Reform Politics (1906-1913) Flashcards
Briefly explain the progression of Dumas and some key points
OVERALL:
- Autocracy / Nick has no intention of working with Duma. Complete side show
- Evidenced by Article 1 of Fund Laws being “autocratic power” and Article 87 allowing overide Duma when not in session
FIRST DUMA:
- Sees Emergence of actual political spectrum in Russia for first time
- only two pieces of legislation -> laundry for students and greenhouse
- Octobrists, Kadets, etc. Only Octobrists and right wing legal [three parties]
- Kadets agitate for broader role -> radical speeches -> emperor SHUTS DOWN -> Vyborg manifesto 1906 -> these banned from politics
- NO MASS UPRISING when shut down
SECOND DUMA:
- Way more radical on each spectrum -> peasants vote for PARTIES WHICH PROMISE LAND -> leads to Stolypin coup
- Kadets, etc weakened because not allowed to run / Vyborg -> only 6% overlap
- Dissolved BECAUSE too radical before any consultaions in less than 2 months
- Peasants go to SRs because Bols DON’T have a land policy yet -> steal this later after seeing peasant support
THIRD DUMA:
- Govt NOW CHANGES ELECTORAL LAW -> STOLYPIN’S COUP -> REMEMBER ILLEGAL via Article 87
- CHANGE: property requirements (disenfranchised working class) -> only 3.5m vote for next duma because able.
- Therefore unrepresentative of popular will -> no left. Octobrist and righties in vast majority. ONLY one to last 3 year mandate “loyal opposition”
FOURTH DUMA:
- War breaks out / revolution
- START OF WWI -> Progressive bloc forms to support state for duration of war (Octobrists, etc)
- Bolsheviks adopt defeatist position -> support revolution. Govt don’t care -> November arrest all Duma Bolsheviks
Explain the Stolypin Coup / reforms and the general impacts of the peasant land question.
RESPONSE TO:
- Radical second Duma being voted in by peasants who JUST WANT LAND (no loyalty to Kadets who can’t run -> so vote SR/etc)
- Wants whoever will cancel redemption payments
- ALSO Soc dem reps in second Duma arrested on list f charges ranging from attempts to organize peasants and soldiers into secret associations (All true of course)
- Govt demands they revoke legal immunity of soc dem members, refuses -> coup
Stolypin sees this:
- realizes you need to concede / alter these peasants to get stability -> need to develop PROPERTY owning class of peasants
- IN ORDER TO PRESERVE AUTOCRACY
- Therefore -> try to align interests of peasants with industrial and bourgeoisie classes as opposed to revolutionary socialism by consolidating interest in property. Consolidated strips would allow peasants to take care of land more and develop sense of ownership over it.
- Also therefore would align w/ coups’ ideas
WHAT IT DID:
-1906 -> rewrites electoral laws -> MORE EVIDENCE AUTOCRACY WILLING TO ACT DIRECTLY TO PRESERVE ITSELF. INTERVENE OVER LEGAL INSTITUTIONS IT SET UP
1. Increase weight of PROPERTY owners in electorate-> also RUSSIANS over non Russians
2. CANCELLED redemption payments since 1860s -> would never pay them off.
3. Leave communes and ask to have strips consolidated into private land
Tryna create peasant middle class WHO WOULD BECOME SUPPORTERS OF MONARCHY BY MAKIG THEM INDIVIDUAL LANDOWNERS -> homestead farms form. Strip system: when controlled by communes, would be redistributed every few years. Kills incentive -> rental car vs buying car. More responsibility.
- USES ARTICLE 87 -> only later consolidated by Duma in 1910-11
- Also establishes new Noble body screening ALL local govt issues before being sent to Duma.
On Constitutionalism:
This is to GROW Russian constitutionalism UNDER FAVOURABLE CONDITIONS TO AUTOCRACY. WANTS TO HAVE A STABLE DUMA LOYAL TO TSAR WITH CONSERVATIVE PROPERTY OWNING BASE AS OPPOSED TO LETTING PEASANTS BE ANGRY, RADICAL, AND THROW ANOTHER REVOLUTION -> WHY THEY KEEP DUMA IN FIRST PLACE
- specifically NOT want land nationalization policies
Impact:
- affects 2.5m households -> new farmers -> 24% of land changes hand
ENDS BEcause Stolypin dies. (premature)
No one had force of will to push them.
If He’d lived, war avoided -> could get constitutional monarchy
- Though some peasants resistant / outcast those who choose. Imperfect
INSTEAD:
- Peasants adopted by SRs and later Bols on land question -> Duma irrelevant
- PEASANTS STILL WANT LAND -> DONT CARE HOW THEY GET IT. First Duma only one they trusted, and it didn’t do shit for them. Peasants only care about land, workers as property, control over work conditions -> No ability or tradition to use democracy. These exploited by soc dems (especially those amenable to changing their positions on Marxism)
NICK SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE FOOT: by NOT continuing the land reforms in earnest following Stolypin’s assassination. Leaves door open for radical as opposed to constitutional/middle class solutions
What are some of the big reasons for the Duma ultimately failing and being replaced by faith in revolutionaries/the revolution?
Basically, no constitutional / democratic history in Russia. Peasants have initial faith in first Duma, but this betrays them by only having 2 reforms presented, eventually dissolved
- Limited Democracy Tradition:
- HAD ONLY BEE LOCAL GOVT/Zemstvsa and this wasn’t independent (1890 gentry quotas)
- Political parties remained illegal until 1906
- AUTOCRACY CONTINUES TO SHOOT SELF IN FOOT - No Liberal Middle Class:
- No real middle class like west and industrialists -> even these bowed to autocracy
- Annual congress of industries had to be approved by ministry of trade
- THEREFORE -> WORKING CLASS bears brunt of fighting for political freedom since business/middle passive - Limited democracy POST October manifesto: AUTOCRACY RETAINING CONTROL AND SHOOTING ITSELF IN THE FOOT
- Mass parties (bols, menks) and Kadets were unregistered and therefore illegal
- ALWAYS TURNED DOWN WHEN ATTEMPTED TO
- No guarantees of political freedom despite October manifesto (Oct 1905 -> Jan 106 45,000 sent into admin exile.)
- Emperor retains absolute veto power even after removing radical elements and post-Stolypin coup in third Duma - AGAIN: Main desires PEASANTS/LAND and WORKERS/CONTROL
- Neither have experience with parties, democracy or avenues to agitate for reform -> therefore go to revolutionaries
- Evidenced by second Duma becoming FAR more radical after Kadets, other Vybourg participants banned.
BY REVOLUTION:
- Actually seems like constitutionalism will win out
- Provisional govt, more political freedoms -> freely elected assembly
universal suffrage of BOTH sexes
- BUT -> SOVIET REPLACES TSAR AS REAL POWER
IN RUSSIA, POLITICAL FREEDOM MEANS POLITICAL CHAOS, AND THE COUNTRY SUBMITS TO WHATEVER POWER PROMISES STABILITY
-O rder and stability don’t require a constitutional govt (obv) -> so NO FEAR OF POPULAR RESISTANCE AGAINST GVT ACTIONS HERE - MASSES NEVER LEARN TO LOOK TO PARLIAMENT AS A SOLUTION FOR ANYTHING -> IT DOESN’T DO ANYTHING FOR THEM IN 1.5 DECADES DUMBASS
Give a BRIEF overview of the parties involved in the Dumas. How did the autocracy prevent liberalism from taking root?
OVERALL:
- Autocracy shoots itself in foot by clamping down on slightly radical parties (Kadets) and not compromising on power
- Therefore more radical slide (second Duma) and no chance for liberalism to develop despite initial promise of coalition -> soc dems, business leaders collaborating in initial Duma w/ Constitutional Democrats by Miluikov
- THEN even further alienates peasants who had VOTED for radical parties by dissolving Duma because of SR involvement -> push Peasants to accept revolution/become dissillusioned w/ DUMA and DEMOCRACY AS A TOOL even further
Octobrists:
- right / centre right
- Work WITH autocracy and Duma to get reform
- Mostly industrialists and property owners
- LAND: want civil rights for peasants, NOT land reforms and property rights of INDIVIDUALS protected
- Eventually ally w/ Stolypin and right in order to push “reforms”
- Tolerated by state
Kadets:
- Centre / lib left
- Like SD/SR -> see Duma as avenue to continue resistance against tsar
- Want parliament that can INITIATE legislation not just approve/consult
- LAND: Want land reforms for peasants BUT compensation for nobles
- Diminished in 2nd Duma after Vybourg / speeches
Explain Lenin’s views regarding Marxism, Tsarism, the rev underground, and the Duma post 1905
Overall, Bolshevism consolidates under Lenin’s vision during 1906-1913
Role of Rev underground:
- ESSENCE: heroic scenario (platforming Russian worker to head of all “democratic elements” [electorate classes in political structure/rev]) -> WHAT ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS MEANS
- ROLE (therefore): open up socialist path by removing Tsarism via political revolution and getting a dem republic -> PEOPLE’s led revolution
Proletariat had to SPREAD MESSAGE -> THEREFORE NEED KONSPIRATSIIA UNDERGROUND -> Revolution can only happen if these threads remain active (paper, party, etc)
Lenin thinks 1905 proves this -> worker led uprising that resulted in concessions, but JUST THE DRESS REHEARSAL (thinks this was all set up by rev underground/conditions laid)
EVIDENCED BY several hundred workers involved in heroic scenario “flower of SPB proles” who were ADMIRED RUSSIAN WIDE (according to him)
On 1905:
1905 INCOMPLTEE -> NEED FULL POLITICAL REV WITH FULL CIVIL RIGHTS-> THIS WILL ALLOW FULL SOCIALIST / ECONOMIC REV LATER ON
- Why the Bols boycotted first Duma -> criticize Mensheviks for utilizing new channels (SF/IRA) when revolution is incomplete
This all effects how he SEES revolution: peasants were not “reacting” to bad conditions in a spontaneous outburst of violence -> instead were a progressive class fighting for democratic reforms and capitalism. Petty bourgeois -> seeds of this sown by underground.
THEREFORE Lenin committed to rev underground:
- Despite being infiltrated by police informers post 1906, Lenin retains EMOTIONAL attachment to use of underground because of it’s use in his heroic scenario
- ALSO thinks no other channels for resisting tsarism open -> again criticizes Mens
Malinovsky Affair:
- Issue: most important Bolshevik in Duma. One of lenin’s closest friends.
May 1914 -> threatened w/ exposure, resigns. Lenin defends him, nonsense. Only because of emotional attachment to central role of figure in heroic scenario -> saw him as “purposeful worker” working to propagate socialism
Malinovsky motivated by money -> monthly salary of party executive. Police offer higher salary for informer, becomes mole and instigator of dissent.
- EVIDENCE ALSO THAT UNDERGROUND HAD BEEN COMPROMISED
Role of media in rev?
Tsar / autocracy unmuzzles press following 1906 -> 1900+ newspapers by 1913 (check stat) and Pravada allowed to be published
- When Lena 1912 Massacre happens -> Bols gain more support from trade unions and start circulating this paper (state allowance of media combined w/ crackdown sows seeds of bol revolution)
- Also photography of the massacre -> images being spread even wider than in Bloody Sunday -> results in
- radicals circulate abroad and within Russia.
WHEN WORD HITS MEDIA _> massive strike wave. 1.2 m workers on strike in 1914 (20% of labour force)
So…radicalizes working class and against regime -> bad since war in ether.
Rasputin
Rasputin -> unkempt, scandalous rumours about him and Empress -> conservatives, left both hate him
“Peasants”
CARTOONS APPEARING IN PRESS
