Chapter 10 - Opposition: ideas and ideologies

Question 1

What did liberal nobles want?

Answer 1

• the creation of an all-class zemstvo at district level
• a National Assembly
• for example, Prince Georgi Lvov
• who was a Kadet leader and the leader of the Russian Union of Zemstva in 1914 and the first Chariman of the Provincial Government in March 1917

Question 2

What did Ivan Shipov try to do in 1896?

Answer 2

Tried to set up an ‘All-Zemstvo Organisation’ in 1896
Immediately banned

Question 3

What did the banning of the ‘All-Zemstvo Organisation’ in 1896 encourage radical liberals to do?

Answer 3

• Establish the Beseda Symposium in 1899
• Meet in secret to discuss matters of liberal interesr (such as judicial reform and education)
• the Beseda Symposium assumed leadership of the liberal movement in 1900 - where the government ordered the dismissal of hundreds of liberals from the elected boards of the zemstva.
• the Symposium attracted a wide range of support from public figures, town leaders, members of the legal and teaching professions and industrialists

Question 4

What was founded under Pyotr Struve?

Answer 4

the Union of Liberation was founded in 1903 by Struve

Question 5

Pyotr Struve

Answer 5

• defected from the Marxist movement
• he opposed its commitment to violent revolutions
• began a journal called ‘Liberation’ which was published in Germany
• Struve believed Russia needed a period of ‘peacful evolution’ to adapt to its new industrialising status
• wanted a constitutional system where the urban workers could campaign legally to improve their conditions

Question 6

What event in 1904 highlighted the succes of the Union of Liberation?

Answer 6

• grand meeting
• representatives of the zemstva and other professional societies were invited
• members declared their intention to work for the establishment of a constitutional government
• arranged a series of around 50 society banquets during the winter of 1904
• were attended by the members of the landed elite

Question 7

Pros and cons of the liberal movement before 1905

Answer 7

Pros:
- esacped closer attention of the police
- this was due to their focus on radical opposition as well as urban and rural unrest
- helped contribute to the momentum that was building up within the country
- were the main beneficiaries of ther evolution that year when one of their aims was achieved - the Duma was established

Cons:
- limited political influence before 1905

Question 8

By 1894, what political idea seemed unlikely?

Answer 8

Slavophile and populist ideas of a ‘new Russia’ based on the peasants

Question 9

What political ideas were revived as a result of the Great Famine of 1891-92, and why?

Answer 9

Agrarian socialism - taking estates from landowners and dividing the land between the peasants to be farmed communally.

The Great Famine highlighted the need to reform the rural economy

Question 10

Students and opposition

Answer 10

• championed a new-style Populism
• took inspiration from The Peoples’ Will (defunct)
• favoured violent protest
• their activities culminated in the assassination of the Minister of Education, Nikolay Bogolepov, by a student named Pyotr Karpovich in 1901

Question 11

The murder of Bogolepov

Bogolepov = Minister of Education

Answer 11

1901
- Karpovich (student) killed Bogolepov
- Karpovich expelled twice from Kazan Univeristy
- several thousand people gathered in front of Kazan Cathedral in support of Karpovich
- this was broken up by the police
- 60 injured
- 800 arrests
- it provoked demonstrations in Moscow
- also provoked an attempt on Pobedonostsev’s life a month later
- but that student failed

Question 12

The SRs

Answer 12

• rallying point for those who wished to appeal to the peasantry
• commitment to ‘land socialisation’ and a decentralised government
• Chernov = influential; editor of the party journal ‘Revolutionary Russia’; former The Peoples’ Will member; leader of the SRs in the 2nd Duma
• party never held congress until 1906
• members broadly accepted Marxist teachings but combined with populist ideas; favoured a Russian revolutionary programme

Question 13

What view did the SRs put forward?

Answer 13

The view that the interest of the peasants and workers - the ‘labouring poor’ - were idential, and therefore should work together to destory autocracy and bring about land redistribution.

This emphasis on ‘land socialisation’ rather than ‘land nationalisation’ set them apart from pure Marxists.

Question 14

What support did the SRs have?

Answer 14

• a wide national base
• large peasant membership
• 50% of their support was from the working class

Question 15

What tactics did the SRs implement?

Answer 15

• stir up discontent in the coutnryside and strikes in towns
• disrupt government by political assassinations
• in this they were quite successful
• promoted a wave of political terrorism in the early years of the 20th century

Question 16

Between 1901-05, how many political assassinations did the SRs carry out?

Answer 16

around 2,000 between 1901-05

included:
- two Ministers of Internal Affairs
- Dmitri Sipyagin in 1902
- Plehve in 1904

Question 17

What role did the SRs play in the 1905 revolution?

Answer 17

• active part - campaign of killing and violence
• developed a full programme in Nov 1905
• formed a seperate combat organisation, which attracted many students to carry out assassination
• most success = killing Stolypin in 1911

Question 18

After the Secret Police foiled some activities and was successtul in inflitrating the movement at its highest level, what happened?

Answer 18

• 4,579 SRs were sentenced to death between 1905-09
• 2,365 were executed

Question 19

Which groups were attracted by Marxist ideas?

Answer 19

• discuss circles
• workers’ organisations
• illegal trade unions

Question 20

When was the First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party of the Soviet Union held?

Answer 20

1898 in Minsk

Question 21

What happened at the first meeting of the SDs?

Answer 21

• only 9 delegates were present
• chose their name
• elected a three-man Central Committee
• prodcued a manifesto (drawn up by Struve)

Question 22

What did the SD manifesto contain?

Answer 22

• asserted that the working calsses had been, and were being, exploited by their masters
• the future of RUssia would be the product of the class struggle
• made it clear that the stimulus for change had to come from the working men themselves

Question 23

When did the Second Party Congress of the SDs take place?

Answer 23

1903 in Brussels
But moved to a chapel in London

Question 24

What happened at the Second Party Congress of the SDs?

Answer 24

• 51 voting delegates
• propositions on how the party should move forward
• divided on these
• Lenin wanted a strong disciplined organisation of professional revolutionaries to lead to the proleteriat
• Martov though their aim should be to develop a broad party with a mass working-class membership
• Lenin wanted total dedication to revolution whereas Martov wanted member to ‘cooperate’ with other liberal parties
• Lenin didn’t have the majority initially, but eventually won the vote in favour of a more centralised party structure
• Lenin claimed his supporters were in the majority = Bolsheviks
• But Martov (Mensheviks = minority) was actually in the majority

Question 25

What happened in the next few years with the SD party that led to their split in 1906?

Answer 25

Arguments and rivarly in the centre of the party about the nature, timing and organisation of the revolution that they were planning.

Menshevik/Bolshevik divide was so strong that the party split in 1906.
Two Social Democratic Workers’ Parties.

Question 26

Vladimir Lenin

Answer 26

• initially wrote pamphlets and organised strikes among the factory workers
• led to his exile in Siberia
• 1902, produced the pamphlet ‘What is to be done?’ which argued the need for revolution rather than trade-unionism
• founded a revolutionary newspaper called Iskra (The Spark) with Plekhanov

Question 27

What was the consequence of the split in the SD party?

Answer 27

• members were changing sides
• people were confused

Question 28

The difference between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks

Answer 28

Mensheviks:
- bourgeois revolution would precede the proleterian revolution
- impetus had to come from the workers themselves
- membership open to all
- party should work through the trade unions and other workers’ organisations to raise workers’ consciousness

Bolsheviks:
- bourgois and proleterian revolution could occur simultaneously
- it was the party’s job to educate the workers to lead them through the revolution
- membership should be restricted
- members should work within small cells that could escape police notice
- favoured contol in the hands of a Central Committee

Question 29

What happened with Trade Unions after the 1905 revolution?

Answer 29

Changes:
- trade unions legalised
- reforms, e.g. the 1912 Insurance Law
- hopes to improve state-employer-worker relation
- all to reduce working class discontent

Continuity:
- state continued to fear working class activity
- state feared the potential for revolutionaries to work through the trade unions

Question 30

What statistics show the tsarist government’s fear of Trade Unions?

Answer 30

• 497 trade unions were closed down
• 604 were denied registration

Question 31

Economic recovery in 1911 did what?

Answer 31

• gave skilled labour more bargaining power in the market place
• a new round of strikes

Question 32

The trade union activity

Answer 32

Success:
- demonstrated the State’s failure to pacify the working class in 1905

Failure:
- confined to St Petersburg and the surrounding area, where 3/4 of the strikes took place; half in the metal trades
- danger to the autocract of the pre-war strike movement was less than it seemed
- geographically limited = only 12% of enterprises experienced a strike
- the General Strike in St Petersburg in the first half of July 1914 only brought out 1/4 of the manufacturing labour force

Government failure:
- repressive measures to break strikes (fines, lockouts and blacklists) added to anger and oppression

Question 33

Were the SRs and SDs a threat to the government after 1905?

Answer 33

No.
The parties were weakened by the exile of their leaders after 1905, as well as a damaging split within the SD party and the rivarly between the SDs and the SRS.

Question 34

How else the the SDs and SRs threat to the tsarist government weakened?

Answer 34

• Secret Police network, whose agents were efficient at smashing revolutionary cells
• the industrial depression from 1907
• the lack of finance
• a shortage of secret printing presses made organisation difficult
• none of the exiled leaders, including Lenin, exercised effective control over their parties within Russia
• membership declined
• ## no national, regional or even city organisations, only underground organisations in individual factories and workshops

Question 35

Statistics to show a fall in membership of the SD party.

Answer 35

Ukraine:
- 20,000 in 1906 to 200 in 1912

Moscow:
- 7,500 in 1906 to 40 in 1912

Question 36

How did these revolutionary groups show some strength?

when leaders were in exile - cooperation

Answer 36

cooperated irrespective of the ideological differences that absorbed the attention of their leaders in eile

Question 37

What happened that was lucky for the Bolsheviks in 1912-14?

Answer 37

• succeeded in taking over many legal labour institutions from the Mensheviks in both St Petersbug and Moscow
• gained 6 workers’ deputies in elections to the 4th Duma
• their newspaper, Pravda (The Truth), was launched in April 1912 and had higher circulation than the Menshevik Luch (The Ray)

However:
- growing support was limited
- helped in the 4th Duma elections by the boycotting of the SRs
- no success with the army or navy
- nothing came of their avowed promise to launch a general political strike, provoke mass street demonstrations and recreate a soviet of workers’ deputies on the 1905 model