Britain: wanted Russia trapped in Black Sea, needed to protect trade routes (Suez Canal), wanted to preserve balance of power.
Russia: didn't want Dardanelles under the control of any other great power, 'natural heir' to Balkans.
Austria: had nationalist issues, didn't want Balkan independence.
France: wanted to gain influence and trade in Egypt.
Crimean War (1853-56)
Nicholas I 'protectorate' of 12 million Orthodox subjects, negotiations failed. Russia provoked war by occupying Moldovia and Wallachia. Russia was winning the war until Britain and France joined in 1854. Russia had home court advantage, shorter supply lines and larger army, but they were poorly equipped, trained and led.
Fall of Sevastopol 1855, Austria ultimatum.
Russia surrenders 1856.
Need for Reforms
Social: fear of widespread peasant revolt, immobile population impaired attempts to industrialise, general level of illiteracy.
Political: Crimean War had exposed weak administration and caused economic strain, serfdom was no longer economically advantageous.
Military: poorly equipped, poorly supplied, poorly trained, took up 45% of peacetime budget (too big!), threat of unhappy armed peasants.
1. Peasants must feel that their lives have improved.
2. Aristocracy and Nobility must be reassured of their interests.
3. Government must still have complete control.
Alexander II's Reforms
Emancipation Act (1861-63): Peasants given civil rights, allowed to own property, allowed to marry, allowed to start business. Tied to mir (collected taxes), collective ownership. 49 years of redemption payments.
Zemstva: a form of local government, elected representatives who make local changes like education and health.
Military: universal conscription, literacy, 25 years -> 6 years.
Censorship: pre-publication stopped, post-publication still.
Universities: more freedom over curriculum
Judicial: open trials, jury (but special courts for military and peasants)
Public Budget
Socialist Parties
Populism (1870s) peasants = revolutionary force.
Lavrov: going to the people "Mad Summer 1874"
Bakunin: ready for overthrow
"Land and Liberty" -Plekhanov and Chernyshevsky. Massive demonstrations.
The People's Will: terrorist group. Goals: murder of the tsar, violent destruction of the state, redistribution of economic power.
Radicalism isolated them from the masses but inspired other revolutionaries.
Social Revolutionaries (1890s) workers = revolutionary force. -Viktor Chernov.
Divided into Left (Radical Anarchists, political terror - 2000 assassinations in 1901-5) and Right (Revolutionaries, more moderate).
Social Democrats (1898) Marxist theory. -Plekhanov, later Lenin.
1903 split: Bolsheviks believed in democratic centralism, no cooperation, no economism, elite professional revolutionaries, bourgeois + proletarian revolution merged. Mensheviks believed in democratic discussion and voting, cooperation with other parties, economism, a broad party base, and bourgeois revolution first then proletarian.
Other Parties
Liberals and Progressives worked through zemstva for piecemeal reforms.
Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) small landowners and petty bourgeoisie
Octobrists larger landowners and bourgeoisie
Russo-Japanese War (1904-5)
Russia needed a short victorious war to distract people from domestic issues. They underestimated the Japanese and were humiliated and defeated by the more advanced and industrial superior Japanese forces.
1905 Revolution
22 Jan, 200,000 workers march onto the Winter Palace to petition for better working conditions. Guards panic and fire on them. Tsar loses his 'Little Father' reputation and respect, revolutionaries gain support, people begin protesting.
March: Baltic Fleet defeated.
May: Potemkin (navy mutinies).
June: general strike
Peasants-land hunger, workers-working conditions, intelligentsia-suppression.
Tsar's Reaction
October Manifesto: promises civil liberties and a duma.
Peasants' Manifesto: abolishes redemption payments from 1907, cancels tax debts, mir.
Proletariat: suppression. Disbands Soviets by force.
Fundamental Laws (May 1906): reaffirms supreme autocratic power of the Tsar, contradicts October Manifesto.
First Duma (April 1906): mostly liberals, who criticise the government and are disbanded.
Second Duma (Feb 1907): more left and right, still too critical, disbanded.
Stolypin puts restrictions on duma, Third Duma more supportive of the government.
Problems Plaguing Russia to 1914
Peasants, Proletariat, Intelligentsia,
Feburary Revolution 1917
War, transportation dislocated, food shortages in cities. People unhappy, duma's support rejected by Nicholas II, became focal point for anti-tsarist sentiment. Nicholas II took personal control of the army, left the Tsarina ruling (German) who was influenced by Rasputin (ew).
23 Feb: bread riots, troops ordered to quell the riots refuse and mutiny.
Tsar's train is diverted from Petrograd, army generals, chiefs and ministers advise him to abdicate.
15 Mar: tsar abdicates.
Dual Authority
12-man Provisional Government set up, led by Prince Lvov then later Kerensky.
Priorities: War-needed Allied supplies and loans, couldn't afford indemnities, generals didn't want to stop fighting. Land Reform-difficult to organise with peasants away fighting the war. Constituent Assembly-difficult to organise with ongoing war.
Petrograd Soviet issues Order No. 1.
April: Lenin returns, publishes April Theses. "Land, Bread and Peace", Bolsheviks spread propaganda and infiltrates Soviets.
June Offensive fails.
July Days uprisings and unrest led by Bolsheviks. This was put down through military harassment and labelling the Bolsheviks as German collaborators.
Kornilov Affair: counter-revolutionary General Kornilov mounts attack on Petrograd, Provisional Government arms leftists (Red Guards, Bolsheviks) to fight Kornilov.
November Revolution 1917
Lenin wants immediate takeover because: fear of counter-revolutionary attack, Bolshevik popularity at an all-time high, All-Russian Congress of Soviet, Constituent Assembly.
6 Nov: Kerensky makes pre-emptive move against Bolsheviks.
7 Nov: Red Guard and Military Revolutionary Committee occupy strategic locations throughout Petrograd, take Winter Palace.
8 Nov: Lenin declares takeover at All-Russian Congress of Soviet.
Intro to Bolsheviks in Power
Sovnarkom: All-Russian People's Commissars
Vesenkha: Supreme Council of National Economy
Suppress bourgeois newspapers, suppression of other parties, municipal authorities in charge of shops, state control of banks.
