Essay 3: An assessment of the attempts to strengthen - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Essay 3:

An assessment of the attempts to strengthen

Tsarism

between 1905 and 1914Slide2

Part 1: How did the Tsar deal with 1905?

Nicholas II dismissed

Zemstvo

requests for participation in central government as ‘senseless dreams’? Even as late as 1904 he had rejected plans for an elected assembly.

What does this tell you about his attitude to

The

Zemstvo

?

Himself?Slide3

October 1905:

The Tsar is under serious pressure from (finish the sentence)

3. How would the concession of a

Duma

‘stem the tide of the revolution?’Slide4

Nicholas II, early 1906

Let us look at this article… I am filled with doubt. Have I right, before my ancestors, to alter the limits they bequeathed me. I am sincere when I tell you that if I were convinced Russia wanted me to abdicate my powers I would do that for the country’s good. I am no

tconvinced

that this is so…”Slide5

April 1906: The Fundamental Principles

Look at the sheets I gave you yesterday. Compare the promises of the October Manifesto to the wording of the Fundamental Principles.

What is different?

What are likely to be the effects of this?Slide6

Way to approach this essay

The essay will ask you to assess the attempts to strengthen

Tsarism

between 1905 and 1914. I would take your essay thematically rather than chronologically:

Agricultural

Industrial

Political

SecuritySlide7

Agricultural: Read Section C and answer the following:

What evidence is there of peasant unrest in before 1905?

Why might Nicholas have thought cancelling redemption payments might have worked?

Explain the two views that exist about

Stolypin’s

land reforms (you can also use your phones to research

Stolypin’s

Land reforms).Slide8

What were Stolypin’s

land reforms

2 ‘schools of thought’ of

Stolypin

Some argue that his reforms could have avoided the Russian Revolution

Some argue his reforms made silly assumptionsSlide9

“By the left, he is regarded as a savage butcher who hanged peasants and workers…To the extreme right he was an odious figure whose policy of reform and attempt to work with the

Duma

were a threat to autocracy”

L SchapiroSlide10

He wanted to develop Serf emancipation beyond the limits of the Act passed by Alexander II. Peasants would be removed from their commune and set up as individual, legally protected owners of their land.

He felt the best hope of averting revolution lay with the real emancipation of naturally conservative peasants.

4. What is the logic in

Stolypin’s

assumption that creating a wealthy peasantry would stave off revolution?Slide11

Paraphrase the full quote…

“

Stolypin’s

aim was to preserve the authority of

Tsarism

by introducing reforms that would strengthen its social and public base. Convinced that the socio-economic and educational advancement of the nation had to precede major political reforms, he sought to reconcile public opinion and government by minor reforms and to remove certain out of date practices that were incompatible with the spirit of the times”- Ben-

Cion

Pinchuk

“first pacification, then reforms” was his quoteSlide12

How did it work?

Stolypin

recognised that the peasants were annoyed with the terms of serf emancipation. But the peasants’ large support for a centre left political party in the first

Duma

told the Tsar that he would have to work harder to gain their loyalty.

Step 1: Redemption Payments were cancelled in November 1905Slide13

Analysis

“The abolition of redemption payments in 1905 destroyed the legal ties that many peasants had to their ‘commune’. This enabled some within their ranks to become freer, and

Stolypin

assumed that this would lead to increased loyalty to

Tsarism

”Slide14

Stolypin’s first reform (9/11/06)

Any householder in a commune where there had been no redistribution of land since 1882 could apply to become owner of all the land in his possession

What does this mean?Slide15

How would it work?

Stolypin

thought that peasant landowner would produce more food to sell for profit. The countryside would therefore become richer. Slide16

Did it work?

Kinda

!

The peasants responded fairly well to these reforms (although there is conflicting evidence). Slide17

Conflicting views

Hugh Seton Watson

Watson suggests that by 1915 about 7 million peasant households (1/2

russian

total), held land privately. On top of this, a considerable amount of buying and selling was taking place.

So the peasants seemed to be ‘going for it’.

Stolypin

used a peasant land bank, transferring millions of acres of state land to peasant ownership at low interest rates.

5 million peasants moved to Siberia

R.B McKean

Called it an ‘uneven process’.

Take up was considerable between 1908 and 1910, but declined thereafter.

By 1915 only 100,000 households had set up independently. Most continued with the commune. Slide18

Similar views

One thing is certain; Peasant disturbances are much less evident after 1906, perhaps this suggests that

Stolypin’s

reforms WERE working after all?

Russian agriculture remained unable to produce adequate food supplies for the cities.Slide19
Slide20

The Duma

Things to consider:

How much authority the

Duma

had

The role of

Stolypin

Was

Stolypin

successful?

Was the

Duma

successfulSlide21

Attitudes towards the Duma

Historians split over whether the 1917 Revolution could have been avoided if the

Duma

had been granted more powers.Slide22

Paraphrase Richard Pipes

“The October Manifesto provided a framework within which the Russian state and Russian society should have found it possible to reduce the tension dividing them. This it failed to accomplish. A constitutional regime can only function if government and opposition accept the rules of the game; In Russia, neither the monarchy nor the government was prepared to accept this. Each regarded the new order as an obstacle, a deviation from the country’s true system, which for the monarchy was autocracy and for the intelligentsia , a democratic republic. As a result, the constitutional interlude, while not without achievements, was largely wasted- a missed opportunity which would not occur”Slide23

Consider

October Manifesto: No Law could be passed without

Duma

approval

Fundamental Laws changed from

‘The Emperor of all the

Russias

is an autocratic and unlimited monarch. God himself commands that this supreme power be obeyed out of conscience as well as fear”

, to

“

The Tsar of all Russia possesses supreme autocratic power. He is to be obeyed not out of fear but as a matter of duty, in accordance with divine decree

”Slide24

Parties in the Duma:Liberals

Split into two factions:

Octobrists

and

Kadets

Octobrists

accepted the October Manifesto and the

Duma

as being the main concession they were after. They were dominated by the

modertes

of the

Zemstva

and by the business class.

Guchkov

was main spokesman.

Kadets

prepared to work with the

Duma

, but wished to push for greater powers. Struve and

Miluko

were the main players. Slide25

SRs

Had seen terrorism as a legitimate political weapon against Tsarist authority. Not everyone agreed and the People’s Socialist Party broke away.

SRs

boycotted

Duma

, PSP didn’t. One of these men was Alexander Kerensky. Slide26

SDs

Some individual

SDs

decided to stand for election, under direction of Party leadership. Most members boycotted the Dumas. Slide27

Nationalists

Union of the Russian People (right wing). Didn’t want to break up the empire.

National minority groups objected to excesses of

Russification

.Slide28

Questions:

“Was the

Duma

‘doomed from the beginning?” Explain your answer. Slide29

The First Duma

Kadets

179

Octobrists

32

Social Democrats 18

National Minorities 60

Union of Russian Peoples 100

First meeting very hostile!

How do you think the Tsar will react?Slide30

The Second Duma

Began after an increase in Peasant terror. SR bomb had blown up

Stolypin’s

house, killing 27 and injuring his daughter.

683 death sentences

Stolypin’s

Necktie

3000 deaths by Peasant terrorists in 1907

Second

Duma

offered improved working conditions and reform of civil service, police and local government. But the

Duma

didn’t co-operate.

What do you think the Tsar’s response will be?Slide31

Stolypin’s attitude to the

Duma

He accepted the

duma

as a permanent figure of the regime. He realised that the

Duma

couldb

e

of help in achieving his goals; it’s abolition could be fatal to

Tsarism

, he thought.

“One should not even think about a return to absolutism”Slide32

Third Duma

Franchise reduced in order to create a

Duma

that could work.

Much more

conservative

. What does this mean?

Octoberists

had twice as many seats as the

Kadets

(154 seats)

SDs

had 12 seats

Small number of National Minorities outnumbered by Right wing Russian Nationalists, 76 seats.

What do you notice about the Parties that do well here?Slide33

The attitude of the third

Duma

was interesting. They were not prepared to be servile. An

earlyincident

in the life of the third

Duma

clearly emphasised this. In preparation for the state opening of the

Duma

, right wing representatives, mainly the Russian Nationalists and a minority of the

Octobrists

declared their wish that the Tsar should be addressed as ‘Autocrat of all the

Russias

’. This motion was defeated by 212 votes to 146. Slide34

Achievements of the third

duma

.