tsarist + communist russia

• crimean war 1853-56

  • 1 musket between 2 soldiers
  • poor transport
  • inadequate leadership
  • treaty of paris 1856: prevented russian warships from using black sea ports
  • start of internal opposition - intelligentsia hypocritical of a backwards russia
• reforms before emancipation

  • released public prisoners
  • pardoned decembrists
  • relaxed censorship
  • cancelled tax debt
  • restored rights of the church and poland
  • eased restrictions on university entry
• emancipation 1861-66

  • 51 million serfs freed, state serfs emancipated in 1866
  • redemption payments for 49 years
  • two-year temporary obligation to the tsar
  • by 1878, only 50% of peasantry were capable of producing a surplus
• military reform 1874-75

  • conscription compulsory from age 21, but service reduced from 25 years to 15 years
  • better provisioning and medical care
  • better training
  • literacy improved - mass army education campaigns in 1870-90s
  • supplies and leadership still a problem - lost war with turkey in 1878
• local govt reform 1864

  • zemstva set up to improve public services (schools, roads) - set up through electoral colleges
  • zemstva power was limited - no control over state and local tax
• education reform 1863-64

  • golovin as minister of education
  • universities could govern themselves and appoint their own staff
  • responsibility for schooling transferred from church to zemstva
  • modern schools established for people who didn't like traditional schools
  • 1870s - students in university increased from 3600 to 10,000
  • 1880s - children in primary school increased from 400,000 to >1 million
• censorship reform 1858-70

  • publisher restrictions reduced
  • press could print editorials with comment on government policy
  • 1864 - books published increased from 1020 to 1836
  • critical writing led to retightening of control in 1870
  • despite retightening control, published books grew to 10,691 by 1894
• retightening control

  • 1866 - tolstoy replaces golovin
  • tolstoy forced literature, science, and modern languages out and encouraged maths and latin
  • shuvalov as head of secret police
  • increased persecution of ethnic and religious minorities
• loris-melikov constitution 1881

  • relaxed control - abolished salt tax and secret police
  • secret police replaced by okhrana - still presence of control
• local government 1889-92

  • 1889 - land captain introduced - could override elections to the zemstva and overturn court judgements
  • 1890 - peasant vote in zemstva reduced and placed under central government
  • town councils became state employees under the central government
  • 1892 - electorate reduced to owners of property above a certain value
• judicial reform 1885-89

  • 1885 - minister of justice granted more control and could dismiss judges
  • 1887 - ministry granted powers for closed court sessions
  • 1889 - volost courts directly under land captains in countryside and judges in towns
• education reform (alex iii)

  • delyanov as minister of education
  • closed universities for women
  • university life strictly supervised - students forbidden to be in groups >5 people
  • primary education transferred to the orthodox church
  • only 21% of population literate by 1897
  • countered government attempt to promote economic modernisation
  • failed to stop student involvement in illegal political movements
• russification under alexander ii

  • used concessions to maintain control
  • 1864 and 1875 decrees - lithuanians and estonians could convert to lutheranism
  • 1876 - prohibited use of ukrainian in publications and performances
  • allowed wealthier jews to settle elsewhere, but then took back concession and reduced jew participation in town government
• russification under alexander iii

  • reorganised finnish diet in 1892 to weaken political influence
  • russian coinage replaced local currency
  • 1885 - national polish bank shut down
  • 1884 - all theatres in the 5 ukrainian provinces shut down
  • supressed 1892 georgia, tashkent etc uprisings
  • 37,000 lutherans converted to orthodoxy to claim benefits
  • 1888 - department of police estimated 332 cases of mass disturbance in 61/92 provinces
• russification under alexander iii pt. 2

  • pale of settlement
  • jewish pogroms 1881-84 attacks on jewish property encouraged by the okhrana
  • 1882 - limited amount of jewish doctors in the army
  • 1892 - jews banned from participating in local elections
  • policies drove jews towards revolutionary groups e.g. marxist socialist groups
• opposition under alexander ii

  • rejected proposal for st petersburg zemstva to co-ordinate regional councils
  • 1862 - chernyshevsky's 'what is to be done?' which promoted peasant-led revolutionary change
  • 1869 - russian translation of karl marx's communist manifesto
  • 1869 - tchaikovsky circle which distributed scientific and revolutionary literature. no more than 100 people between st petersburg + other cities
  • narodniks - 2000 men and women who travelled to the countryside to persuade peasants that they were the root of revolutionary change. 1600 arrested
• opposition under alexander ii pt. 2

  • land and liberty continued narodnyism - set up in 1877
  • l+l assassinated head of secret police in 1878, and split into two groups in 1879:
  • black repartition - worked peacefully amongst the peasantry and wanted to stimulate change without violence
  • the people's will - advocated violent methods and evaded arrest by keeping up with secret police activities. assassinated the tsar in 1881
• opposition under alexander iii

  • plekhanov established emancipation of labour in 1883 to smuggle marxist tracts
  • this had limited impact as smuggler was arrested, but was vital in application of marxism in russia
• economy - von reutern 1863-78

  • treasury reformed and budget publishing put in place
  • tax-farming abolished
  • import duties reduced from 1863 which promoted trade
  • safe investment encouraged by regulating joint-stock companies
  • average annual growth of 6%
  • taxation system left 66% of government revenue coming from indirect tax - kept peasantry poor
  • economy comparatively weak
• economy - vyshnegradsky 1887-92

  • import tariff of 30% of value of raw materials to boost iron industry
  • increased indirect taxes and swelled grain exports
  • 1881-91 - grain exports increased by 18%
  • by 1892, russia budget in surplus
  • great famine 1891-92 affected 17/39 of russian provinces, and >350,000 died of starvation or disease
• economy - witte 1892-1915

  • foreign investment increased from 215 to 280 million roubles between 1890-95
  • coal output increased from 183 to 671 million from 1890-1900
  • invested in metal trades, oil, and banking
  • russia became worlds 4th largest industrial economy by 1897
  • peasants' land bank increased peasant ownership of land between 1877-1905
• society + culture under alex ii

  • middle class emergence but large presence of nobility - 1/5 professors came from nobles
  • average life expectancy was 27 years for males and 29 for females
  • 1880s - 2/3 serfs in tambov region couldn't afford to feed household without going into debt
  • 70% of population subscribed to the church
  • 1868 - reforms introduced to improve education of priests
• society and culture under alex iii

  • >8500 muslims and >50,000 pagans converted to orthodoxy
• events from 1894-1904

  • 1901 - cossacks charged into a group of students in petrograd, killing 13 and arresting 1500
  • industrial strikes increased from 17,000 to 90,000 from 1894-1901
  • st petersburg factory workers assembly set up by father gapon in 1904 and had 8000 members
• 1905 revolution (nicholas ii)

  • bloody sunday 9th january - 150,000 workers peacefully marched to winter palace as a strike. cossacks killed around 200
  • mutiny on battleship potemkin 14th june - bad meat ration led to full scale mutiny. 7 officers killed + troops fired on steps where officer bodies laid, >2000 killed
• october manifesto 1905

  • granted civic freedom
  • establishment of a state duma
  • gave state duma power to approve laws
• fundamental laws 1906

  • tsar can veto legislation
  • could rule by decree in an emergency
  • could appoint and dismiss ministers
  • could dissolve dumas as he wished
  • could command land and sea forces
  • control military and household expenditure
  • control orthodox church
• political parties within dumas

  • SD's - mensheviks + bolsheviks in 1898
  • SR's in 1901
  • labour, kadets, octobrists
• first duma 1906

  • boycotted by bolsheviks, SR's, + extreme right-wing
  • composition was largely radical-liberal
• second duma 1907

  • more oppositional as bolsheviks and SR's participated
  • duma refused to ratify stolypin's agrarian reform so he dissolved it
• third duma november 1907

  • more submissive
  • agreed to 2200/2500 government proposals
• 1911 duma suspended twice
• fourth duma 1912

  • kokostov replaces stolypin and ignores duma
  • influence of the duma gone
• economy under nicholas (witte)

  • by 1905 russia had 59,616 km of railways where 66% were state owned
  • export drive increased by the link between black sea ports and grain-growing areas
  • trans-siberian railway connected east and west russia with distance of 7000 km - brought economic benefits but promised more than delivered
  • impressive industrial growth of 8.5% per year between 1908-1913
  • coal output quadrupled from 5.9 million tonnes between 1890-1910
• economy under stolypin - 1906 reform

  • peasants could buy state land
  • peasants granted equal rights in local administration
  • peasants given right to leave commune, collective family ownership of land abolished
  • peasants can withdraw from the commune
• economy under stolypin - 1910 reform

  • all communes with no redistribution of land is dissolved
• successes of stolypin reforms

  • land ownership increased from 20% to 50% between 1905-1915
  • grain production rose from 53 million to 90 million tonnes between 1900-1914
• weaknesses of stolypin reforms

  • by 1914 only 10% of land was transferred from communal to private ownership
  • in 1914, 90% of peasant holdings still in traditional strips
  • landowners and conservative peasants were reluctant to give up their land
• society and culture under nicholas ii

  • lena goldfields massacre 1912 - strikers in siberia converged at a mine to protest against inedible meat and were shot. 500 killed
  • ^ miners supported by bolsheviks
  • strip farming persistent on 90% of the land
  • in 1914, 60% illiteracy within the population
  • number of graduate teachers doubled reaching >20,000 between 1906-1914
  • number of doctors increased from 17,000 to 28,000 by 1914
• society and culture under nicholas ii pt. 2

  • december 1908 - first all-russian congress of women attended by 1035 delegates in st petersburg
  • by 1911, >6.5 million children between 8-11 receiving primary education, but only 1/3 girls
  • >1700 newspapers published weekly
  • relaxation of censorship controls from 1905 allowed experiments in modernism e.g. stravinsky's music
  • outbreak of cholera in st petersburg 1910 killed >100,000
  • in 1914 there were >1000 towns but only 200 had piped water + 38 had a sewage system