Economy and Living Conditions

Sergei Witte

Coal, oil and iron production all rose, and by 1903 much of the Trans-Siberian railway had been completed, helping the development of Russian influence in the Far East. Witte had put Russia on the Gold Standard in 1897 and created a new rouble in order to increase confidence in the Russia economy. To further boost government revenue, Witte also established a state monopoly on the production and sale of vodka in 1894, which soon accounted for nearly a quarter to a third of total state income. Foreign capitalists saw an opportunity to make money in Russia and foreign investment conditions increased considerably. Foreign capital flowing into Russian industry surged from 215 million roubles in 1890 to 911 million roubles by 1900, reaching over 2,000 million roubles by 1914.
Much of this investment went into the mining and metal trades, while a substantial amount supported the oil industry, for example with the growth of the Baku Oil-fields (where production soared from 3.9 million tonnes in 1890 to 10.2 million tonnes by 1900, briefly surpassing the United States in crude output), and banking. France, proved the biggest investor supplying a third of all the foreign capital (33%), but Britain provided 23%, Germany 20%, Belgium 14% and the USA 5% too.

Witte believed that, by concentrating production in key areas and by developing large factory units of over 1,000 or so workers, big increases in heavy goods production could be achieved. By the turn of the century, nearly half of Russia’s industrial workforce was concentrated in factories employing more than 500 workers. Although textiles still dominated, accounting for 40% of the total industrial output in 1910, there was still some impressive growth in heavy industry. Coal production in the Donbas jumped from 5.9 million tonnes in 1890 to 16.1 million tonnes in 1900, reaching 35.4 million tonnes by 1913; pig iron output quadrupled from 0.89 million tonnes in 1890 to over 4 million tonnes on the eve of the First World War. This rapid, state-managed expansion became known as the “Great Spurt,” laying down modern transport and industrial foundations that later Soviet planners like Stalin would continue to prioritize in their own Five-Year Plans.

National Income

Russia’s rate of annual growth, at more than 8% per annum 1894-1904, was the highest of any industrial country in the last decade of the nineteenth century, although it had begun from a very low base compared with other countries. Russia moved up the league table of industrialised nations from 1887-97, to become the world’s fourth largest industrial economy. Following an international depression between 1899 and 1903 and the political disruptions of 1905, industrial production surged again in a second boom from 1908 to 1913 with an average annual growth rate of over 6%, bolstered by a major state rearmament program. This growth helped bolster an increase in Russian exports and foreign trade. Both imports and exports grew in quantity and value. Russia traded mainly with Germany, closely followed by Britain, and also with the Netherlands, China and the USA, but the bulk of the export trade was in grain rather than industrial goods and even here, the increase in grain export fell short of Witte’s predictions. Despite these limitations, Tsarist agricultural production under Nicholas II reached volumes that successive Communist regimes struggled to maintain; in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev admitted to the Central Committee that grain stocks under Stalin had actually fallen below the levels achieved under Nicholas II.

However, all this relentless drive for industrial expansion came at an economic as well as a social cost. The building of the Trans-Siberian railway, for example, proved a huge drain on finances. Indeed, under Witte, the state budget more than doubled, eating into the profits of the country’s economic growth. Other economic downsides included the country’s dependence on foreign loans, which had to be paid back with interest, the neglect of domestic and lighter industry in the drive for heavy goods and the neglect of agricultural modernisation, driven by the assumption that peasants could simply be forced into producing more. To modernise the agrarian sector following the rural uprisings of 1905, Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin launched comprehensive land reforms between 1906 and 1911. Stolypin’s “wager on the strong” allowed peasants to leave the commune (mir), consolidate their scattered strips into compact, individual farms (khutors and otrubs), and access credit through the reformed Peasant Land Bank. However, these reforms required decades of peace to succeed; when Nicholas II entered the First World War in 1914, the conflict placed an unbearable strain on the economy, causing hyperinflation, food shortages, and complete breakdown of the railway network, ultimately leading to the collapse of the Tsarist regime in 1917.

Living and working conditions

The problems of the rural economy

The famines of 1898 and 1901 demonstrated that rural vulnerability remained severe during the early reign of Nicholas II. In contrast to the upward mobility of the kulaks, the poorer peasants found life getting harsher. A rapid population boom—with Russia’s population increasing from 125 million in 1897 to nearly 166 million by 1914—led to severe land hunger, reducing the average peasant landholding from 35 acres in 1877 to just 28 acres by 1905. Increasing numbers were forced to leave their farms and join the bands of migrant labourers looking either for seasonal farming work or industrial employment. A minority migrated to Siberia, encouraged by government schemes from 1896 to sponsor emigration to the new agricultural settlements opened up by the Trans-Siberian railway. However, only three quarters of a million, from a peasant population of nearly 97 million, were able to take advantage of this initial program, and the scheme was clearly inadequate to alleviate the pressure of a growing population on resources. Although Stolypin’s later resettlement schemes between 1906 and 1914 assisted over 3.5 million peasants to relocate eastward, roughly 20% returned to European Russia impoverished and bitter. Stolypin’s broader agrarian reforms also met substantial peasant resistance, as millions remained deeply attached to the security of the traditional commune (mir).

Impact of Industrialisation: Working Class

In Russia’s major cities, the arrival of new large factories, in addition to the growing number of smaller workshops, swelled the urban population. There were probably around 2 million factory workers in Russia by 1900; 6 million by 1913. Between 1867 and 1917, the Empire’s urban population quadrupled from 7 to 28 million and this meant that the lives of many former peasant families underwent a major transformation. They left behind the fields of their fathers and grandfathers and exchanged old masters for new ones.
In the 1880s and 1890s, it was still relatively common for some workers to move to the towns temporarily, retaining their land and returning to their villages to help out with the harvest. By 1914, three out of every four people living in St Petersburg were peasants by birth. What is more, half the city’s population had arrived in the previous 20 years.

The facilities needed to provide for this growing urban class were grossly inadequate. Peasants, often found themselves living in barrack-like buildings, rapidly built, or bought by the factory owners, and dangerously overcrowded and lacking in adequate sanitation. For the owner, the barracks was an effective means of retaining and monitoring his workers, but for the “inmates” with little privacy save a rough curtain around their plank bed, they must have seemed like a prison. Workers housed this way had to eat in canteens and wash in communal bathhouses. Even those who managed to find “private” city accommodation fared little better.
In St Petersburg at the turn of the century, for example, about 40% of houses had no running water or sewerage system. Excrement was simply set in piles in the backyards and collected by workers with wooden carts at night. It is hardly surprising that 30,000 of the capital’s inhabitants died of cholera in 1908-09.

Yet the demand for work and accommodation was such that rents remained high, often taking half a worker’s wages. A survey of printers in Saratov in 1900 revealed that food and rent represented three-quarters of the household budget, while clothes, laundry and baths accounted for the rest. A similar survey of St Petersburg in 1904 showed 16 people in the average apartment, six in each room – and even more in the workers’ districts. Still, a bed was something. At the bottom of the pile were those who simply lay down in the factory alongside their machines, or lived rough on the streets.

Workers wages varied tremendously, of course, according to whether they were skilled or unskilled, the occupation followed and the amount of overtime put in, or conversely, the amount deducted in fines. In 1897, the Tsarist government legally established an 11.5-hour maximum working day (and a 6-day working week) for factory labor. Over the following decades, hours gradually decreased to an average of 9 to 10 hours per day by 1914, accompanied by the introduction of statutory holiday time and a 1912 sickness insurance law. However, these legislative steps failed to keep pace with worker expectations. In April 1912, state troops opened fire on striking gold miners during the Lena Goldfields massacre, killing over 200 workers and triggering massive strike waves across Russia. Women, who compromised a fifth (20%) of the industrial workforce in 1885, but a third (33%) by 1914, were amongst the lowest paid, earning less than half the average industrial wage. When Nicholas II took personal command of the army in 1915 during the First World War, the resulting wartime economic mismanagement, combined with severe urban fuel shortages and bread rationing, drove the desperate working-class population to the streets in the February 1917 Revolution, ultimately toppling the Tsarist autocracy.

Opposition

Following the sudden death of his father, Nicholas, at the age of 20, found himself ruler of Russia. At the start of his tenure, Nicholas II had to immediately deal with the growing opposition that had developed throughout his father’s reign. Due to an increase in industrialisation and urbanisation, the traditional Marxist opposition had developed, leading to the creation of a new group called the Social Democratic Party, which subsequently spilt into two parts; the Bolsheviks, and the Mensheviks.

The Split of the Social Democrats

A new opposition group – the Social Revolutionaries, formed in 1901. This group followed the Populist tradition of focusing on the peasantry as a potential revolutionary class. They encouraged the peasants to rebel against controlling influences in the countryside. Throughout 1903-4 peasants across Russia began to set fires to the property and land of many of their former landowners. These fires became known as the “Red Cockerel”.

1905 Revolution

Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905

Whereas previously the Russian government had been concerned about the future of the weak Ottoman Empire, by the late 19th century, its attention had shifted eastwards to China. Japan had defeated China in the war of 1894-5 and in victory took the important port of Port Arthur in Manchuria. The Russians wanted this port. It was a warm water port and offered the potential of all year round trading links, unlike Russia’s northern ports which froze in the winter. Russia and the other Great Powers were worried that Japan might expand further and threaten their own economic interests in the east. Using skilful diplomacy, the Great Powers were able to persuade Japan to return Port Arthur to China.

However, the Russian’s cleverly used the fact that they had helped China pay off its war debts to force the Chinese to agree to the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway across Manchuria (thus extending Russian influence in the region). They also were able to negotiate a 25 year lease of Port Arthur from China, and turned it into a naval base. Japan began to feel threatened by what was perceived as the Russian’s attempts to gain influence in the Japanese sphere of influence. Negotiations between the Russians and Japanese failed to ease the on-going conflict and Japan launched a strike on Port Arthur in January 1904 without warning or an official declaration of war.

The Tsar, encouraged by his ministers, was determined to fight back. Von Plehve, his Minister of the Interior even claimed, “a short, shift, victorious war will stem the tide of revolution”. However, there was one voice who spoke out against the conflict – Sergei Witte. He was ignored as Nicholas regarded himself as an expert on the area, since in 1890 his father had sent him on a grand tour to broaden his political education. This tour had included both Japan and Indo-China and it is said that an incident in Japan, when a mentally deranged terrorist had tried to assassinate him, had left him with a long-lasting hatred and inferior racist belief against the Japanese.

Russian tactics were largely defensive and the Russian forces endured a long siege at Port Arthur. Attempts to break the siege failed and Port Arthur fell on 2nd January 1905. Many defeats followed and the Russians really had very little idea of their enemy, of the inadequacies of their own forces. Running a war 6,000 miles from the capital was far from easy. Troops had to be sent on a six-day journey across Russia from the west, and the Trans-Siberian railway was only single-track. Obviously this placed the Russians at an immediate disadvantage compared with the Japanese short lines of supply. The organisation was chaotic. Ammunition was in short supply and one officer, having waited for some weeks for reserves of ammunition was disheartened to find the expected train had arrived filled not with munitions but with icons (religious symbols) for the soldiers. A long siege of Port Arthur, plus a series of defeats, turned the initial surge of patriotism into on attitude of hostility and opposition to the government. For Russia the disastrous course of the war had seriously aggravated unrest inside the country, and the surrender of Port Arthur led .Nicholas to turn to negotiations. In the resulting Treaty of Portsmouth, Japan gained control of the Liaodong Peninsula (and Port Arthur). The Treaty of Portsmouth effectively ended Russia’s expansionist East Asian policy. Furthermore, the humiliating defeat at the hands of an Asian power that had until so recently been preindustrial and isolationist added to the national anger and disgust.

Bloody Sunday

“Bloody Sunday” is an epithet given to several violent incidents and confrontations in history. In Russia, it refers to the shooting of unarmed civilians by tsarist soldiers in St Petersburg in January 1905. This caused the deaths of many people and triggered the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution.

The January 1905 incident began as a relatively peaceful protest by disgruntled steel workers in St Petersburg. Angered by poor working conditions, an economic slump and the ongoing war with Japan, thousands marched on the Winter Palace to plead with Tsar Nicholas II for reform. The tsar was not present, however, and the workers were instead gunned down on the streets by panicky soldiers.
At another time in Russian history, the mass killing of dissident civilians might have frightened the rest of the population into silent obedience – but the authority of the tsarist regime had been diminishing for months. Popular respect and affection for the tsar, already in decline beforehand, took a sudden turn for the worse. ‘Bloody Sunday’ triggered a wave of general strikes, peasant unrest, organised terrorism and political mobilisation that became known as the 1905 Revolution.

Treatment of industrial workers

By the start of the 20th century, Russia’s three million industrial workers were one of the lowest paid workforces in Europe. Low wage costs in Russia were one of the lures that attracted significant investment from countries like Britain and France. Russia’s industrial workers also laboured under appalling conditions. The average working day was 10.5 hours, six days a week, but 15-hour days were not unknown. There were no annual holidays, sick leave or superannuation. Workplace hygiene and safety were poor. Illness, accidents and injuries were common-place and with no leave or compensation available, sick or injured workers were summarily dismissed.

When not in factories or mines, most Russian industrial workers endured poor living conditions. Thousands of workers lived in crowded tenements or ramshackle barracks sheds owned by their employers. This accommodation was poorly constructed, overcrowded and lacked adequate heating, water or sewage facilities. This raft of grievances, along with the concentration of tens of thousands of workers in the cities, made them susceptible to revolutionary ideas. Marxist groups, who identified the industrial proletariat as the logical source of revolution.

Several of these sections were led by Georgy Gapon, a Ukrainian-born priest who had previously received support from the Okhrana (tsarist secret police). Gapon was an articulate and convincing public speaker and a skilled activist – but he was no obedient tool of the government. Working closely with impoverished and suffering workers, his loyalties eventually shifted to them. At the beginning of January 1905, Gapon drafted a petition to the tsar, seeking an improvement to working conditions – but it also called for several political reforms. More than 150,000 workers signed the petition.

On Sunday January 9th, thousands of workers marched towards the Winter Palace in six columns, intending to present their petition to the tsar. Unbeknownst to the workers, Nicholas II was at his palace in Tsarskoye Selo, some 25 miles south of the capital. As several thousand workers approached the Winter Palace, officers called out the palace’s security garrison to guard its entry points. As the workers approached, the soldiers opened fire on the crowd. It is not known whether an order was given, whether soldiers fired spontaneously or if they were reacting to aggression.

The number of victims is also unclear. Government sources declared that 96 were killed, eyewitnesses suggested in excess of 200, while reports and propaganda from revolutionary groups claimed even higher figures. The events of ‘Bloody Sunday’ reverberated around the world. In the newspapers of London, Paris and New York, Nicholas II was condemned as a murderous tyrant. Within Russia, the response was also strong. Once the empire’s ‘Holy Father’, the tsar was given the epithet ‘Bloody Nicholas’. Marxist leader Peter Struve dubbed him the ‘People’s Executioner’. An infuriated Gapon, who escaped the violence of January 9th, declared that “There is no God any longer. There is no tsar!” The day after the Bloody Sunday killings, around 150,000 in the capital showed their disgust by refusing to work. Over the coming days, the strikes expanded around St Petersburg and other cities in the empire, including Moscow, Odessa, Warsaw and the Baltic states. Later, these actions became more coordinated and were accompanied by demands for political reform. Over the course of 1905, tsarism would face the most dire challenge in its 300-year-old history.

1905 – Social Causes

In 1895 Nicholas II met a delegation of representatives of the zemstva. They had hopes that the new Tsar would be prepared to extend their power further and allow them to develop a national zemstva organisation. Nicholas responded by shattering their hopes, claiming they were “senseless dreams”. Russia was to remain an autocracy.

Living conditions in Urban Areas

After a decade of strong economic growth, Russian industry was hit with a slump in 1902. A drop in trade led to the collapse of many businesses and a rise in unemployment. Demonstrations and strikes broke out in many cities. The government responded with force. However, the protests .throughout 1903 and 1904.

A new opposition group – the Social Revolutionaries, formed in 1901. This group followed the Populist tradition of focusing on the peasantry as a potential revolutionary class. They encouraged the peasants to rebel against controlling influences in the countryside. Throughout 1903-4 peasants across Russia began to set fires to the property and land of many of their former landowners. These fires became known as the “Red Cockerel”.

Timeline of Revolutionary Course

By the end of January, there were more than 400,000 workers out on strike in St Petersburg – where workers such as those of the Putilov Engineering Works came out. The 1905 Revolution was under way. For the rest of the year, the government had little control of events as strikes, demonstrations, petitions, peasant uprisings, student riots and assassinations became commonplace. The Tsar was “at war” with his own people.

In February, the strikes spread to other cities. Workers demanded an eight-hour day, higher wages and better conditions. On 4 February, the Tsar’s uncle, the Grand Duke Sergei, was assassinated in Moscow.

In March and May, shameful defeats of the Russia army and navy in the war with Japan led to demands for a change of government. In June sailors of the battleship Potemkin mutinied. This was very worrying for the government as other sections of the armed forces might also mutiny.

By May and June, different groups were demanding changes. Middle-class liberals demanded an elected parliament, freedom of speech and the right to form political parties. National groups like the Poles and Finns, demanded their independence. The Jews wanted equal civil rights.

In the countryside in June and July, peasant riots became widespread. Land was seized and landowners’ houses were looted and burned.

In September, a peace treaty was signed between the Russians and the Japanese. Thousands of troops were now free to help put down the unrest in European Russia. The government paid them all their back pay and promised better conditions of service so that they would remain loyal to the Tsar. Pro-Tsarist group the “Black Hundreds” are used to hunt out radicals.

In October, a general strike spread from Moscow to other cities. All opposition groups – workers, students, teachers, doctors, revolutionaries – were united in demanding changes. Barricades were set up in the streets. On 26 October, the St Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was formed. Representatives from factories met to co-ordinate strike action. Soviets were formed in other cities. This was a great threat to the Tsar’s government.

The Tsar had the choice of giving in or using force, with the likelihood of massive bloodshed. He gave in and issued the October Manifesto on 30 October. This promised:

• a parliament or Duma elected by the people
• civil rights – e.g. freedom of speech and conscience
• uncensored newspapers and the right to form political parties.

The liberals and middle classes believed they had won democratic government. They stopped their protests and supported the government. By December, with all the troops back in Russia, the Tsar felt strong enough to take back control. He used force to close down the St Petersburg Soviet and crush an armed uprising in Moscow. He sent out troops to take revenge on workers and peasants who had rioted and bring them under control.

Repression and Reform

Revolutionaries

The outbreak in revolution in 1905 was largely a spontaneous event – i.e. it was not engineered by the leaders of the revolutionary groups. The revolution took many of the revolutionaries by surprise and they quickly had to act in order to manipulate events to their overall aims.

Liberal Opposition

The liberals grew increasingly anxious as the events of 1905 unfolded. Whilst they were in favour of constitutional change, they were concerned that the initiative was slipping from their hands. Their initial response to the events of January was to pressurise the government once more for a National Assembly as a solution to Russia’s problems. A meeting of zemstva liberals in Moscow on March 19th urged Nicholas to act swiftly to bring an end to the escalating revolutionary disturbances and a series of congresses followed throughout the year repeating a similar plea. Liberal plans for reform were also discussed in innumerable meetings in the universities which became centres for moderate reformist thinking. Groups of moderate liberal professionals, including teachers, engineers, doctors, lawyers and others also formed “unions” of their own which were rather more extreme in their demands than the zemstva liberals. These came together in the creation of a “Union of Unions” (May 8th/9th) led by the liberal politician Pavel Milyukov. They wanted full civil and political rights, universal suffrage and nationwide elections to an assembly with full legislative powers.

Social Democrats

The Social Democrats were taken even more by surprise. Both Lenin and Trotsky were abroad at the beginning of 1905 and although Trotsky secretly returned in February, Lenin missed all the action, only returning in November. The party split had made it harder to co-ordinate activities and although both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were active in encouraging strike activity and the formation of workers’ councils, they lacked direction from the top. Trotsky found his way back as quickly as possible and he tried to push both the Bolshevik Central Committee and Menshevik organisations in a more radical direction. He was forced to flee again, to Finland, in May but returned in October to work on the revolutionary newspaper, the Russian Gazette, increasing its circulation to 500,000 and to chair the St Petersburg Soviet, an elected non-party revolutionary organisation representing the capital’s workers, dominated by the Mensheviks. The St.Petersburg Soviet played a key role in supporting the striking workers in their general strike in September-October. It was made up of 400-500 members, elected by around 200,000 workers, representing five trade unions and 96 factories around the city.

Social Revolutionaries

As might have been expected, the Social Revolutionaries seized the opportunity afforded by the disturbances of 1905 to perpetrate a further political assassination. On February 4th, the Grand Duke Sergei, the Tsar’s uncle and commander of the Moscow military region, was blown up by a Socialist Revolutionary bomb and then on July 11th it was the turn of Shuvalov, the military governor of Moscow. They also encouraged the activities of the peasantry and were behind the attempt to create a council to organise and co-ordinate peasant action, leading the formation of the AllRussian Peasant Union in May.

Nationalists

The revolutionary activities of 1905 were especially pronounced in the non-Russian areas of the Empire as nationalist groups with both economic and political grievances seized the opportunity to advance their own position. Such nationalist protest often attracted people of all classes and professions in demonstrations against the demands of the tsarist state. For example, a general strike in Odessa in the Ukraine in June brought people from a wide social background onto the streets. Nationalist feelings often ran high. There were demands for independence from the Poles, Finns, Latvians and other nationalist minority groups to which the tsarist government responded with force and repression. In June, troops were used against strikers in Lodz in Finland, in the Baltic states and in the Caucasus where interethnic confrontations led to the Armenian-Tartar massacres, causing damage and disruption to the cities and Baku oilfields. In Russian Poland over 400,000 workers became involved in strikes, to the severe disruption of the economy.

Repression

In the aftermath of the 1905 Revolution, repression became associated with one man, Pytor Stolypin. He had joined the Council of Ministers as Minister of the Interior in 1906 and quickly became its chairman – the equivalent to prime minister. Stolypin had the perfect background for the job of reestablishing political authority. Although the 1905 Revolution had been crushed, peasant unrest continued sporadically throughout 1906 and 1907.

In 1907, around 1200 government officials were murdered in terrorist attacks by revolutionaries. The attacks were launched by members of extremist groups such as the SRs. But Stolypin met terror with terror. Using field court martials, 1144 death sentences were handed out in the period between October 1906 and May 1907. In fact, so great was the use of executions that the nooses used in hangings became known as “Stolypin’s neckties”.

Stolypin also attacked the bases of revolutionary activity. Between 1906 and 1912 a thousands newspapers ceased publication and six hundred trade unions were forced to close. During 1908 and 1909 Stolypin’s courts convicted 16,500 people of political crimes, of which 3600 were sentenced to death and 4500 to hard labour in prison camps. The impact of government action was impressive – in 1908 political assassinations by revolutionaries had fallen to 365. The restoration of law and order was one of Stolypin’s great achievements. But he was not simply a reactionary – he also embarked on a series of very important reforms.

Reform

Stolypin, like other members of the government, was aware that social and economic reform was necessary in order to prevent another revolution (and preserve Tsarism). In particular he wanted to modernise Russian agriculture, not just to produce higher yields, but also to create a more prosperous class of peasant who he believed would be more loyal to the tsarist regime.

From 1906 until his assassination in 1911, Stolypin embarked on a reform programme which transformed the Russian countryside. In September 1906, the amount of state and Crown land available for peasants to buy was increased and in October, peasants were granted equal rights in the local administration. In November 1906 peasants were given the right to leave the commune and the collective ownership of land by a family was abolished. This made the land the personal property of an individual (usually the eldest male) who was given the right to withdraw it from the commune and consolidate the scattered strips into one compact farm. Land organisation commissions were set up, containing representatives elected by the peasants, to supervise this procedure and a new Peasant Land Bank was also established to help peasants fund their land ownership. However these reforms did not actually become fully operational until approved by the Third Duma in 1910.

Redemption payments were officially abolished – as promised in 1905 – as from January 1st 1907, but in reality they had long since ceased to be paid in full. In June 1910 all communes which had not redistributed land since 1861 were dissolved. There was also an increase in government subsidies to encourage migration and settlement in Siberia. Between 1905 and 1915 Stolypin’s encouragement of emigration also took 3.5 million peasants from over-populated rural districts of the south and west away to Siberia. This move turned the region into one of the Empire’s major agricultural regions, particularly for dairy farming, eggs, butter and cereal production. In addition, agricultural production across Russia rose from 45.9 million tonnes in 1906 to 61.7 million tonnes in 1913.

Limitations

Perhaps the most important limitation of all was that Stolypin’s reforms produced a growing class of alienated, poor and landless peasants. Whilst some peasants rose in rank and joined the Kulaks, once again, for every family that improved its status, there was another which descended into deeper hardship and either had to rent land, to be paid for in money or by their own labour, or was forced to join the wandering ranks of the landless, drifting to the cities to work in the factories.

It is impossible to know what the full outcome of Stolypin’s programme would have been as it was cut short by the coming of war on 1914. As Russia entered the war, rural poverty was still widespread and considerable tensions remained.

Political Reform – The Four Dumas

The First Duma, May-July 1906

A national election campaign took place through the winter of 1905-06. The Bolsheviks and Social Revolutionaries refused to participate. This meant that the first state duma, optimistically referred to as the Duma of National Hopes was .overwhelmingly liberal in composition. The Kadets fought a skilful campaign and won the largest number of seats of any grouping. More than a third of the new deputies were peasants. The deputies formed a group that was strongly critical of the Tsar and his ministers. They met at the Tauride Palace in St Petersburg on May 1st 1906.

However no sooner had the elections taken place than Sergei Witte, the architect of the October Manifesto and Russia’s first ever Prime Minister resigned, under pressure from reactionary influences at Court. This was a blow to the hopes of the liberals who no doubt hoped that, under his guidance, a form of government would evolve whereby Ministers would take note of the Duma’s views and work together with it in the formation of policies. Witte was replaced by Ivan Goremykin, an oldfashioned conservative.

From the outset, Nicholas found the first Duma too radical. Almost their first act was to pass an “Address to the throne” in which they requested many more reforms such as universal male suffrage, the abolition of the death penalty and a reform of the civil service. Nicholas ordered Goremykin to inform the Duma that their demands were “totally inadmissible”, whereupon the Duma passed a vote of no confidence in the government. However the resolution was simply ignored until, 10 weeks later, the Duma was dissolved.

The Second Duma, February-June 1907

New Prime Minister, Pytor Stolypin tried to influence the elections to the next Duma, supporting the Octobrists, who more than doubled their representation. However, the more extreme left-wing representation in the Duma increased enormously because the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries decided to participate. The Duma soon received the nickname, the “Duma of National Anger” because it was even .
more oppositional than its predecessor. Neither the left nor the right wanted the Duma experiment to succeed and they succeeded in crippling it as a political force. Stolypin struggled to find any support for the agricultural reform programme he had drawn up and resorted to passing legislation under the emergency powers granted by Article 87, while the Duma was not in session. When the Duma refused to ratify this, he spread a story about a Social Democrat (SD) plot to assassinate the tsar and Stolypin dissolved the Duma. The SD delegates were immediately arrested and exiled and an emergency law brought in to alter the franchise. The weight of the peasants, workers and national minorities was drastically reduced and the representation of the gentry increased.

The Third Duma, November 1907-June 1912

Not surprisingly, the groups which favoured the government, the Octobrists and Rightists, won the majority of seats, while the Kadets and socialists were much reduced in size as well as being divided in principles. This time the Duma’s nickname in radical circles was the “Duma of Lords and Lackeys”. Generally, this Duma was far more submissive and it agreed 2,200 of the 2,500 government proposals – including important proposals for agricultural reform, presented by Stolypin. By 1911 the Octobrists had turned into government opponents and the Duma had to be suspended twice, while the government forced through legislation under emergency provisions. Although the Duma ran its course, by 1912 it was clear that the Duma system was not working and had no control over the actions of the tsar or his government.

The Fourth Duma, November 1912-1917

The party groupings were broadly similar in the final Duma, although the Octobrists did considerably less well, creating a greater rift between right and left. However, it was a relatively docile body and the new Prime Minister, Kokovtsov, who replaced Stolypin after his assassination in 1911 and remained in post until 1914, proclaimed, “Thank God we still have no .
parliament”. He simply ignored the Duma and its influence declined. It was too divided to fight back, and in any case, the workers again seized the initiative with a revival of direct action and strike activity in these years down to the outbreak of war. After the outbreak of war in 1914 the Duma became redundant although Kokovtsov was replaced by Goremykin as Prime Minister.

WWI and the February Revolution

The war began well for Russia. The country was filled with a strong sense of patriotism, with the majority of the population rallying behind the Tsar. Even students in St Petersburg, who had been recently protesting against the Tsar, found a new enemy and took to protesting outside the Germany embassy. However, these successes were short-lived.

Although the Russian government managed to mobilise around 15 million men between 1914 and 1917, mainly peasant conscripts, it proved unable to provide for them. The problems of the early years grew steadily worse so that soldiers were sent to fight not only without suitable weaponry, but also lacking basic warm clothing and properly fitting, waterproof footwear. In 1914, the infantry had only two rifles for every three soldiers and in 1915 it was not unusual for Russian artillery to be limited to two or three shells per day. In these early years, the soldiers had to rely on the weapons of fallen comrades in order to fight at all. It is not surprising therefore that under these circumstances, that even in victory, Russian casualties were huge.
In August 1914, Russian armies entered East Prussia, the easternmost province of Germany. They also over-ran much of the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. The Russian advance forced the Germans to amend their war plan, the Schlieffen Plan. Army units destined for France were diverted to the Eastern Front, and at the end of August and the beginning of September the Russian advance was stopped at the Battle of Tannenburg, in which the German generals Hindenburg and Ludendorf won a crushing victory over the Russians. By the time the battle ended, 30,000 Russian troops were killed or wounded – and 95,000 causalities and captured over 500 guns. However, at the end of September the Russians surrounded the AustroHungarian fortress town of Przemysl. After a siege lasting more than four months, the Russians eventually captured the town and 110,000 prisoners. These military developments had a mixed effect on the popularity of the war at home.

1915 proved to be the turning point in the fighting on the Eastern Front. After the victory at the Battle of Tannenburg, the Germans defeated the Russians in the Battle of Lodz in December 1914. This was followed by the Austro-German forces’ launch of the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive in July 1915. By the end of 1915, Russian forces had been completely driven out of Russian Poland. These military reversals led Tsar Nicholas II to make one of his most disastrous decisions. In September 1915, after the loss of Poland, he dismissed his Uncle Nikolai as commander-inchief of the Russian army and took command himself. Nicholas II was plainly unqualified to command a military unit, let alone a vast army of several millions. But from September 1915 Tsar Nicholas II took personal responsibility for Russia’s military fortunes on the Eastern Front. In addition, while he was away at the Front, Nicholas II left the running of the government and the administration to his wife, the Tsarina Alexandria.

By 1916, some of the most glaring deficiencies in equipment had gone. The winter months of 1915-16 had been relatively quiet for the Russians so the time had been spent ensuring that soldiers were better trained and rifles were being produced at a rate of 10,000 a month. By the time the Brusilov Offensive was launched in June 1916, most front-line units had a reasonable complement of machine guns and artillery shells. However, the army had a serious lack of experienced officers since most had been killed in the early stages of the war.

From June to August 1916 the Russian forces launched their last major offensive of the war, the Brusilov Offensive. Initially it met with success and even prompted .

Romania to enter the war on Russia’s side. But by August the Brusilov Offensive had run out of momentum, and Russian forces had to retreat from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. This retreat was associated with desertions, and by Christmas 1916 the Russian army was facing major shortages of war material and a fall in morale.

A variety of reasons contributed to the failure of the Brusilov Offensive. Nicholas II proved to be a very poor commander-in-chief, and poor internal communications – the railways, in particular – led to a shortage of military equipment getting to the front. But the problem for Russia was transportation, because it failed to get enough supplies to the battle areas.

From October 1916, the effectiveness of the Russian army started to decline, partly because of the deteriorating economic and political situation within Russia itself, and partly because of the heavy casualties it suffered. By Christmas 1916, 1.6million Russian soldiers were dead, 3.9 million were wounded and 2.4 million had been taken prisoner. That year many thousands of soldiers deserted the army and many more did so in 1917.

Political Impact

Even before the end of 1914, there were disputes over the organisation of the war effort. In July 1914, the tsarist government had set up “military zones” within which all civilian authority was suspended and the military assumed command. This was opposed by the liberal zemstva who regarded the government as insensitive to the needs of the people and believed that civilians had a major part to play in the running of the war. For example, the government’s decision to prohibit the sale of alcohol at the end of 1914 was both resented and evaded. Vodka was regarded as a near essential, especially in hard times, so peasants and workers simply distilled their own, whilst the government lost some valuable tax revenue from legal sales.

Russia’s government bodies – both local and national began to assert themselves despite opposition from the Tsar. The zemstva established a “Union of Zemstva” to provide the medical facilities which the state seemed to neglect and in August 1915, some of the deputies (Kadets, Octobrists and Progressives) from the Fourth Duma, organised themselves into a group known as the “Progressive Bloc”, and demanded that the tsar change his ministers and establish a “government of public confidence”. They were effectively asking for a constitutional monarchy, in which they would have a dominant voice. Had Nicholas II been a more astute man, he might well have seized this chance to institute political reform and transfer responsibility for the war effort to a civilian government. However, Nicholas was not prepared to contemplate such a move. Instead, in September, he suspended the sittings of the Duma and it remained officially closed until January 1917, although unauthorised meetings continued.

In September, further defeats led Nicholas II to make the disastrous decision to take on the role of Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army and Navy and to travel to the front line. This move did nothing to help the cause. Although it had overtones of bravery and heroism, Nicholas had already lost the confidence and support of the Russian General Staff and did not possess the military experience to turn the war effort around. Instead, his new position simply made him appear yet more responsible for the varying disasters which befell his troops and state, whilst distancing him even more from developments in Petrograd.

In Petrograd, Rasputin began to muddle in political appointments and policy decisions, whilst there were rumours that Nicholas’s German wife, Alexandra, was deliberately sabotaging the war effort. Whether Rasputin was quite the evil influence some contemporaries made out, or simply the tool of political schemers, we can’t be sure. Nevertheless, there were many changes of ministers in the 12 months after September 1915, including three to four changes in some ministries, and these were put down to Rasputin’s influence. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that liberals and socialists began to lose patience and demand changes in government.

Economic impact

The war proved an economic disaster. The direct cost of war rose from 1,500 million roubles in 1914 to 14,500 million in 1918 but the losses were actually greater. Although only 9% of the Russian population was actually mobilised for war, 15 million conscripts and volunteers were enlisted for military service between 1914 and 1917 and this was, of course, at the expense of the rural and industrial workforce. Whilst women and children took on some of the men’s work, production slumped and, in any case, in time of war, the country needed to be producing more, not less, to feed and supply its armies. Poland and other parts of western Russia were overrun by the Germans, removing important industrial capacity, while naval blockades of the Baltic and Black Sea ports, together with the loss of overland routes to Europe, brought Russian trade to a virtual standstill.

Even when the grain was released for the market, inefficiencies of distribution meant that it did not always reach the town workers who desperately needed it. Railways had been taken over to transport men and goods to the front, railway locomotive production halved between 1913 and 1916 and there were acute fuel shortages. Foodstuffs that should have found their way to the cities were left to rot beside railway sidings or huge cargos of grain would be sent to the front leaving none for the desperate townsfolk. This made life hard for the town populations which swelled as factories sought more workers for essential war industries. This recruitment drive meant that though armament production improved in 1916, when rifle production doubled and heavy artillery production quadrupled, this was all at the expense of civilian needs.

Social Impact

In the countryside, although the loss of young sons and husbands was a cause of despair, the departure of many men into the army actually helped relieve some of the population pressure. Peasants who had horses that could be used by the military could also make money, whilst their grain was in high demand to feed the troops. However, the prices offered by the government were too low to allow them to make essential purchases of tools and equipment – which were in short supply. It became a struggle to buy essential household goods. As a result, some hoarded what grain and foodstuffs they produced, exacerbating an already difficult situation.
In urban centres, particularly in Petrograd and Moscow, unemployment soared as non-military factories, deprived of vital supplies, were forced to close. Lock-outs and strikes financially crippled what little industry survived. A 300% rise in the cost of living, rising death rates because of the workers’ insanitary lodgings and the inadequacies of their diets left thousands living on the brink of starvation. In such circumstances, in January 1917, 30,000 workers went on strike in Moscow and 145,000 in Petrograd.

The Petrograd demonstrations

In the 1920s an American historian, W.H. Chamberlain, claimed that the February Revolution was “one of the most leaderless, spontaneous, anonymous revolutions of all time”. It began as a series of uncoordinated demonstrations in the capital, Petrograd. On 9 January, 140,000 workers went on strike and demonstrated in the streets to commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, which had begun the 1905 Revolution. On the last day of January strikes about food shortages occurred sporadically across Russia. On 14 February, 100,000 workers again went on strike in Petrograd, protesting against food shortages and poor working conditions. On the same day, the State Duma was reconvened and, instead of supporting the government, it attacked it over food shortages. The government only made matters worse, however, by announcing on 19 February that bread rationing would start on 1 March. This news led to panic buying of various foodstuffs.

A key event was the demonstrations in Petrograd on 23 February to commemorate International Women’s Day, when tens of thousands of women took to the streets. This coincided with a major strike at the Putilov Engineering Works and together, the demonstrators and the strikers numbered over 100,000.

The following day, 24 February, the strikes and demonstrations continued – mainly about food shortages and the threat of rationing. Soviets (committees) of workers were formed to formulate demands against the government. By 25 February the number of demonstrators had swelled to 200,000. It was at this stage that the government tried to take control of the capital’s streets. The police arrested members of the Workers’ Group, a leading body set up by workers in Petrograd to organise strikes and demonstrations. All newspapers were shut down and public transport ceased to operate.

The defection of the armed forces

The turning point in the Revolution came on 25 February, when Cossack troops refused to fire on the demonstrators. The next day, troops did fire on the demonstrators, killing 40 of them, but the elite Pavlovsky Life Guards refused to carry out orders. This was the first significant sign that government authority had begun to break down. In the 1905 Revolution the Tsar’s regime had survived because of the support of the armed forces. But now, at a critical time in the February Revolution, the army was beginning to desert the government. In an attempt to reassert its authority, the government dissolved the State Duma. Instead of disbanding, however, the State Duma formed a twelve-man committee to take over the running of the country, and this became the Provisional Government. What had begun as spontaneous demonstrations and strikes, mainly about food shortages, had become a political revolution. The Tsar began to lose his nerve, and on 28 February he telegrammed the State Duma, offering to share power. However, the State Duma refused the Tsar’s offer.

On 1 March the workers’ soviets which had begun forming on 24 February joined forces to make the Petrograd Soviet. This was a repeat of the events in the 1905 Revolution which saw the creation of the St Petersburg Soviet. It issued “Order Number 1” which demanded that all officers in the army be elected by their men. This began the rapid deterioration of authority and command over the army.

The Tsar’s decision to abdicate

On 1 March, the Tsar made a last bid to retake control. He boarded a train at his army HQ in Mogilev in an attempt to get back to Petrograd. However, on 2 March his train was stopped at Pskov, 250 km short of Petrograd, because anti-government soldiers had gained control of the railway line. In a siding at Pskov, Tsar Nicholas II was visited by members of the State Duma and was asked to abdicate. The Tsar agreed, and also abdicated the throne on behalf of the Tsarevich, his haemophiliac son Alexi, whom he feared would be too ill to serve as Tsar. Although Nicholas II was not technically allowed to abdicate for his son, he passed his throne to his own brother, Grand Duke Michael. On 3 March, however, Grand Duke Michael refused the offer to the throne – and by this act Russia ceased to be a monarchy. The Romanov dynasty, which had ruled since 1613, had come to an abrupt end. On the same day, Prince Lvov was announced Prime Minister in charge of the Provisional Government. In the space of just two weeks the unplanned demonstrations had resulted in political revolution.