Effectos of 1905 Revolution on Russian Government free essay sample

?How significant were the effects of 1905 Revolution on Russian government and society at the time? The 1905 Revolution was significant to Russian government in long run but not in short run. After investigating into the contemporary sources which focus on different people’s opinions towards the Revolution and changes brought about by it, I found that there were general agreements on the following views. Firstly, the 1905 Revolution did brought changes to the practice of Russian government; however, as it did not bring an end to the autocratic regime in Russia, the short term the effects of the Revolution was not significant. In long run, the Revolution significantly aroused people’s anger towards the Tsar, and we can even argue that it provoked the 1917 Revolution, and arguably, it changed the whole system of government and political structure of Russia, so the long term significance of the revolution to Russian government was more remarkable. Secondly, we could doubt the effects of the Revolution on Russian society. It brought freedom to the people through the October Manifesto, but it is questionable whether it changed the Russians’ life significantly. Politically, the short term significance of the effects of the 1905 Revolution was not remarkable. The 1905 Revolution brought changes to the political structure of Russia; however, its significance was usually over exaggerated by historians. The Revolution brought about was the first broad based challenge to Tsardom. It exposed people’s hidden anger to the Tsar and organized into an armed revolution which aimed to overthrown the Tsarist government. Alan Wood suggested that 1the events of the 1905 Revolution such as the Bloody Sunday was the first revolutionary disturbance which forced the Tsar to authorize the holding of elections for a consultative and legislative national assembly. Peter Waldron2 shared similar views and suggested that the Revolution was significant in reminding the Tsar the existence of ordinary citizens in society and lead to the establishment of the October Manifesto which brought political power to ordinary citizens in an elitist autocratic tsarist regime. The October Manifesto established on 17th October, 19053 stated clearly that an elected legislative body (Duma) would be established, under which no legislations could become law without the approval of Duma. These illustrated the short term significance of the effects of the 1905 Revolution to Russian’s government, because election was introduced for the first time in history, Russia was moving towards a modern constitutional government. People in Russia were finally being given some political power. Another effect brought by the 1905 Revolution was the wide spread of disorder, it posed significance to Russian government, because arguably it could be considered as an attempt to put an end to the autocratic regime. An 4extract from the workers’ petition presented to the Tsar on 22nd January, 1905, stated the workers’ demand for ‘any right to speak, to think, to assemble, to discuss our needs, or to take measures to improve our conditions’ and they would ‘left their work would not resume work until they meet their demands and showed that there were many workers involved in the Revolution; they would strike until the government granted them basic human rights, the rights to choose their own representative and reasonable wages. This implied that people were resistance to autocratic rule, and demanded for representation in the system of government. However, the workers’ petition only showed people’s demand in improving their living conditions and rights, the workers may not have any intentions to overthrow Tsardom. Historian 5Michael Lynch supported this view; he highlighted that fact that the workers had planned a peaceful march to Winter Palace. Their intention was to present a loyal petition to the tsar, begging him to relieve their desperate condition. The fact that the presentation of the workers petition turned into Bloody Sunday, was caused by the inability of the police force to deal with such numerous unarmed petitioners, thus we doubt the short term significance of the Revolution to Russian government. However, historian Han Rogger6 argued that the fact that a peaceful petition of the workers was turned into a massacre had destroyed the traditional image of the Tsar as their â€Å"Little Father†, thus provoked resistance towards Tsardom. So from this aspect, in long term, the 1905 Revolution was significant to Russian government at the time. Furthermore, Nicholas II wrote, 7â€Å"There have been serious disorders in St. Petersburg because workmen wanted to come up to the Winter Palace. Troops had to open fire in several places in the city† once again implied the political and social instability brought by the 1905 Revolution and its attempts to put an end to autocracy. Thus, the Revolution was significant as an attempt to overthrow Tsardom. However, in the later part of his diary, he wrote â€Å"Mama arrived from town, straight to church. I lunched with all others†, showed that Nicholas II did not understand the needs of the Russians. He went to have a walk and have lunch, after such a painful massacre demonstrated that the Revolution did not pose any threat to the Tsar. However, the fact that the diary entry showed â€Å"there were many killed and wounded† by the troops during the petition, damaged Nicholas II’s reputation, and formed a political force against the regime, and the fact that many people went to protest in St. Petersburg showed that Russians were generally becoming more critical to the regime in long run. Sergei Witte’s letter to Nicholas II8 backed up the above evidence and showed us clearly that â€Å"The government must be ready to proceed along constitutional lines†, as it was the only solution to ease people’s anger brought about by the 1905 Revolution, so arguably, the establishment of the Russian Constitution, which was a very significant step of political modernization, was a direct outcome of the Revolution. However, 9the secondary work of Orlando Figes pointed that Witte had a very liberal political view, which he personally in favour of a democratic political system. The Witte’s letter could only present subjective and liberal views. 10A diary entry written by Nicholas II on 19th October, 1905, about the October manifesto, he wrote ‘There was no other way out but to cross oneself and give what everyone was asking for’ once again backed up the above ideas, and showed us clearly that there was no choice for Nicholas II to install stability to Russia after the 1905 Revolution, but to established a constitution and a State Duma. These illustrated that the short term significance of the Revolution to Russian government. After all the 1905 Revolution did directly brought a constitutional government to Russia. However, the above arguments illustrate by Nicholas II diary entry could only showed the views of the Tsar. As the Tsar was force to give away some of his power to the Duma, he would obviously consider himself as the victim of the Revolution. Thus it was questionable whether Nicholas II really gave the Russians â€Å"what everyone was asking for†. Historian Alexander Chubarov suggested 11that Nicholas II did not intentionally want to grant the people power of franchise, he did not intentionally want to establish the October Manifesto and he half-heartedly adopted those policies stated in the October Manifesto and thus ineffective. When drawing up the fundamental laws in early 190612, the Tsar did all he could to limit the powers of Duma. The law stated that â€Å"The Sovereign Emperor enjoys the legislative initiative in all legislative matter. † Showed that the continuation of the Tsar’s power in the legislature after the 1905 Revolution. In addition, the electoral system discriminated heavily on peasants; elections were indirect and were cast by curios which set up by separate constituencies. Thus the Tsar remained powerful and government workings largely remained the same after 1905 Revolution. 13Nicholas II’s wrote a diary entry on 3rd November, 1905, ‘I will never trust that man (Witte) again with the smallest thing’, it expose his private thoughts of distrust and hatred towards Witte. Nicholas II hatred towards Witte, the one who came up with the idea regarding the establishment of a Russian constitution, implied that the October Manifesto undermined his absolute power thus showed us his unwillingness to reform Russia. He failed to realize the importance of constitutional element toward the stability of Russia. This showed the 1905 Revolution could not even bring the intension to the Tsar to change the system of government. 14Another diary entry of Nicholas II written on 19thOctober, 1905, supported the above view, it also additionally highlighted that the Tsar ‘had no one to rely on except honest Trepov’. The diary entries written by Nicholas II was a reliable source showing his trust, loyalty and reliance on Trepov, who was a strongly conservative anti-reformist and showed Nicholas II strong believe in autocracy, because his diary entries were private documents which could demonstrate what he truly believed in. It was clear that the effects of 1905 Revolution to Russian government was insignificant; as the head of state, the Tsar, was still highly depend on the advice of a powerful anti-reformist, autocracy remained and there were distrust and hatred between major personnel who controlled the policy, Witte and Nicholas II. Admittedly, you may argue that Nicholas II’s trust and hatred to Trepov and Witte respectively may not affect the significance of the effects of the 1905 Revolution to Russia Government, as the successfulness of the October Manifesto was not solely depend on the Tsar. However, Alan Wood 15 suggested that Russia remained as an autocratic regime under which Nicholas II still had absolute autocracy, despite the establishment of the October Manifesto and Duma, and indeed, the decision of the Tsar determined the success or failure of the October Manifesto. In addition, 16Leon Trotsky wrote in the newspaper Izvestia comments about the political conditions in November 1905, mentioning there were ‘Cossack whip wrapped up the constitution’. This indicates that the 1905 Revolution didn’t grant people real power. ‘Police hooligan Trepov’ and ‘liberal mediator Witte’ were controlling the constitution. If Duma introduced legislation which contradicted the supreme power of the Tsar, the Tsar could simply resolve Duma. Thus illustrate there were still no scrutiny on the Tsar’s power. Thus the significance of the effects of the 1905 Revolution to Russian Government was limited; the establishment of the October Manifesto were simply a solution to stop disorder immediately. You may argue that Trotsky’s ideas were subjective and extreme; he only represented the ideas of the revolutionary minorities and Izvestia was a newspaper which only showed the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionary Party views. Thus the comments of Trotsky on Izvestia were very questionable. It was obvious that government had no intention to change the system of government and grant people political power in long run, thus reinforce my argument that the effect of 1905 Revolution was not significant on Russian government at that time. However, the anger of the people provoked by the 1905 Revolution could be considered as the catalyst of the 1917 Revolution which actually put an end to autocracy to Russia. An article17written by Lenin on Vperyod mentioned the slogan of â€Å"Death or freedom! is reverberating throughout Russia. Events are developing with astonishing rapidity. The general strike in St. Petersburg is spreading. All industrial, public and political activities are paralysed. † which showed that the 1905 Revolution was only the start of the Russian Revolution and they would not forget the lesson of Bloody Sunday and would continue to go against autocracy. So from this aspect , despite the fact that 1905 Revolution did not bring immediate change to the government of Russia, it actually indirectly brought about the greatest transfer of political power in the Russian history within 20 years time. However, the fact that Vperyod was an underground newspaper of the Bolsheviks, and we could believe that Lenin used Vperyod to raise the momentum of the Bolsheviks during the Revolution, thus this source only reflect minority views in Russian society. 18S. J. Lee suggest that, another significant effect of the 1905 Revolution on Russian government was that it led to the official establishment of political parties. Political parties were major sources of opposition against autocratic Tsarist regime. Lenin, Stalin who was the leaders of the 1917 Russian Revolution, start gaining public profiles and supports through the Bolshevik Party. Political parties, with good organizations and legitimate power in Duma, with great ambitions to seize power, were determined to overthrow Tsardom. Lenin clearly outlined in his book 19What is to be done, ‘we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there’ which showed his desire to call for insurrection and seizure of power. The creation of political parties was significant in paving a way for the collapse of the tsarist regime. However, in reality, the Tsarist regime kept control of the army and workers were repressed after 1905 Revolution. The government crushed the widespread of mass revolts. Even though, the political parties did arouse people anger, and cause instability in society after the Revolution, autocracy remained. Alan Wood also commented that â€Å"The form of government still remained as absolute autocracy† The Tsar had the power to dissolve Duma and abolish the constitution. 20S. J. Lee’s secondary work backed up Alan Wood’s idea; he commented Duma as â€Å"a parliament with party but with no scope for party politics† Thus illustrate that political parties and Duma did not had real power in hands, they could not scrutinized the government. You may argue that the significance of the effect of 1905 Revolution to Russian government was limited, but failure to overthrow the Tsarist government in 1905 inspired Lenin, that mass revolt without effective organizations would not have any effect to overthrow Tsardom, a successful revolution could only be achieved by small, disciplined and well-organized parties. Lenin was inspired to unite the proletariats and installed the Bolsheviks party with the above quality, and thus we can say that the 1905 Revolution significantly inspired Lenin and the Bolsheviks to overthrow Tsardom and indirectly lead Russia turned into a socialist state, thus in long run its significance to Russian government was remarkable. Socially, the 1905 Revolution brought a better balance of power between the people and the government. ‘Fundamental civil freedoms will be granted to the population’ and ‘the elections that have already been scheduled† were stated in the October Manifesto. The Revolution brought Russia the October Manifesto, enhanced the rights enjoyed by ordinary citizens. Furthermore, the 1905 Revolution brought constitutional change to Russia demonstrated that even ordinary citizen had a power to make a difference in society, through expression of opinions in the revolts. By using tactics to destabilize the society, such as strikes and petty stealing from land owners, the peasants expressed grievances regarding their hard life. Such actions from the society significantly brought about government response and led to the establishment of Witte remortgage payment. Thus the standards of living of the peasants were improved. So from this aspect, the 1905 Revolution was significant to Russian’s society as it granted the people freedom and it also improve the livelihood of the peasants through the response of the peasants’ petition in Russia at the time. However, Hans Roggers21 and S. J. Lee22 suggested that Nicholas broke his promise of introducing a Constitutional Monarchy, he published his own Fundamental Laws in 1906 which stated that the Tsar, â€Å"posses the supreme autocratic power† and the Tsar, not the Duma, appointed his ministers. The Tsar also retained the right to rule by decree, which means rule without Duma. The role of the people’s representative, Duma, was limited. People’s living was still under the control of the Tsar. And according to the Memoirs of Count Witte23, â€Å"The Manifesto was a bolt from the blue† as â€Å"most provincial authorities did not understand what was happening† and thus, â€Å"Violent outbreaks both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary took place all over the country†, it was clear that the 1905 revolution did not improve people’s living. However, the fact that Witte made such comments may because â€Å"the document was drafted against my will and behind my back†. But after the 1905 Revolution, revolts, strike still broke out everywhere, people still yield for improvement in their living. There were even attempts on the lives of the members of the Imperial family and even government officials according to 24Felix Yusupov, which proved that after 1905 Revolution, the livelihood of the Russian peasants were not improved. Thus the significance of the effect of 1905 Revolution on Russian society was limited. Overall, politically, its short term significance were very limited, it did brought Duma into the government structure but the role of Duma was override the autocratic Tsar. However, the long term significance was more remarkable as it was the â€Å"First Blood† in Russia and contributed to the development of the 1917 Revolution which overthrew Tsardom. As for Russian society, it did not change people’s way of living, hardships continued in Russians’ live, and thus the effect of 1905 Revolution was not significant to Russian society.