★ Geniune Opposition to the Tsar & Life after the 1905 Revolution Flashcards
What were the Fundamental Laws of 1905?
★ Revision of the 1832 Fundamental Laws, where the Tsar’s rule was changed from Autocractic Rule to Majority Rule
The First Duma
★ Many of the 200 peasant representatives didn’t belong to a political party
★ Biggest single group was the Kadets, who had 179 seats
★ Octobrists had 32 seats
★ SRs had 18 seats
★ National minorities & other groups had ~60 seats
★ Was dissolved in July 1906
What was ‘ Stolypin’s Necktie ‘?
★ Method of fear and oppression, Stolypin came down heavily on armed peasant insurrectionists and didn’t tolerate revolutionaries
★ Field courts-martials set up by Stolypin carried through a record of 683 deaths
What reforms did the Second Duma bring?
★ Offered improvements to workers’ conditions and the reform of civil rights, policing and local government
What was different about the Third Duma?
★ Much more conservative
What reforms did Stolypin bring?
★ Peasant reforms: Redemption payments abolished, wanted to set up millions independent farms owned by peasants, Peasant Land Bank that transferred millions of acres of land to peasant ownership
★ Made trade unions legal
★ However continued Russification
How did Stolypin die?
★ Assassination
What was the Lena Goldfields Massacre?
★ Shooting of goldfield workers on strike in northeast Siberia near the Lena River on 17 April
★ Strike brought on by harsh working conditions
★ Killed over 200 workers
★ Showed Stolypin’s initiatives had not had a discernable impact on the industrial workforce
Evidence to say there was no geniune opposition to the Tsar
★ 300 year long reign, was seen as the ‘ Little Father ‘
★ Scale of the empire, poor infrastructure and nature of population made it hard for revolution to spread
★ Large extent of repression
★ Pro-Tsarist extremist groups
★ Concessions given when needed, such as the creation of the Duma
Evidence to day there was geniune opposition to the Tsar
★ Russo-Japanese War
★ Bloody Sunday
★ Strikes and riots
★ Political Opposition in the form of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and SRs
★ Historical Opposition from national minorities who opposed Russification
Evidence to show there was an increased likelihood of revolution
★ Electoral systems in Russia favoured the well-off (Conservatives in Duma, for example)
★ Duma was boycotted by revolutionary parties
★ Alienation of poor peasants
★ Wages hadn’t increased
★ Workplace still not great
★ Lena Goldfields opened the floodgates for Workers’ strikes
★ Oppression
★ Royal family discredited due to Stolypin’s death
★ Revival of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks
Evidence to show there was a reduced likelihood of revolution
★ Land reforms
★ Record harvests
★ Redemption payments abolished
★ Peasants encouraged to buy land
★ Kulaks could be used against revolution
★ Some improvements to working conditions
★ Accident insurance introduced
★ 50,000 primary schools opened
★ Revolutionary parties short on money
