Intelligentsia and Raznochintsy

Question 1

Intelligentsia

Answer 1

• Educated Russians not committed to government service.
• A social group of individuals ‘professionally employed in mental labour’.
• Connotations of being critical of the regime.
• Term increasingly politicised.

Question 2

Raznochintsy

Answer 2

• ‘Members of various ranks’
• Educated non-nobles or minor nobility, e.g. sons of priests or provincial doctors.
• Had an intolerant uncompromising attitude to the existing political regime.

Question 3

Alex II’s reforms

Answer 3

Education reform and the creation of educated nobility and middle class was a breeding ground for revolutionists and radicals.

• Educational reforms increased the number of intelligentsia in Russia; more people
  who started designing projects to change Russia from the inside.
• Interest grew in the wake of emancipation, eg riots after inefficient distribution of
  land.
• The Polish rebellion
• Spirit of reform turns to reaction from mid1860s onwards.
• Response to populism
• Proto-marxists.

Question 4

Land and Liberty campaign 1862

Answer 4

• The intelligentsia and the raznochinets
• An outgrowth of the Literary Fund.
• Sought to prepare the peasant revolution. Воля – freedom without limits.
• The first political campaign under Aleksandr II

Question 5

Russian Socialism

Answer 5

• ‘The Holy Rus’ (Eastern Europe) and ‘a joint responsibility’
• the idea of egalitarian (believing in or based on the principle that all people are equal
  and deserve equal rights and opportunities), self-contained community of peasants.
• Bukanin thought that revolution was imminent in Russia and that the ‘urge to
  destroy is a creative urge’
• The Russian people are the bearers of the mission
• The Slavs still live in peasant communities and are peaceful and agricultural,
  preserving a primeval human solidarity. They put the idea of human brotherhood
  into practice.

Question 6

Many individuals of notable influence

Answer 6

• Sergey Nechaev
• Petr Lavrov
• Turgenev with “Father and Sons”

Question 7

“Going to the People” movement

Answer 7

-Started by Mark Natanson in 1873. He earlier criticised Nechaev for Jesuitism and Machiavellism. He initially approached workers in large cities bringing
books.
- He longed for ethnic unity, and blurring gender distinctions in a defiance of social
conventions.
- His encounters with peasants were contradictory in experience
- 1874 the government responded to ‘going to the people’ with mass arrests and
show trials.

Question 8

The two GAYBOY Alexanders

Answer 8

Aleksandr II’s assassination

• 1 March 1881
• a well-planned operation
• Emperor finally killed after 7 attempts.
• He died 2 hours after the assassination.

Aleksandr III (1881-1894)

• An uneventful reign.
• Return to reaction and Official Nationality.
• No wars during his reign. Consistency, caution and stability in foreign policy.
• Increased threat from terrorism and underground radical politicians

Question 9

Counter-Reforms: University Education

Answer 9

> University Statute 1884, students are ‘individual visitors’ with no rights to form organisations or claim corporate representation (would be considered terrorists if they formed unions), course curriculum examined by appointed bureaucrats, curtailment on education for women, expansion of Church education in
secondary schools.

1889, the circular on ‘the children of cooks’, no education for the children of peasants and workers in order to avoid enlightenment of the lower
classes.

Question 10

Counter-Reforms: Peasants

Answer 10

> 1885 creation of State Gentry Land Bank. Further restrictions, peasants are considered the government’s people, not free citizens.

> Zemstvo chief 1889 had nothing to do with the zemstvo self government and was appointed and dismissed
by the minister of the interior.

> Local councils could imprison or fine peasants,
possess judiciary power and replace independent justices. Each region has several captains (zemstvo chiefs) who are all-powerful and virtually unrestrained.

> Rise of power of family heads. 1893 peasants prohibited to mortgage allotments. Gov basically trying to undermine attempts of peasants to formulate civil society in order
to challenge to the power of the state.

> Counter reforms increase obstacles for population representation at local level.