The opponents of tsardom

• What are the two main opposition groups that can be identified in Nicholas II’s reign?


  Revolutionaries

  • Those who believed that Russia couldn't progress unless the tsarist system was destroyed

  Reformists

  • Strong critics of the tsarist system who believed it could be changed for the better by pressure from without and reform from within
• What are the three major forces that the revolutionaries comprised of?


  • Populists - ‘the people’
  • Social Revolutionaries - SRs
  • Social Democrats - SDs
• What did the SRS grow directly out of?

  The Populist movement
• What did the Populists see as an opportunity and why?

  • The economic spurt of the 1890s had produced a quickening of interest in political and social issues
  • The Populists then saw this as an opportunity to gain recruits from the rapidly growing urban workforce, the Populists began to agitate among the workers
  • The intention was to widen the concept of the ‘people’ so that it encompassed not simply the peasants but all those in society who had reasons for wishing to see the end of tsardom -> The part of the population that believed that the SRs believed truly represented the will of Russia
• Who was an important figure in the reshaping of Populist Strategy?


  • Victor Chernov
  • played a key part in the formation of the SRS in 1901 and became its leader
  • member of the intelligentsia
  • sought to provide a firmer base for populism than its previous passionate but vague ideas had produced
• What were the SRS weakened by?

  Disagreements among themselves
• What did Leon Trotsky point to?

  The division - Left SRS (anarchists) and Right SRS (revolutionaries)
• What did the left faction of the SRs want?

  wanted to continue the policy of terrorism inherited from ‘the people’s will’
• What did the right faction of the SRs want?

  more moderate

  • believed revolution as their ultimate goal but were prepared to co-operate with other parties in working for an immediate improvement in the conditions of the workers and peasants
• Who dominated the SRs between the years 1901 - 1905?


  • the terrorist faction
  • During those years, the left faction were responsible for over 2000 political assassinations including Plehve who was the interior minister and the tsar’s uncle, the Grand Duke Sergei
  • they were spectacular successes but did little to bring about the desired link woth the urban workers
• What did the 1905 revolution bring?


  • Brought more gains for the liberals than to the revolutionaries
  • One effect of this was that the more moderate Right SRs gained greater influence over party policy
  • began to show dividends
• From 1906, what did the SRS experience?


  Experiences growing support from the professional classes, from the trade unions and from the All-Russian Union of Peasants
• Why were the SRS constantly the most popular party with the peasants?


  Their land Policy:

  • Committed itself to ‘revolutionary socialism’
  • gave a special pledge to the peasants that it would end ‘private ownership by returning the land to those who worked it’
• What did the left wing of the SRs argue?

  That the party’s programme ignored the industrial workers, while the right asserted that Congress policy was unworkable in current Russian conditions - brought more disruption than unity
• Until they were outlawed in 1917, what did the SRS remain as?

  The largest popular following in Russia
• When did the SDs come into being?

  1898
• What was the aim of the Social Democrats?

  • To achieve revolution in Russia by following the ideas of Karl Marx
  • Marx claimed that the critical determinant of human behaviour was class struggle, a process that operated throughout history - he referred to this process as the dialectic
• What was significant about Marx’s analysis for the SDs?

  • His conviction that the contemporary industrial era marked the final stage of the dialectical class stage
  • Human history was about to reach its culmination in the revolutionary victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, which would use the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’
  • This stage would be the last but one stage in history in which the workers, having overthrown the bourgeoisie in revolution and taken power, would destroy any remaining reactionaries
• What was significant about Marx’s analysis for the SDs? Part 2

  • It would be a violent and bloody affair but, once these final class enemies had been obliterated, all conflict would end and the perfect, harmonious society would emerge
  • It promised to create the industrial conditions in Russia that would produce a politically conscious work force and thus make a successful revolution possible
• What did Lenin criticise Plekhanov for?


  • Being more interested in reform than revolution
  • He said that under Plekhanov, the SDs, instead of transforming the workers into a revolutionary force for the overthrow of capitalism, were following a policy of economism -> putting the improvement of the workers' conditions before the need for revolution
• What did Lenin want?


  He was part of the SDs

  • Living and working conditions to get worse, not better
  • In that way, the bitterness of the workers would increase, and so drive the Russian proletariat to revolution
• What did Lenin’s 1902 pamphlet ‘what is to be done’ state?

  The pamphlet was his strongest attack yet on Plekhanov in it Lenin:

  • Berated Plekhanov for continuing to seek allies from a broad group with anti-tsarist elements
  • Lenin insisted it would get them nowhere
  • Lenin believed revolution in Russia was possible only if it was organised and led by a party of dedicated, professional revolutionaries
• What was Lenin and his supporters called?

  Bolsheviks
• What was Matov and his supporters called?

  Mensheviks
• What did Martov believe was behind Lenin’s tactics?

  A fierce determination to become dictator of the party - his view was supported by Potresov, another co-editor of Iskra
• What were the different views of the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks?Part 1

  Revolution:

  • Mensheviks: Russia was not yet ready for the proletariat revolution - the bourgeoise stage had to occur first
  • Bolsheviks: The bourgeois and proletarian stages could be telescoped into one revolution

  The Party:

  • Mensheviks: A mass organisation with membership open to all revolutionaries
  • Bolsheviks: A tight-knit, exclusive organisation of professional revolutionaries
• What were the different views of the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks? Part 2

  Decision-making:

  • Mensheviks: Open, democratic discussion within the party- decisions arrived at by votes of members
  • Bolsheviks: Authority to be exercised by the Central Committee of the party - this was describes as ‘democratic centralism’. -> Lenin’s central notion that true democracy in the Bolshevik party lay in the obedience of the members to the authority and instructions of the leaders
• What were the different views of the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks? Part 3

  Strategy:

  Mensheviks:

  • Alliance with all other revolutionary and bourgeois liberal parties
  • Support of trade unions in pursuing better wages and conditions for workers (economism)

  Bolsheviks:

  • No co-operation with other parties
  • Economism dismissed as playing into the hands of the bourgeoise
  • The aim was to turn workers into revolutionaries
• Why is it argued that the Bolsheviks played a minor role in events in Russia before 1917?


  • From the years 1907-19014, Lenin was largely absent from Russia
  • He lived variously in Finland, France, Switzerland and Austria
  • His visits to Russia were rare and fleeting
  • Although he continued from exile to issue a constant stream of instructions to his followers, he and they played a minor role
• What did Lenin and his fellow exiles set up?

  Training schools for revolutionaries, who were then smuggled back into Russia to infiltrate worker organisations such as the trade unions
• What did the Bolsheviks who remained in Russia do?

  • They spent their time trying to raise money for their party
  • involved direct terrorism and violence; post offices were often targeted
  • Tifils in Georgia - A Bolshevik gang bomb-blasted their way into a post office, killed some twenty people before making off with a quarter of a million roubles
  • the money stolen in such raids was used to finance the printing of masses of handbills, leaflets and newspapers attacking the tsarist regime and calling for revolution
• What were Lenin’s revolutionaries regarded by the authorities as?


  • As merely a fringe group of extremists
  • The Bolsheviks were not listed by the police as a major challenge to the tsarist system
  • in the pre-1914 period, the numerical strength of the Bolsheviks varied between 5000 and 10,000; even in February 1917 it was no more than 25,000
  • Before 1917, the Mensheviks outnumbers them
• What are the three key liberal parties that come into prominence in the pre-1914 period?


  • The Union of Liberation
  • The Octobrists
  • Constitutional Democrats (Kadets)
• Who were the principal leaders of the Union of Liberation?

  Paul Milyukov and Peter Struve
• When was the Union of Liberation formed?

  1904
• What were the basic aims of the Union of Liberation?


  • Political liberty - even its most minimal form
  • abolition of the Russian monarchy
  • establishment of a Russian constitutional regime
  • democracy - equal, secret and direct elections
• What did the Union try and do?


  Bring various liberal groups together by pointing out where there was common ground between them
• What did the Union’s influence do?

  Helped prepare the way for the 1905 revolution and continued to operate as a party until 1917
• What was the Union unable to do?

  Create a single coherent reforming movement with a single purpose
• What was the Union’s deeper significance?


  In indicating the range of anti-tsarist feeling that existed and in advancing the arguments and ideas that the more progressive members of the government, such as Witte, took to heart