RUSSIA PART FIVE
Russia's Agriculture Influence Revolution
“At the beginning of the twentieth century, agriculture constituted the single largest sector of the Russian economy, producing approximately one-half of the national income and employing two-thirds of Russia’s population”.
This illustrates the tremendous role peasants played economically; thus making them detrimental to the revolutionary ideology of the populist and social democrats.
At the end of the 19th century, Russian agriculture as a whole was the worst in its European caliber.
The Russian system of agriculture lacked capital investment and technological advancement.
Livestock productivity was notoriously backwards and the lack of grazing land such as meadows forced livestock to graze in fallow uncultivated land. Both the crop and livestock system failed to be adequate to withstand the Russian winters.
During the Tsarist rule, the agricultural economy diverged from subsistence production to production directly for the market.
Along with the agricultural failures, Russia had a rapid population growth, railroads expanded across farmland, and inflation attacked the price of commodities.
Restrictions were placed on the distribution of food and ultimately lead to famines. Agricultural difficulties in Russia limited the economy, influencing social reforms and assisting the rise of the Bolshevik party.
Revolution and counterrevolution, 1905–1907
The Russo-Japanese War accelerated the rise of political movements among all classes and the major nationalities, including propertied Russians.
By early 1904, Russian liberal activists from the zemstva and from the professions had formed an organization called the Union of Liberation.
In the same year, they joined with Finns, Poles, Georgians, Armenians, and Russian members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party to form an antiautocratic alliance.
The revolution of 1905, an unprecedented empire-wide social and political upheaval was set in motion by the violent suppression on January 9 (Bloody Sunday) in St. Petersburg of a mass procession of workers, led by the radical priest Georgiy Gapon, with a petition for the tsar.
Bloody Sunday was followed, nationwide, by workers’ and students’ strikes, street demonstrations, spates of vandalism and other periodic violence, assassinations of government officials, naval mutinies, nationalist movements in the imperial borderlands, and anti-Jewish pogroms and other reactionary protest and violence.
In a number of cities, workers formed Soviets, or councils.
At the end of the year, armed uprisings occurred in Moscow, the Urals, Latvia, and parts of Poland.
Activists from the zemstva and the broad professional Union of Unions formed the Constitutional Democratic Party, whose initials lent the party its informal name, the Kadets.
Some upper-class and propertied activists called for compromise with opposition groups to avoid further disorders.
The outcome of the revolution was contradictory.
In late 1905, Nicholas agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to issue the so-called October Manifesto, which promised Russia a reformed political order and basic civil liberties for most citizens.
New fundamental laws in 1906 established the legislative State Duma, or parliament, but also restricted its authority in many ways — not least of which was the complete lack of parliamentary control over the appointment or dismissal of cabinet ministers.
Trade unions and strikes were legalised, but police retained extensive authority to monitor union activities and to close unions for engaging in illegal political activities.
Press freedom was guaranteed.
Those who accepted the new arrangements formed a center-right political party, the Octobrists.
Meanwhile, the Kadets held out for a truly responsible ministerial government and equal, universal suffrage.
Because of their political principles and continued armed uprisings, Russia's leftist parties were undecided whether to participate in the Duma elections, which had been called for early 1906.
At the same time, rightist factions actively opposed the reforms.
Several new monarchist and protofascist groups also arose to subvert the new order.
Nevertheless, the regime continued to function through the chaotic year of 1905, eventually restoring order in the cities, the countryside, and the army.
In the process, terrorists murdered hundreds of officials, and the government executed much greater number of terrorists.
Because the government had been able to restore order and to secure a loan from France before the first Duma met, Nicholas was in a strong position that enabled him to replace Witte with the much more conservative Petr Stolypin.
The First Duma was elected in March 1906.
The Kadets and their allies dominated it, with the mainly nonparty radical leftists slightly weaker than the Octobrists and the nonparty center-rightists combined.
The socialists had boycotted the election, but several socialist delegates were elected.
Relations between the Duma and the Stolypin government were hostile from the beginning.
A deadlock of the Kadets and the government over the adoption of a constitution and peasant reform led to the dissolution of the Duma and the scheduling of new elections.
In spite of an upsurge of leftist terror, radical leftist parties participated in the election, and, together with the nonparty left, they gained a plurality of seats, followed by a loose coalition of Kadets with Poles and other nationalities in the political center.
The impasse continued, however, when the Second Duma met in 1907.
The Stolypin and Kokovtsov governments
In June 1907, the Tsar dissolved the Second Duma and promulgated a new electoral law, which vastly reduced the electoral weight of lower-class and non-Russian voters and increased the weight of the nobility.
This political coup (Coup of June 1907) had the desired short-term result of restoring order.
New elections in the autumn returned a more conservative Third Duma, which Octobrists dominated.
Even this Duma quarreled with the government over a variety of issues, however, including the composition of the naval staff, the autonomous status of Finland, the introduction of zemstva in the western provinces, the reform of the peasant court system, and the establishment of workers' insurance organizations under police supervision.
In these disputes, the Duma, with its appointed aristocratic-bureaucratic upper house, was sometimes more conservative than the government, and at other times it was more constitutionally minded.
The Fourth Duma, elected in 1912, was similar in composition to the third, but a progressive faction of Octobrists split from the right and joined the political center.
Stolypin's boldest measure was his peasant reform program.
It allowed, and sometimes forced, the breakup of communes as well as the establishment of full private property.
Stolypin hoped that the reform program would create a class of conservative landowning farmers loyal to the tsar.
Most peasants did not want to lose the safety of the commune or to permit outsiders to buy village land, however.
By 1914 only about 10 percent of all peasant communes had been dissolved.
Nevertheless, the economy recovered and grew impressively from 1907 to 1914, both quantitatively and through the formation of rural cooperatives and banks and the generation of domestic capital.
By 1914 Russian steel production equaled that of France and Austria–Hungary, and Russia's economic growth rate was one of the highest in the world.
Although external debt was very high, it was declining as a percentage of the gross national product, and the empire's overall trade balance was favorable.
In 1911, Stolypin was assassinated by Dmitry Bogrov whilst watching an opera.
Finance Minister Vladimir Kokovtsov replaced him.
The cautious Kokovtsov was very able and a supporter of the tsar, but he could not compete with the powerful court factions that dominated the government.
Historians have debated whether Russia had the potential to develop a constitutional government between 1905 and 1914.
The failure to do so was partly because the tsar was not willing to give up autocratic rule or share power.
By manipulating the franchise, the government obtained progressively more conservative, but less representative, Dumas.
Moreover, the regime sometimes bypassed the conservative Dumas and ruled by decree.
Active Balkan policy, 1906–1913
Japan's victory in 1905 had forced Russia to make deals with the British and the Japanese.
In 1907 Russia's new foreign minister, Aleksandr Izvol'skiy, concluded agreements with both nations.
To maintain its sphere of influence in northern Manchuria and northern Persia, Russia agreed to Japanese ascendancy in southern Manchuria and Korea, and to British ascendancy in southern Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet. The logic of this policy demanded that Russia and Japan unite to prevent the United States from establishing a base in China by organizing a consortium to develop Chinese railroads.
After China's republican revolution of 1911, Russia and Japan recognized each other's spheres of influence in Inner Mongolia.
In an extension of this reasoning, Russia traded recognition of German economic interests in the Ottoman Empire and Persia for German recognition of various Russian security interests in the region.
Russia also protected its strategic and financial position by entering the informal Triple Entente with Britain and France, without antagonizing Germany.
In spite of these careful measures, after the Russo-Japanese War Russia and Austria–Hungary resumed their Balkan rivalry, focusing on the Kingdom of Serbia and the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Austria–Hungary had occupied since 1878.
In 1881, Russia secretly had agreed in principle to Austria's future annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
But in 1908, Izvol'skiy consented to support formal annexation in return for Austria's support for revision of the agreement on the neutrality of the Bosporus and Dardanelles—a change that would give Russia special navigational rights of passage.
Britain stymied the Russian gambit by blocking the revision, but Austria proceeded with the annexation.
Then, backed by German threats of war, Austria–Hungary exposed Russia's weakness by forcing Russia to disavow support for Serbia.
After Austria–Hungary's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia became a major part of the increased tension and conflict in the Balkans.
In 1912 Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro defeated the Ottoman Empire in the First Balkan War, but the putative allies continued to quarrel among themselves.
Then in 1913, the alliance split, and the Serbs, Greeks, and Romanians defeated Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War.
Austria–Hungary became the patron of Bulgaria, which now was Serbia's territorial rival in the region, and Germany remained the Ottoman Empire's protector.
Russia tied itself more closely to Serbia than it had previously.
The complex system of alliances and Great Power support was extremely unstable; among the Balkan parties harboring resentments over past defeats, the Serbs maintained particular animosity toward the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In June 1914, a Serbian terrorist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria–Hungary, which then held the Serbian government responsible.
Austria–Hungary delivered an ultimatum to Serbia.
Serbia submitted to the first 2 of 3 cases of the ultimatum; the last one, which was rejected, demanded Serbia allow 100,000 Austrio-Hungarian troops to occupy their country.
After Serbian rejection of the third clause of the ultimatum, Austria–Hungary responded forcefully.
Russia supported Serbia.
Once the Serbian response was rejected, the system of alliances began to operate automatically, with Germany supporting Austria–Hungary and France backing Russia.
When Germany invaded France through Belgium as dictated by the Schliffen Plan, the conflict escalated into a world war.
No comments:
Post a Comment