# 32

RUSSIA PART SEVEN

 

 

Franco-Russian Alliance

The 1882 Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy had left Russia vulnerable, while France had been diplomatically isolated since its defeat in the 1871 Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent policies of Otto von Bismarck.

Despite the political differences between France, a republic, and Russia, an absolute monarchy, relations between the two countries rapidly improved.

Commemorative flag

From 1888, Russia was provided with cheap loans floated on the Paris Bourse, essential to rebuild the technologically deficient Russian military and to build strategic railways that could bring the troops to the German front.

In 1891, the French Fleet visited the Russian naval base at Kronstadt and was warmly welcomed by Tsar Alexander III.
This visit marked the first time La Marseillaise was played on an official occasion in Russia; to play it previously had been a criminal offence.

The new German Emperor Wilhelm II, after dismissing Bismarck, oversaw a change in the direction of German foreign policy.

The secret Reinsurance Treaty with Russia was allowed to expire in 1890, despite Russian requests to renew it.
The German Chancellor Caprivi advised Wilhelm II not to renew the treaty, because by this treaty Germany promised to remain neutral if Russia were to occupy the Straits (i.e. Constantinople).
Such a treaty, if made public, would enrage both the British and the Ottoman empire.

1893 political cartoon depicting the Franco-Russian Alliance. Marianne and the Russian bear embrace.

After extensive negotiations, the Franco-Russian alliance was drafted August 17, 1892.
It became final on January 4, 1894.
The alliance was to remain in place as long as the Triple Alliance existed.

The secret treaty between France and Russia stipulated that if one of the countries of the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) attacked France or Russia, its ally would attack the aggressor in question, and that if a Triple Alliance country mobilized its army, France and Russia would mobilize.

France would engage 1.300.000 troops and Russia 700.000 - 800.000.

This treaty formed a crucial step towards the First World War.
As opposed to treaties and alliances that were meant to solve conflicts of interest between the countries party to the treaty, the Franco-Russian alliance was an alliance directed against another country, Germany.

 In this regard, it presented a countervailing force against the Dual Alliance (1879) of Germany and Austria-Hungary, which provided for mutual aid against an attack by Russia and mutual neutrality in the event of attack by another power (such as France).

The Franco-Russian Alliance, along with the Anglo-Russian Entente and the Entente Cordiale formed the so-called Triple Entente between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, France and Russia.

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# 31

RUSSIA PART SIX

 

 

Tsar Nicholas II

 

 

 

 

Nicholas  II
Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias
Reign	1 November [O.S. 20 October] 1894 – 15 March 1917
Coronation	26 May [O.S. 14 May] 1896[1]
Predecessor	Alexander III
Successor	Monarchy abolished De facto : Georgy Lvov (chairman of the provisional government)
Spouse	Alix of Hesse
Issue	Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich
Full name
Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov
House	House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Father	Alexander III of Russia
Mother	Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)
Born	18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 Alexander Palace, Tsarskoye Selo, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died	17 July 1918(1918-07-17) (aged 50) Yekaterinburg, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Burial	17 July 1998 Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
Signature
Religion	Russian Orthodox

Nicholas II (Russian: Николай II, Николай Александрович Романов, tr. Nikolai II, Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ftɐˈroj, nʲɪkɐˈlaj əlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ rɐˈmanəf]) (18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 – 17 July 1918) was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Duke of Finland, and titular King of Poland.

 His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias.

 Like other Russian Emperors he is commonly known by the monarchical title Tsar (though Russia formally ended the Tsardom in 1721).
 He is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church and has been referred to as Saint Nicholas the Martyr.

Nicholas II ruled from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917.
His reign saw Imperial Russia go from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse.
Enemies nicknamed him Nicholas the Bloody because of the Khodynka Tragedy, the anti-Semitic pogroms, Bloody Sunday, his violent suppression of the 1905 Revolution, his execution of political opponents, and his pursuit of military campaigns on an unprecedented scale.


Under his rule, Russia was humiliatingly defeated in the Russo-Japanese War, which saw the almost total annihilation of the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima.

The Anglo-Russian Entente, designed to counter German attempts to gain influence in the Middle East, ended the Great Game between Russia and the United Kingdom.

As head of state, Nicholas approved the Russian mobilization of August 1914, which marked the beginning of Russia's involvement in the First World War, a war in which 3.3 million Russians were killed.

 The Imperial Army's severe losses and the High Command's incompetent handling of the war, along with other policies directed by Nicholas during his reign, are often cited as the leading causes of the fall of the Romanov dynasty.


Nicholas II abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917 during which he and his family were imprisoned first in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, then later in the Governor's Mansion in Tobolsk, and finally at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg.

In the spring of 1918, Nicholas was handed over to the local Ural soviet by commissar Vasili Yakovlev who was then presented with a written receipt as Nicholas was formally handed over like a parcel.

 Nicholas II; his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna; his son, Alexei Nikolaevich; his four daughters, Olga Nikolaevna, Tatiana Nikolaevna, Maria Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna; the family's medical doctor, Evgeny Botkin; the Emperor's footman, Alexei Trupp; the Empress' maidservant, Anna Demidova; and the family's cook, Ivan Kharitonov, were executed in the same room by the Bolsheviks on the night of 16/17 July 1918.

This led to the canonisation of Nicholas II, his wife the Empress Alexandra and their children as passion bearers, a category used to identify believers who, in imitation of Christ, endured suffering and death at the hands of political enemies, on 15 August 2000 by the Russian Orthodox Church within Russia and, in 1981, as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, located in New York City.

At the time of his death, his net worth was $900 million, which is the inflation adjusted equivalent to $13.7 billion in 2012 US dollars.

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# 30

RUSSIA PART FIVE

Russia's Agriculture Influence Revolution

 

 

Russia's systems for agricultural production influenced the attitudes of peasants and other social groups to reform against the government and promote social changes.

“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

 

Ilya Repin, 17 October 1905

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

Pyotr Stolypin

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

 

 

 

Russia's earlier Far Eastern policy required holding Balkan issues in abeyance, a strategy Austria–Hungary also followed between 1897 and 1906.

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.

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#29

RUSSIA PART FOUR

 

 

 

SERGEI WITTE

 

 

Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte   (Russian: Серге́й Ю́льевич Ви́тте, Sergey Yul'evich Vitte) (29 June [O.S. 17 June] 1849 – 13 March [O.S. 28 February] 1915), also known as Sergius Witte, was a highly influential policy-maker who presided over extensive industrialization within the Russian Empire.

He served under the last two emperors of Russia.
He was also the author of the October Manifesto of 1905, a precursor to Russia's first constitution, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) of the Russian Empire.

Sergei Witte
Sergei Witte, early 1880s

 

Family and early life

 

 

Witte's father Julius Witte came from a Lutheran Baltic German (originally Dutch) family and had been member of the knighthood of the City of Pskov.

He converted to Russian Orthodoxy upon marriage with Witte's mother Yekaterina Fadeyeva.

Sergei Witte's maternal grandfather was Andrei Mikhailovich Fadeyev, a Governor of Saratov and Privy Councillor of the Caucasus, his grandmother was Princess Helene Dolgoruki, and the mystic Helena Blavatsky was his first cousin.

He was born in Tiflis, Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Tbilisi, Georgia) and raised in the house of his mother's parents.

He finished Gymnasium I in Kishinev and commenced studying Physico-Mathematical Sciences at the Novorossiysk University in Odessa in 1866 graduating top of his class in 1870.

Witte had initially planned to pursue a career in academia with the aim of becoming a professor in the Department of Theoretical Mathematics at Novorossiysk University.
His relatives took a dim view of this career path as it was considered unsuitable for a noble at the time.

He was instead persuaded by Count Vladimir Bobrinskii, then Minister of Ways and Communications, to pursue a career in the railways.
At the direction of the Count, Witte undertook 6 months of on the job training in a variety of positions on the Odessa Railroad in order to gain a practical understanding of railroad operations.
At the end of this period he was appointed chief of the traffic office.

Witte worked for the greater part of the 1870s and 1880s in private enterprises, particularly the administration and management of various railroad lines in Russia, especially in the Ukraine, where he was in charge of the Odessa Railway.
After a wreck on the Odessa Railway in late 1875 cost many lives, Witte was arrested and sentenced to four months in prison.
However, while still contesting the case in court, Witte's Odessa Railway made such extraordinary efforts towards the transport of troops and war materials in the Russo-Turkish War that he attracted the attention of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, who commuted his term to two weeks.

In 1879, Witte accepted a post in St. Petersburg, where he met his future wife.
He moved to Kiev the following year.

In 1883, he published a paper on "Principles of railway tariffs for cargo transportation", in which he also spoke out on social issues and the role of the monarchy.

In 1886, he was appointed manager of the privately held Southwestern Railways, based in Kiev, and was noted for increasing its efficiency and profitability.
Around this time, he met Tsar Alexander III, but came into conflict with the Tsar's aides when he warned of the danger in using two powerful freight locomotives to achieve high speeds for the Royal Train.
His warnings were proven in the October 1888 Borki train disaster, which resulted in the appointment of Witte to the position of Director of State Railways.

Political career

Career with the Finance Ministry

 

 

 

Witte served as Russian Director of Railway Affairs within the Finance Ministry from 1889 to 1891; and during this period, he oversaw an ambitious program of railway construction which included the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Witte also obtained the right to assign employees based on their performance, rather than political or familial connections.

In 1889, he published a paper titled "National Savings and Friedrich List", which cited the economic theories of Friedrich List and justified the need for a strong domestic industry, protected from foreign competition by customs barriers.
This resulted in a new customs law for Russia in 1891, which spurred an increase in industrialization in Russia towards the turn of the century.

Tsar Alexander III appointed him acting Minister of Ways and Communications in 1892.
This gave him control of the railroads in Russia and the authority to impose a reform on the tariffs charged.

However, in late 1892, Witte (whose first wife had died in 1890) chose to remarry.
The marriage was a scandal, as Witte's second wife, Matilda Ivanovna (Isaakovna) Lisanevich, was not only a converted Jew, but was also divorced, and Witte had come into conflict with her husband while she was still married.
The scandal cost Witte many of his connections with the upper nobility.

In August 1892, Witte was appointed to the post of Minister of Finance, a post which he held for the next 11 years.
During his tenure, he greatly accelerated the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
He also paid much attention to the creation of an educational system to train personnel for industry, in particular, the creation of new "commercial" schools, and was known for his appointment of subordinates by their academic credentials instead of political connections.

 In 1894, he concluded a 10-year commercial treaty with the Empire of Germany on favorable terms for Russia.

In 1895, he established a state monopoly on alcohol, which became a major source of revenue for the Russian government.

In 1896, he concluded the Li–Lobanov Treaty with Li Hongzhang of the Qing Empire.
One of the rights secured for Russia was the construction of the China Eastern Railway across Manchuria, which greatly shortened the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway to its projected eastern terminus at Vladivostok. However, following the Triple Intervention, Witte strongly opposed the Russian occupation of Liaodong Peninsula and the construction of the naval base at Port Arthur.

In 1896, Witte undertook a major currency reform to place the Russian ruble on the gold standard.
This led to increased investment activity and an increase in the inflow of foreign capital.

 Witte also enacted a law limiting working hours in enterprises in 1897, and reformed commercial and industrial taxes in 1898.

In October 1898, he addressed a memorial to the throne, calling for the reform of the peasant community.
This resulted in laws abolishing collective responsibility, and facilitated the resettlement of farmers onto lands on the outskirts of the Empire.
Many of his ideas were later adopted by Pyotr Stolypin.
In an attempt to keep up the modernization of the Russian economy Witte called and oversaw the Special Conference on the Needs of the Rural Industry.
This conference was to provide recommendations for future reforms and the data to justify those reforms.

From 1903, Tsar Nicholas II transferred Witte to the position of chairman of the Committee of Ministers, a position he held until April 1906.
While officially a promotion, the post had no real power, and Witte's removal from the influential post of Minister of Finance was engineered under the pressure from the landed gentry and his political enemies within the government.
However, one historian states that Witte's opposition to Russian designs on Korea caused him to resign from government in 1903.

 

Diplomatic and political career

Negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) -- from left to right: the Russians at far side of table are Korostovetz, Nabokov, Witte, Rosen, Plancon; and the Japanese at near side of table are Adachi, Ochiai, Komura, Takahira, Sato. The large conference table is today preserved at the Museum Meiji Mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

Witte returned to the forefront in 1905, however, when he was called upon by the Tsar to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War.
He was sent as the Russian Emperor's plenipotentiary and titled "his Secretary of State and President of the Committee of Ministers of the Emperor of Russia" along with Baron Roman Rosen, Master of the Imperial Court of Russia to the United States, where the peace talks were being held.

Witte is credited with negotiating brilliantly on Russia's behalf.
Russia lost little in the final settlement.
For his efforts, Witte was created a Count.
But the loss of the war would perhaps spell the beginning of the end of Imperial Russia.

After this diplomatic success, Witte was brought back into the governmental decision-making process to help deal with the civil unrest following the war and Bloody Sunday riots of 1905.
Even during the Treaty of Portsmouth negotiations, he had written to the Tsar stressing the urgent need for political reforms at home.
Witte was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers, the equivalent of Prime Minister, in 1905. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Witte advocated the creation of an elected parliament, the formation of a constitutional monarchy, and the establishment of a Bill of Rights through the October Manifesto.

Many of his reforms were put into place, but they failed to end the unrest. This, and overwhelming victories by left-wing political parties in Russia's first elected parliament, the State Duma, forced Witte to resign as Chairman of the Council of Ministers on in May 1906.
Witte continued in Russian politics as a member of the State Council but never again obtained an administrative role in the government.

In 1907, he survived an attempt on his life of which he wrote about in his memoirs.

In spite of worsening health, Witte remained active into World War I, desperately urging Russia not to enter the conflict and warning that Europe faced calamity if Russia became involved.
The advice went unheeded, and he died shortly afterwards due to a brain tumor at his home in St. Petersburg.
His funeral was held at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Witte's reputation was burnished in the West when his memoirs were published in 1921.
The original text of these memoirs are held in Columbia University Library's Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture.

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#28

RUSSIA PART THREE

 

 

Russo-Japanese War

 

The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was "the first great war of the 20th century."

It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over Manchuria and Korea.
The major theatres of operations were Southern Manchuria, specifically the area around the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden; and the seas around Korea, Japan, and the Yellow Sea.

Russia sought a warm water port on the Pacific Ocean, for their navy as well as for maritime trade.
Vladivostok was only operational during the summer season, but Port Arthur would be operational all year.

From the end of the First Sino-Japanese War and 1903, negotiations between Russia and Japan had proved impractical. Russia had demonstrated an expansionist policy in Manchuria dating back to the reign of Ivan of the Terrible in the 19th century.

Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition of Korea as a Japanese sphere of influence.
Russia refused this, and demanded Korea northern than the 39th parallel to be a neutralized zone as a buffer between Russia and Japan.
The Japanese government perceived a Russian threat to its strategic interests and chose to go to war.
After the negotiations had broken down in 1904, the Japanese Navy opened hostilities by attacking the Russian eastern fleet at Port Arthur, a naval base in the Liaotung province leased to Russia by China.

The resulting campaigns, in which the Japanese military attained complete victory over the Russian forces arrayed against them, were unexpected by world observers.
Over time, the consequences of these battles would transform the balance of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japan's recent entry onto the world stage.

Scholars today debate the historical significance of the Russo-Japanese War.
The Russo-Japanese has been referred to by some scholars of history as just a regional conflict, while others associate it as the precursor for the type of warfare that took place during World War II.

Russia would suffer numerous defeats at the hands of Japan and would remain engaged in the war mainly due in part to the will of the Tsar, Nicholas II.
After faring poorly early into the war, Nicholas II, convinced that Russia would ultimately obtain victory in the war, chose to remain engaged in the war; at first, to await the outcomes of certain naval battles, and later on, upon realizing imminent defeat, it has been debated, to preserve the dignity of Russia by averting a "humiliating peace".

The Russo-Japanese War would be concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by U.S President Theodore Roosevelt at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on Seavey's Island, Kittery, Maine, while the delegates stayed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

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#27

 RUSSIA PART TWO

 

 

 

Transformation of Russia

in the Nineteenth Century

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were times of crisis for Russia. Not only did technology and industry continue to develop more rapidly in the West, but also new, dynamic, competitive great powers appeared on the world scene: Otto von Bismarck united Germany in the 1860s, the post-Civil War United States grew in size and strength, and a modernized Japan emerged from the Meiji Restoration of 1868.   Although Russia was an expanding regional giant in Central Asia, bordering the Ottoman, Persian, British Indian, and Chinese empires, it could not generate enough capital to support rapid industrial development or to compete with advanced countries on a commercial basis. Russia's fundamental dilemma was that accelerated domestic development risked upheaval at home, but slower progress risked full economic dependency on the faster-advancing countries to the east and west. In fact, political ferment, particularly among the intelligentsia, accompanied the transformation of Russia's economic and social structure, but so did impressive developments in literature, music, the fine arts, and the natural sciences.   Economic Developments   Throughout the last half of the nineteenth century, Russia's economy developed more slowly than did that of the major European nations to its west. Russia's population was substantially larger than those of the more developed Western countries, but the vast majority of the people lived in rural communities and engaged in relatively primitive agriculture. Industry, in general, had greater state involvement than in Western Europe, but in selected sectors it was developing with private initiative, some of it foreign.  Between 1850 and 1900, Russia's population doubled, but it remained chiefly rural well into the twentieth century. Russia's population growth rate from 1850 to 1910 was the fastest of all the major powers except for the United States. Agriculture, which was technologically underdeveloped, remained in the hands of former serfs and former state peasants, who together constituted about four-fifths of the rural population. Large estates of more than fifty square kilometers accounted for about 20 percent of all farmland, but few such estates were worked in efficient, large-scale units.  Small-scale peasant farming and the growth of the rural population increased the amount of land used for agricultural development, but land was used more for gardens and fields  of grain and less for grazing meadows than it had been in the past. Industrial growth was significant, although unsteady, and in absolute terms it was not extensive. Russia's industrial regions included Moscow, the central regions of European Russia, St. Petersburg, the Baltic cities, Russian Poland, some areas along the lower Don and Dnepr rivers, and the southern Ural Mountains. By 1890 Russia had about 32,000 kilometers of railroads and 1.4 million factory workers, most of whom worked in the textile industry. Between 1860 and 1890, annual coal production had grown about 1,200 percent to over 6.6 million tons, and iron and steel production had more than doubled to 2 million tons per year. The state budget had more than doubled, however, and debt expenditures had quadrupled, constituting 28 percent of official expenditures in 1891. Foreign trade was inadequate to meet the empire's needs. Until the state introduced high industrial tariffs in the 1880s, it could not finance trade with the West because its surpluses were insufficient to cover the debts.

Witte and Accelerated Industrialization     In the late 1800s, Russia's domestic backwardness and vulnerability in foreign affairs reached crisis proportions. At home a famine claimed a half-million lives in 1891, and activities by Japan and China near Russia's borders were perceived as threats from abroad. In reaction, the regime was forced to adopt the ambitious but costly economic programs of Sergei Witte, the country's strong-willed minister of finance. Witte championed foreign loans, conversion to the gold standard, heavy taxation of the peasantry, accelerated development of heavy industry, and a trans-Siberian railroad. These policies were designed to modernize the country, secure the Russian Far East, and give Russia a commanding position with which to exploit the resources of China's northern territories, Korea, and Siberia. This expansionist foreign policy was Russia's version of the imperialist logic displayed in the nineteenth century by other large countries with vast undeveloped territories such as the United States. In 1894, the accession of the pliable Nicholas II upon the death of Alexander III gave Witte and other powerful ministers the opportunity to dominate the government. Witte's policies had mixed results. In spite of a severe economic depression at the end of the century, Russia's coal, iron, steel, and oil production tripled between 1890 and 1900. Railroad mileage almost doubled, giving Russia the most track of any nation other than the United States. Yet Russian grain production and exports failed to rise significantly, and imports grew faster than exports. The state budget also more than doubled, absorbing some of the country's economic growth. Western historians differ as to the merits of Witte's reforms; some believe that domestic industry, which did not benefit from subsidies or contracts, suffered a setback. Most analysts agree that the Trans-Siberian Railroad (which was completed from Moscow to Vladivostok in 1904) and the ventures into Manchuria and Korea were economic losses for Russia and a drain on the treasury. Certainly the financial costs of his reforms contributed to Witte's dismissal as minister of finance in 1903.     Reforms and Their Limits, 1855-92     Tsar Alexander II, who succeeded Nicholas I in 1855, was a conservative who saw no alternative but to implement change. Alexander initiated substantial reforms in education, the government, the judiciary, and the military. In 1861, he proclaimed the emancipation of about 20 million privately held serfs. Local commissions, which were dominated by landlords, effected emancipation by giving land and limited freedom to the serfs. The former serfs usually remained in the village commune, but they were required to make redemption payments to the government over a period of almost fifty years. The government compensated former owners of serfs by issuing them bonds.   The regime had envisioned that the 50,000 landlords who possessed estates of more than 110 hectares would thrive without serfs and would continue to provide loyal political and administrative leadership in the countryside. The government also had expected that peasants would produce sufficient crops for their own consumption and for export sales, thereby helping to finance most of the government's expenses, imports, and foreign debt. Neither of the government's expectations was realistic, however, and emancipation left both former serfs and their former owners dissatisfied. The new peasants soon fell behind in their payments to the government because the land they had received was poor and because Russian agricultural methods were inadequate. The former owners often had to sell their lands to remain solvent because most of them could neither farm nor manage estates without their former serfs. In addition, the value of their government bonds fell as the peasants failed to make their redemption payments.   Reforms of local government closely followed emancipation. In 1864 most local government in the European part of Russia was organized into provincial and district zemstva (sing., zemstvo), which were made up of representatives of all classes and were responsible for local schools, public health, roads, prisons, food supply, and other concerns. In 1870 elected city councils, or dumy (sing., duma ), were formed. Dominated by property owners and constrained by provincial governors and the police, the zemstva and dumy raised taxes and levied labor to support their activities.   In 1864 the regime implemented judicial reforms. In major towns, it established Western-style courts with juries. In general, the judicial system functioned effectively, but the government lacked the finances and cultural influence to extend the court system to the villages, where traditional peasant justice continued to operate with minimal interference from provincial officials. In addition, the regime instructed judges to decide each case on its merits and not to use precedents, which would have enabled them to construct a body of law independent of state authority.   Other major reforms took place in the educational and cultural spheres. The accession of Alexander II brought a social restructuring that required a public discussion of issues and the lifting of some types of censorship. When an attempt was made to assassinate the tsar in 1866, the government reinstated censorship, but not with the severity of pre-1855 control. The government also put restrictions on universities in 1866, five years after they had gained autonomy. The central government attempted to act through the zemstva to establish uniform curricula for elementary schools and to impose conservative policies, but it lacked resources. Because many liberal teachers and school officials were only nominally subject to the reactionary Ministry of Education, however, the regime's educational achievements were mixed after 1866.   In the financial sphere, Russia established the State Bank in 1866, which put the national currency on a firmer footing. The Ministry of Finance supported railroad development, which facilitated vital export activity, but it was cautious and moderate in its foreign ventures. The ministry also founded the Peasant Land Bank in 1882 to enable enterprising farmers to acquire more land. The Ministry of Internal Affairs countered this policy, however, by establishing the Nobles' Land Bank in 1885 to forestall foreclosures of mortgages. The regime also sought to reform the military. One of the chief reasons for the emancipation of the serfs was to facilitate the transition from a large standing army to a reserve army by instituting territorial levies and mobilization in times of need. Before emancipation, serfs could not receive military training and then return to their owners. Bureaucratic inertia, however, obstructed military reform until the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) demonstrated the necessity of building a modern army. The levy system introduced in 1874 gave the army a role in teaching many peasants to read and in pioneering medical education for women.   But the army remained backward despite these military reforms. Officers often preferred bayonets to bullets, expressing worry that long-range sights on rifles would induce cowardice. In spite of some notable achievements, Russia did not keep pace with Western technological developments in the construction of rifles, machine guns, artillery, ships, and naval ordnance. Russia also failed to use naval modernization as a means of developing its industrial base in the 1860s.

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