Why was the Tsarist regime able to survive the revolution of 1905?

01.11.02

First of all to understand how the Tsarist regime managed to survive the revolution of 1905 we need to take a closer look at what actually happened during 1905 and then possible to look at how the Tsar tackled these problems and therefore we can build up a picture of how they survived. There were many factors which led to the 1905 revolution, many of them long term causes and a couple which were short term but really blew things up in Russia and got the people very angry, causing them to revolt.

The social aspect of Russia was in turmoil what with the rapid industrialisation. This meant that people had no legal way of expressing their political views, the working class people were dis-contented and oppressed, working conditions were extremely poor in most areas and the jobs paid very little for the long hours of labour. The peasants, many of them part of the working class were desperate and poverty stricken. The peasants owned no land for themselves and poor harvests along with extortionate taxes applied by the Tsar to pay for the industrialisation meant that they were crippled. The middle class were also dis-contented at the time because of a lack of political involvement for the majority of this sector. All of this accumulated to the majority of Russian society being against the state, only the state-dependent industrialists and the army supported the state. This dis-content meant that during this period three, illegal political parties were established: Social democrats (who later split into two: Bolsheviks and Mensheviks), the liberals and the social revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks believed in a small, well organised party and thought that the bourgeois revolution and proletarian could be one stage. The Mensheviks however thought that the party should be large and continuously growing and the bourgeois stages should come before the proletarian revolution. The social revolutionaries thought that the peasants would bring about war and their main aim was to re-distribute land to the peasants. The liberals wanted to create a liberal democratic government to match Russia’s new society.

The Tsar believed that a victorious war would increase his popularity at home and so he provoked war with Japan. It began on Feb 8th when the Japanese attacked Port Arthur. The Russians expected a quick and easy victory but the Japanese smashed the pacific fleet at Port Arthur and a poor equipped and badly led army were heavily defeated in Mukden, an important Japanese town in March. In May the Baltic fleet tried to rescue the situation but was destroyed another battle meaning that the war was a failure and far from strengthening the position of the Tsar, it had weakened it tremendously. The people were outraged by the defeat as they had given up much for this war. The railway system was used to supply soldiers in the Far East. This meant poor transport running through the cities and so led to food shortages and increasing prices. As well as this it affected industry and as many factories lacked raw materials they had to either cut production or shut the factory entirely meaning huge job losses. After the defeat they demanded wage rises, formation of trade unions and that certain laws were to be abolished. These demands led to people joining together for their cause and on Oct 22nd 1905 thousands of industrial workers, people of all ages marched to the Tsars palace in St Petersburg. The march was led by a priest and union worker Father Gapon and the people were peacefully marching to and hand over a petition asking for improved working conditions and freedom of speech. The crowds were asked to leave on arrival to the palace but when they refused the guards took it upon themselves to fire and this resulted in hundreds of deaths and the wounding of many more. This shocking turn of events led to a massive upheaval amongst Russian people and a large number of proletarian strikes, peasant uprisings, taking over of lands, mutinies within sections of the army and navy and continued oppositions to the Tsars system meant that we have arrived at the revolution of 1905.

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Before all of this tragedy the peasants had had a great deal of respect for the Tsar but after the bloody Sunday incident feelings changed and the father like image he had once beheld was now shattered and although he was not at the St Petersburg Palace on bloody Sunday people still believed it to be him that had ordered the guards to fire at the innocent people. These events caused political activity to grow dramatically. Some parties like the Bolsheviks though were too small to have any effect and other like the Mensheviks believed that the bourgeois revolution had to occur first. In October the federation of the Zemstvo and the union of liberation resulted in the Kadets forming. They wanted a proper democratic constitution but still remaining the Tsar dynasty, although not all the parties were against the Tsar, in October the first right wing party was formed, the union of Russian people.

The country was paralysed and the Tsar had just two options. One was to declare a law whereby the army put down any opposition but this was not viable because the army were still out in the Far East fighting Japan and so the only thing he could do was to give into the demands of his people. He realised that he could solely undertake this task and so he appointed Sergei Witte as his new chief minister to help him sort all his problems with the state. First of all he realised that the army were well and truly defeated and he had to end the war to be able to concentrate on his domestic problems back in his own country. Witte was appointed to do this and he managed to ensure that Russia had to pay no reparations to Japan and they lost the minimum amount of land possible, they thought this would also please the people of Russia as even if they had lost the war humiliatingly at least the peace treaty was not the same and the ministers thought that this may hopefully improve the Tsar’s image, even if just slightly so. A major plus point from the end of the war was that the railway system was now not prioritised towards the army as nothing needed to be transported out of the country and so this meant that it was now freed up to carry food and supplies into the towns and cities that had so desperately been shortaged during the war. However despite these improvements there was still opposition from the peasants and the Tsar dealt with them the only way he could think of, using his returning troops to put down any demonstrations that aroused. There was an alliance in existence between the bourgeois and the working class revolutionaries and this is what led to the proposition of the October manifesto by Witte. This stated: that a parliament or duma elected by the people, civil rights e.g. freedom of speech and conscience and uncensored newspapers and the right to form political parties. The Duma would share power with the Tsar and therefore people would have more of a say. At first the Tsar was unwilling to sign but he realised that this was the only way to end the revolution and so this was signed and proposed to the people on 30th Oct 1905. This resulted in the liberals and middle classes believing that they had won democratic government and meant that they stopped their protests and began to support the government again and work with what they had achieved. I think though that they may have had clouded mis-judgment though when they accepted the terms as I think that the people knew the Tsar well enough to realise that he would work the manifesto to his benefit and retain full control of Russia. The Tsar was though very devious later on, after the manifesto was issued but the parties may have been a little bit naïve in believing he would carry out everything that he said he would do.

Not everyone though was satisfied with the October Manifest and they realised what little was being offered to them and so decided to carry on with their revolution. They were now though very much the weaker side what with the majority of Russia once again supporting the Tsar and so Nicholas found it much easier to suppress their oppositions and disturbances without any more damage to his name. It seemed that Nicholas was now very much back in power and so it meant that he again could begin to go back on the manifest. Nicholas replaced Witte with Stolypin and he used law and police against any agitators that may rise against the Tsar. This meant that striking workers had to end their protests and begin production again or they would face starvation. Stolypin was a powerful man and he even hired thugs in the countryside so that they could kill any peasants who were suspected of causing any trouble.

One group against the government were the Mensheviks who were led by Trotsky. As I mentioned previously in the essay the Mensheviks were originally part of the Social revolutionaries but they split into two after 1898. The Mensheviks were seen as the minority party but I feel that overall the party still generally had similar views, just variations on when they wanted them to happen. Trotsky was quoted in 195 as saying, “the liberals backed away from the revolution, exactly at the moment when it became clear that to shake Tsardom would not be enough, it must be overthrown.” I think that this is almost like a prologue, like a dress rehearsal for 1917 when, as we know the Tsar was overthrown. Trotsky believed that the liberals had been almost pushed over by the Tsar and that they gave in too easily to what he wanted. Trotsky wanted a constitutional monarchy where a democratic government was present, people had the right to vote and have an input into how their country was run. At that current time it was not possible because the Tsar was in full control once the liberals had backed down and accepted the October manifest. Trotsky played a leading role in the St Petersburg riots but was arrested after this, he being just one of many victims who were punished by Stolypin’s violent tactics against any agitators.

On April 27th the first Duma was sworn and this silenced any middle class critics that were forcing opposition against the Tsar. It was noticed by the opposition that the Tsar had taken his time in swearing in the first Duma as it gave him time to change the October manifest to how it suited him, these were named the fundamental and effectively reversed everything that the October manifest had stated. The Fundamental laws were able to come about because of the fact that Russian troops remained loyal to the Tsar and a full revolution can only take place when the countries army goes against the monarch. This was not the case for Nicholas and so once the troops came back from the Far East he was able to establish the fundamental laws. The people could not do anything to oppose them because of fear of arrest and/or death from the troops. The liberals still thought that it may be alright because the Duma did eventually come but the Tsar was very clever and he made sure that several things were in place to weaken the Duma considerably, including the fundamental laws which restricted him considerably. He managed this by creating an unfair voting system and having a state council which was made up of members that he himself had the right to choose and this council could veto any legislation. All of this meant that the only power the Duma had was reject or accept legislations. This was not even an outright power though as the Duma found when he apposed legislation the Tsar was able to dissolve the Duma. He in fact did this twice in one year and he also made reforms within the October manifesto which meant the Dumas were filled with his own aristocratic supporters. The fundamental laws were the way out for the Tsar and he managed to reverse everything which had been set out in the October manifest and once again the Tsar was in control of Russia. This meant that the Dumas position was very weak and he did not live up to promise, once again showing that the Tsar was not giving people what they wanted in Russia, and no constitution would happen while he was in control of the country.

Overall I think the Tsar managed to survive the 1905 very well but by un-necessarily giving false information to his people to get out of the difficult situation. I think that the Tsar knew when he accepted the October manifesto that he would be able to reverse many of the laws because of the control he still had over Russia. His powers had not really been affected by the revolution when the opposition accepted his offer. The fundamental laws were drawn up be his ministers to reverse everything agreed and so meant that the people of Russia were back to square one as far as their rights were concerned. The Duma, which they believed would stand up for their rights so much more was basically paralysed to do anything due to the Fundamental laws and so all he could do was accept or oppose legislations but these could be vetoed by the council, members of which, the Tsar even choose himself. When the Duma opposed legislation he was dissolved by the Tsar. This shows that he had no rights whatsoever in government and this presence, fighting for the people was practically pointless. I also believe that Stolypin was a big figure in why the Tsar survived. He used bully boy style tactics to put to an end any of the agitators that were still staging the strikes and protests against the Tsar. All the workers were made to begin employment again or face thugs going into the countryside to beat or kill them. I think that this may have stirred up yet more hatred towards the Tsar as they would have felt worthless and un-important to him. He did not care enough to give them any democratic rights and he had his men killing them if they demonstrated to show their dis-content. I believe that dis-content never fully went away with certain parties and social classes in Russia but they had to accept defeat as the main opposition were happy with the October Manifest. As we have seen they were however wrong to accept the manifesto as the Tsar managed to reverse the whole manifest via the fundamental laws because his troops remained loyal and would back should any opposition try to create another overthrow when the fundamental laws were issued. The troops and the autocracy, the most powerful people still believed in the Tsar and this was his most powerful asset. If he lost them he would quite easily be pushed off the throne. As I mentioned when analysing Trotsky’s quote I think that 1905 was a dress rehearsal for 1917 when a full blown revolution took place, the Tsar had to abdicate as even his troops went against. The Tsar led a very specific and well thought out regime and his ministers worked it well to ensure that he survived this set of event in 1905, relatively unscathed as once again he took full control of Russia and its government.

Elizabeth Power 12mco

History essay – how did Tsar survive the 1905 revolution

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