The Revolution of 1905

Going Deeper

The following links will help you widen your knowledge:

Basic accounts from BBC Bitesize on the causes and events

International School History - excellent

YouTube

1905 revolution - detailed narrative account

Causes of the 1905 revolution

The Dumas - narrative account

How did the Tsar survive the 1905 revolution - suggests two reasons

Myths & Reality - a very one-sided revisionist view of Nicholas II

Causes [CUPID]

1.  Coronation catastrophe

Tsar Nicholas’ coronation was held on 26 May 1896.  A celebration was planned on the Khodynka army training field, and people were promised a goody bag, including a spice-bread and a commemorative mug, both with Nicholas’ monogram on them … distributed from tables set up next to a ditch.  400,000 people gathered and, when a rumour went round that the gifts were being distributed, there was a surge … and a crush; 1,282 people died. 

Nicholas noted the “disgusting impression” left by the news on “this sad national holiday” … but still went ahead with the evening’s ball.  Although the victims’ families were compensated financially, he gained a reputation – which was to return again and again – of not caring about his people. 

The coronation of Nicholas, 1896.  It was a bad omen when the Cross of St Andrew fell from his cloak.

2.  Universal unrest: riots, strikes and terrorism

You have studied the background, and know that Russia was in violent ferment in 1904 … to the point where historians disagree about what was the starting date of the ‘1905’ revolution. 

The main sources of unrest were [SPIN]:

a.   Student anger

• In 1899, there were student demonstrations in protest at government repression and control over the curriculum; as a result, in 1901, 183 students of Kiev University were conscripted into the Army, and many others were expelled and exiled. 

• The assassinated government ministers – 1901: Bogolepov (Minister of Education) by Pyotr Karpovich; 1902 Sipyagin (Minister of the Interior) by Stepan Balmashov; Plehve (Director of Police) – were all killed by men who had taken part in the student protests of 1899-1903, and who had joined the SRCO. 

b.   Peasant anger

• In 1902-3 peasants in Ukraine and European Russia rebelled, drove out the landlords & burned their homes, and the army was needed to suppress the uprisings. 

• In July 1902 the Agrarian Socialist League, together with the Socialist Revolutionaries, held a Conference at which it resolved to promote peasant terrorism. 

• In 1902 the Socialist Revolutionary Party was founded; many peasants supported its policy of land-socialisation (ownership of all land by the community).  The SR’s key method was assassination of government officials, and it had a specific Combat Organisation (SRCO) for that very task. 

• 1903-5 became known as the 'Years of the Red Cockerel' as peasants drove out the nobles and burned down their houses. 

c.   Industrial workers anger

• In 1896-7 a successful textile workers strike in St Petersburg spread to other cities. 

• A financial crisis in 1899 and the economic recession which followed it created more unrest.  The government increased taxes to help industry.  At the same time the industrialists cut wages and increased hours.  In 1903 there were industrial strikes and riots in the iron mills of the Urals, the oil fields of Baku, and a general strike throughout Ukraine and south Russia, with a further huge strike in Baku in 1904. 

• In 1895-1904, 1,765 strikes involving 431,000 workers were officially recorded. 

• In 1904, a strike at the Putilov railway and armaments factory in St Petersburg caused a general strike in the city; by 21 January the city had no electricity. 

d.   Nationalist anger

Nicholas pursued a policy of ‘Russification’ – extending Russian control over the Empire. 

• In Feb 1899 Nicholas issued his Manifesto for Finland, declaring that Imperial Decrees overruled local laws; this led to a general refusal to pay taxes, and in 1904 a Finnish nationalist, Eugen Schauman, assassinated Nikolay Bobrikov, the Russan Governor. 

• In 1903, the government transferred Armenia’s national fund to Russian control, leading the Armenian Revolutionary Federation to organise demonstrations and terrorist attacks.  The young lawyer who defended the ARF leaders when they were put on trial in 1912 was Alexander Kerensky. 

3.  Political aspirations

The ‘Liberals’ included many members of the intelligentsia and bourgeois middle class:

• A Union of Zemstvo Constitutionalists had been set up by some progressive landlords in 1903; it asked the Tsar for “popular representation”. 

• A Union of Liberation was set up in 1904, which demanded a constitutional monarchy, democracy, and self-determination for the different nationalities (such as the Poles) that lived in the Russian Empire. 

• Through 1904, the Union of Liberation organised a series of banquets – a cover for protest meetings; it was this campaign which resulted in the Conference of Zemstva and the Tsar’s December 1904 Manifesto. 

4.  Inadequate reforms

Some of Nicholas’s actions seem downright repressive:

• In 1895, informed that the zemstva wanted a greater say in government, told them they were “senseless dreams”. 

• In 1899, tax-collectors were told to exercise "unceasing coercion"

• The Tsar increasingly used the military to suppress strikes and peasant protests

• The Tsar was suspected of condoning the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1903

• The Okhrana infiltrated political groups and set up Okhrana-run ‘Zubatov’ trade unions – sometimes this backfired: an Okhrana double-agent organised the Odessa strikes of 1903; another ordered the murder of Plehve in 1904; and the priest Father Georgy Gapon worked with the Okhrana to set up the Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers in St Petersburg. 

However, it was not so much that Nicholas refused reform:

• In 1896, to celebrate his coronation, he declared an amnesty for tax arrears, and halved land tax rates for a decade

• In 1897, a law imposed a maximum of 11½ hours’ work for day workers and 10 hours for night work

• In Feb 1903, an Imperial Manifesto abolished villages’ joint responsibility for non-payment of taxes

• In March 1903 an edict gave religious freedom throughout the empire, and promised village communities more say in local government

• In Sept 1904, to celebrate Alexei’s baptism, all arrears on redemption payments were forgiven, and corporal punishment of peasants was forbidden

• In December 1904, after a National Conference of Zemstva, Nicholas issued a Manifesto promising the zemstva more powers, insurance for industrial workers, civil rights for non-Russians, and the abolition of censorship; but he did NOT promise a national zemstvo. 

What annoyed people was that these reforms only came after riots & strikes, and did not go as far as people wanted. 

5.  Defeat by Japan

• In 1894-5 Japan defeated China, and occupied Manchuria, but Russia, Britain, France and Germany forced Japan to give it up. 

• In 1897 Russia occupied the Leaodong Peninsula, and built Port Arthur as a warm-water port for the Russian Pacific Fleet. 

• In 1900, Russia took advantage of the Boxer Rebellion in China and seized all of Manchuria; this angered Japan, but Russian diplomats treated the Japanese with contempt

• Japan won the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5 (why?):

  • In February 1904: Japan made a surprise torpedo attack which destroyed the Russian Pacific Fleet, and then declared war. 

  • The Japanese Army captured Port Arthur (5 January 1905) and destroyed the Russian Army at Mukden (March 1905)

  • Russian sent its Baltic Fleet to China, but it was destroyed by the Japanese Navy at Tsushima (May 1905)

  • The United States mediated a peace (Treaty of Portsmouth, Sept 1905); it was a humiliation for Russia.  Japan gained the island of Sakhalin and Port Arthur, plus control over Korea; Russia had to withdraw from Manchuria. 

Events

1.  Bloody Sunday

On Sunday 22 January Father Gapon led a huge Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers procession to the Tsar’s Winter Place to ask for a constitutional assembly.  It was peaceful, and many carried religious icons and images of the royal family.  As the crowd failed to disperse when ordered, troops opened fire.  The official police report recorded 75 killed, historians suggest perhaps 200, rumours at the time claimed 1,000. 

The whole country rose.  The Tsar’s uncle was assassinated.  There were nationalist demonstrations in Poland & Finland, and mass strikes in the towns.  Workers' Councils ('Soviets') were set up in St Petersburg (January), Moscow (May) and many other towwns.  There were more than 3,000 ‘Red Cockerel’ uprisings across the country.  The sailors on the battleship Potemkin mutinied (June), killed their officers, bombarded Odessa and fled to Roumania. 

2.  August Manifesto

In February, Nicholas promised reforms and asked for suggestions.  The trouble subsided.  60,000 peasant petitions poured in.  The Liberals formed the Union of Unions to co-ordinate their response.  In August, Nicholas promised to call a Duma, but it would have a restricted electorate and no powers. 

It was not enough.  There was another wave of protests.  A Railway strike paralysed the country and stopped the supply of food to the towns.  On 26 October, St Petersburg Soviet (worker’s committee) held its first formal meeting; by November it had 562 deputies. 

3.  October Manifesto

On 30 October 1905, therefore, the Tsar issued the October Manifesto, which promised “freedom based on the principles of real personal inviolability, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and union” and a Duma which would be elected by universal suffrage, have the power to veto laws, and “actual participation” in the government of the country. 

He also promised to abolish redemption payments (this happened in 1907). 

Outcomes [DROPS]

1.  Dumas

The 1905 revolution DID give Russia a kind of parliament, albeit a very weak one, with the right to criticise.  This was key to the Tsar's survival in 1905, because it removed the 'constitutionalists' – the zemstvo nobles, bourgeois and intelligentsia (e.g. the 'Octobrists' and the Kadets) from the revolution.

There were FOUR Dumas, 1905-17:

1. The first Duma (May 1905) was dominated by the Kadets.  They demanded the dismissal of the State Council, abolition of capital punishment, universal suffrage, amnesty of political prisoners, and the seizure of private land in the countryside.  Nicholas dismissed it in July 1905, and troops occupied the chamber and closed down the Duma. 

2. The second Duma (February 1907) was dominated by the Social Revolutionaries, and again demanded the nationalisation of land.  It was dismissed in June 1907, a number of delegates were arrested, and a new Electoral Law changed the voting system.   (Ths is sometimes called 'Stolypin's coup')

3. The third Duma (November 1907) was dominated by the Octobrists and the URP - it lasted its full term to 1912.  Until his assassination in 1911, Stolypin worked with the Duma (not always amicably – Bernard Pares commented that he was the only one of the Tsar’s ministers who could shout down the Duma) to introduce a number of limited reform, including army & navy reforms, the creation of Justices of the Peace, and improved health & accident insurance for workers.  In 1908 the government committed to universal education and had set up 50,000 new primary schools by 1914. 

4. The fourth Duma was also full of the Tsar's supporters, although many turned against him during the First World War – the Duma lasted until 1917, but the Tsar and his ministers simply ignored it. 

Explanation of political parties in Russia by Louise Bryant, an American journalist (1918)

2.  Repression: Crushing the revolution

TThe concessions FAILED to stop the violence.  Oct 1905-Oct 1906 a total of 3,611 government officials of all ranks were killed (17,000 by 1916).  However, the concessions had broken the revolutionary unity, so unrest could be countered on a piecemeal basis by a severe repression.  The St Petersburg Soviet was arrested en masse.  An armed uprising led by the Moscow Soviets in December 1905 was brutally crushed. 

This repression intensified under Tsar’s Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin: 1,400 people were executed in 1906; the noose became known as ‘Stolypin’s necktie’.  By the end of 1907 Poland, Finland and two thirds of Russia were under martial law. 

Stolypin also introduced laws which allowed peasants to consolidate their holdings and contract out of the mir (village community).  This created a small class of wealthier, ‘middle-class’ farmers (the ‘kulaks’) … and reduced the mirs’ ability to resist the government. 

3.  Overturning the constitutional changes

In February 1906, The Tsar upgraded his State Council (an advisory body) to a Second Chamber with the power of veto. 

Next, on 6 May 1906, just before the First Duma met, he issued the 'Fundamental Laws', giving the Tsar a veto of any decisions, the right to dissolve the Duma, and the right to make laws when it was not in session.  The Tsar kept full control of the administration, foreign policy and the army.  The Duma was forbidden to discuss financial matters … basically, the Tsar had reneged on his October Manifesto. 

There was no renewed revolution, however – the Tsar had survived with his powers more or less intact. 

4.  Political Parties were formed

Although it might seem that the 1905 Revolution had been defeated, even the weakened Duma gradually developed proper parliamentary procedures, and proper political parties, which took the leading role in February 1917. 

• A ‘Union of Russian People’ Party (URP) who wanted to return to autocracy; 

• The concessions proved acceptable to the conservative liberals, who formed the 'Union of October 17' party (the ‘Octobrists’);

• A Constitutionalist Democratic Party (the ‘Kadets’);

• Although the Social Democrats refused to take part in the elections for the First Duma, especially the 'Mensheviks' participated in the 3rd and 4th Dumas;

• Although the Social Revolutionaries boycotted every Duma apart from the Second, they DID return to support the Provisional Government in 1917.

5.  Soviets

The Soviets were suppressed in December 1905, but the idea did not go away.  The defeated Moscow Soviet announced: "We are ending our struggle….  All the people are looking at us — some with horror, others with deep sympathy.  Blood, violence and death will follow in our footsteps. But it does not matter.  The working class will win."

On Stolypin:

•  BBC Bitesize

•  Land Reform

•  Overview

•  Comment on his counter-insurgency