Opposition to Tsarism

Question 1

Why was there worker and peasant opposition to the Tsar?

Answer 1

Mainly due to the harshness of conditions in Russia.

Question 2

Why was there middle-class opposition to the Tsar?

Answer 2

They wanted political reforms.

Question 3

What percentage of Russia did the peasants make up in 1894?

Answer 3

80%

Question 4

What were the lives of peasants like in 1894?

Answer 4

The vast majority of Russia’s peasants lived an impoverished life of hard work, large debt and high taxes - moreover, most Russian peasants owned little or no land

Question 5

What counter-reforms did Nicholas II introduce, that took away freedoms the peasants had enjoyed since the 1860s? What resulted from this?

Answer 5

• Land Captains replaced zemstvos (committees elected by local people) as the key authority in local government - land captains managed the work of peasants, and administered law and order
• Peasants lost the right to elect people to the local zemstvos. Land captains made the final decision regarding which candidates were allowed to serve on the zemstvos
  What result from this: resentment among the peasants

Question 6

What percentage of Russia did the urban factory workers make up in 1894?

Answer 6

4%

Question 7

What did the working class emerge as a result of?

Answer 7

Sergei Witte’s attempt to industrialist the economy in the 1890s.

Question 8

Who was Sergei Witte?

Answer 8

One the Tsar’s most trusted and talented ministers, who oversaw the early stages of Russia’s industrialisation.

Question 9

Were Russia’s workers paid better than the peasants?

Answer 9

Yes.

Question 10

What was the problem with factories?

Answer 10

• They were dangerous
• Living conditions in the large slums of Vyborg, Shuliavka and Nakhalovka, in the Empire’s major cities, were squalid
• Consequently, the mortality rate of workers was higher than than that of peasants
• Working conditions were extremely tough
• The majority of workers were expected to work a 12-hour day, and some up to a 17-hour day
• Factory managers could beat their employees and subject them to verbal abuse and degrading body searches

Question 11

What did harsh working conditions and obvious inequalities lead to?

Answer 11

Strikes and to the growth of socialist groups in Russia’s cities.

Question 12

What, and when, did middle-class opponents of autocracy form?

Answer 12

1903 - the League of Liberation.

Question 13

Who led the League of Liberation?

Answer 13

Pavel Milyukov and Pyotr Struve.

Question 14

What percentage of Russia did the bourgeoisie make up?

Answer 14

1.5%

Question 15

What did the bourgeoisie tend to want in Russia?

Answer 15

• Democratisation

- They were reformists or liberal

Question 16

Generally, what did many political active members of the middle class want?

Answer 16

• A government in which elected representatives of the Russian people made laws
• A government that respected individual rights

Question 17

What the 5 demands of the League of Liberation?

Answer 17

1) An end to autocracy
2) Democratic government based on universal suffrage
3) A maximum eight-hour day for workers
4) Redistribution of land to the peasants
5) Self-determination for all nations that were part of the Russian Empire

Question 18

What two groups did the League of Liberation represent?

Answer 18

• The ideas of the urban middle-class intellectuals

- People who held elected positions in the zemstvos

Question 19

What was the government’s view of the League of Liberation? What actions did they take?

Answer 19

• They viewed them as dangerous

- Therefore, the Okhrana arrested leading members of the League soon after its first Congress