How and why did the Tsarist regime survive the 1905 revolution?

Ben Jonathan Martin

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How and why did the Tsarist regime survive the 1905 revolution?

First of all to understand how the Tsarist regime survived in 1905 it is necessary to answer the question what happened in 1905. Then it is possible to see how the Tsar combated these problems. In the years before 1905 there was increasing social turmoil caused by rapid industrialisation: There was no legal way of expressing political views (no Parliament), there was a discontented and oppressed working class, and a desperate and poverty stricken peasantry. The middle classes were discontent because of the absence of a political voice for the vast population. The peasants were poor because they owned no land for themselves and of poor harvests and heavy taxing by the Tsar to pay for industrialisation. The working classes had to work in very poor working conditions, for very long hours and for very little pay. Therefore most sectors of Russian society were in opposition to the state. Only the gentry, the state-dependant industrialists and the army supported the regime.

It is not surprising, therefore, that three illegal, political parties stemmed from the situation. One such party was the Social Democrats (1895), which followed the teachings of Marx, believing in a proletarian revolution. In 1903 the Social Democrats split into the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks believing in a small well organised party that would act through direct action. The Bolsheviks believed that Russia was a special case in that the proletarian revolution could occur before the bourgeois (capitalist) revolution. On the other hand the Mensheviks believed in a large party that would continuously grow, and in the traditional Marxist view: that the proletarian revolution had to occur after the bourgeois revolution. Another party was the Social Revolutionaries, which believed that the peasants would bring about the revolution in Russia. Their main priority was the redistribution of land to the peasants. The last party opposing the Tsarist regime was the Liberals, whose main aim was to try to create a liberal democratic government, which could match Russia’s newly emerging society.

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The Tsar and his ministers believed that a victorious war would increase his popularity at home. So he provoked Japan and eventually the rivalry over the control of Manchuria and Korea had become so intense that a war was unavoidable. On February 8 the Japanese attacked Port Arthur, and the Russo-Japanese war had begun. A quick easy victory was expected. But the Japanese at Port Arthur smashed the Pacific Fleet, and a poorly equipped and badly led Russian army was heavily defeated in the important town of Mukden (March). In May the Baltic Fleet sailed to the rescue but was in turn destroyed at the battle of Tsushima. Far from strengthening the position of the Tsar’s government, the war had weakened it. The Russian people had given up a lot for this war. The railway system was used to keep the army supplied in the Far East. So in the cities the lack of transport led to food shortages and price rises. Factories had no access to raw materials, so they had to lay off workers or shut down completely. At first the people were willing to support the war effort, but when news of defeat arrived they became angry. They demanded higher wages, the formation of trade unions and the abolishment of certain laws. On January 22, 1905, the movement culminated in a march of thousands of industrial workers, men, women and children led by a priest and a union leader in the name of Father Gapon. They marched towards the Tsar's palace in St. Petersburg, carrying to peacefully present to him a petition that requested from him the improvement of living conditions, and more freedom of expression. When the crowds were asked to leave, they refused and the guards fired upon the peaceful protesters, resulting in the death of hundreds, and the wounding and trampling of thousands of people. These, in turn, sparked an endless number of proletarian strikes, peasant uprisings and seizures of land, mutinies in the army and the navy (for example the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin in June), as well as further opposition to the Tsar and the system he stood for; especially by the Union of Liberation and the national minorities.

The peasants had had a great deal of respect for the Tsar. The Tsar was the leader of their church and he was a father like figure for them. After the Bloody Sunday incident this image of him was shattered. Even though the Tsar was not present at the Winter Palace, the people believed he was and that he had given the order to fire upon them. Political activity increased dramatically: the Bolsheviks were too small to cause any serious trouble and the Mensheviks believed that this bourgeois revolution had to occur so did not try to interfere by attempting a socialist revolution. In April the Zemstvo council called for universal male suffrage and for an election of a constituent assembly. The Union of Unions was formed on May 8 under the chairmanship of Miliukov. On 22 July the union of peasants encouraged the seizure of land. The Bulygin Duma was announced on August 6, but the Tsar was not obliged to consult this. In October the federation of the Zemstvo council and the union of liberation resulted in the Kadets.

The Kadets wanted a proper democratic constitution but still maintaining the Tsarist Dynasty, a constitutional Monarchy, like Britain’s. All parties were not against the Tsar though; in October the first right wing party was formed: the union of Russian people. The country was paralysed and the Tsar was forced to make changes to survive. He either had to declare Marshall Law and use the army to put down any opposition. However the army was still in the Far East fighting Japan, so the Tsar had no choice to go along with the demands. He appointed Sergei Witte as his chief minister to help him make the best decisions for himself. The Tsar had realised that his armies had been defeated; he needed to end the war in order to concentrate on his domestic problems. Witte brilliantly negotiated the Treaty of Portsmouth in August 1905: Russia did not have to pay any reparations to Japan and very little land was lost to Japan. At home people would have been happier, thinking the defeat had not been so humiliating, since the peace treaty had not been that humiliating. This would have improved the Tsar’s image slightly. Also the railway network had been freed up so food and supplies were now reaching towns and cities in larger quantities. However, there still was opposition from the peasants and workers, so the Tsar used his returning troops to put down their demonstrations.

There was an alliance between the bourgeois and the working-class revolutionaries. Witte realised that this alliance needed to be broken and proposed the October Manifesto in which greater individual freedom, and a Duma, which would share power with the Tsar, was promised. At first the Tsar was unwilling to sign it, but he had no choice, and eventually signed it. For some like the Octobrists, the October Manifest was enough, and they were willing to work with it. Others like the Social Revolutionaries saw what little were being offered to peasants and workers. So they decided to continue the revolution. But now they were considerably weaker because they had been split up, so it was much easier, for the Tsar, to suppress their disturbances.

In April 1906 The Tsar replaced Witte with Stolypin, and he used police and law courts against agitators. The agitators were hung, or sent into exile in Siberia. Trotsky who had played a leading part in the St. Petersburg Soviet was arrested. Striking workers had to stop and start to work again or face starvation. Stolypin used hired thugs in the countryside, known as Black Hundreds, to kill suspected peasant troublemakers. On April 27 the first Duma opened. It would silence middle-class opposition. The voting system was unbalanced where 1 gentry vote was equal to 45 worker votes or 15 peasant votes. Also the Tsar had a state council whose members he chose. This state council could veto any legislation. So the only power the Duma had was rejecting or accepting legislation. When the Duma rejected the Tsars legislation, he dissolved the Duma. The Tsar did this twice in one year, and he made reforms to the October Manifesto meaning that the Dumas were filled with his own aristocratic supporters (union of Russian people). As a result of this The Tsar finally got the Duma he had wanted, a quiet one, one that would agree with him. The Tsars timely reforms along with his new Minister’s Zero tolerance policy toward revolutionaries, Stolypins use of Court marshals on civilians and the noose (which became known as the Stolypin neck tie) resulted in the revolutions end in 1906.

The Tsar had survived the revolution of 1905 thanks to Witte’s Timely reforms and Stolypin’s ‘Carrot and stick’ approach, He was harsh on revolutionaries using the Stolypin Neck tie and then later much easier on the people, giving them reforms. The Tsar survived thanks to the quick thinking of his ministers and the loyalty of his army.

How and why did the Tsarist regime survive the 1905 revolution?