'THE TSARIST REGIME WAS SECURE BY 1905'

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FAHIM TALUKDER L6SD

‘THE TSARIST REGIME WAS SECURE BY 1905’

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By 1881 Russia was a very powerful country; the size of the country was equivalent to two and a half times the size of the USA. However, Russia was seen as a backward country in social, political and economic terms. The Tsar claimed all absolute authority, it was a criminal offence to oppose the tsar in 1881, and Russia was in autocratic rule. This just showed how little Russia had advanced politically. By 1905 the tsarist regime was secure in some cases but not in others.

Progressive tsars up to Alexander II took steps to modernise Russia, so that they could be on the same wavelength as the ‘western’ powers.  The modernisation f the country did not include the extension of political rights. State censorship was imposed on the press and on published books. This shows to some degree that the regime was not secured as people did oppose the regime otherwise censorship would not be needed. However by 1905, there was a massive change in industrialisation, the economy of Russia made a remarkable turn around.

With the duma (created in 1870), cabinet, the zenistra proved to be quite useful with 15,000 extra schools being introduced by 1880. In addition, the interest in local politics grew as forums and discussions within assemblies grew to be frequent occasions.

The Russian monarchy veered to the right after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881, and in the personal politics of the last two tsars, Alexander III and Nicholas II, that is where it stayed until 1917. After 1881 there was a discernible change of mood and ideology. Pobedonostsev was a fierce and perceptive critic of the West and its liberal ways, and he sought to create a workable, popular, conservative ideology of his own. Pobedonostsev put a lot of emphasis on 'Nationality' and a notion known as russification. This attempted to create a single 'Russian' nationality out of the multi-national Russian Empire (only 44% Great Russian in 1900). This was also the key policy of the tsarist government after 1881. It aimed to give the empire greater strength and coherence. However the overall impact of russification was mainly negative, but did manage to secure the regime by 1905 as it successfully handled the minorities.

Discrimination against non-Russians was now more open and vindictive-the Jews being the main victims. Jews were blamed for Russia's difficulty (scapegoats), just like they were later on during nazi Germany. At the critical stage when cohesion and unity were needed in Russia, the tsarist regime chose to treat half its population as inferiors and potential enemies. This proves to be extremely crass. This was a very important problem as the tsarist regime lost all its support and therefore unsettled the security of the tsarist regime as making more enemies could spark a revolution and could topple the tsarist regime.

Although Alexander II had made some progress in modernising Russia's economy, Britain and Germany were now forging ahead even more quickly. Russia was a difficult country to industrialise, due mainly to its size and the problem it had with serfdom. It is not surprising therefore that Russia did not launch a full-scale drive to industrialise until the 1890's. Ivan Vyshnegradsky attempted to drive Russia forward by increasing its exports and imports. This initially had the desired effect however it put a lot of pressure on the peasantry and in 1891-2 Russia suffered its worst famine of the nineteenth century, costing 1.5 - 2 million lives as well as brutally exposing the shortcomings of government policy. The catastrophe of the famine cost Vyshnegradsky his job and he was replaced by Sergei Witte in 1892. He was the catalyst in the ‘great spurt’ which offered a possibility that Russia might throw off its economic backwardness, and catch up the world powers.

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Witte was one of the few Russian ministers to appreciate the sheer magnitude of Russia's problems as it tried to modernise. Hence he entitled his most important policy statement: 'Save Russia by rapid and forceful industrialisation'. The tsar had no choice but to accept his plans and Witte began ruthlessly by collecting as much capital as he can. He then began building an efficient railway system that was essential if Russia wanted to increase its extraction of resources. Much of the foreign capital that Witte was successful in rising was directly invested in railways. This foreign capital was raised through ...

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