Explain How Far Do You Agree That The Peasants Was The Cause Of The 1905 Revolution
How far do you agree that the condition of the peasants was the cause of the 1905 revolution?
By Samantha Whiting
Introduction
The Russian revolution was sparked of by a number of factors social, economical, political. I believe some of these factors were the root cause and some were contributors I believe they all contributed in their own ways and some contributed more than others and leading to a potential revolution in Russia. Russia had a weak economy, the primary sources of income for the country were mining, coal production, oil and farming.
There was increased food shortages in towns this meant an increase in price of food, there was also a decrease in wages this led to poverty and starvation within the proletariat and peasant classes. Russia was in a state of unrest, the desire for revolution was not prominent through all the classes however.
The peasants in the beginning where not so much interested in overthrowing the Tsar as they were in filling their stomachs and the working classes wanted better living and working conditions hardly a reason to overthrow the Tsar which leads to the question was the 1905 revolution really a revolution or a cry for help ? In this essay I will discuss the long-term, short term causes and trigger factors of the …show more content…
revolution and how far the peasants’ condition was a cause.
Condition of the peasants
First of all I am going to discuss the long term and short term causes’ for the revolution from the peasants prospective. I feel one of the major causes within the peasant class was the redemption payments, they were crippling for the peasants and many of them defaulted on them. This cause leads back to Alexander II and the end of serfdom.
So why was something that happened 60 years earlier such a big cause? Serfdom was a form a slavery in which Serfs were tied to land owned by a landlord, they could not do anything on that land without the landlords’ permission and were completely under the landlords’ control. During the emancipation of the Serfs’. The Serfs’ needed somewhere to live so they had to buy the land in installments from the landlord in order to live on it. These installments were known as redemption payments, the value of the land was over-valued by approximately 134% of the free market price, meaning it was extortionate. In 1861 the Ministry of the Interior reported 647 riots in rural areas.
During Alexander III reign there were several improvements for the peasants and there was significant gains for them. In 1883 the peasant’s land bank was opened this substantially increased the amount of land owned by peasants. The bank offered cheap credit to buy back land, however the fault was the danger of indebtedness. Between 1883 -1886 Alexander abolished the poll tax, further decreasing money that peasants paid out.
After several bad harvests, leading to defaults on redemption payments, shortages of food and therefore poverty and starvation followed by the mass slaughter of “Bloody Sunday”, peasant uprisings rose through the Kursk provenience to the Volga region and into most of the Black earth provinces, the peasants were united and suddenly were a big threat, the sheer velocity of them made them dangerous and they were angry and violent. The peasants pulled landlords and their families from their houses and raised the houses to the ground.
Nicholas was wise and followed Wittes’ advice and gave concessions to the peasants, he decreased redemption payments and then abolished them all together handing the land back to the peasants. The result? A decrease in peasant uprisings and attacks on landowners and a success for Nicholas, although it was against his will and more to save himself.
Condition of the proletariat.
I feel the condition of the proletariat was the reason for the so called 1905 “revolution” and here is why. The working class people had hard, solid reasons to revolt and protest, and they didn’t want to do it peacefully they wanted better conditions and they wanted them now. They had long working hours, poor living and working conditions and to top it all low pay. The best person to blame for their grievances? The Tsar! So like the peasants did their distaste for autocracy have deeper older roots? Let’s discuss.
During Alexander III’s reign there was a reduction in child labor and working hours in 1882, and also between 1882- 1900 there were laws passed that meant education was compulsory for young factory children which was very positive in the way of children but didn’t really benefit anyone else in addition to this factory inspectors were appointed to enforce the new laws and supervise the proletariats living and working conditions however due corruption it meant that all laws were not fully applied.
Despite the good will to improve the conditions for the rural people and proletariats the reform had its limitations the rapid increase in population increased the number of poor. Development of the Industrial sector in towns led to poor living conditions and house were built cheaply and quickly but were still too few to meet increasing demand, families often lived together in halls which were filthy and immoral.
Conditions only worsened going into Nicholas II’s reign and when people pleaded for help from him they were brutally slaughtered by the Cossacks in the event “Bloody Sunday” which will be discussed later. Soon the proletariats had, had enough. On the 19th of September printing workers went on strike, the strike spread like wildfire to the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, people took to the streets demanding change; the proletariat classes’ unity and strength quickly spread and people were up in arms about the pitiful conditions.
Things had become worse by the 7th of October, railway workers went on strike and soon Nicholas II had Russia’s first general strike on his hands.
In St. Petersburg the workers set up a Soviets’ in the Technical Institute with Trotsky as the Chairman. The committee dominated by the intelligentsia soon gained more power than the government, it began coordinating with Soviets in other cities for the first time the Tsarist regime was facing united and powerful opposition. The employers began to support this opposition and paid their workers half pay. By mid-October the unrest had spread to the heart of authority, when officials’ employed by the treasury and ministries went on strike along with the state
bank.
In response to this mass uprising Nicholas repressed the proletariats and dealt with them by a method known as divide and rule. He pulled in Witte to help him. On December 3rd most members of the St. Petersburg Soviets’ were arrested and several ringleaders including Trotsky sentenced for treason. Revolutionaries not arrested fled abroad into hiding.
Russification and its effect
The policy of Russification acted as a stimulus to the revolutionary movement that demanded independence. At the beginning of Alexander III’s reign there were around 5 million Jewish people confined to a region known as the pale. Their position was unsettling, and the group were subjected to repeated persecution and violence as a consequence of the resentment of their commercial and financial activities.
Hostility increased in 1870 when Jewish schools were closed and restrictions on civil rights of Jewish people was introduced. Anti-Semitism has become established within the government and society by 1887. The oppression by Alexander only further encouraged extreme opposition to the Tsarist regime. By the end of Alexander’s reign the country was in taters and unstable, although he had kept peace he had left a volatile nation for his son to inherit.
Nicholas exacerbated the situation he continued the policy of Russification and declared Russian the official first language, and discrimination against non-Russians became more open and vindictive. The political groups became increasingly frustrated the policy of Russification was ill-judged.
As a consequence there was an increased number of Jewish intake into socialist and revolutionary groups, which was the populists during the 1870’s and then by the 1890’s it was the Marxist groups the group that would eventually gather steam and over throw the Tsar altogether. The year of 1897 saw the formation of the general union of Jewish workers and by the end of 1897 the Jewish people had formed their own revolutionary group known as the “Bund”.
The policy of Russification didn’t cause the revolution however it did contribute and even emphasized the need for change in Russia and the end of the backward Tsarist regime. It was time for change.
Political and Revolutionary groups
These groups of both extremists and liberals didn’t start the revolution but their ideas of a better and fairer Russia gave the proletariats and other groups of people ideas to start a demand for change the impacts of the groups is significant in the 1917 revolution however in the 1905 revolution they only got involved when the supposed revolution was in full swing. However they did start the slow start to extreme opposition to the Tsarist regime
The most substantial example of the beginning of the extreme opposition to the Tsarist regime was the execution of Lenin’s brother in 1887 which subsequently led to the formation of the political radicalism and revolutionary Marxism. The authorities’ failure to respond to peoples suffering strengthened the support for these extremist revolutionary opposition groups.
The naivety to modernize Russia socially and politically for the benefit of the nation and people would inevitably led to Russia and the Tsarist regime into crisis.
The Bourgeoisie
The growth of trade and industry meant the Bourgeoisie became larger and more influential due to power. They were fed up with pompous aristocrats saying how the country was run and decreeing national policy. The Bourgeoisie had growing resentment to the Tsarist regime for a different reason they felt excluded from their share in the government, they detested the growing incompetence of the government and felt they should have their say in the running of the nation.
How he pacified them was easy the October manifesto, which gave out basic human rights such as freedom of press, the freedom to form political groups and introduced a Duma. This manifesto was the first signs of change in Russia. Again this as against his will (and soon he would go back on his word) under the influence of Witte, however it was successful in pacifying them, temporarily.
Bloody Sunday
On the 22nd of January 1905 150,000 people marched to the Winter Palace with a plea for Nicholas to help them, it was a peaceful deputation led by Father Gapon and they had no intention to overthrow the government or Nicholas. The petition requested for a better distribution of food, work and called for a constituent assembly. The Cossacks however evidently intimidated by the mass mob outside the Winter Palace opened fire killing between 700 to a 1000 people depending on whose account you believe, there is no record of any official order given to open fire and there is no accountable reason to open fire.
The aftermath was mass outrage and loss of faith in the Tsar, the people no matter what had always been taught that the Tsar was the “father of the nation”, placed there to protect the people by God , in a split second people lost faith they believed the “the father of the people” no longer loved them. The consequences were many. Father Gapon once a supporter of autocracy denounced Nicholas as a “traitor of the people”. Bloody Sunday was a trigger factor. Nicholas failed to realise the seriousness of the situation and this utimatly led to the 1905 revolution.
Conclusion
The following inevitably led to the 1905 revolution. I feel the major factor was the condition of the proletariats rather than the peasantry, as I stated when I discussed “Bloody Sunday” which was a mass slaughter of the proletariats, I feel the peasantry classes’ condition was a secondary cause. As I have stated the other classes played a minor role and the revolutionary groups’ contributed to the revolution. In conclusion I wish to add I don’t think the 1905 revolution was a complete revolution as Nicholas regained control, I do however believed it highlighted the weakness of Nicholas’s control over his nation and people and his negligent behaviour. I feel this series of large and serious uprisings scared Nicholas and irrevocably led to the downfall of the Tsarist regime and the murder of the Romanovs’. This event marked the decline of autocracy and planted the seeds for revolution.
Bibliography
Class notes
R.Sherman Russia 1815-1881
Longman From Tsardom to Communism
Terrance Emmons The Russian landed gentry and the peasant empancipation of 1861
D.Evans and J.Jenkins Years of Russia and the USSR, 1851-1991
Marc Ferro Nicholas II The last of the Tsars’
Douglas Smith Former People The last days of Russian aristocracy
By Samantha Whiting
Introduction
The Russian revolution was sparked of by a number of factors social, economical, political. I believe some of these factors were the root cause and some were contributors I believe they all contributed in their own ways and some contributed more than others and leading to a potential revolution in Russia. Russia had a weak economy, the primary sources of income for the country were mining, coal production, oil and farming.
There was increased food shortages in towns this meant an increase in price of food, there was also a decrease in wages this led to poverty and starvation within the proletariat and peasant classes. Russia was in a state of unrest, the desire for revolution was not prominent through all the classes however.
The peasants in the beginning where not so much interested in overthrowing the Tsar as they were in filling their stomachs and the working classes wanted better living and working conditions hardly a reason to overthrow the Tsar which leads to the question was the 1905 revolution really a revolution or a cry for help ? In this essay I will discuss the long-term, short term causes and trigger factors of the …show more content…
revolution and how far the peasants’ condition was a cause.
Condition of the peasants
First of all I am going to discuss the long term and short term causes’ for the revolution from the peasants prospective. I feel one of the major causes within the peasant class was the redemption payments, they were crippling for the peasants and many of them defaulted on them. This cause leads back to Alexander II and the end of serfdom.
So why was something that happened 60 years earlier such a big cause? Serfdom was a form a slavery in which Serfs were tied to land owned by a landlord, they could not do anything on that land without the landlords’ permission and were completely under the landlords’ control. During the emancipation of the Serfs’. The Serfs’ needed somewhere to live so they had to buy the land in installments from the landlord in order to live on it. These installments were known as redemption payments, the value of the land was over-valued by approximately 134% of the free market price, meaning it was extortionate. In 1861 the Ministry of the Interior reported 647 riots in rural areas.
During Alexander III reign there were several improvements for the peasants and there was significant gains for them. In 1883 the peasant’s land bank was opened this substantially increased the amount of land owned by peasants. The bank offered cheap credit to buy back land, however the fault was the danger of indebtedness. Between 1883 -1886 Alexander abolished the poll tax, further decreasing money that peasants paid out.
After several bad harvests, leading to defaults on redemption payments, shortages of food and therefore poverty and starvation followed by the mass slaughter of “Bloody Sunday”, peasant uprisings rose through the Kursk provenience to the Volga region and into most of the Black earth provinces, the peasants were united and suddenly were a big threat, the sheer velocity of them made them dangerous and they were angry and violent. The peasants pulled landlords and their families from their houses and raised the houses to the ground.
Nicholas was wise and followed Wittes’ advice and gave concessions to the peasants, he decreased redemption payments and then abolished them all together handing the land back to the peasants. The result? A decrease in peasant uprisings and attacks on landowners and a success for Nicholas, although it was against his will and more to save himself.
Condition of the proletariat.
I feel the condition of the proletariat was the reason for the so called 1905 “revolution” and here is why. The working class people had hard, solid reasons to revolt and protest, and they didn’t want to do it peacefully they wanted better conditions and they wanted them now. They had long working hours, poor living and working conditions and to top it all low pay. The best person to blame for their grievances? The Tsar! So like the peasants did their distaste for autocracy have deeper older roots? Let’s discuss.
During Alexander III’s reign there was a reduction in child labor and working hours in 1882, and also between 1882- 1900 there were laws passed that meant education was compulsory for young factory children which was very positive in the way of children but didn’t really benefit anyone else in addition to this factory inspectors were appointed to enforce the new laws and supervise the proletariats living and working conditions however due corruption it meant that all laws were not fully applied.
Despite the good will to improve the conditions for the rural people and proletariats the reform had its limitations the rapid increase in population increased the number of poor. Development of the Industrial sector in towns led to poor living conditions and house were built cheaply and quickly but were still too few to meet increasing demand, families often lived together in halls which were filthy and immoral.
Conditions only worsened going into Nicholas II’s reign and when people pleaded for help from him they were brutally slaughtered by the Cossacks in the event “Bloody Sunday” which will be discussed later. Soon the proletariats had, had enough. On the 19th of September printing workers went on strike, the strike spread like wildfire to the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, people took to the streets demanding change; the proletariat classes’ unity and strength quickly spread and people were up in arms about the pitiful conditions.
Things had become worse by the 7th of October, railway workers went on strike and soon Nicholas II had Russia’s first general strike on his hands.
In St. Petersburg the workers set up a Soviets’ in the Technical Institute with Trotsky as the Chairman. The committee dominated by the intelligentsia soon gained more power than the government, it began coordinating with Soviets in other cities for the first time the Tsarist regime was facing united and powerful opposition. The employers began to support this opposition and paid their workers half pay. By mid-October the unrest had spread to the heart of authority, when officials’ employed by the treasury and ministries went on strike along with the state
bank.
In response to this mass uprising Nicholas repressed the proletariats and dealt with them by a method known as divide and rule. He pulled in Witte to help him. On December 3rd most members of the St. Petersburg Soviets’ were arrested and several ringleaders including Trotsky sentenced for treason. Revolutionaries not arrested fled abroad into hiding.
Russification and its effect
The policy of Russification acted as a stimulus to the revolutionary movement that demanded independence. At the beginning of Alexander III’s reign there were around 5 million Jewish people confined to a region known as the pale. Their position was unsettling, and the group were subjected to repeated persecution and violence as a consequence of the resentment of their commercial and financial activities.
Hostility increased in 1870 when Jewish schools were closed and restrictions on civil rights of Jewish people was introduced. Anti-Semitism has become established within the government and society by 1887. The oppression by Alexander only further encouraged extreme opposition to the Tsarist regime. By the end of Alexander’s reign the country was in taters and unstable, although he had kept peace he had left a volatile nation for his son to inherit.
Nicholas exacerbated the situation he continued the policy of Russification and declared Russian the official first language, and discrimination against non-Russians became more open and vindictive. The political groups became increasingly frustrated the policy of Russification was ill-judged.
As a consequence there was an increased number of Jewish intake into socialist and revolutionary groups, which was the populists during the 1870’s and then by the 1890’s it was the Marxist groups the group that would eventually gather steam and over throw the Tsar altogether. The year of 1897 saw the formation of the general union of Jewish workers and by the end of 1897 the Jewish people had formed their own revolutionary group known as the “Bund”.
The policy of Russification didn’t cause the revolution however it did contribute and even emphasized the need for change in Russia and the end of the backward Tsarist regime. It was time for change.
Political and Revolutionary groups
These groups of both extremists and liberals didn’t start the revolution but their ideas of a better and fairer Russia gave the proletariats and other groups of people ideas to start a demand for change the impacts of the groups is significant in the 1917 revolution however in the 1905 revolution they only got involved when the supposed revolution was in full swing. However they did start the slow start to extreme opposition to the Tsarist regime
The most substantial example of the beginning of the extreme opposition to the Tsarist regime was the execution of Lenin’s brother in 1887 which subsequently led to the formation of the political radicalism and revolutionary Marxism. The authorities’ failure to respond to peoples suffering strengthened the support for these extremist revolutionary opposition groups.
The naivety to modernize Russia socially and politically for the benefit of the nation and people would inevitably led to Russia and the Tsarist regime into crisis.
The Bourgeoisie
The growth of trade and industry meant the Bourgeoisie became larger and more influential due to power. They were fed up with pompous aristocrats saying how the country was run and decreeing national policy. The Bourgeoisie had growing resentment to the Tsarist regime for a different reason they felt excluded from their share in the government, they detested the growing incompetence of the government and felt they should have their say in the running of the nation.
How he pacified them was easy the October manifesto, which gave out basic human rights such as freedom of press, the freedom to form political groups and introduced a Duma. This manifesto was the first signs of change in Russia. Again this as against his will (and soon he would go back on his word) under the influence of Witte, however it was successful in pacifying them, temporarily.
Bloody Sunday
On the 22nd of January 1905 150,000 people marched to the Winter Palace with a plea for Nicholas to help them, it was a peaceful deputation led by Father Gapon and they had no intention to overthrow the government or Nicholas. The petition requested for a better distribution of food, work and called for a constituent assembly. The Cossacks however evidently intimidated by the mass mob outside the Winter Palace opened fire killing between 700 to a 1000 people depending on whose account you believe, there is no record of any official order given to open fire and there is no accountable reason to open fire.
The aftermath was mass outrage and loss of faith in the Tsar, the people no matter what had always been taught that the Tsar was the “father of the nation”, placed there to protect the people by God , in a split second people lost faith they believed the “the father of the people” no longer loved them. The consequences were many. Father Gapon once a supporter of autocracy denounced Nicholas as a “traitor of the people”. Bloody Sunday was a trigger factor. Nicholas failed to realise the seriousness of the situation and this utimatly led to the 1905 revolution.
Conclusion
The following inevitably led to the 1905 revolution. I feel the major factor was the condition of the proletariats rather than the peasantry, as I stated when I discussed “Bloody Sunday” which was a mass slaughter of the proletariats, I feel the peasantry classes’ condition was a secondary cause. As I have stated the other classes played a minor role and the revolutionary groups’ contributed to the revolution. In conclusion I wish to add I don’t think the 1905 revolution was a complete revolution as Nicholas regained control, I do however believed it highlighted the weakness of Nicholas’s control over his nation and people and his negligent behaviour. I feel this series of large and serious uprisings scared Nicholas and irrevocably led to the downfall of the Tsarist regime and the murder of the Romanovs’. This event marked the decline of autocracy and planted the seeds for revolution.
Bibliography
Class notes
R.Sherman Russia 1815-1881
Longman From Tsardom to Communism
Terrance Emmons The Russian landed gentry and the peasant empancipation of 1861
D.Evans and J.Jenkins Years of Russia and the USSR, 1851-1991
Marc Ferro Nicholas II The last of the Tsars’
Douglas Smith Former People The last days of Russian aristocracy