Friends this is a
long topic and I have divide it in 3 Major Parts i.e.;
- The introduction to Russian Empire, its extent and economic expansion, Tsar Dynasty and Working classes & 1st uprising.
- The Rise of Marxism and the revolution of 1905-07.
- The Bolshevik Revolution and the end of Autocracy(i.e. the Tsar rule.).
When we talk about
the top players of United Nations and the most strongest nations in this era of
'economic wars' we have only 3 nations on our list i.e. "USA, Russian
Federation, The Republic Of China". But very few people know about the
past of these nations. They were also like some common developing nations once
fighting with internal problems, hunger, poverty autocracy etc.
The
introduction to Russian Empire, its extent and economic expansion.
The Holy Russia(as
it was called after the establishment of Tsar rule)after 1460s had begun to
expand in Asia, the victory in Napoleonic Wars(In 1815, Tsar Alexander1 formed a Holy
Alliance with other Emperors to defeat Napoleon.) gave it access to the future
industrial rich regions of Poland. It had already conquered the Baltic region
and Finland in 1809, Bessarabia in 1812. In south it extended till the
Trans-Caucasian region(1859-64). In 1885 when the Indian National Congress was
being formed in British India the Russian troops clashed with the Afghans at
Pendjeh, they also fought with the British in this region and lost. Therefore,
Russians turned their attention towards east. In east the acquired territories
south of Amur River covering the vital warm water coast of Vladivostok(for
Russians the importance for the search of accessible coast has always been the
major cause of its expansion, like the Baltic conquest of 1809 to gain the
western shores and now the conquest of Vladivostok in east.). The
trans-Siberian Railways built b/w 1891-1904 which linked Vladivostok to Moscow
was an important economic route for Russians in the period. The dream of
eastern conquest of Russians came to an end in Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05
when the wanted the occupation of Manchuria for a better coastal access. The
strong Russian Empire lost this war because of the internal economic
disturbances going on due to the Tsar autocratic rule.
The economic
development in Russian Empire was a continuous process from 18th till 20th
century but due to the unquestioned autocracy prevalent in Russia this
development could not reach the common masses. Therefore, Russia got
industrialized economically on the week agricultural base just like
India(before and after independence).it should be noted that the most
successful country of 18th,19th century The Great Britain had a strong
agricultural and rural base on which the Industrial revolution began in 1750s.
In Russia also government induced the growth of railway and heavy industries
but did not bother to educate or even feed their masses, as a result revolts
started breaking out in different parts of the empire but they were all
brutally suppressed by the ruling Tsars.
The Tsar
Dynasty.
The Throne of Tsar..
The "Holy
Russia" as it was called by Tsars was built on the strong principles of
authoritarianism and the Divine rule of the Tsar(or Caesar. The Tsar was also
known as "The Little White Father" of everybody.). The eastern
Orthodox churches were prevalent here and they were used by the ruling classes
to distract the attention of masses from the important topics like political
and economic condition of society. Actually, this structure of rule was
inherited by the Tsar Dynasty from the Mongolian Empire of The Great Khan(Chengez Khan)
which ruled over whole of the Asian continent (except south Asia). The last
Mongolian rulers i.e. the Golden Horde were driven away from Russia by the
Russian princes under the leadership of Prince of Moscow. Prince of Moscow
gradually became powerful and adopted the title "Tsar". The reason
why Moscow could prevail over other principalities was the geographical
proximity of Moscow which gave it advantage not only of best Defense but also a
great water transport center.
Some of the rulers
of Tsar Dynasty were actually worthy of rule and tried to improve the problem
of the backwardness of Russian society like; Peter The Great(1689)was the 1st ruler who tried to
westernize Russia. He copied many western thoughts and ideas to control his
backward and ignorant nobility. Peter also started to expand Russia for the
productive shores as he understood the power of navy and sea trade in those
days of dark ages. He enlarged the functions of government and formed the '10 colleges or rudimentary
ministries'. Peter himself supervised these collages and all the
officials reported to him. He also encouraged his ministers to keep an eye on
each other's work thereby developing the tradition of mutual suspicion and
vertical communication with the Tsar. This feature remained in the Tsarist
autocracy till the overthrow of the last Tsar, in fact this mutual suspicion
and vertical communication became tone of the major reasons of the Tsarist
downfall. Another remarkable ruler was Catherine
The Great(1782), she killed her unworthy husband and
ceased power. She was a strong, cruel and a women of extraordinary talent. She
also looked west to improve the conditions of her court. She tried to copy the
French court of Versailles, she also implemented educational reforms but only
for the elite sections.
Now if we analyze
the mistakes of these two great rulers, we can conclude that "the
Cultures may it be western or Oriental(of pertaining to east.)cannot be copied
and suddenly imposed on people, it has to be fueled constantly for ages and in
an equal ratio b/w all sections of society to avoid the gaps b/w the classes of
society and the ultimate revolts and revolutions." Peter and
Catherine by implementing these reforms in the limited sections of society
simple strengthened the serfdom and autocracy in Russia. The masses literally
had no choices of their own. They were tied to a land and could not leave their
work without permissions. Many of the had to work for 12 hrs. a day on the land
as serfs. Education was limited to elite sections(landed gentry)only. There was
no middle class section and the masses were entirely illiterate and backward.
So the progress in Russia(elite classes) moved forward will a parallel
reactionary society moving towards the strive of revolutions. But with the
outbreak of French Revolution the western thoughts trickled down towards the
poor masses of Russia. As a result they started becoming educated and began to
question the divine rule of Tsar. Many of them started demanding a
representative form of government at local level.
Finally, the reforms
of Tsar Alexander II(1880s) brought
some hope in the educated intelligentsia. He carried out the abolition of
Serfdom and formation of Zemstvos(a kind of municipality). But these reforms
were carried out in an authoritarian manner by him. He brushed aside all the
advices of educated class and only included elite section in Zemstvos. Due to
his actions he faced a series of assassin attempts and finally in 1881 he was
killed by a member of revolutionary party named-"Land and Freedom Society" formed in 1876.
His successor Tsar Alexander
III brutally crushed there terror activities and these so called
revolutionaries had to leave Russia for nearly 2 decades.
The
Working Classes.
I have already told
u above that the Russian economic industrialization was based on week
agricultural and social base."
Now the workers of Russian factories were part peasants and part workers, they
had strong roots into their village community even when they worked in large
cities. Therefore, the discontent among these workers against the regime was
duel in nature. They thus reacted not only to the sub humane conditions of
factory workers but also the crushing burden of land taxes in villages".
This was probably one of the root causes why the revolutionary movement took up
pace.
Russian had a huge
population of factory workers. There were approximately, 3million industrial
workers of whom 550000 were working in textile factories, 500000 in
metallurgical industries and 400000 in railways. The employers had no shortage
of man power therefore, they irregularly paid of their workers and also made
them work hard for longer hours. Their whole income went on collecting bread
for themselves and barely some pennies were left for clothing. But after the
stride of French Revolution the education level of workers started improving. Despite the censorships of Tsar
on certain books and articles the workers started getting them illegally.
The 1st
Uprising.
Lenin addressing the revolutionaries...
As the education
spread b/w the working classes, they began questioning the biased and unfair
rules and regulations of Tsar regime. During the Napoleonic wars the soldiers
of Tsar who had fought besides the advanced nation's forces like Britain and
Prussia got the chance to examine the differences b/w the lives of people there
and in Russia closely. When they reached home they started demanding reforms in
government. The 1st major uprising in Russia was now evident in the name of Decembrist Uprising(1825), because
it occurred in the month of December and the people who took part in it were
known as 'Decembrists' . They formed secret societies for the constitutional
and judicial reforms, for abolition of Serfdom which was still prevalent in
Russia(ended by 'Alexander II' as told above), they also tried to raise voice
against the foreign influence on Tsar's Russia.
The opportunity for
action plan came when Tsar Alexander I suddenly died in 1825. the Decembrists
tried to stop military from taking oath of allegiance to the new Tsar Nicolas unless he
commits himself to the constitutional form of government, but they were only
partly successful as most of the army sided with Tsar and the movement was
crushed down. The revolutionaries were captured and were fired upon publically
to death. Almost 300 men were killed and others were sentenced for hard labor
and exiled to vast and cold Siberian Dessert.
The movement was
certainly crushed but it was the beginning of the age of revolution in Russia
as this event kept on inspiring the educated intelligentsia for Decades and
finally shook the roots of Tsar rule in the revolution of 1905.
But the story of
1905 revolution will be taken up in next article. Hope everyone enjoyed reading
the story of "The Holy Russia".
In the next part we
will talk about the circumstances which led to the 1st ever "Socialist Revolution"
in the world and why did this revolution took place in the backward and less
industrialized country like Russia, when Karl Marx the pioneer of the Marxism(on which all other ideologies related to social
domination are based like Socialism, Communism, Maoism etc.) declared in
his work Das Capitalism
that the 1st Socialist revolution would occur on the soil of industrially
advanced nations like Germany or Britain as a result of clash b/w the intrests
of Capitalist owners and common Workers.
Comments
Post a Comment