Essay Qs (HAVE COUNTER ARGUMENTS) Flashcards
How did the forces of modernity contribute to the rise of terror and/or the success of revolutionary movements?
- Rise of terror
- Fashion (nihilism, dressing as peasants)
- Technology (dynamite and Alex II -> enforced by Alex III)
- also press -> cheaper printing presses - Role of modern individual
- state actors like Hegel
ALSO:
- Look at what state did/didn’t allow at each time
Dude, legit, what role did MEDIA play in revolutionary movements -> did it help or hinder?
State controlling media (Release of report before Karakozov trial, Komissarov widespread publicity, release of Nechaev doc, etc)
vs
Revs EMPLOYING media (printing presses, propaganda (failure on peasants?)
International media (Bakunin, etc)
LENIN:
- tryna establish mass following in evolutionary underground during 80s and 90s -> elite party on top conncted through this with THREAD approach -> Iskra newspaper
- seen as legitimacy / unity for ONE party
- Krupskaya also influences what gets into Russia -> ensures Bolshevik dominance
- Smuggling with Jews (ensures this) via Pale of Settlement
- EVEN ABROAD PRESS STILL WEILDED INFLUENCE -> collection of stories from around Russia
All about Lenin:
To what extent was the revolutionary maxim “one must devote oneself entirely,” posited by Nechaev, Chernyshevsky, and others held true?
Relying on family-> Lenin children and mom
Collaboration between men/women -> marriages / partnerships (Krupskaya, etc.)
Wealthy donors they influence through media -> also just public sympathy in general
Failure of single plots?
Tightknittedness of underground
Why did Social Democracy succeed where others (populism, terrorism) fail?
Unlike populism, revolutionary underground of Lenin’s age can actually support what he wants to achieve -> not mass movement headed by suspicious peasants in unsafe countryside, but highly organized workers who led themselves.
Iskra:
- Always part of western model like SPD -> but untenable under populism
- Lenin able to publish abroad and attain this w Pale of Settlement
How did the autocracy undermine itself in the end?
KARAKOZOV:
- State creates image of revolutionary?
Nationalism/Judaism:
- Nick’s assertions of Russification
- Russification campaigns also begin here -> bad times for Jews (one of the “subordinate” nationalities)
- Alien element therefore WITHIN society under National Myth -> Had actually urbanized following liberal reforms (so they could attend uni)
- -> pogroms of 81 (not influenced by govt but condoned) -> govt now restricts / reverses effects of Alex II reforms (restrict entrence to unis/bar)
- 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
RESULT:
- Krupskaya and Lenin smuggle in Iskra to the Russian people via Jewish intermediaries within the Pale. Allows revolutionary ideology to take hold.
- Within 1905 -> evidenced by revolutionary language appearing in Gapon’s petition (references to all classes standing together, demands for political freedoms/freedom of speech and for the gradual redistribution of peasant lands )
- Success of lenin’s vision for the revolutionaries of urban underground movements -> propagating these messages AMONG workers so they can spread it to all classes.
(“While not traditionally revolutionary, contained language)
Explain the role / contributions of women throughout the revolutionary period
POPULISM: BRESHKOVSKY IN THE FIELD
- DISGUISE -> only thirty, tries to look older by arranging hair in conservative fashions
- “come from Orlov looking for work”
- Serf society was more volatile and transient now since emanc so makes sense
- ALSO MASKS SPEECH PATTERNS -> BLAME IT ON REGIONALITY
- Soft hands of women -> wealthy servants and domestic labour
- Lime and manure was women’s job, Steph couldn’t help and overcome w/ nauseas
- Interrogates peasants about land redemptions, starts reading circles
- print rev literary propaganda for distribution
- Travels from village to village organizing ps
- No personal expenses, all funds going to printing books
PEOPLE’S WILL: FIGNER AND FEMININE TERRORISTS
- Revolutionaries like Figner participate in virtually all actions of movement
- Educated as a doctor in Switzerland -> knowledge of science -> makes bombs for final assassination attempts of 1881.
- Role of domestic sphere: Figner’s fake marriage to Alexander to keep up appearances -> first meetings held in their apartment
- 7/20 women in leadership positions
- VERA Initially BACKBENCHED
- TOO GOOD LOOKING for field work, decide she needs a back bench role
- GENDER BIAS
- However -> uses this to advantage in field work. Employs feminine charms to convince officials to hire rev as railway worker in Odessa plots to blow up Alex.
Zasulich EFFECTIVE TERRORIST
Zasulich’s near success with Trepov in 1879
- Socially unacceptable to search women
- LOTS of fabric wearing at this time for fashion -> hide gun
- Asked for interview as governess with governor -> ABLE TO INFILTRATE WHERE MEN CANNOT
- Men more suspected anyway
On liberation:
- Never cofnessed to sexual relationship with man -> wanted independence and no cmmitments
- New sense of liberation when on her own -> BECAUSE OF REV LIFESTYLE
- No other Russian women enjoyed this freedom -> feminists wanted economic and political freedoms, but had no concrete individual liberties really
- FINANCIAL AND BODILY INDEPENDENCE FROM MARRIAGE -> no outlets for these in broader Russian society for women
- Possible because of communal living with men and women and the funds that poured in from donors
RUSSIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY: SPREADING INFORMATION IN “FEMININE ROLES”
- (terrible cook but gendered division of labour)
- Zasulich shy, didn’t write (gendered, out of league) -> BUT Plekhanov terrible writer, so EDITS works to make them spicier -> not seen as major contributions. (PRACTICALITY VS IDEOLOGY)
- Therefore key works like made more accessible and Marxism becomes popular in Russia -> evidence that a working class is emerging at an unprecedented rate in 1890s, faster than any other country thanks to Alex III’s and others industrial reforms (Trans Siberian railway, guarantees to capitalists to buy certain percentages of goods produced -> massive investment and consequent industrial neighbourhoods of cities)
- (Krupskaya taught workers how to read). Used this to inform circle about worker lives -> you know workers ???! Dates lmao.
- Uses these stories as EXAMPLES / evidence for writings -> uses Krupskaya as mole
Lenin and Krupskaya get married BECAUSE they want to stay together in exile and discuss theory. - “our life was work in common, on and the same feelings and reactions” (reading Marxist lit, etc)
1905/Lenin: Mariia and familial support
Mariia Aleksandrovna Ul’ianova
- - After husband dies, exploits position as a wealthy widow (and tehrefore NEWLY LIBERATED / INDEPENDENT WOMEN) to get brownie points form states for rev kids
- - Petitioned for Anna’s five years of Siberian exile to be reduced. Climed she’d go with her and uproot family (thereby causing kids to grow isolated from state as opposed to fulfilling trad mom role -> DEFIANCE AGAINST AUTOCRACY)
- Commuted to family estate near Kazan
- provides emotional support -> regulalry moves to be w/ kids in exile, moves SPB (1895) when Vlad in prison
- Funds vlads exile to siberia, he’s comfortable in 1898
- Cites fact shes old and needs care -> Anna asking for relase so she could care for mother (gendered division of labour, sons don’t use this excuse)
- 1904 Anna imprisoned, successfuy released after petitioning Kiev authories w/ this
What influenced revs?
Science: Aleks (and Lenin and Plekhanov being convinced by stats)
Personal glory
Literature
Chernyshevsky:
- Explicit influence on Nechaev
- Evidenced by catechism ->
- Hardened style, no personal connections, complete devotion to cause
- This is actually warped view propagated by state after in associating work w/ Karakozov
- Chernyshevsky actually wanted it to be ironic since Rakhmetov falls in love.
- Itself a reaction to state crackdowns on Land and Liberty (1862) and Contemporary and arrest
- Also impacted women profoundly -> Pavlovna character setting up a commune -> wave of commune in 60s and 70s -> inspired likes of (Figner?) to join communal settings in TTP movement
- Also, Lenin steals title later on -> influenced by commitment to cause
Marx:
- Initial impact on populism -> seen as warning to skip nascent capitalism and political revolution -> leads to To The People movement
- HERZEN AND BAKUNIN AND LAVROV -> posit that capitalism can be SKIPPED by sparking a peasant led revolt -> commune inherently socialist
- Again, had been read by Zasulich, other members of movement who urged him in 81 to reconsider and emphasize peasant commune
Aleks III:
- Reads Lavrov (who read Marx)
- Marx takes DARWIN’s takes that humans are naturally altrustic and above competition -> inherently socialist. THEREFORE -> socialism highest form of human development -> enlightened individuals need to fight for achieving socialism
- Since political freedoms nill and a mass movement among the peasantry impossible under current autocracy -> Alek’s justification for terrorism as a “natural” form of human progression. States at trila, in lavrov, and People’s Will (secindary) program/manifesto
- Plekhanov inspired by Marx ->
- Emancipation of labour group 1883 first MARXIST organization following failure of PW and TTP
- reads works discounting / declining peasant commune -> need new approach
- Turns back to Marx -> now study stats suggesting working class RISING in Russia within decades because of ambitious industrial policies
- LENIN reads Marx -> thinks beyond this -> seasonal migration and already industrialization -> already have working class -> thread approach of heroic scenario for elite revolutionaries propagating socialism under dormant working class. Influencing/turning general economic discontent into coordinated socialist movement
- On display in 1905, 1896 Cotton industry strikes
Conclusion:
- because of industrial reforms -> Engels thinks now have nascent working class, rev possible
