2022 Exam: 4. The October Manifesto and the response of the opposition

Question 1

General strike - what did it lead to?

Answer 1

October 1905 - Tsar turned to Witte - recently back from USA - effectively Russia’s PM
- Advised Tsar that he had 2 choices: military rule or significant concessions - Tsar opted for concessions

Question 2

Concessions of October Manifesto

Answer 2

• Guaranteed basic freedoms - freedom of speech, assembly and association - association meant parties and trade unions legalised
• A duma w/ real power in that new laws could only come into force w/ its approval
• Extension of the right to vote in Duma elections to all classes of the population

Question 3

Reaction to Oct Manifesto?

Answer 3

• On the streets - greeted w/ enthusiasm - crowds gathered to celebrate what appeared to be a great victory - general strike called off

Question 4

Oct Manifesto - moderate liberals and business leaders

Answer 4

Welcomed the Oct Manifesto - offered the kind of balance between monarchy and democracy they favour - they disliked autocracy but feared mob rule

Willingness to work w/ govt to turn promises into detailed arrangements - led to creation of the Union of 17 October - became the Octobrists - parted company w/ radical liberals

Question 5

Oct Manifesto - radical liberals

Answer 5

• Rejected the Oct Manifesto - claimed it didn’t go far enough
• Their requirement: establishment of an elected assembly to draw up a constitution for a democratic Russia
• Distrust of the govt - as soon as calm returned, radicals predicted, the govt would go back on its promises

Oct 1905 - formed the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party - effectively replaced the league of liberation and the Union of Unionists - Paul Milyukov as leader

Question 6

Socialist parties - Oct Manifesto

Answer 6

• Denounced the Oct Manifesto even more strongly than the liberals - Trotsky was the Manifesto’s most eloquent socialist critic

Question 6

Opposition to Tsar still divided, despite Oct Manifesto

Answer 6

• Shared distrust of tsar wasn’t enough to bridge the gap between radical liberals and socialists - as Milyukov explained at the Kadets’ founding conference.

Question 7

How did the Oct Manifesto help the Tsarist regime?

Answer 7

• It split middle-class liberalism and blunted the opposition - bought itself some breathing space

Question 8

The Union of Russian People

Answer 8

An aggressive right-wing party - keen to take on the radicals and socialists

• Founded Oct 1905 - to defend principles of ‘Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality’
• Closely linked w/ the Union were the Black Hundreds - para-military gangs
• Nicholas II made no secret of his support for them

Question 9

Para-military force definition

Answer 9

• Armed, often uniformed, military-style formation that resembles a regular armed force, but is privately organised and has no official status

Question 10

The Black Hundreds

Answer 10

Main target - Russia Jews - seen as plotting the Empire’s downfall

• 1905-06 - heavily involved in organising anti-Jewish pogroms - worst single pogrom took place in late 1905 at Odessa - 800 Jews murdered
• Close links w/ Tsarist regime
• They were subsidised and supplied with weaponry by the Interior Ministry - at the local level - some police chiefs involved in planning Black Hundred violence