Download Why was 1905 a year of crisis for Tsarist Russia?

Why was 1905 a year of crisis
for Tsarist Russia?
Factors which made discontent
possible
• Poor living and working conditions in the
cities and the countryside.
• Economic desperation
• Oppressive government which centralised
all power and did not provide
representation to any class below the
Upper Class.
• A sense that no change was possible
Events which made discontent
likely in 1905
• War against Japan ~ Stolypin (A Tsarist politician) had
said; ‘What we need is a short, victorious war’.
• It was hoped that war against Japan over Korea and
Manchuria would unit the people behind the Tsar’s
Government and make them forget the economic and
social problems they faced.
• The war was a disaster for Russia as her forces were
easily defeated by the Japanese.
• The war also made conditions for people in cities worse:
food supplies to cities were disrupted; factories ran short
of raw materials and closed. Workers became hungry,
desperate and unemployed.
Trigger event
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The discontented workers in St Petersburg found a leader in a priest, Father
Gapon, who organised a massive petition to be presented to the Tsar who
they looked to for help.
The petition called for: better working and living conditions; an end to the
war with Japan; a shorter working day; political reforms which would give
people a political voice.
They were convinced that the Tsar ~ the Father of his People ~ would listen
to their pleas and act accordingly
A crowd of 200,000 men, women and children marched on the Tsar’s Winter
Palace on Sunday 22nd Jan to present the petition. They were intercepted
by police and troops. Fearing that they were going to be over-run the
officers ordered their men to fire into the crowd. 500 demonstrators were
killed and several 1,000 were wounded.
This became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. It triggered riots, strikes and the
murder of Government officials across Western Russia and presented the
Tsar’s political opponents with an opportunity to start a revolution.
The course of the 1905 revolution
• Generally the revolution lacked overall
leadership and events tended to be
responses to very specific events
• The ‘real revolutionaries’ were taken by
surprise by the speed and scale of the
response to ‘Bloody Sunday’
The Battleship Potemkin
• June 1905 ~ the crew of the Potemkin in the Black Sea
mutinied, took control of the ship and threw their officers
overboard
• Having done this they had no plan and no idea what to
do next. They sailed to the port of Odessa where their
arrival caused more discontent and riots there but no
positive political move was taken
• As a result they gave themselves up only a few weeks
later.
• This had demonstrated to the Tsar that he could not rely
automatically on the support of his armed forces.
In the countryside
• In many areas the peasants rebelled
against their aristocratic and Kulak landlords, killing them and destroying their
houses and farms
• In some parts of the Russian Empire nonRussian nationalities, such as Poles and
Georgians, declared their independence.
In the cities
• In September 1905 the trade unions
organised a general strike which closed
down Russia’s industrial production.
• In many towns and cities, the Social
Democratic party organised councils of
workers, called Soviets, to take over the
cities from local government ~ they
became an alternative form of
government.
In an attempt to regain control of
the situation the Tsar announced
reforms
• In October 1905 he announced the
October Manifesto which offered:
the right to form political parties
the right to free speech
the creation of an elected parliament
known as a Duma to help run the country.
The majority of people were
delighted
• Many of the peasants believed that this
proved that the Tsar was really on their
side and that he had been controlled by
evil advisers.
• The Liberals believed that the Duma
offered then a genuine share of power
The true revolutionaries were
suspicious, believed it was a ruse,
and they were right
• In December 1905 the secret police were used to break
up the St Petersburg Soviet and those members not
killed in the process were sent into exile in Siberia
• In Moscow the army was sent in to crush the Soviet
there which it did after bloody street fighting in which
1,000 died.
• In Jan – Feb 1906 the army was used to re-assert
Russian control over the break-away nationalities
• Bands of pro-Tsarist para-militaries, called Black
Hundreds conducted a terror campaign against peasants
and revolutionaries in towns and cities
By March 1906 the revolution was
dead
• Revolutionary control had been removed
• Tsarist control had been re-asserted
• Most of the new freedoms granted by the October
Manifesto had been rescinded.
• Only the Duma remained and in the March 1906
elections an anti-Tsarist majority was elected
• When it met for the first time in May 1906 Nicholas
issued the Fundamental Laws, the first one of which
stated that supreme power would always rest with the
Tsar and no-one else. This was a clear indication than
nothing had changed.