regions occurred in the Ukraine, north Caucasus,
the Volga, southern Russia and central Russian Asia.
By December 1931, famine was rife throughout these regions. Nothing had been put in place by the
government to help out those it affected. In fact, on June 6th, 1932, Stalin ordered that there should
be “no deviation” regarding his policies.
Stalin refused to recognise the enormity of what he was doing even to the Politburo. When he was
challenged at one meeting to tell the truth, he told his accuser to become a writer so that he could
continue writing fables. He even accused the head of the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine of being soft on
peasants when this commander asked Stalin to provide his troops with more grain as they were
starving.
Throughout the whole era of the famine there is no evidence that Stalin was willing to change his
policy by any degree. He even introduced the Misappropriation of Socialist Property Law – this
stated that anyone caught stealing just one husk of grain was to be shot. Internal travel within the
USSR was made all but impossible as the government had total control over the issuing of the
internal passports that were needed to travel. Stalin labelled the peasants ‘saboteurs’ who wanted
to bring down the Soviet government.
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No one will ever know for sure how many died. However, it is generally accepted that within the
Ukraine between 4 and 5 million died; one million died in Kazakhstan; another million in the north
Caucasus and the Volga and two million in other regions. Over five million households were affected
either by deportation, prison or executions.
Stalin was later to admit to Winston Churchill that it had been a “terrible struggle” but that it was
“absolutely necessary”.
Life in USSR under Stalin
Stalin's control over Russia meant that freedom was the one thing that people lost. The people of
Russia had to read what the state allowed, see what the state allowed and listen to what the state
allowed. The state’s control of the media was total. Those who attempted to listen, read etc.
anything else were severely punished. Everybody knew of the labour camps and that was enough of
a deterrent.
Stalin developed what became known as a "personality cult". Artists painted pictures glorifying Stalin
and he dominated many pictures. It was not unusual for Stalin to be in a white suit so that he stood
out from the crowd. He gained the nickname "Uncle Joe" which was an attempt to develop an image
of a kind, homely man who was the ‘father’ of all Russians. This was all called "Social Realism". Those
who wrote poems and novels had to do the same - write about Stalin in a manner which gloried him.
Some artists and authors were so depressed by all this that they committed suicide rather than do
what the state ordered them to do. Many others tried to leave the country.
Education was strictly controlled by the state. In 1932, a rigid programme of discipline and education
was introduced. Exams, banned under Lenin, were reintroduced. The way subjects were taught was
laid down by the government -especially History where Stalin’s part in the 1917 Revolution and his
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relationship with Lenin was overplayed. Books were strictly censored by the state and Stalin ordered
the writing of a new book called "A short history of the USSR" which had to be used in schools.
Outside of school, children were expected to join youth organisations such as the Octobrists for 8 to
10 year olds and the Pioneers for the 10 to 16 year olds. From 19 to 23 you were expected to join
the Komsomol. Children were taught how to be a good socialist/communist and an emphasis was
put on outdoor activities and clean living.
There was a marked increase in the attacks on the churches of the USSR throughout the 1930’s.
Communism had taught people that religion was "the opium of the masses" (Karl Marx) and church
leaders were arrested and churches physically shut down. Stalin could not allow a challenge to his
position and anybody who worshipped God was a challenge as the "personality cult" was meant for
people to worship Stalin.
For a short time under Lenin, women had enjoyed a much freer status in that life for them was a lot
more liberal when compared to the ‘old days’. Among other things, divorce was made a lot more
easy under Lenin. Stalin changed all this. He put the emphasis on the family. There was a reason for
this. Many children had been born out of marriage and Moscow by 1930 was awash with a very high
number of homeless children who had no family and, as such, were a stain on the perfect
communist society that Stalin was trying to create.
The state paid families a child allowance if there was a married couple. It became a lot harder to get
a divorce and restrictions were placed on abortions. Ceremonial weddings made a comeback. In the
work place, women maintained their status and there was effective equality with men. In theory, all
jobs were open to women. The only real change took place in the image the state created for
women. By the end of the 1930’s, the image of women at work had softened so that the hard edge
of working became less apparent.
Living standards: these generally rose in the 1930’s despite the obvious problems with food
production and shortages elsewhere. Some people did very well out of the system especially party
officials and skilled factory workers. Health care was greatly expanded. In the past, the poorer
people of Russia could not have expected qualified medical help in times of illness. Now that facility
was available though demand for it was extremely high. The number of doctors rose greatly but
there is evidence that they were so scared of doing wrong, that they had to go by the rule book and
make appointments for operations which people did not require!!
Housing remained a great problem for Stalin’s Russia. In Moscow, only 6% of households had more
than one room. Those apartments that were put up quickly, were shoddy by western standards. In
was not unusual for flat complexes to be built without electric sockets despite electricity being
available - building firms were simply not used to such things.
Leisure for the average Russian person was based around fitness and sport. Every Russian was
entitled to have a holiday each year -this had been unheard of in the tsar’s days. Clubs, sports
facilities etc. were provided by the state. The state also controlled the cinema, radio etc. but an
emphasis was placed on educating yourself via the media as it was then.
Was Stalin a disaster for Russia?
• the country did become a major industrial nation by 1939 and her progress was unmatched in the
era of the Depression in America and western Europe where millions were unemployed.
• those workers who did not offend the state were better off than under the reign of the tsar.
• Russia’s military forces were benefiting from her industrial growth.
• there was a stable government under Stalin.
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• people had access to much better medical care some 10 years before the National Health Service
was introduced in GB.
BUT:
• millions had died in famine after the failed experiment of collectivisation.
• Russia’s agriculture was at the same level in 1939 as in 1928 with a 40 million increased
population.
• Russia had become a ‘telling’ society. The secret police actively encouraged people to inform on
neighbours, work mates etc. and many suffered simply as a result of jealous neighbours/workers.
Also many of Russia's most talented people had been murdered during the Purges of the 1930's.
Anyone with talent was seen as a threat by the increasingly paranoid behaviour associated with
Stalin and were killed or imprisoned (which usually lead to death anyway). The vast Soviet army was
a body without a brain as most of her senior officers had been arrested and murdered during the
Purges.
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