Web Wiz/History/Modern History/Preliminary Units of work/Decline of the Romanovs

Lesson plan

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3
Essay
Alexander II
Revolutionary
Groups
Revolutionary
Groups
Alexander III
Industrialisation

Week 4

Week 5

Web Wiz

Revolutionary Groups - continued

Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Herzen
The Government's Response
In the 1870s the revolutionary groups, despite their activities, had achieved remarkably little success. There is little to suggest that they would have gained significant support but this is just what did happen. Not because of their activities but because of the actions of the tsarist regime. As mentioned earlier the young revolutionaries involved in the 'To the People' movement were put on public trial in 1877. This proved to be a disaster for the government. The trials gave the revolutionaries exactly what they had lacked to this point - nation wide publicity. The trials lasted for months and the accused revolutionaries took the opportunity to make long impassioned speeches bitterly critical of the government which were well reported in the press. The idealism, integrity of the young students made a great impression on the public, the judges and the juries. Of 193 put on trial 153 were set free and the others were given light sentences. Worse was to follow.

The sentences were announced on January 24th 1878 and the following day a young revolutionary, Vera Zasulich shot and wounded the Governor of St Petersburg, General Trepov. Trepov had ordered the flogging of an imprisoned student who had refused to salute him. Zasulich was the daughter of an army officer and a member of the Populists. At her trial she said that she had acted out of a deep sense of moral outrage. She made a great impression of the public and the jury and despite the evidence was acquitted.

The verdict was a great shock to the government but the reaction of the people to the verdict came as a bigger shock. The verdict was greeted by tumultuous applause from the spectators. Large crowds waiting outside the court prevented the police from re arresting her and she was able to slip away to exile in Switzerland. The government realised that people who did not actively support the revolutionaries were at least more sympathetic to them than they were to the government. After 1878 the authorities announced that all cases of 'resistance to the authorities' would be held in special courts. There would be no more open trials for revolutionaries.

The Assassination of Alexander II and its effect on the Revolutionary Movement
There were eighteen attempts on Alexander II's life before his actual assassination in 1881. Despite opposition from non-violent Populists the "Peoples' Wlll continued their terrorist activities throughout the 1870s. In March 1881 they bombed the Tsar's carriage as he was returning home from a military parade. He was critically injured in the attack and died from his injuries some hours later. The assassination failed to topple the tsarist regime. Instead it had exactly the opposite effect. Most Russians were deeply shocked and outraged by the killing of their Tsar and the revolutionary movement was totally discredited as a result.

The Revolutionary movement after the assassination of Alexander II
There were three major reasons for discontent in Russian at the end of the 19thC:

The poverty of the peasants and workers
Autocracy and the lack of opportunity to participate in government
The policy of Russification which was fiercely resented by minority groups in Russia.

By the end of the nineteenth century the revolutionary movement in Russia entered a new phase. The movements of the nineteenth dissolved into three main groups:

The Liberals who wanted to share power with the Tsar in a constitutional monarchy
The Social Revolutionaries who wanted a form of peasant socialism
The Marxist who believed in a revolution based upon the ideas of Karl Marx.

Marxism in Russia
George Plekhanov, a former Populist, was the first exponent of Marxism in Russia. In 1883 he formed the Russian Marxist party and its first members were a small group of exiles living in Switzerland, including Vera Zasulich. These revolutionaries abandoned the Slavophil philosophies to follow the ideas of the Westerners.

Plekhanov criticised the notion that capitalism would not develop in Russia. He pointed out that capitalism already existed and that the numbers of urban workers were growing rapidly. He had no faith in the peasantry as a revolutionary force after the failures of the 1870s and argued that the urban proletariat was the only force that could transform Russia.

He rejected individual acts of terror as a means to achieve change. He believed that the workers, led by Marxist intellectuals, would eventually overthrow the Tsar and put and end to capitalism. A society based on the equal distribution of wealth and goods.

Marxist ideas spread slowly in Russia and existed only in small scattered groups. In 1898 these groups formed themselves into the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (or Social Democrats). This achieved a brief unity of Socialist opinion, though the party was to split, into two factions, in 1903.

Revolutionary Ideas
The ideas of political and social change in Europe in the nineteenth century were very closely linked with the concepts of liberalism, socialism and Marxism. These ideas influenced the Russian revolutionaries.

What is Liberalism?
Liberalism emphasised basic rights of the individual citizen that the state could not take away. These included the following:

Guaranteed rights to freedom of speech, the freedom to own property and freedom of religion
The right to participate in government through an elected parliament. (However, the right to vote and stand for parliament would be limited to men who owned property and had enough money).
Legal rights to defend themselves against government oppression
A constitution (set of rules) to guarantee these rights.

Liberals also believed in private ownership and a free economy with no government regulations. These ideas were held by the middle-classes. The economic theory of Liberalism is the basis of Capitalism.

What is Socialism?
Socialism - is an economic system where there would exist no privately owned property and the State should own and control:

All forms of wealth production that is, all land, mines, factories, and businesses
All transport, communications, power and welfare.

As you can see this is the opposite of Liberalism. Many socialists believed that changed would be achieved through elected parliaments.

What is Marxism?
Marxism is based upon the ideas of a German, socialist, philosopher, Karl Marx. He believed that:

Socialism could only be achieved by class conflict, or revolution, between the industrial working class and their employers.
The employers would exploit workers and when conditions became intolerable angry workers would overthrow their employers and create a socialist society where the means of production would be owned by the state and wealth would be shared equally among all members of society.

	Exercise 3.4: Written exercise Explain why the revolutionary groups of the 19th Century failed to bring about reform of the tsarist system. Guidelines: In your answer you should include the following: The aims and methods of each revolutionary group The people who made up these groups The people who supported them The methods used by the tsars to crush politcal opposition.
	Email your answers to your teacher or print your answers and send them by post.

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