Rule of Nicholas II 1894-1905

Autocracy
1. Corruption - Government officials claimed to be representative of the Tsar thus acted as if they had absolute power
2. No limitations of power through law
3. Citizens had no right to free speech or fair trial
4. Limited civil society
  1. No trade unions
  2. Religious persecution
5. Tsar's isolation
  1. Refused to to recognise Russia's problems, and his advisors were unwilling to contradict him so he had very little understanding of the poverty or corruption of Russia
Nationalism and Russification
1. Russification = aggressive promotion of Russian culture and forceful suppression of other national cultures
  1. Response to nationalism throughout the Empire which threatened the unity and control - Ukraine, Finland, Georgia and Poland
2. The imposition of Russia as the official government language and the justice system of the Baltic states
3. Promotion of Russian culture in schools
4. Suppression of other cultures
5. Establishing Russian-language universities such as Iur'ev University in Estonia
6. Consequences of Russification
  1. Counterproductive
    1. Backlash among groups who had been loyal to the Empire
  2. Increase in Nationalism in Poland and Baltic states became a powerful anti-government force which later would feed into the 1905 Revolution
  3. Anti-Polish, anti-Finnish and anti-Semitic feelings and violence
Orthodoxy
1. Konstantin Pobedonostsev advised Nicholas to promote Orthodoxy as an essential part of Russian identity
2. Number of Parish clergy increased 60% between 1894-1902
3. Tenfold increase in church schools
  1. Number of students they educated increased 15 times
4. Missionaries sent to Baltic, Protestant states
5. Number of conversions to Orthodoxy doubled from 1881-1902
  1. Decline in Orthodox Church attendance in urban areas
Religious Persecution
1. Christian Denominations
  1. Only Orthodox Churches allowed to proselytise
    1. Encourage conversion
  2. Catholic and Protestant churches closed and replaced with schools ran by the government
  3. Confiscation of Armenian Church property
2. Anti-Semitism
  1. Education
    1. Jews could make no more than 10% of universities within the Pale of Jewish Settlement and 3% in Russia's major cities, Moscow and St Petersburg
    2. Very limited educational opportunities
  2. Residency
    1. The May Laws 1882-1905
      1. Banned Jews from living in rural areas
    2. Moscow and Kiev held campaigns to expel Jews from cities
  3. Violence
    1. Pogroms increased dramtically
      1. In 1903-1904 there were 49 in Russia
  4. Emigration
    1. Large numbers left Russia due to the violent anti-Semitism
      1. To the US, Argentina, Peru
      2. Government viewed it as a good solution
Okhrana
1. 'All-powerful, all-knowing, all-capable'
2. Goal to infiltrate and arrest opposition in order to destroy threats to Tsarism
3. 2,500 agents in 1900
  1. Small but effective
4. Sergei Zubatov became head of Okrhana in 1896 - Police Socialism. This provided sick pay, took control of emerging unions and investigated complaints of abuse at work
  1. Experiment spread to other cities however he was sacked and the policy ended in 1903
5. Universities
  1. University statute of 1884: Banned societies and clubs on campus, encouragement of traditional subjects and banning of women
6. Surveillance
  1. By 1900...
    1. Records on 55,000 people
    2. Collections of 5,000 revolutionary publications
    3. 20,000 photographs of suspected radicals
Opposition
1. Social Democrats
  1. RSDLP formed 1898
  2. Marxism
    1. Argued capitalism exploited the proletariat
    2. Inspired by Karl Marx (1818-1883)
  3. Fundamental disagreement in strategy caused division
    1. Lenin and Bolsheviks believed thought the proletariat in Russia were weak and uneducated and therefore should have a vanguard party to lead a revolution on their behalf
    2. Mensheviks, Julius Martov and Fyodor Dan argued it should be a mass party which educated and organised the proletariat
2. Socialist Revolutionaries
  1. SRs formed in 1902
  2. Focus on land reform
  3. Importance of peasants in society
  4. Viktor Chernov was the leader who though the peasants and proletariat should overthrow the Tsar
  5. Revolutionary violence
    1. Assassinations of The Tsar's education minister (Bogolepov) and the Minister of the Interior (Vyacheslav von Phleve)
3. Reasons for Opposition Failure
  1. Divisions - Liberals/Socialists and Bolsheviks/Mensheviks
  2. Repression
    1. Lenin's Siberian exile
    2. Okhrana
  3. Illiteracy throughout Russian peasants made it hard to influence them

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Rule of Nicholas II 1894-1905

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