How much organised opposition did the Tsarist regime face before 1905, and how did the aims of the main opposition groups differ? Flashcards
What is a redemption payment?
A payment that a peasant community had to make to the government as a result of the 1861 land settlement. Government policies such as these were partly to blame for worsening conditions in the countryside.
What was the underlying cause of peasant unrest?
Poverty and desperation.
What were the reasons for rural poverty?
- Environmental factors
- Methods of production
What environmental factors were responsible for rural poverty?
- In the northern districts of European Russia, the soil was poor and the growing season short
- In the ‘Black Earth’ region to the south the climate was erratic, leading to periodic crop failures and famine
Why were methods of production responsible for rural poverty?
- Strip farming was inefficient
- Because time was wasted moving from strip to strip
- Some land was wasted
- Periodic reallocation of strips meant that households had no strong incentive to improve their land
What did working class unrest mostly to the form of at the turn of the century?
Strikes - the army was called out to deal with strikers almost 300 times in 1901, a figure that increase to over 500 the following year.
Why were workers willing to strike?
- Grim living standards and working conditions
- Pay was low; hours were long, averaging around 60 a weak
- Factory discipline was harsh, usually enforced with a system of fines
- Frequent workplace injuries
- Workers were housed in overcrowded slums, which were breeding grounds for diseases
Who was within Russia’s emerging middle class in the late 19th- century?
Industrialists, businessmen and educated professionals such as doctors and lawyers.
Why were many people in the middle class opposed to Tsarism?
Due to their attachment to liberal ideas.
Who were the ‘intelligentsia’?
The educated middle class.
What were the two core principles of liberalism in the turn-of-the-century?
- A belief in ending autocracy through adopting a constitution
- A belief in an economic system based on private enterprise rather than public ownership
How did moderate liberals see the future of the role of the tsar?
As a British-style constitutional monarch, but radical liberals often wanted Russia to become a Republic.
Where was some of the strongholds of liberalism in the Russian Empire?
- Its university system, which was expanding to supply the developing Russian economy with the higher-level skilled personnel it needed.
- The zemstva
The years 1899-1901 saw a series of clashes between university students and…
Tsarist authorities, one of which left 13 student protestors dead - these events had a radicalising effect on a generation of students.
What was the newspaper ‘Liberation’, founded in 1902?
An alliance between zemstvo liberals and radicalised students and other in the Liberation movement.
When was the League of Liberation established?
1904.
Who emerged leading figure of the League of Liberation?
Paul Milyukov.
What did the League of Liberation launch to supposedly celebrate the 40th anniversary of the introduction of trial by jury?
‘Banquet campaign’
What was the true objective of the ‘Banquet campaign’ in practice?
To mobilise liberal opinion in support of political change.
Who were the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs)?
The heirs of an ill-fated populist movement of the 1860s and 1870s - middle class idealists who had aimed to form a political alliance with the peasantry in order to overthrow Tsarist and build a new democratic order in Russia on the basis of the village commune or mir.
When was the Socialist Revolutionary Party formed?
1902.
Who were the principle founders of the SRs?
Victor Chernov, Mikhail Gots, Grigory Gershuni and Catherine Breshko-Breshovskaya - of the them were middle and upper class in background.
What was the aim of the SRs?
- To win peasant support, but they were never an exclusively peasant party
- They also attracted a significant following among Russia’s urban workers
There were a range of views found within the SRs - what were some of them?
- SRs who were comparative moderates
- SRs who were old-fashioned populists
- SRs who were prepared to use terrorist methods
Who was the leading theoretician of the Socialist Revolutionaries?
Victor Chernov - a ‘mainstream’ SR
What did Chernov argue Russian socialism had to be?
Russian socialism had to be peasant-based and built around peasant institutions rather than worker-based as suggested by Karl Marx. Chernov wanted to see the decentralisation of political power.
Did the SRs see the use of violence as a legitimate political weapon?
Yes.
What did most mainstream SRs accept about a Russian Revolution?
That it was unlikely to be bloodless, and that violence would have to be used in the course of a revolutionary uprising.
