Russian Revolution of 1905

The Russian Révolution of 1905 failed to be the decisive turn inserting the Russia tsarist of Nicolas II in the democracy. It began in January 1905, by the Red Sunday on January 22nd, 1905 and leads, ten months later, with the granting of a constitution: the Proclamation of October. This one could have involved great political changes which would have transformed the autocracy at the point to make it disappear.

The economic and social evolution of the country had made assemble the oppositions liberal, democratic, socialist and revolutionary to the mode tsarist. It was enough to a spark to start a revolution. It was the shooting of Red Sunday, or Bloody Sunday which put fire at the powders. If the mode succeeds in surviving this first attack, dissatisfaction grows and the opposition was radicalized. Events, increasingly brought closer, were as many alarms, like the mutiny aboard , warship Cuirassé Potemkine or shooting of the Escalier Richelieu with Odessa, immortalized in the the Battleship Potemkine , film of Eisenstein going back to 1925.
The opposition organized and started the general strike of October 1905 which succeeds in making yield the mode. A liberal constitution was granted. Tsarism was liberalized. In the two years which followed, the counter-attack of Nicolas II reduced to nothing all the hopes raised by this revolution of 1905.

Causes of the Revolution of 1905

Autocratic context

Last country of Europe to abolish the Serfdom (1861), Russia knew in the decade a 1860 liberal phase. The Tsar Alexandre II having become aware of the economic and social delay of his Empire proceeded to a whole series of reforms. He went even until creating local and provincial institutions, the zemtsva .
However, in the autocratic tradition, these reforms were only installations, not upheavals. All still remained under the cut of the sovereign and nothing was deputy. The power of the local assemblies remained limited (education, health and roadway system). The liberalization of the mode had however allowed the development of a nourished opposition of Nihilisme: populism, while nationalities, as the Poland benefitted from it to be agitated. Polish insurrection of 1863 - 1864, and the multiple attacks against Tsar made it change policy. Its assassination in 1881 definitively put in place a policy of repression and of reaction which was completed only in 1905, temporarily.

Alexandre III and his son Nicolas II tried to control the most narrowly possible country: return on all the liberal projections with for example the installation of a very powerful secret police, the Okhrana within the framework of the Provisional Payments. Published the August 14th 1881, the purpose of they were, according to the Tsar Alexandre III “ to extirpate the odious subversion which dishonors our Russian ground, to harden the faith and manners, and to raise our children in the good ” and “ to bring back the order and justice in the institutions granted to Russia by its benefactor ” (the Tsar). The provisional Payments made it possible to set up quasi a state of siege. The police force could carry out searchings and summary arrests, with imprisonments without judgment. This preventive prison could last from four to six months. In the event of absence of evidence or insufficient evidence, the authorities could imprison or off-set administratively any suspect for one duration from one to five years. For the crimes against the State, and their definition was sufficiently vast to include some as much as possible, one proceeded to lawsuits in martial court sitting at door-close, even for not-soldiers. The government had reminded the courses martial that they had obligation to apply paragraph 279 of the military Code of justice. It envisaged the capital punishment in the event of crimes against the State. The secret new font, Okhrana was charged to make apply these provisional Payments. They were made final by Nicolas II at the beginning of his reign. Therefore, of 1881 with 1904, Russia practically lived in a state of emergency or a quasi permanent state of siege.

In parallel, Russia knew a rapid economic advancement. The Industrial revolution Russian date of the years 1890. As with the the United Kingdom 150 years earlier, as in France 60 years earlier, as in Germany 30 years earlier, the industrial revolution involved the development of three new social classes: middle-class of businesses, then the middle-class and the working class.

Structural causes

Dissatisfaction did not cease growing because the Russian company changed, but that the political system did not seem to want évoluer.
The middle-classes, known as also Third Element in Russia, were increasingly numerous. The weight of the Russian administration was there for much: the development of the Zemstva and the bureaucracy increasingly heavier increased the number of civils servant who joined the middle-class. Liberal professions: lawyers, doctors or veterinary surgeons, very influenced by the liberal ideas, took an increasingly important place in the company. The middle-classes were however frustrated, because almost excluded from the capacity politique.
The industrialization and the development of capitalism had had also social consequences with the birth of the proletariat and the migration of the workmen towards the cities. The impoverishment of the peasants in the campaigns nourished the rural proletariat. These two social categories constituted an immense tank of dissatisfied and masses usable for great movements with protestation.
As of the first wave of industrialization (1870), Russia knows strike movements being expressed mainly by the destruction of the machines on the work places. It is however necessary to await second thorough industrialization (1875) so that these spontaneous strikes reach some ampleur.
The autocracy remained intransigent vis-a-vis an opposition it also increasingly intransigent. The Union of release, very influential in the middle-classes, had organized the Campagne of the Banquets as from December 1904. One sees well here the influence of France and his political ideas on Russia of the beginning of the 20th century. The socialist revolutionists were very present in the campaigns where the country revolts multiplied: between 200 and 300 in the five years preceding 1900. The socialist democrats of the POSDR of Lénine were very established in the working mediums where they diffused the literature of propaganda marxiste.
The government tried to thwart the actions of propaganda of the POSDR by the usual methods of repression, but also while trying to channel dissatisfactions. The Okhrana, secret police of the Tsar, played a very important part in the installation of a legal organized labor. It failed Moscow, but succeeds with Saint-Pétersbourg. There, the agent of Okhrana, the priest Gapon E, set up eleven working sections gathering several thousands of workmen.

Causes of the economic situation

The dissatisfied ones multiplied the actions: attacks for the revolutionary Socialists, who succeeded in assassinating the Minister of Interior Department of Nicolas II Plehve or demonstrations in the streets of Saint-Pétersbourg after the closing of the universities. These daily demonstrations were repressed hard by the police force and the cosaques.
The economic crisis had hard struck the population between 1901 and 1903. In a world context of crisis, the industrial bankruptcies had been done increasingly many, just like the famines in the campaigns because of bad harvests. Between 1900 and 1904, one counted 670 country revolts. Moreover, the workmen, with unemployment downtown, did not have even any more the hope to also find refuge in the countryside, struck it by the crise.
The defeat in the war vis-a-vis Japan had carried a blow to the prestige of the government and the Tsar. Nicolas II had hoped to divert the attention of the public opinion of the interior problems thanks to an easy war against those which it called the macaques “ ”. The population had initially was completely indifferent to this remote war, before being completely opposite there when the liftings of troops were made increasingly many, that the taxes to finance the conflict increased and that the news of successive defeats arrived. The Tsar had not known to reconcile the middle-classes. He had refused the applications which he regarded as “ inadmissible ” of the Parliament of Zemstva of November 1904. They related to fundamental freedoms, the equal rights for all and total freedom of thought.

The strikes multiplied in the great industrial centers: Bakou, Moscow and Saint-Pétersbourg. They led in this city to the massacre of the red Sunday (9 Old Style/January 22nd Nouveau Style 1905). All had started with the factories Poutilov (12 000 workmen), the greatest industrial center of the capital, in December 1904. The workmen had requested from the direction a certain number of moderate reforms. The influence of Gapone was very strongly felt with this use of the legal channel, to which the government was favorable. But the direction refused to accept the requests and laid off the leaders. January 21st took place a demonstration for their rehabilitation. Gapone was with the head of the procession which gathered to it quasi totality of the workmen of Saint-Pétersbourg: 220 000 people. One had then the idea to go to carry to the Tsar a petition to teach him misery from his people. The Revolutionary Socialists intervened in the drafting of the petition. The text was respectful for the Tsar, but called into question the autocracy. He asked for all freedoms, the rights of syndicate and strike, a land reform and especially an assembly elected by the vote universel.
January 22nd, a procession behind the Gapone priest, from the icons and the portraits of the Tsar was respectfully to go to carry this petition to the Palais of winter where it was supposed that Nicolas II resided. But the Tsar had left while leaving all the capacities to the police force. The troop shot at crowd on the Nevski Prospect. The figures of the victims differ: from 130 with more 1 000 died and of a few hundreds to several thousands of casualties. The troop drew with the palate from winter, but a little everywhere in the capital too. The Russian population lost confidence in its Tsar definitively.

The development of agitation

It was the consequence of the massacres of January.

Assertion of the opposition

Saint-Pétersbourg had already been the place, in 1896 - 1897, of a general strike and first autonomous test of organization of the workers. To resist police repression and unemployment, of the illegal strike committees developed, true centers of rallying of the workers in fight for the direction of the strikes and financial aid with the grévistes.
In 1905, it a first blaze of strikes in January and especially February ago. The Socialistes Revolutionists took again the attacks, and assassinated the large duke Serge. The Liberals organized themselves. Various professional Unions (doctors, lawyers, engineers…) gathered in May in Union of the Unions, under the presidency of Pavel Milioukov. Their objective was to obtain a mode of constitutional monarchy with two rooms, fundamental freedoms and an increase in the batch of ground of the peasants. There the political claims of the owners joined the political claims of the workmen. But the latter had also economic claims. It a second large wave of strikes in May and June 1905 ago, this time under the direction of POSDR. It is of this period that one generally dates the birth from the first working Soviet, even if some, like Voline, say that the first Soviet dated from the shortly after the Red Sunday. This historiographic question returns to ideological problems of interpretation of the events. Agitation grew in the campaigns: occupation of the great fields by the peasants, multiplication of the spontaneous revolts that the Socialist-Revolutionists tried to politicize. In June 1905 was created the country Union side-Russian who affirmed that the ground was to be regarded as the collective ownership of the entire people. The army and the navy were they also weary and dissatisfied. It was at this time that was the episode of the Mutinerie of the battleship Potemkine. This mutiny was not politicized. It began on social problems: relations of classes badly managed between officers and sailors, and on problems of living conditions on board: housing and damaged food. To that came to be added the naval defeat vis-a-vis the Japanese. The ship entered the port of Odessa while raising the red flag. However, the sailors refused to join to the workmen strikers. The lassitude of the army is also read in its refusal to intervene against the sailors of Potemkine.

Attitude of the government

The attitude was rather ambiguous and undecided. Two tendencies clashed indeed within the government: those favorable to repression, gathered around the governor of Saint-Pétersbourg, the Trepov general; and those favorable to the negotiation, around the Count Serge Witte. In December 1904, an imperial proclamation had announced the liberalization of the mode, but it had remained without continuation. The strikes of February had involved a hard repression of the troop under the orders of Trepov. In March, the Minister of Interior Department Boulyguine had announced the probable convocation of a Consultative Assembly, the religious tolerance and the abrogation of the laws of Russianization, while Trepov obtained the prohibition of a meeting of workmen who were to discuss their economic problems and the arrest of the leaders. In August, an imperial proclamation announced the convocation of a advisory Douma elected by the restricted and indirect vote. This advertisement came too late. All the opposition, of the liberals to the extremists wanted a Duma deliberative elected with the Vote for all. That involved a strong repression. The troop intervened everywhere. The famous shooting in the Richelieu Staircase with Odessa date of this moment.
The reaction of the opposition was equivalent to governmental repression.

The general strike of October

The strike: 20 October 30th, 1905

It was the apogee of the movement. This strike is regarded as largest, best followed and the most effective of all the strikes of the histoire.
It was led by the POSDR and the Soviet of the workmen of Saint-Pétersbourg. It began in the universities. The government had granted the right of meeting to the students in September 1905. The universities proclaimed their autonomy then and organized meetings where all the social classes were invited, where all the social classes crossed and confronted their claims. The middle-class men asked for constitutional and political freedoms; the workmen had social claims: 8 hours days and pay rise. The peasants continued to occupy the great fields. Nationalities in Poland, in Finland, in the the Caucasus and the Baltic areas were agitated and required of them autonomie.
Trepov believed that it could crush the movement thanks to the fresh and faithful troops ghost of the Eastern face. October 20th, it made stop the leaders of the Union of the railwaymen and utilized the cossacks in the capital. That involved the general strike which paralyzed all the country gradually. The army was then unable of agir.
The population claimed a constitution, a Douma and freedoms. In Saint-Pétersbourg, the Revolutionary Socialists, the Bolsheviks and the Mencheviks were linked within the working Soviet which published the Izvestia .

The Proclamation of October 30th

In front of the failure of Trepov, one turned to the solutions suggested by Serge Witte. It had one then will have important: it had just signed in the United States a peace not too ashamed with Japan. The tsar created for him the position of president of the Council of Ministers. He made sign with the Tsar Proclamation of the 17 (Julien calendar)/30 (Gregorian calendar) October 1905. It was believed that it was the end of the autocracy and the first step of Russia towards monarchy constitutionnelle.
The Proclamation granted a certain number of freedoms immediately: conscience, word, meeting, association. A homogeneous Ministry was made up under the direction of Witte appointed Prime Minister. The government announced that it would not be involved in the future elections for the legislative Duma elected by the vote for all. The Provisional Payments were abrogés.
There remained however ambiguities: the Duma would it have a constitutional role and the ministers they would be responsible, and in front of whom?

Division of the opposition

With the advertisement of proclamation, the population let burst its joy, pavoisa the streets and sang the Marseillaise , new proof of the importance of the French model in the Russian political life of then. But, so for the liberals the victory was complete, for the Socialists and the workmen, the Proclamation was only one first step.

The pressure of the workmen was accentuated. The working Soviets multiplied. There were even Soviets of soldiers among the troops returning of the face. There were insurrections of sailors: with Cronstadt (not to be confused with the insurrection of 1921) and with Sébastopol in November. On the initiative of the Socialist Revolutionists, Soviet S of peasants constituted themselves. Rural revolts always took place: 219 risings in October, 796 in November and 575 in December. The country Union side-Russian claimed the nationalization of the ground, therefore the suppression of the private property of the sol.
However, the majority of the peasants was favorable to Proclamation and made confidence with the Douma; more especially as the first measurements of Witte were favorable to the peasants . The liberals created the democratic constitutional Parti or KD, directed by Milioukov and Malakov. The moderate ones among the Revolutionary Socialists created in January 1906 the social Party of the people which played the game of the democracy and the Duma.

The government then exploited divisions of the opposition: in 1906, it decreased by half the sums still which had by the peasants for the repurchase of the grounds dating from the abolition of serfdom in 1861; in 1907, this debt was completely unobtrusive; the tenant farming was decreased, and the wages of the farm laborers augmentés.
The conservatives organized themselves in the Union of the Russian People, directed by Dimitri Chipov and Alexandre Goutchkov. The extreme line created Centuries Noires, more or less supported by the government, to fight against the liberals, the intellectuals, the Socialists and Juifs.
At the end of the month of November 1905, it did not remain any more like opposition but the labor movement and the country Union side-Russian. Witte made stop the leaders of the country Union the November 27th and the members of the working Soviet of Saint-Pétersbourg of which Trotski the December 16th. The Soviet of Saint-Pétersbourg called with the Revolution. The Soviet of Moscow took over. Many troops were conveyed by train with Moscow. Of December 22nd, 1905 at the first January 1906 of the combat which made more than one thousand of deaths the workmen of Moscow opposed to the police force and the army. There were still some sporadic agitations in 1906: country strikes, revolts or mutinies in the army or the navy, but the government succeeds in maintaining the order.

Nicolas II had granted a constitution guaranteeing fundamental freedoms and a elected Douma. Apparently, Russia took the way of the democracy and freedom. But, the first Duma, dominated by the KD was impotent. The Tsar refused to name a government corresponding in the majority with the room. This one refused all the governmental measures and the government refused all the proposed measures by the Duma. It was dissolved twice successively, until the election of a majority flexible and favorable to the Tsar. It had been necessary for that to carry out modifications of the electoral methods. The Duma known as " of Seigneurs" was then flexible and one returned to an operation of the autocratic type.

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