Opposition 1894-1914 Flashcards
Aims of liberalism
Welfare, education, liberty, rule of law, reform autocracy (Tsar listening to the people), Tsar’s rule in conjunction with people
Differing liberal views
Slavophiles; opposed oppression, injustice; eg Tolstoy
Westernisers; from the growing middle-class; aired views through the zemstva; eg Turgenev
Reasons for liberal growth
Spread of education; emergence of a middle class as a result of modernisation; more people favouring representation and the rule of law; zemstva competence during the Great Famine of 1891-92; growing resentment under Alexander II’s reductions
Key liberal organisations
- Beseda, from 1899 - discussed matters of liberal interest, eg judicial reform and universal education; assumes leadership of liberal movement in 1900
- Union of Liberation, from 1903 - founded by Pyotr Struve, who opposed the violent nature of Marxism and published a journal promoting a constitutional system through which workers could campaign legally; grand meeting held in 1904, to which zemstva representatives were invited —> 50 society banquets during just the winter of 1904
Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs), reason for revival of populist ideas
The populist idea looked increasingly unlikely in 1894, however ‘agrarian socialism’ was revived after the Great Famine 1891-92, highlighting the need to reform the rural economy
Mainly run by students; culmination - assassination of the Minister of Education, Nikolay Bogolepov, by student Pyotr Karpovich (1901)
Beliefs and key leaders of the SRs
- Appealed to peasantry through a commitment to ‘land socialism’ and decentralised government; members broadly accepted Marxism but combined it with populism; put forward the idea of peasants’ and workers’ interests being the same (‘laboring poor’), which set them apart from Marxists
- key leader - Viktor Chernov, a law graduate from Moscow and editor of party journal ‘Revolutionary Russia’
SR tactics
Similarly to populists, stirred up discontent in the countryside and held strikes in towns, along with political assassinations
SR successes
Many successful political assassinations (2000 during 1901-05), including two Ministers of Internal Affairs (Sipyagin in 1902 and Plevhe in 1904), as well as Prime Minister Stolypin in 1911
Developed a full Programme for 1905 revolution and formed a separate combat organisation to carry out assassinations (which attracted many students)
SR failures
The Secret Police foiled some of their activities and was successful at infiltrating the movement at its highest levels
Some 4579 SRs were sentenced to death between 1905-09, and 2365 were actually executed
Emergence of Marxism
1880s and 1890s
Mixture of former Populists and younger intellectuals attracted to Marx’s ideas: their explanatory power, certainty and comprehensiveness
Those in the 1880s saw that Russia could look like what Marx described, and those in the 1890s witnessed the beginnings of it during the Great Spurt
Georgi Plekhanov was…
An early Marxist; founded the Emancipation of Labour in 1883 - Russia’s first openly Marxist group; this was done in exile in Switzerland and then smuggled into Russia
Limitations of Marxist ideas, as they emerged?
The vast majority did not know who he was and the theory looked overwhelmingly to workers, not peasants - Russia was still 80% a peasant society
Social Democratic Party (SDs) emergence
1898
Joined soon by Vladimir Lenin (Ulyanov)
SD split
1903
Mensheviks (one of its leaders - Julius Martov)
Bolsheviks (led by Vladimir Lenin)
Until 1917, the Mensheviks were the larger party
Bolshevik conceptions
- a dedicated party could lead a small working class into power; capitalism in Russia is well-developed; the bourgeois and proletarian revolutions could be combined
- exclusive membership to genuine, reliable Marxists and revolutionaries
- decisions made after open debate and vote, and all must abide by this completely (‘democratic centralism’); Lenin: “freedom of discussion, unity of action”
- total commitment to revolution; ‘vanguard (leaders) of the proletariat’; should seize power on behalf of the workers