Lesson plan
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
The Revolution spreads
October Manifesto
The Dumas
Nicholas' advisers
World War I
Conclusion
Web Wiz
The October Manifesto
With the country paralysed and the threat of revolution growing, Nicholas turned to Sergei Witte for advice. Witte persuaded the Tsar that in order to prevent the outbreak of revolution, and possible civil war, he would have to give in to the demands of the Constitutional Democrats and agree to share power with elected representatives of the people. Nicholas reluctantly followed Witte's advice. On the 30th October 1905, the Tsar issued an Imperial Manifesto. Its main concession was a promise to introduce a parliament elected by the people. The elected parliament would be known as the Duma. The Duma's consent would be needed to pass new laws although the Tsar retained the power to pass laws without the Duma when it was not sitting. Not everybody would be able to vote for the representatives of the Duma, the Ownership of quite a lot of property was one of the qualifications needed to vote. However, the Liberals greeted the October Manifesto with enthusiasm, seeing it as the end of autocracy. In addition to creating parliament the Manifesto also introduced such civil liberties as freedom of speech and the right to join unions. The Tsar regains control Exercise 5.4: Document study
Exercise 5.5: Document study
List the ways in which the Tsar broke the promises he made in the October Manifesto in 1906.
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The October Manifesto promised:
Reactions to the Manifesto
The introduction of the Manifesto saved the Tsar by splitting the revolutionary groups. Together they had presented a formidable opposition to autocracy. The Constitutional Democrats accepted the terms of the Manifesto and began to prepare for the elections to the Duma to be held in 1906. The peasants were granted some relief from their tax burden and the army was used to crush any outbreaks of violence after October 1905. The workers gained nothing from the Manifesto and continued to strike against the government. The last gasp of the 1905 revolution was in December. A bloody battle between the army and workers in Moscow ended in bloodshed. The workers were now isolated from other revolutionary groups and the army remained loyal to the St Petersburg Soviet continued to make demands of the government with the support of many liberals. However, when the soviet called for another general strike the liberals refused to back this call. Encouraged by the split between the revolutionary groups the government sent the army in to break up the soviets and arrested their leaders. Leon Trotsky, chairman of the St Petersburg soviet, was sent into exile in Siberia. Lenin and Trotsky both denounced the Manifesto as a sham. In the coming months as years they were proved to be right.
Between 1906 and 1916 there were four elected Dumas. From the start there was conflict between the Duma and the Tsar. The first Duma was elected on a fairly wide franchise (the right to vote) and its members approached their tasks with high hopes. There were 450 elected deputies, mostly liberal Kadets, Social Revolutionaries and a few conservatives. There were no Bolsheviks or Menshevik deputies because Lenin and Trotsky had convinced them that the Duma was a sham, would achieve nothing and was only a way for the government to recover from a dangerous threat of revolution. Even before the first Duma met Nicholas broke his promise to introduce a Constitutional Monarchy. He declared in his Fundamental Laws published before the opening of the first Duma:
'To the Emperor of all Russians belongs the supreme autocratic power. Submission to his power is demanded by God himself'. This reaffirmation of the Tsar's belief in autocracy contradicted the October Manifesto in many important ways. The Fundamental Laws stated that:
Study the list of concessions made by the Tsar in the October Manifesto. Explain how each concession would have appealed to the following groups in Russia.
Using the information in this lesson answer the following question: