The collapse of the Russian Empire, 1894-1917

Question 1

What were the main beliefs of the liberals?

Answer 1

1. Civil rights and freedom of the individual.
2. Rule of law.
3. Free elections and parliamentary democracy.
4. Limitation of the Tsar’s powers.
5. Self-determination for the national minorities.
6. Extension of the zemstvo to regional and possibly national level.

Question 2

What were the main methods employed by the liberals?

Answer 2

1. Reform as opposed to violent action.
2. Political channels through zemstva.
3. Articles in newspapers, meetings, and reform banquets.

Question 3

Who were the main supporters of the liberals?

Answer 3

1. Middle-class intellegentisa - lawyers, doctors, professors, teaches, engineers, and other professionals.
2. Progressive landowners, industrialists, and buisnessman.

Question 4

What were the main beliefs of the socialist revolutionaries?

Answer 4

1. Revolution with the peasants who would support a popular rising in which the tsarist government would be overthrown.
2. Land taken from landlords and divided up among peasants.
3. Unlike the populists, they accpeted the development of capitalism was a fact.
4. Leading exponent was Victor Chernov - who accpeted that the growth of capitalism would promote the growth of a proletariat who would rise against their masters.
5. He saw no need for the peasants to pass through capitalism as they could just move to rural socialism - based on the peasant commune.
6. Representing ‘all labouring people’.

Question 5

What were the main methods employed by the socialist revolutionaries?

Answer 5

1. Agitation and terrorism - assassination of government officials.

Question 6

Who were the main supporters of the socialist revolutionaries?

Answer 6

1. Peasants but by 1905 industrial workers formed 50% of membership - workers arrived as ex-peasants and kept contact with their villages.
2. SR committees were mostly run by students and intellectuals in towns.
3. Pledge to return the land ‘to those who worked it’ won them the support of the peasantry.

Question 7

What did the social democrats split over?

Answer 7

They split over the role of the party. The Bolsheviks were revolutinary whereas the Mensheviks wanted to wait for the period of bourgeois democratic government.

Question 8

What were the main beliefs of the Bolsheviks?

Answer 8

1. A revolutionary party should be made up of a small number of highly disciplined professional revolutionaries.
2. It should operate under centralised leadership (criticised because it was feared that this would lead to a dictatorship).
3. It should have a system of small cells (3 people each) so that it would be difficult for police to infilitrate.
4. The party should bring about socialist conciousness to the workers and lead them through the revolution.

Question 9

Who were the main supporters of the scoial democrats?

Answer 9

Their support mainly came from the working class.

Question 10

Who were the main supporters of the Bolsheviks?

Answer 10

1. Younger more militant workers who liked discipline, firm leadership, and simple slogans.

Question 11

Who were he main supporters of the Mensheviks?

Answer 11

1. Workers and the intellegentsia.
2. Non-Russians: Jews and Georgians.