1905 Flashcards

1
Q

Explain the overall Lenin/Bolshevik take on 1905

A

Heroic scenario: Russian worker, elevated to the head of all democratic elements, will overthrow absolutism (essence of Bolshevism)

GENERAL ECONOMIC DISCONTENT INTO COORDINATED SOCIALIST ASSAULT (Gapon)

  • Would pave road for socialism by removing absolutism (and Tsar) -> replace by democratic republic
  • “all democratic elements” / everyone with a STAKE in attaining political freedom (peasants, etc) -> could only succeed as a people’s revolution then.
  • Proletariat therefore need to spread ideas across the people-> where the underground comes in. Rev channels / orgs need to be kept functioning to operate here. THREAD APPROACH

PROOF:
- revolutionary language and demands in Father Gapon’s worker-led petition
- massive munitions strike in Jan spirals into march of 100,000 people
- Demand redistribution of land to peasants, political freedoms in order to agitate for freedom and labour rights -> exactly what Bolsheviks wanted
- Confirmation of Lenin’s heroic scenario for the proletariat.
radicalization of soliders -> proven by Potemkin (Tsentralka), and Nick’s geerals advising him against army loyalty in October 1905

Further radicalization post Bloody - Sunday

  • works exactly like PIRA
    • Now, how to protect freedoms?

October:

  • Spoke publically at GATHEIRNGS (unprecedented) in SPB
  • Wrote articles LEGALY and openly talks with other revs
  • Moscow uprising December 1905 -> insurrection -> led by Bolsheviks but crushed -> TRYNA CONSOLIDATE THESE FREEDOMS

OVERALL:
1905 evidence that workers rose up and started revolution. Confirms Lenin’s heroic scenario.
- workers creating Soviets (SPB Soviet in December) and various peasant committees popping up

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Explain the influence military matters had on starting and worsening 1905

A

OVERALL:

  • Paints regime as foolish, incompetent -> can’t control own troops or handle external affairs
  • Especial implications for Nick since he directly intervened in R/J

RUSSO JAPANESE WAR:

  • Goals: acquire warm water port (Port Arthur), Nick wants to consolidate IMPERIAL expansion/control of far east and unify territories (securing Autocracy). Unity among working class around nationalism against racist depictions of Japanese
  • Expands alongside Trans Siberian Railway ->
  • Not prepared
  • Japan provoked by Russia’s behaviour to war -> Nick’s DIRECT AUTOCRATIC INTERVENTION: appointment of Alekseev to Viceroy of Far East -> Navy Officer -> further threat to Japanese (because he wanted warm water base)
  • assumption that Japan was “inferior” racially
  • Didn’t even TRY to get foreign loans for financial support -> don’t have money.
  • Japan attacks Port Arthur 1904 lay siege. Bottom of Manchuria. Sank Pacific fleet
  • Battle of Mukden, defeat. 1905. Constant defeats. -> directly after Bloody Sunday
  • 1905 also Tsushima. Destruction of Baltic fleet.
  • Winds down in 1905
  • NICK NEEDS TO PULL BACK TROOPS -> lose Port Arthur and vast claims to Manchuria, part of railway
  • Troops radicalized on way because revs propagandizing them at each station along the tramway. -> BECAUSE OF RAIL STRIKE AND RADICAL MESSAGES
    OVERALL: insecurity of autocracy (undermines troop loyalty by exposing to revs, image of weak international actor)

POTEMKIN MUTINY
- June 1905
- Flagship of black sea fleet in Crimea
- Rise up and patrol black sea -> make contact w/ striking workers in Odessa -> finally end up in Romania and surrender ship to Romania
- WHY the navy? Well educated sailors than army. BUT service harsher (sailors had much to resent -> OS not officers) Discipline and physical punishment -> allowed officers to do this.
- Sailors couldn’t marry on active duty (but ye officers) See CLASS divisions -> hotbed for rev orgs
- Navy had own rev group -> Tsentralka (cell structure) 1905 -> reading rev literature on boats
- Large org by 1905 Resolution of the Black Seas Sailors demands 1905
- State therefore INSECURE
- Potemkin happens a MONTH after Mukden
GOAL was to take over Sevastopal military base and START NATIONWIDE ANTI-AUTOCRATIC REVOLUTION FROM HERE

These combine with:

  • Bloody Sunday -> ineptitude/shutting down of dialogue w/ people

CONSEQUENCE:

  • Nick struggles and deliberates while choosing Witte’s suggestions. Consults generals first, they advise him to reform because there’s no guarantee that soldiers will remain loyal.
  • Therefore -> OCTOBER MANIFESTO
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

With an ACTUAL high level overview, explain the various causes of 1905 and how they’re linked

A

OVERALL: state/autocracy finally shatters own myth of divine confidence and right/relationship with peasants.
OVERREACHING -> THREATENS SELF

Military insecurity:

  • Disasters, Potemkin
  • direct appointment of Alekseev, both want imperial expansion into far east

Nationalisms:

  • Sees Jews and Poles as “aliens” getting in way of power base (relationship between Tsar and Narod)
  • Pardons pogrom perpetrators of 91 under Sergei -> agreeing and supporting Sergei’s pogroms
  • Forcing Poles to learn Russian

State crackdowns and false promises:

  • Consultation bluster
  • Bloody Sunday
  • nationalisms like Jews

Overreaching in INDUSTRY

  • Trans siberian railway
  • industrial neighbourhoods created to catch up -> 10,000s workers after buyouts guaranteed to capitalist investors
  • Overall industrial investment creates new working class which is propagandized by revolutionaries
  • 1896 Cotton strike -> munitions strike
  • also made industries better connected -> domino effect if railway into general and munitions into 100,000 demonstration led by Gapon
  • Abandonment of Zubatov plan after 1903 strikes leads to unrepented capitalist takeover -> harsher conditions more likely to rebel. in effort to catch up industrially
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

What role did media play in the 1905 revolution?

A

Just a couple examples:

October 1905 railway strike allows general one -> disruption of all communication lines because telegram workers and postal workers join in. -> massive spread into general strike because railway workers spread and provoke unrest along the lines, spreading of rev messages

Photography and causing widespread dissemination of Bloody Sunday images

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Give a brief timeline of 1905 itself

A

Jan 1905

  • strike at munitions factory on Jan 7 spreads out half of city’s workers
  • Nick refuses to meet with father Gapon -> shutting out of dialogue as an option
  • Petition will be presented, march of 100,000 -> soc dems influence petition (of all estates, land redistribution, political freedoms)
  • WE OF ALL ESTATES -> COORDINATED SOCIAL STRUGGLE LIKE HEROIC SCENARIO
  • Crackdown -> finally breaks Tsar/peasant connection Populists had sought to destroy. EVIDENCED BY -> assassination of Grand Duke Sergei 1905 Feb (no outpouring of support) -> NO PERSONAL SHRINES LIKE ALEX II
  • Strikes spiral out of control, students join, Zemstvo assemblies radicalized -> this disater struck home by Tsushima and Mukden disasters later on -> cements regime’s incompetence

Feb 1905 -> gesture for consultative body

  • Nick ULTIMATE reconciliation gesture -> proposes CONSULTATIVE body which would involve “members of public” -> seen as weak and too late by Liberationists -> double down on constitutional demands
  • Consolidation of radicalization of protestors ->- (using Union of Unions)
  • Union of Unions: unions of profs, professionals, writers, etc. Also unions for Jews and women equality and Zemstvo constitutionalists. National collection of all these
  • meant nothing to those who wouldn’t be represented on it (non elites)
  • electorate law stipulates peasants will get at least 51 deputies in Duma -> eliminates literacy requirement -
  • “Lower depths” of society too emboldened to accept this -> All-Russian Peasant Union called for abolition of private land

June 1905: Potemkin uprising, joins striking workers in Odessa, had planned on launching nationwide rev from Sevastopol
- Battles of mukden, Tsushima disastrous

August 1905:

    • Govt wants to regain control, by August publishes NEW ELECTORAL law -> consultative assembly that had been promised in feb
  • Only for peasants, LLs and townsmen with property (therefore based on property)
  • Strikes last until October spike and manifesto

October:
- general strike spirals from the railway and telegram industries -> communication along route key for spreading msg, provoking revolts in country -> postal workers -> industrial workers.

October:

  • Nick calls Witte back -> two options
    1. Go full autocrat (consults generals, say they fear army undermined by revolutionary messages along railway, Potemkin
    1. Concede and grant controlled reform. Reluctantly takes this

October manifesto:
Tsar will institute civil liberties, extend voting franchise for Duma, and make all laws subject to Duma approval
Actually works -> moderate unions like railwaymen return to work -> means other industries face lockouts if they don’t go back
Splitting of rev support
- POLITICAL FREEDOM -> censorship repealed, assembly, speech

December:

  • Armed Moscow uprising instigated by Bolsheviks
  • continued peasant unrest in countryside
  • First SPB Soviet (worker’s council) rises up and crushed
  • Therefore, despite new const era -> Autocracy still as autocratic as ever

1906: Repeals
- By 1906, revisions to Fundamental Laws with severe cut backs
- Had promised all laws subject to Duma, but whole areas remained in Tsars direct control like foreign policy, defence, etc
- ARTICLE 87: gave govt power to proclaim laws when Duma not in session
- Also called for upper house that was mostly APPOINTED to have equal power in terms of legislation w/ Duma -> basically re skinned state council
Article One sats his power is “autocratic and unlimited”

Post 1906:

  • Bomb goes off in villa, killing dozens 1907
  • Nick ENCOURAGES him to find ways to realize his “inexorable desire to eradicate sedition and retsore order”
  • Leads to establishment of Stolypin field court martials
  • issued UNDER ARTICLE 87 of Fundamental Laws (Duma not in session?) 1906
  • Evidence that actually effort to satisfy Tsar’s desire for revenge
  • Gave governor generals power to try revs before military courts and issue summary executions/exiles
  • Between 1906-09, field court martials sentenced 2700 to death. In three years alone, more people killed for political crimes than during ENTIRE NINETEENTH CENTURY
  • Second Duma meets 1907, sliiiiiiiiiiiiiide to the left -> refuse new laws, want DIVISION of land into communes / communal tenor
  • Nick dissolves second Duma 1907 -> new electoral law AGAIN UNDER ARTICLE 87 -> DIRECT VIOLATION OF FUNDAMENTAL LAWS BECAUSE YOU CAN’T USE ARTICLE 87 TO CHNAGE ELECTORATE LAWS
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Explain how the Autocracy sought to preserve itself throughout 1905.

A

DURING 1905:
Gapon:
- refuses dialogue/to meet with Gapon following munitions strike.
- Bloody Sunday finally severes autocratic / peasant connection
- No pubic morning for assassination of Grand Duke Sergei in Feb 1905.

February control:

  • Tsar retains veto power, reps would help the government FORMULATE plans
    • Following the big crises (Japan, Bloody Sunday, etc) accepts popular participation -> cast in form of assembly of the land -> Would REPRESENT all aspects of society, but not elevate their leaders -> Let there be, as there was of old, that unity between Tsar and Rus” THEREFORE -> NICK SEES THIS AS UNIFYING TSAR AND PEOPLE BOND WITHOUT COMPROMISING AUTOCRATIC AUTHORITY

October control:
State Duma elected by all classes -> need agreement of all classes for laws to take effect -> basic civ liberties, freedoms of religion, speech, and assembly
Favours Tsar/peasant bond -> 51 peasant deputies in Duma -> eliminates literacy requirement
Entire working class and most urban people left w/o franchise -> Duma LATER made consultative
Overall: balancing of needs of people with auocratic power

  • ASSERTS autocracy apparently -> reform a GIFT to the people from his daddy position
  • Appeared in his eyes as FOUNDER of new order / system -> therefore like God and ENTITLTED TO CHANGE WHAT HE WANTS

CHANGES: 1906:

  • Formalizing promise of October manifesto -> reveals autocratic intent
  • Fundamental Laws of 1906
  • Article One says his power is “autocratic and unlimited”
  • 1906 New State Council -> half elected, half APPOINTED BY EMPEROR DIRECTLY as explicit counter force to Duma
  • Article 87 allows direct creation of laws while Duma not in session

Stolypin:
- Evokes article 87 to clamp down on revolutionary activity post October split
- In reaction to bombing at Stolypin, Nick directly encourages him to make haste
- Field Martial courts -> 2700 dead over a number of years
- 21,000 more exiled w/o evidence
White Terror:
- 41 provinces marshall law remember -> suspension of civ liberties and uses miliyary courts instead of “reformed” system
- Also suppress December Moscow uprising

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Explain the immediate pre context of 1905 in a timeline like way

A

Background: CATCH UP Industrialization 1900-03

    • 80s and 90s industrialization policy sets the scene -> mainly railway, also looking for raw materials -> expand to the east
  • to UNIFY country (under autocracy/imperial expansion) AND find new markets for products
  • Couldn’t disrupt western markets, untapped region was CHINA
  • Because Russ Late to industrialization -> guarantee operations and to BUY products being built by start ups, massive investment -> creation of industrial suburbs (10,000s of workers)
  • Can spread REAL quick and involve entire pop./industries
  • Abandonment of Zubatov plan (police monitored unions) for unrestricted capitalist control 1903 Odessa strike
  • OVERALL: autocracy trying to secure itself (empire, industry -> backfires)

1904 - Japanese invade, defeat of Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur
- Russ unprepared, provoked by Nick by appointing Alekseev

  • Nick has opportunity to provide reform, appoints moderate Mirskii -> sparks desire for left leaning policies among Zemstvos, etc -> Liberationists now demand elected assembly w/ universal suffrage
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

How did the autocracy seek to preserve itself PRIOR TO 1905 (NEW bonus challenge!)

A

OVERALL: UNDERSTOOD RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND HIS ROLE IN IT VIA THE LENS OF THE MYTH OF THE BENEVOLANT TSAR/PEOPLES RELATIONSHIP AND PRESERVATION OF AUTOCRACY

After Alex II, Alex III blamed educated western officials within govt for laxity that caused assassination -> national break intended to BREAK with the west
- Nick emphasizes religious and ethnic bond between Tsar and Narod

Nick’s bond:

  • “with the true children of our beloved Church” celebrating easter mass w/ worshippers -> drew strength for serving Russia from this
  • Nick’s reign LIKE A LINK MANDATE
  • Trying to assert/cultivate deep bond w/ peasants (contribs)
  • Also the religious mandate -> direct bond with God and people

Antisemitisms and nationalisms:

  • Russification campaigns also begin here -> bad times for Jews (one of the “subordinate” nationalities)
  • Seen as aliens WITHIN state against / unwelcome obstacles between Tsar/Narod bond
  • Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich -> govn of Moscow in 1891 requested with Tsar’s support that Jews be removed -> expulsions of 2/3
  • Nick AGREES with Sergei
  • Poland governed as a province
  • ALSO wants to secure autocracy through military means -> imperial expansion into Asia through China. Racial supremacy over Japan (yellow skinned)
  • Wants warm water port for military security.
  • DIRECTLY / AUTOCRATICALY Appoints Alekseev to Viceroy of Far East -> Navy Officer -> further threat to Japanese (because he wanted warm water base)
  • UNITE people around nationalism as well against racist charicatures of Japanese -> reflects Russification policies
  • STOP DISSENT OF WORKING CLASS -> UNIFY RUSSIAN SPIRIT AROUND CRUSHING “flea bite”

INDUSTRY:

  • reforms catching up (y’know)
  • creates working class problems quickly to catch up too fast
  • Wants to retain control over workers -> Zubatov approach -> abandoned following strikes -> abandons workers to whims of capitalist employers in effort to catch up industrially
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly