The Growth of Opposition to Tsarist Rule

THE EMERGENCE OF NEW IDEAS AND OPPOSITION

Both the hope & disappointment of A II’s reforms stimulated opposition to the tsarist regime – initial relaxation in censorship encouraged the spread of radical literature, while the relaxation of controls in higher edu. Increased # of ind. minded students.

The creation of the zemstva & dumas provide platform for intellectuals to challenge tsarist policies, while judicial reform produced profess. Trained lawyers skilled in art of persuasion & ready to question & challenge autocratic practices.

Repressive atmosphere from late A II’s reign translated to A III – reinforced demands for change – came from mildly behaved, intelligentsia to radicals & socialist groups.

MODERATE LIBERAL OPPOSITION

Since there were few literate and educated Russians, the size and influence of the Liberal intelligentsia grew with the reforms and economic changes of the late 19th Century

  • Liberal intellectuals had benefit of edu. Wealth, time & interest to reflect on political matters
    • Many had travelled and had seen the political & social stagnation in Russia

Some of the intelligentsia sought ‘the truth’ – ‘nihilism’/’anarchism’ but most were either Westernisers/Slavophiles (lovers of the west v those who favoured a superior Russian path)

The zemstva = natural home for Westernising liberal opposition voices as local decision making encouraged members to think nationally

  • Members hope was to reform autocracy so that Tsar would listen and rule w/subjects

HOWEVER

Although A II created zemstva – was not prepared to give national inf. – when St Petersburg zemstvo demanded a central regional body, Tsar stood firmly against.

  • At end of 70’s changed mind & if Loris-Melikov had taken effect they would have been increased representation
  • Restriction of zemstva powers by A III in 1889-90 disappointed liberals.

After peaking in 81- attractions of Slavophiles diminished in 90’s as country moved towards industrialisation – Western-style socialism started.

  • Split the intelligentsia; some attracted by Marxism & socialism while others maintained moderate liberal stance & continued to hope for reform of tsardom.

Exp. of 1891-92 increased conviction that tsarist system must change & provided confidence

MID 1890’s – renewed zemstva-led calls for a national body to advise the Gov.

RADICAL THINKERS

Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (12 July 1828 – 17 October 1889)

  • Russian revolutionary democrat, materialist philosopher, critic, and socialist
  • (Seen by some as a utopian socialist). He was the leader of the revolutionary democratic movement of the 1860s.
  • 1862, arrested & where he wrote his famous novel What Is to Be Done?
  • inspiration to many later Russian revolutionaries
  • They sought to emulate the novel’s hero Rakhmetov, who was wholly dedicated to the revolution, to the point of sleeping on a bed of nails and eating only raw steak in order to build strength for the Revolution.
  • founder of Narodism, Russian populism, and agitated for the revolutionary overthrow of the autocracy and the creation of a socialist society

1874 – Pyotr Lavrov & 2000 men & women from nobility & intelligentsia travelled to the countryside to persuade the peasants

  • Dressed = spoke like peasants & ≈ 1600 were arrested (deep rooted loyalty to Tsar)
  • class struggle = society’s forward movement
  • Advocated for the interests of the working people.
  • Used the phrase “the worse the better”, to indicate that the worse the social conditions became for the poor, the more inclined they would be to launch a revolution.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin May 1814 – 1 July 1876

  • Russian revolutionary anarchist, and founder of collectivist anarchism.
  • considered among the most influential figures of anarchism, and one of the principal founders of the social anarchist tradition
  • one of the most famous ideologues in Europe
  • Gained substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.
  • became involved in politics in his late teens and met Marx and Proudhon in Paris, 1844
  • Bakunin founded the newspaper Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.
  • In 1849, after years of revolutionary efforts throughout Europe, Bakunin was arrested
  • Sentenced to death in Saxony, sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
  • Extradited to Austria, sentenced to death again, and again his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, severe beatings and torture.
  • Exiled to Siberia
  • In June 1861 Bakunin escaped Siberia, and travelled through Japan and North America to London.
  • After imprisonment, Bakunin wrote the large majority of his political works, and further consolidated and refined his anarchistic theory.
  • The driving force throughout Bakunin’s life was towards emancipating the human spirit- to achieve equality and liberty for all people.

Sergey Gennadiyevich Nechayev (October 2, 1847 – November 21 or December 3, 1882)

  • Russian revolutionary associated with the Nihilist movement and known for his single-minded pursuit of revolution by any means necessary, including terrorism.
  • He was the author of the radical Catechism of a Revolutionary
  • won the confidence of revolutionary-in-exile Mikhail Bakunin
  • Was a man so feared by the Czar and the aristocratic, ruling classes, he became the Tsar’s special prisoner.
  • The Czar received weekly special reports on Nechayev’s prison activities.
  • He was convicted for the murder of a fellow student, but his real crimes were political.
  • He frightened the state because he claimed to head a secret society four million strong.
  • In truth, it was a small group, maybe a few hundred, mainly of St. Petersburg students.
  • The trial sentenced him to 20 years in Siberia.
  • He rejected the authority of the state to his dismal end and, for that, gained legendary status in Russia.
  • Nechayev was even said to have slept on bare wood and lived on black bread in imitation of Rakhmetov, the ascetic revolutionary in Chernyshevsky‘s novel

Nikolai Vasilyevich Tchaikovsky (7 January 1851 [O.S. 26 December 1850] – 30 April 1926) was a Russian revolutionary.

  • While studying in Petersburg, he joined a radical student group (the circle)
  • The Circle was founded in Petersburg during student unrest in 1868-1869 as a group opposed to the reckless violence of Sergey Nechayev
  • The initial purpose of which was to share books and knowledge that had been banned in the Russian Empire.
  • main tasks were to unite students of Petersburg and other cities, and conduct propaganda among workers and peasants with the purpose of fomenting a social revolution
  • Tchaikovsky was twice arrested working for the circle
  • The new party soon lost its educational character and became a revolutionary and terrorist association.
  • Tchaikovsky did not approve of this new tendency and joined a social-religious group, which received the name of “God-men” because its members tried to find in themselves a reflection of God.
  • In 1874 Tchaikovsky left Russia, and a year later he went to the United States with a small party of men and women who shared his political views and religious feelings
  • In 1918 Tchaikovsky was one of the founders of the “Union of the reconstruction of Russia,” an anti-Bolshevik organization of the left parties of Moscow

‘LAND AND LIBERTY’

  • Continued Populist trad. – members sought work in peasant communes in less obtrusive way
  • Some carried out assassinations of Third Section

1879 – L&L splits into two groups

BLACK REPARTITION

  • Organised by Plekhanov
  • Share black soil among peasants
  • Publishing radical materials in hope of stimulating social change
  • Weakened by arrest in 1880-81 – ceased to exist as separate org.
  • Leaders turned to Marxism

PEOPLE’S WILL

  • Planted a spy in Third Section to keep informed of police activity – evade arrest
  • Bigger group than BP & advocated violence/assassinated officials
  • Assassinated A II – 1881

TSARIST REACTION AND THE RADICAL OPPOSITION AFTER 1881

An II’s assassination = turning point, security stepped up and A III fled.

  • Ended the Populist movement
  • ‘Self-education’ circles continued underground & contact with radicals in exile & the West
  • Plekhanov est. ‘Emancipation of Labour’ 1883; smuggled Marxist texts into Russia – vital in est. Marxism in Russia