Backgrounds to the Russian Revolution of 1917 Sources: Julius Lecture: “Whither Russia? ” (1995) The Face of Russia (PBS) Russian History (Bucknell) Chronology of Russian History (Bucknell)
Table of Contents Geography is Destiny Victory over Napoleon (1812) Themes of Russian History 19 th Century Economic Structure Kievan Rus Whither Russia? Conversion to Christianity The Role of Writers Mongol Conquest (1247) The Fathers Rise of the Tsars The Sons Time of Troubles (1584 -1613) The Grandsons Peter the Great (1689 -1725) 1917 Chronology Catherine the Great (1762 -1792)
World Physical Map (pdf. )
Geography is Destiny: the impact of a harsh climate on social structures: Inefficient agriculture • Only 10. 8% of the land is arable. • Permafrost: only top 16” will thaw, creates a swamp • Pine Forest: acidic soil (Ukraine has most fertile lands) • Temperature extremes; little precipitation • Brief growing season • No mountains to block east/west prevailing winds • No fertilizer, no seeds, no modern equipment • Despite hard work of the peasants, the government must import food to feed its people.
Themes of Russian History • Autocratic political systems (Autocracy gives way to anarchy at regular intervals. ) Asian model in which the state controls the principle source of wealth (land) • Slavery: two stories: the gentry and the serfs are both enslaved in different ways • Cultural Schizophrenia: proud, patriotic connection to ‘Russian-ness’ simultaneous with a inferiority complex with the European West • Geography is destiny: Russia’s sprawl makes her subject to invasion. • Geography is destiny: linguistic, racial, religious and ethnic diversity creates powerful centripetal forces that constantly threaten imperial unity.
Kievan Russia
Kievan Era to 1237 AD Economic System: • in Ukraine on the Dneiper River on Byzantine trading routes • Trade with Vikings to West and with Constantinople to the South • Subsistence farming Ethnicities: • Slavic Language with overlay of Varingian (Viking) • Turkic peoples Culture • Pagan religious customs: animistic ala Greece, Germany, India
Kievan Era to 1237 Social Structure: Ruling class: • druzhina: small efficient cavalry warriors, like Knights of the Round Table. • Varangian Warriors had Viking ancestry. (Myth has it that the Russian Princes could not rule themselves, so the Varangians were invited to take over: first borrowing from the West) Political Structure: • Loose confederation: Prince of Kiev appoints sons to rule over local cities. • Long tradition of local rule; town councils served as check on power to local prince.
Conversion to Christianity • Orthodox Christianity selected by Prince Vladimir of Kiev between 980 and 1015 • Byzantine Architecture • Byzantine alphabet • Tradition of icon painting Ancient Jewish Culture • Jewish communities on eastern shores of Black Sea • Perhaps Eastern Europe’s Jews were descended from them and not from Israel.
Mongol Conquest (1247)
Impact of Mongol Rule (1247 -1462) • Mongol Invasion: important in the establishment of autocratic rule and the centralization of power in Moscow • No Renaissance in Russia • Mongol Khans authorize Russian Princes to rule lands for them. They are only interested in payment in tribute and soldiers. • The Tartars become the enforcers for Russian Princes. • Moscow Princes are helped by the Tartars to put down rival princes, and then they came to imitate the Mongol Khans in their absolute rule as Tsars. • The Byzantine Church becomes the propaganda arm of the state. • Frontier Mentality: Armed forces are needed to protect the frontiers from future invasions; this requires the militarization of the state.
Muscovite Rule (1462 -1584) • Mongol liberation/Slav consolidation: Moscow becomes the center of Russia • Ivan the Terrible: Livonian Wars against the Poles and Swedes for Baltic States Resistance to Autocracy: • Boyar Duma- highest ranking noble families form a ‘senate’, a deliberative body to advise the tsar • Zemsky Sobor- “from the land” an assembly of different classes from all the lands • Mestnicestvo- Tsar grants government jobs to most ancient and powerful families: the first nomenklatura. Nobles desire for power thus channeled and controlled • Votchina- Nobles in the Kievan System owned land on the basis of heredity. That system was replaced by a new feudal system in which a family owned land as long as it pleased the state
Time of Troubles (1584 -1613) • Ivan the Terrible dies. Having brained his son, Ivan leaves a dimwit Feodor to take throne. • Boris Gudonov, regent until Ivan’s third son Dimitri is murdered, and Boris is elected Tsar. Boyars and Poles ally in opposition to Boris. • 1605 - Boris Gudonov dies, and the Poles try to seize throne. • Social Anarchy: Peasants and Cossacks in revolt • 1612 -13 - National Revulsion at Violence. Michael Romanov, son of a high church leader, is named Tsar. His dynasty would rule in Russia until 1917. • Consequences: Russians will tolerate repression in return for order. (1917 -1921: A Second Time of Troubles)
Peter the Great (1689 -1725) Great Northern War: Peter captures the Baltic States and establishes St. Petersburg as the new capitol. To compete with the Western (European) Powers, Peter needs to tighten up the state, and make it more efficient. Reforms: • Table of Ranks- Noblemen must work for the state. (two story slavery: noblemen must work. ) • Administrative Colleges- Western style bureaucracies • Abolishes Patriarchate (Head of Orthodox Church) and makes Russian Church a branch of the government • St. Petersburg- Nearly overnight, Peter creates a Western European Capitol, built atop the graves of thousands of forced laborers.
E. Falconet. "The Bronze Horseman. " Bronze statue. 1782. St. Petersburg
The Enlightenment in Russia Catherine the Great (1762 -1792) • Models herself as an Enlightened Despot ala Voltaire’s model. She promises reform, but backs off when it comes to surrendering autocrat’s power. • Enlightenment science does not impact the economy. Russia would not begin its industrial revolution until the end of the nineteenth century. Successful Wars of Conquest: • Partition of Poland: land was not returned until after WWI • Ottoman Empire Wars: Russia expands to the Black Sea • Peasant rebellions as the Russians spread serfdom. (Pugachev Rebellion) Alexander I • Like Catherine, he too wanted reform and even had a councilor draw up a liberal constitution • Napoleon invades, and Alexander instead imposes the Arkacheevna: a new police state with intense repression.
Nineteenth Century Economic Structure • Inefficient agriculture • Only 10. 8% of the land is arable. • Permafrost: only top 16” will thaw, creates a swamp • Pine Forest: acidic soil (Ukraine has most fertile lands) • Temperature extremes; little precipitation • Brief growing season • No mountains to block east/west prevailing winds • No fertilizer, no seeds, no modern equipment • Despite hard work of the peasants, the government must import food to feed its people
Early Nineteenth Century Russia • Political Structure: Autocratic • Economic Structure: Backward • Social Structure: Regressive • Diplomatic Posture: Conservative and Imperialistic Nineteenth Century Tsar: • Head of a vast bureaucracy and a huge army • The Tsar’s power depends on his ability to control the nobility: • Catering to their desires with land grants and job promotions. • Secret Police to prevent any liberalization of the government’s structure
Early Nineteenth Century Russia Nobility: (dvorianstvo) 6% • All nobility are officially registered by the government in a specific rank. • Most nobility are not wealthy (fewer than 100 serfs) • Status is measured in rank (mobility through military service) • Cultural Isolation: Western Education makes the nobility less Russian. Middle Class: (merchants, doctors, lawyers, urban) 4% • Tiny size compared with burgeoning Middle Class in England France which broke the traditional power of the aristocracy.
Peasantry (90+% of the population) Kievan Era • peasants owned land: the mir: a collective unit Muscovite Era: the origin of serfdom • Tsar’s grant lands to favorite nobles • 14 th-15 th c. : peasants become tenant farmers • the Obrok- peasant pays for land with part of crop • the Barschina- labor tax: peasant owes work to landlord Romanov Era: the codification of serfdom • Ulozhenie of 1649: codification of serfdom • Peter the Great: poll tax indebted serfs and enabled the tsar to draft them into military service’ • Catharine the Great: geographic spread of serfdom. State serfs owned directly by the tsar.
Nineteenth Century Serfdom (90+% of the population) • Obschina: peasant village: the basic organization of peasants before, during, and after serfdom until Stalin • the kulak: Some families could hold and work more land indefinitely and thus profit. • Poor hygiene, illiteracy, alcoholism, intense religious belief • Survival: geared to harsh adversity of Russian climate and culture: “You don’t work; you don’t eat. ”
“Whither Russia? ” Political Reform in the Nineteenth Century: Nineteenth Century Tsars: • Nicholas I (1825 -55) repressive • Alexander II (1855 -1881) reformist • Alexander III (1881 -1894) repressive • Nicholas II (1894 -1917) reformist Conservative Forces: • Gentry Self Interest • Tsar’s Self Interest • Church’s Self Interest
“Whither Russia? ” Forces for Change: • Gentry Idealism: liberal writers who have been educated in West, have traveled in Europe, and who look at Russian society through Western eyes (1825: The Decembrist Revolt) • International Necessity: Russia begins losing wars because of poor technology: • Crimean War (1856) leads to freeing of serfs • Russo-Japanese War (1905)- leads to first constitutional monarchy • Birth of Middle Class • Peasant Misery: they want land. Past revolts had been anarchic. By the end of the century the peasants will be better organized.
“Whither Russia? ” The Role of Writers: State Censorship prevents any direct expression of dissent. Therefore, it is the writers of literature, not the gentry, the clerics or the politicians, who will tell a growing literate public what must be done. Writers in Russia occupy a special place in 19 th and 20 th century: the George Washingtons, Thomas Jeffersons, and Abraham Lincolns of Russian History are all writers. Two Main Streams of Ideological Debate: Westernizing: Make Russia like Western Europe: Liberal (gradual reform and constitutional democracy) Radical (revolutionary nihilism, socialism and marxism) Slavophile: Russia has a unique destiny, non-Western and noncapitalist.
The Role of Writers: Three Generations of 19 th c. Russian Writers used poetry, short stories and novels to debate the direction of Russia’s future. • Each generation became more and more radical in their ideas and methods. By the end of the century, terrorism and political violence became commonplace as the country spiraled towards revolution. Fathers (1830’s – 1855) (Pushkin, Gogol, Belinsky) • Aristocratic, idealistic, liberal and reformist Sons (1855 -1881) (Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy) • Heterogeneous, materialistic, radical, revolutionary Grandsons (1881 - 1917) (Chekhov, Lenin) • Ideologically diverse and politically practical
1812 June 24 Napoleon's invasion of Russia August 26 Battle of Borodino Sept 14 Napoleon enters Moscow October 19 Napoleon departs Moscow 1813 -1814 Alexander's pursuit of Napoleon to Paris 1815 -1825 Ascendancy of Arakcheev and the Secret Police 1819 University of St. Petersburg founded 1825 NICHOLAS I ROMANOV named Tsar 1825 Decembrist Uprising 1830 Alexander Pushkin completes Eugene Onegin 1832 Uvarov's three principles enunciated: autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality
Fathers: Alexander Pushkin • The father of Russian Literature • An innovator in Western Forms: the historical novel, short story, epic poems • The Captain’s Daughter (ala Walter Scott) • Eugene Onegin (Shakesperean Tragedy) • The Queen of Spades (realism/fantastic) • Inventor of Russian Prose Style • High Romantic Lifestyle • Marries the most beautiful woman in Russian Court • Tsar Nicholas: his personal censor • Shot dead in a duel
Fathers: Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Times (1840) Lermontov explores the Romantic hero, basing his novel on a Pushkin-like character: a pro-western Byron-esque hero set lose in a Russian landscape: • A highly educated, charismatic, ambitious, ruthless, social climbing hero ala Napoleon, • but in Russia these qualities change nothing. • In the end he just gets bored and chooses to reject life. • Purposely gets himself killed in a duel. • Last words: “Le fin de commedia”
Fathers: Nikolai Gogol picks up on the fantastic aspects of Pushkin’s fiction and spins utterly original visions of a decidedly irrational reality. Russia has contracted a spiritual disease from contact with Western capitalism. In his St. Petersburg the Devil lures bureaucrats mad for status and money into a spectral anteroom to hell. The Inspector General “The Nose”, “The Overcoat”, and other Ukrainian Puppet tales Dead Souls, part one Dead Souls, part two (Gogol starved himself to death in despair over failing to conceptualize a way for Russia to achieve her unique destiny. )
Fathers: Vissarion Belinsky The first in a great line of Russian writer/activists, Belinsky edited a literary magazine which introduced to the Russian reading public many of the greatest writers of the century: Gogol, Turgenev, and Doestoevsky to name a few. Belinsky was a child of the Enlightenment who, like Voltaire, believed that Russia could only overcome backwardness and achieve social justice by adopting Western liberalism: a constitutional government and free market capitalism. Belinsky insisted upon strict empiricism in his political philosophy. He believed that the Russian ruling class maintained its hold on power by confounding the masses with religious belief. Belinsky, Letter to Gogol (1847)
Fathers: Alexander Herzen (1812 -70) was a social thinker who became known as the "father of Russian socialism. " Under the influence of utopian socialists like Charles Fourier, Herzen envisioned a loose federation of selfgoverning communes. That ideal society would be a free association of individuals which provided for the full flowering of each individual. After the failed liberal revolutions of 1848, Herzen argued that socialism would actually come first to Russia because communal institutions such as the peasant commune (the mir) survived and bourgeois attitudes hadn't yet emerged. This sense of the advantages of Russian "backwardness" was influential among the Populists in the 1870 s. Herzen has been called a "gentry revolutionary. " The revolution he envisioned was for the people but would be led by the intelligentsia; however, he was not a Marxist: his socialism was a national destiny rather than a class one; also he promoted the value of individualism in collectivist form--in other words, the full flowering of the individual could best be realized in a socialist order. See Spartacus: http: //www. spartacus. schoolnet. co. uk/RUSherzen. htm
1847 Herzen leaves Russia forever; Belinsky's “Letter to Gogol” 1849 Dostoevsky sentenced to forced labor in Siberia 1852 Turgenev's Hunting Sketches 1853 -1856 Crimean War 1855 Death of Nicholas I 1855 -1881 ALEXANDER II ROMANOV
1861 Feb 19 Emancipation of the serfs 1862 Turgenev's Fathers and Sons 1863 Chernyshevsky's What Is To Be Done? 1866 Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is published 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace is published. 1870 April 22 Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) is born 1872 Russian translation of Marx's Capital 1873 Beginning of the movement To the People (V narod) 1878 Tolstoy's Anna Karenina 1879 People's Will Party and Black Partition established 1880 Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov 1881 March 1 Assassination of Alexander II
Sons: Ivan Turgenev A nobleman who lived most of his life in self imposed exile in the European West, Turgenev also endorsed liberalism. However, his literary art was of such high quality that he clearly foresaw the coming generation’s abandonment of liberal ideals for revolutionary nihilism in the wake of the failed revolutions of 1848. Hunting Sketches: A moving collection of sketches of peasants and owners that was so popular that it helped push the tsar to finally emancipate the serfs. Fathers and Sons: Central Character: Bazarov, the first in the line of revolutionary nihilists that would culminate in the real life figure of Lenin.
Sons: Fyodor Dostoevsky Discovered by Belinsky after writing a harrowing and realistic depiction of poverty, Dostoevsky broke with his mentor in his Gogol inspired psychological novel The Double. Dostoevsky was imprisoned for belonging to a reading club which professed Utopian Socialist beliefs. He spent 10 years imprisoned at hard labor in Siberia. When he returned to St. Petersburg in 1860, Dostoevsky embarked on a twenty year burst of creativity, writing completely modern novels which examine the irresolvable paradoxes of human nature and the impossibility of creating a utopian state. Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Possessed, The Idiot, and finally the great The Brothers Karamazov.
Sons: Count Lev Tolstoy pursued a grand vision of reconstructing Russian along unique lines which would pursue a class system based on merit and use Western science to modernize the nation’s agricultural system. Tolstoy is best know for the unmatched skill with which he brings complicated and fully rounded characters to life. When you read a novel like Anna Karenina, you encounter characters so artfully that they seem to exist in real time. This may be the ultimate liberal accomplishment. War and Peace Anna Karenina
1881 -1894 ALEXANDER III ROMANOV 1884 Reactionary regulations for universities 1891 Beginning of the Trans-Siberian railway 1891 -1893 Making of the Franco-Russian alliance 1892 -1903 Witte as minister of communications, finance and commerce 1894 -1917 NICHOLAS II ROMANOV 1896 production of Chekhov's The Seagull in St. Petersburg 1897 Jan 28 First all-Russian census counts 128, 907, 692 people 1898 Moscow Art Theater founded, Chekhov's Sea Gull 1 st Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party (Minsk)
The Grandsons: Anton Chekhov The son of a peasant, Chekhov used his writing ability to pay his way through medical school. Chekhov fought cholera epidemics among the peasants, like the Turgenev hero Bazarov, and he conducted a ground breaking study of the scandalous conditions in the Russian prison system. Chekhov’s short stories and plays are regarded by many as the greatest in their genres. He observes human nature with the rigor of a scientist and concludes that no plan exists which can satisfy our ideals of social justice. The problems of society and human nature are just too complex and ever changing. Many of his educated, passionate, and hopeful characters seem doomed to utterly superfluous lives. Despite his skepticism, Chekhov depicts humanity with enormous compassion and he celebrates the richness of our moments together: evanescent, fragile, beautiful. Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, and The Three Sisters.
1900 Boxer Rebellion; Russia occupies Manchuria 1901 Jan 31 Chekhov's Three Sisters opens at MKh. AT 1902 Gorky's Lower Depths opens at MKh. AT 1903 2 nd Party Congress (Brussels) Split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks 1904 -1905 Russo-Japanese War 1905 January 22 1905 REVOLUTION: General Strike Bloody Sunday October Manifesto October 17 Potemkin Mutiny 3 rd Party Congress Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) Program
1906 April 4 th Party Congress First Duma First Constitution (Fundamental Law) 1906 -1911 The Stolypin | Land Reforms 1907 Second Duma 5 th Party Congress Emergence of Triple Entente (France, Britain, Russia) against Triple Alliance (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy) Third Duma 1908 Trotsky becomes editor of Pravda in Vienna 1910 November 7 Igor Stravinsky's Firebird scandalizes Paris 1912 April 4 Fourth Duma Lena gold field massacre (from which Lenin took his pseudonym) 1913 Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring 1914 World War I begins
The Grandsons: Vladimir Illych Lenin The brother of a man executed for participating in the plot to assassinate Alexander III, Lenin is the epitome of the modern revolutionary. In a lifetime of political agitation and argument, Lenin formed the party which would successfully bring the first socialist government in European history into being The Bolshevik (minority) wing of the Marxist Social Revolutionary Party broke with the Mensheviks (Majority) over their interpretation of Marx’s “dialectical materialism. ” Marx had argued that built into capitalism were the inevitable seeds of its own downfall. A highly developed capitalist economy must eventually collapse and bring into being a revolutionary worker’s state. The Mensheviks believed that Russia would have to go through a stage of industrial capitalism before the revolution could take place. Lenin disagreed. He was not willing to wait.
The Grandsons: Lenin believed that a revolutionary vanguard, a small group of ruthless and utterly committed revolutionaries, could topple the Tsar and institute a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat. ’ These absolute rulers would then drive Russia quickly through the bourgeois stage of industrial development, consciously and quickly remaking the state into a socialist economy. The state would command all economic decisions: setting commodity prices, wages and production goals for all industries and business. The state would collectivize all agricultural enterprise, manage labor and divide production among the people. Lenin’s goal was to export revolution as well. In formulating an alternate model for modernization to capitalist imperialism, Lenin’s brand of Marxism became popular among countries throughout the 3 rd World during the 20 th century.
1917 Chronology 1916 Dec 16 Murder of Rasputin by Felix | Yusupov et al. 1917 REVOLUTIONS (February 23/March 8) February Duma convened Bread riots and strikes in Petrograd March Abdication of Nicholas II in favor of GP Mikhail transfers power to Provisional Government Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies Order No. 1 Kamenev and Stalin return from Siberia
April Finland Station: Lenin returns to Russia Lenin's April Theses May Miliukov's note to Allies Coalition Provisional Government June Election of Constituent Assembly set for September 30 July Russian offensive against Germans Uprising against Provisional Government Prince Lvov resigns; Kerensky becomes premier
August Kerensky becomes dictator Constituent Assembly election postponed to November 25 Sept 9 -14 Kornilov uprising November OCTOBER | REVOLUTION (October 25/November 7) Constituent Assembly elections begin December Armistice negotiations at Brest-Litovsk December 20 Establishment of Cheka Left SRs enter coalition with Bolsheviks
1918 -1924 VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN 1918 January Constituent Assembly is dissolved March 3 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (KOI 8) 7 th Party Congress British land at Murmansk April Japanese land at Vladivostok June Committees of the Village Poor established Nationalization of industry July Intervention | begins Lenin (RFSFR) Constitution ratified
July 17 Murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in Ekaterinburg August American troops land in Vladivostok September American troops land at Archangelsk November End of World War I Soviets repudiate Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (copy) French troops land at Odessa December British troops land at Batum
1919 Founding of the Comintern March Kolchak launches drive against Bolsheviks 8 th Party Congress April French withdraw from Odessa June 28 Height of Denikin advance Treaty of Versailles October Allies withdraw from Murmansk and Archangel
1920 January Kolchak shot by Bolsheviks Allied blockade lifted March 9 th Party Congress April Wrangel replaces Denikin November Wrangel evacuates Crimea Civil War ends in Russia
1921 NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP) BEGINS Kronstadt Uprising 10 th Party Congress: orders for Purge Treaty of Riga with Poland; establishment of Curzon Line 1922 Cheka replaced by OGPU Stalin becomes secretary general Treaty of Rapallo with Germany 11 th Party Congress Lenin's first stroke The USSR declared Dec. 23 Lenin begins his Testament
1923 12 th Party Congress January 4 Lenin finishes his Testament Lenin's second stroke 1924 Lenin's death (January 21) 13 th Party Congress USSR constitution ratified Petrograd renamed 'Leningrad' USSR recognized by Great Britain, France, Italy 1925 14 th Party Congress Trotsky removed as war commissar
1926 Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev ousted from Politburo 1927 15 th Party Congress: Trotsky, Zinoviev and followers expelled from Party; Stalin takes control Communist revolt in China crushed 1927 -1953 JOSIF VISSARIONOVICH STALIN 1928 First Five-Year Plan adopted
1929 Trotsky deported Nikolai Bukharin ousted from Politburo Collectivization and industrialization begins 1930 16 th Party Congress Stalin's "Dizzy with Success" speech 1932 -1933 Ukrainian | Famine
1932 Dissolution of Russian Association of Proletarian Writers January 27 Non-Agression Pact with Finland First mention of "socialist realism“ Soviet/French non-aggression pact 1933 -1937 Second Five-Year Plan 1934 Kirov assassinated; beginning of Stalinist purges
1935 Collective farm statute Campaign of Stakhanovism begins 1936 Stalin constitution promulgated Show trials of Zinoviev, Kamenev, et al. prosecuted by Vishinsky 1937 Trial of Radek, et al. Much of Soviet army command executed 1937 -41 Stalinshchina (Stalin Terror)
1938 Trial of Bukharin, et al. 1938 -1941 Third Five-Year Plan 1939 18 th Party Congress Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact signed. World War II: Germans invade Poland Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania Stalin named 'Man of the Year' by TIME Soviet attacks on Poland Finland
1940 End of war with Finland Baltic states are annexed Bessarabia are annexed Trotsky is murdered in Mexico 1941 GERMAN INVASION OF USSR (June 22) Stalin names himself head of government
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