Chapter 5 - The growth of opposition to tsarist rule Flashcards
The growth of opposition to tsarist rule
How ideas of opposition emerged during Alexander II’s rule?
- hope and disappointment brought by Alexander II’s reforms stimulated opposition to the tsarist regime
- the initial relaxation in censorship encouraged the spread of radical literature
- the relaxation of controls in higher education increased the number of independently minded students
- the creation of the zemstvas and the dumas also provided a platform for the educated intellectuals to challenge tsarist policies
- reforms to the judicial system produced professionallu trained lawyers skilled in the art of persuasion and ready to question and challenge autocratic practices
- the repressive atmosphere in Alex II later years and Alex III’s reign only reinforced the demands for change
Who made up the moderate liberal opposition?
- educated and liberal Russians
- liberal intellectuals had the benefit of education, wealth, time, and intetest in politics
- many had travelled abroad and despaired at the political and social stagnation in their country
The two categories in the liberal opposition group.
Westernisers
- wanted to catch up to the West by copying their ways
- though Russia should abandon Slavic traditions and adopt modern Western values
- included economic and military reform, as well as reforms to ‘civilise’ society by providing representative assemblies, reducing the authority of the Orthodox Church, and establishing civil liberties
- Ivan Turgenev was a westerniser
Slavophiles
- favoured a superior ‘Russian’ path to a better future
- believed Russia had a unique culture and heritage centred on the prevailing peasant society and the principles of the Orthodox Church, which should be preserved as the country modernised
- Leo Tolstoy was a slavophile
- support peaked in 1881 and diminished in 1890
How did the zemstva contribute to the increase in opposition?
- provided a natural home for Westernising liberal opposition voices, as local decision-making encouraged members to think more nationally
- their members’ hope was to refrom the autocracy, so that the Tsar would listen to and rule in conjunction with his subjects
- Alexander III’s restriction of the zemstva powers dissapointed zemstva liberals
What did the liberal oppostion group split into?
- some were attracted by Marxist theory and were drawn to socialism
- others maintained a more moderate liberal stance and continued to pin their hopes on a reform of tsardom
Who made up the radical opposition?
Younger generation, who, although the children of liberals, wanted to go further than their parents.
“only one way out of this oppressive and terrible situation - bloody and merciless revolution” - Young Russia’s manifesto
What happened in St Petersburg in June 1862?
A series of fires in St Petersburg destroyed over 2,000 shops.
Young Russia was immediately held responsible and a commission was appointed to investigate, but little came of this.
What organisation was set up in 1863?
‘The Organisation’ was set up by students at Moscow University.
More calls for reform were made.
Student idealism and determination were heightened by the increased repression of the later 1860s and the influences of radical socialist writers.
Who were some radical thinkers?
**Nikolai Chernyshevsky
**- author the the radical journal The Contemporary and the book What Is To Be Done? which he wrote in 1862 whilst in prison
- his writings suggest that peasants had to be made leaders of revolutionary change
**Aleksandr Herzen
**- editor of the radical journal The Bell which was produced abroad and smuggled into Russia illegally
- in this he advocateda new peasant-based social structure
- in 1869 he called on his followers to ‘go out to the people’
Mikhail Baukunin
**- anarchist and socialist
- he put forward the view that private ownership of land should be replaced by collective owenership and that income should be based on the number of hours worked
- Bakunin had been forced to live in exile
- he helped introduce Marxism to Russia by translating Karl Marx’s *The Communist Manifesto into Russian in 1869
- The first volume of Marx’s Das Kapital* was subseqently published in Russian in 1872
What was Marxist theory?
- history composed of class struggle
- Marx predicted that a struggle between the working class ‘proleteriat’ and the factory-owning capitalist ‘bourgeoisie’ would ultimately (after a short dictatorship of the proleteriat) lead to the perfect communist society in which everyone would be equal
- Marxist teaching proved attractive intellectually, but in the 1870s its message seemed largely irrelevant to a predominantely rural country, with hardly any proleteriat and still fewer bourgeoisie.
What did Bakunin and Sergei Nechaev do?
They wrote a manifesto, The Catechism of a Revolutionary
- published in Switzerland
- secretly smuggled into Russia
- told opponents of autocracy to be merciless in their pursuit of revolution, laying aside all other attachments - family, friends, love, gratitude and even honour - in order to find the steely resolve to pursue a revolutionary path
“only one purpose - to destroy it” - Catechism of a Revolutionary
it = autocracy
Sergei Nechaev = student radical activist who had fled from Russia after illegally calling on St Petersburg students to assassinate the Tsar
The Tchaikovsky Circle
- set up in 1868 - 69 in St Petersburg
- primarily a literary society that organised the printing, publishing and distribution of scientific and revolutionary literature
- including the first volume of Das Kapital
- the circle was never large - probably no more than 100 spread between St Petersburg and other major cities
- sought social revolution
- from 1872, they began organising workers with the intention of sending them to work among peasants in the countryside
The Nardoniks (Populists)
- going to the people
- persuade the peasantry that the future of Russia depended on the development of the peasant commune
- they aimed to exploit resentment felt since the Emancipation about the peasants’ lack of land and the heavy tax burden they still carry
Nardoniks first attempt at going to the people
- 1874, around 2,000 people (mainly from the nobility and intelligentsia) travelled to the countryside to persuade the peasantry
- they aimed to exploit resentment felt since the Emancipation
- some Nardoniks tried dressing and talking like peasants, but they were met with hostility.
- the peasants’ ignorance, superstition, prejudice and deep-rooted loyalty to the Tsar ensured that incomers were reported to the authorities.
- around 1,600 of them were arrested
Nardoniks second attempt at going to the people
- 1876
- more successful than the first
- more arrests followed and a series of show trials were held in 1877-78
Despite its failure, Nardonyism had helped to take radical opposition away from the underground meeting rooms and into the countryside and, in doing so, helped to make the government more aware of the depth of feeling of its opponents.
