Radical Opposition

• Marxism seemed far off in Russia by 1894 but the Great Famine revived rural socialism.
• The SRs were established in 1901 and combined the 2 ideologies of Marxism and Populism.
• Chernov edited the SRs journal, Revolutionary Russia.
• The SRs carried out 2,000 political assassinations between 1901 and 1905 and Stolypin was assassinated in 1911.
• 2,000 SRs were executed between 1901 and 1911.
• Marxism gained more support as industrialisation increased.
• Plekhanov established the first Marxist association in 1883 called the "Emancipation of Labour".
• The Emancipation of Labour smuggled Marxist literature into Russia which encouraged the overthrow of Tsarism.
• Marxism attracted Lenin in 1901 because he was a St Petersburg law student.
• Lenin was exiled to Siberia in 1895 and he was released in 1900.
• The SDs were founded in 1898 with an elected three-man Central Committee.
• Lenin wrote Iskra ("the spark") and What is to be done? to SDs while exiled in Switzerland.
• Disagreements between Lenin and Martov split ranks in 1903.
• Lenin's followers became Bolsheviks and Martov's followers became Mensheviks.
• The Bolsheviks wanted a small and disciplined party who wanted to be professional revolutionaries.
• The Mensheviks wanted a democratic and open party.
• The Bolsheviks refused to work with other parties and trade unions which juxtaposed Mensheviks.
• The Bolsheviks believed the bourgeois and proletarian revolutions could occur simultaneously whereas the Mensheviks believed the proletarian revolution should take place first.
• The SRs and SDs both rejected the October Manifesto and called for a general strike.
• The St Petersburg Soviet organised the general strike that took place in November 1905.
• Radical opposition had no clear leader post-1905 as Trotsky was also in exile to Siberia.
• Lenin fled to Finland after 1905.
• The government still feared opposition from 1905 specifically from trade unions.
• The government failed to pacify working-class discontent but Tsarism was not in grave danger until 1914.
• Edward Action stated that Marxism in the 1890s "caught on among young radicals with remarkable speed".