Late Imperial Russia, 1890-1917 (Seminar Studies) [1 ed.] 0582327210, 9780582327214

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Late Imperial Russia, 1890-1917 JOHN F. HUTCHINSON

ROUTLEDGE

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Pint pubE,hed1999 by "\ddi,on We,ley LongmanLimited Published2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square,:\filton Park, Abingdon, Chon OX14 4RN 711 Third .'l.venue,New York, NY 10017, L:S.'I.

ROlltledgeis all imp/ill! ofthe T (1)'lor & Francis Group, (fit itt{ot'ln(f bltJillesJ Copyright ((:) 1999, Taylor & Francis. The right of John F. Hutchinsonto be identified as the author of this work has beenassertedby him in accordancewith the Copyright, Designsand PatentsAct 1988. All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reprintedor reproducedor utilised in any form or by any electronic,tnechanical,or other means,now kno\vn or hereafterinvented,including photocopyingand recording,or in any information :-;torageor retrieval system,\vithout pennissio11in \vriting from the publishers. Notices Knowledgeand best practicein this field arc constantlychanging. As new researchand experiencebroadenour understanding,changesin research 111Cthods,professionalpractices,or medical treatmenttnay bccotncnecessary. Practitioner,and researchersmust always rely on their own experienceand knowledgein evaluatingand w.;ing any infonnatioll, methods,COll1)lounds,or experimentsdescribedherein. In using such information or methodsthe), should be mindful of their own safetyand the safetyof othe"" including parties for whom they have a professionalresponsibility. To the fullest extentof the law, neither the Publishernor the authors, contributors,or editors,assumeany liability for any injury and/or damageto personsor property as a 111attcrof productsliability, negligenceor otherwise,or from any usc or operationof any lTIcthods, products,instructions,or ideas containedin the material herein. ISBN 13: 978-0-582-32721-4(pbk) British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A cataloguerecord for this book is availablefrom the British Library Library of CongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Hutchinson,John F. Late Imperial Russia: 1890-19171JohnF. Hutchinson. p, cm. -- (Seminarstudiesin history) Includesbibliographicalreferencesand index. ISBN 0-582-32721-0 1. Russia--History--Alexander III, 1881-1894.2.Russia--History-Nicholas II, 1894-1917.1.Title. II. Series. DK241.H88 1999 947.08'2--dc21 98-36186 CIP Set by 7 in 10/12 Sabon

CONTENTS

Note on ReferencingSystem List of Maps Names,Datesand Transliteration Acknowledgements An Introduction to the Series PART ONE: THE BACKGROUND

v v VI VII IX

1

RUSSIA IN THE LATE 19th CENTURY The Empire and its Inhabitants Economicand Social Realities Reformersand Revolutionaries The Imperial Regimeand its Critics

1 1 5 7 10

PART TWO: DESCRIPTIVEANALYSIS

14

2.

THE 1890s:HUNGER SETSTHE AGENDA The Famineof 1891-1892 The Trans-SiberianRailroad Nicholas the Unready Harmony or Discord? RadicalismRejuvenated

14 14 16 18 22 24

3.

THE DAWN OF THE NEW CENTURY, 1899-1904 Industry and Labour Russification PeasantUnrest Bolsheviksand Mensheviks The Liberation Movement

28 28 30 33 36 38

4.

RUSSIA IN TURMOIL, 1904-1906 EasternAdventures Disastersin Manchuria

42 42 44

1.

IV

Contents

Towards 'Bloody Sunday' Awakenings:The RevolutionaryYear 1905 A New Constitution?

47 50 54

5.

REVIVAL OF NERVE, 1907-1914 The Elusive Compromise The Stolypin Years Recriminations,Purges,and Scandals 'GreatRussia':Hopesand Fears

57 57 61 65 68

6.

'FATEFUL YEARS', 1914-1917 Into the Fray The Political Economyof War Summer1915: Crisis on Two Fronts DangerousGames Into the Streets:the End of the Monarchy

70 70 73 75 77 79

PART THREE: ASSESSMENT

82

LATE IMPERIAL RUSSIA AND THE HISTORIANS

82

7.

PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS Glossary Chronologyof Events Guide to Characters Maps Bibliography Index

87 109 111 113 119 121 128

NOTE ON REFERENCING SYSTEM

Readersshouldnote that numbersin squarebrackets[5] refer them to the correspondingentry in the Bibliography at the end of the book (specific pagenumbersare given in italics). A numberin squarebrackets precededby Doc. [Doc. 5] refers readersto the correspondingitem in the Documents section which follows the main text. Words and abbreviationsasteriskedat first occurrenceare definedin the Glossary.

LIST OF MAPS

Map 1. EuropeanRussia Map 2. Asiatic Russia

119

120

NAMES, DATES AND TRANSLITERATION

1. In the text, Russian first names have been anglicized, wherever thereis an acceptedEnglish equivalent,and patronymicshave been omitted. In the Guide to Characters,first namesand patronymics are given in their Russianform.

2. All datesgiven here are Old Style, i.e. accordingto the Julian calendarusedin Russiauntil 1918; in the nineteenthcentury, it was twelve days, and in the twentieth century, thirteen days behind the (New Style) Gregoriancalendarusedin WesternEurope.Wherever the contextrequiresit, datesare given in both styles. 3. Transliterationof the Cyrillic alphabetfollows a modified form of the Library of Congresssystem,omitting soft and hard signs.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank Gordon Martel for encouragingme in this project from the beginning; and my colleagueRichard Debo, who was kind enoughto read the manuscriptwith his fine critical eye. Any errors that remain are, of course,my own responsibility. The publisherswould like to thank the following for permissionto reproducecopyright material: Edward Arnold for an extract from Martin McCauley, Octobrists to Bolsheviks:Imperial Russia 19151917 (1984), pp. 71-3; PrincetonUniversity Pressfor an extractfrom W. Sablinsky,The Roadto Bloody Sunday:Father Gapon and the St PetersburgMassacre 1905 (1976), pp. 344-9, M.E. Sharpe for an extract from M. Shatz and J.E. Zimmerman, VehkhilLandmarks:A Collection of Articles about the Russian Intelligensia (1994), pp. 153-4; StanfordUniversity Pressfor extractsfrom ReginaldE. Zelnik (trans. and ed.), A Radical Worker in Tsarist Russia(© 1986 by the Board of Trusteesof the Leland StanfordJunior University) and V.L Gurko, Featuresand Figures of the Past: Governmentand Opinion in the Reign of Nicholas II (1939), pp. 60-4; The University of Michigan Pressfor an extract from K.P. Pobedonostsev,Reflectionsof a RussianStatesman(1965), pp. 117-21. While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material, in a few casesthis has proved to be problematicand so we take this opportunity to offer our apologiesto any copyright holders whoserights we may unwittingly have infringed.

In memoryof Karl David Patterson,1941-1996

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES

Suchis the paceof historical enquiry in the modernworld that thereis an ever-wideninggap between the specialist article or monograph, incorporating the results of current research,and general surveys, which inevitably becomeout of date. SeminarStudiesin History are designed to bridge this gap. The series was founded by Patrick Richardsonin 1966 and his aim was to cover major themesin British, Europeanand World history. Between1980 and 1996 Roger Lockyer continued his work, before handing the editorship over to Clive Emsley and Gordon Martel. Clive Emsley is Professorof History at the Open University, while Gordon Martel is Professorof International History at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canadaand Senior ResearchFellow at De Montfort University. All the books are written by expertsin their field who are not only familiar with the latestresearchbut have often contributedto it. They are frequently revised, in order to take account of new information and interpretations.They provide a selection of documentsto illustrate major themesand provoke discussion,and also a guide to further reading.The aim of SeminarStudiesis to clarify complex issues without over-simplifying them, and to stimulatereadersinto deepening their knowledgeand understandingof major themesand topics.

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PART ONE: THE BACKGROUND 1

RUSSIA IN THE LATE 19th CENTURY

THE EMPIRE AND ITS INHABITANTS

Late Imperial Russia was ruled by Tsar Alexander III from 1881 to 1894, and then by his son, Tsar Nicholas II, from 1894 to 1917. Both were membersof the Romanovfamily which in 1913 celebrated300 yearsas Russia'sruling dynasty.Among their illustrious forbearswere Peterthe Great,whosevictory over the Swedesin the early eighteenth century had transformedMuscovy into one of the great powers of Europe; Catherinethe Great, who sought to bring the fruits of the Enlightenmentto a distantandculturally backwardRussia;Alexander I, whoseepic confrontationwith NapoleonBonaparteis immortalized in Tolstoi's War and Peace;and AlexanderII, the 'tsar-liberator'who endedserfdomand revampedRussia'sgoverningstructureafter defeat in the Crimean War (1853-1856)underlinedthe need to adapt to a rapidly changingworld. The RussianEmpire was, however, even older than the Romanov dynasty.Its real founderwas the notorioussixteenth-centuryTsarIvan IV 'the Terrible', who defeatedRussia'sformer overlords, the Mongols, thereby bringing the Volga river basin under Muscovite control and openingSiberia,a land rich in both furs and minerals,to Russian explorationand exploitation.His successorscontinuedto add territories and subjectpeoples,many of the latter not only non-Russiansbut also non-Slavs.By the time Nicholas II ascendedthe throne in 1894, Russia'svast empire stretchedfrom Finland and the frozen Eurasian Arctic in the north to the subtropicalshoresof the Black Sea and the desertoasesof Turkestanin the south; its western borders adjoined thoseof the Germanand Austro-HungarianEmpires,while its already substantialterritory in easternAsia had recently beenincreasedat the expenseof the faltering Chinese Empire. Four centuries of Russian expansion- neitherconstantnor unopposed,it shouldbe noted- had, by the late nineteenthcentury, createdthe largest land empire since GenghisKhan, if not since Alexander the Great. Its aspirationswere

2

The Background

symbolizedby the two cities at its extremities:St Petersburg,Peterthe Great's 'window onto Europe', and Vladivostok, the 'Lord of the East'. Like their royal predecessors,Alexander III and Nicholas II were not only tsars ('Caesars'),but also autocrats,rulers whosesovereignty was absolute;their powers were subjectto neither constitutionalnor institutional limitations. Among the great powers of Europe, Russia was unique both becauseit adheredto the eastern(Orthodox) form of Christianity, and becauseon the eve of the twentieth century its form of governmentremained an hereditary autocracy.According to the mythology that was given official expressionin the FundamentalLaws and sanctifiedby the stateChurch,Russiantsarsderivedfrom God the power they wielded, and it was to God alone that they were answerable for their actions.In the past,suchvast power had often beenexercised in ways that smackedof tyranny and caprice,but the rituals and ceremoniesof the Church earnestlysought to foster the image of a pious, dutiful and fatherly ruler whoseheartwas at one with his people. In this propagandisticendeavour,attentionturnednot to the military exploits of the many 'conqueror'tsars, but rather to the 'mostgentle'TsarAlexis, whosemid-seventeenth centurylife and reign came to exert a peculiar hold upon the religious imaginationand devotions of NicholasII. At a court ball celebratingthe Romanovtercentenaryin 1913, for example, he and EmpressAlexandra dressedin costumes appropriateto the reign of Alexis, and onlookersagreedthat this exercise in anachronismappearedto bring deep feelings of joy and peace to the face of the emperor. Nicholas may well have longed for what seemeda simpler Muscovite past precisely becausethe challengesthat he now faced in ruling Russia seemedso much more difficult and troublesomethan those faced by Tsar Alexis. For, despiteNicholas' theoreticallyvast powers as headof state,and his exaltedposition as defenderof both the integrity of the Russianland and the purity of its Orthodox faith, a huge gulf separatedthe official mythology of autocracyfrom the complexities that he faced in dealingwith Russianreality on a day-to-daybasis. Of these, none was more striking than the empire's extraordinary ethnic diversity. When the first reasonablyreliable censuswas taken in 1897, many Russianslearnedwith surprisethat they had alreadybecomea minority in their own empire. Out of a total populationthat exceeded122 million, less than 45 per cent were now ethnic Great Russians.True, Slavic peoplesconstituteda majority of the entire population; Great Russians,Belorussians,Ukrainians and Poles together formed more

Russia in the Late 19th Century 3

than 73 per cent of the total, but that statistic counted for little becausethese groups rarely perceivedan overarchingcommon interest. Indeed,amongthe Slavs, disunity was far more typical than unity. Most troublesomeof all were the proudly nationalistPoles,who could not forget that a century earlier, Catherinethe Great had joined Prussia and Austria in destroyingthe venerablePolish state and partitioning its extensiveterritory. Merged againsttheir will into the Russian Empire, the Poles remainedseparatedfrom the Russiansnot only by languageand history but also by religion: the overwhelmingmajority were Roman Catholics. Polish Catholicism and Polish nationalism were difficult to separate;indeed,somePolish nationalistsdrew parallels betweenChrist'ssuffering on the crossand the pitia ble fate of their own partitioned nation. By contrast,from the Russianpoint of view, the Poles were nothing but disloyal and untrustworthysubjectswho had twice rebelled against Russian rule, first in 1830 and again in 1863. Fearing that the 'virus' of nationalism might spread from Polandto neighbouringUkraine, the Russiansattemptedto stampout the tentativeefforts of Ukrainian intellectualsto assertthe distinctive-nessof that region's history, language,or cultural identity. The partitions of Polandalso broughtunder Russianrule about 5 million Jews, almost all of whom lived, no longer by choice, in a specially demarcated area of the westernprovinces known as the Pale of Settlement. Yiddish-speakingand studiously traditional in dressand appearance, the Jews understandablysoughtto preservetheir religion and culture against attempts to convert or assimilate them, thereby earning the hatred of antisemites,who were especiallyactive in the western and southernUkraine. By the end of the nineteenthcentury more than a quarter of the tsar's subjectswere neither Russiansnor Slavs. Some 13 million were Muslims, most of whom spoke various Turkic languages,and who lived mainly in the southernregions of the empire. Another 3 million inhabitantsof Russiaproper, living mostly in the north, belongedto various Finnic peoples, while the administratively separateGrand Duchy of Finland had a population of 2.5 million, almost all Finns, but also including a small minority of Swedes.In addition, there were Germans (found mostly in the Baltic), Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians, and Armenians;eachof thesegroupsconstitutedbetween1 and 2 per cent of the entire populationof the empire, and in addition there were dozens of other smaller ethnic groups, especially in the mountainousregionsof the Caucasus[94]. In the late Imperial period, many important conflicts would turn on relations betweenRussianson the one hand, and Poles, Finns and Jews on the other; the Ukrainians

4

The Background

found themselvesin conflict with Russians,Poles,and Jews,although usually for different reasons. If the empire's ethnic and linguistic diversity was bewilderingly complex, so was the variety of religions practicedwithin its boundaries. To be sure, the Orthodox Church occupieda privileged position in law, but this specialstatuspartially concealedthe fact that Orthodox believers were divided into three distinct groups. Besides the majority, who followed the rites of the establishedreligion, therewere two substantialminorities: the Old Believers, descendantsof those whosedefiant refusalto acceptseventeenth-century reforms in dogma and ritual broughtupon them continuingdiscriminationand sporadic persecutionby the state;and the Uniates,mostly peasantsin the western provinces, Roman Catholics who were permitted to follow the rites of the OrthodoxChurch in return for acknowledgingthe authority of the Papacy,an arrangementdevisedin the seventeenthcentury by Catholic missionariesimbued with the religious zeal of the Counter-Reformation.In the Caucasus,the Georgiansand the Armenians eachhad their own distinctive and ancientversionsof easternOrthodoxy. Other substantialChristian populationsincluded the Roman Catholicsof Polandand Lithuania; and the Lutheransof Finland and the Baltic provinces;in addition, therewere severalsects,both radical and conservative,someof them offshoots of native Orthodoxy while others derived from imported Protestantism.The smaller Christian groups were far outnumberedby the mostly Sunni Muslims, whose religious ties to the OttomanEmpire periodically gave Russianscause for concern.Finally, the empire also containedBuddhists,such as the Buriat Mongols of easternSiberia, and small groupsof pagannatureworshippersfound mostly in northern and northeasternAsia. Religion, in other words, was more likely to divide than to unite the tsar's subjects. Someidea of what this ethnic and religious complexity could mean in practice may be obtained from two examples.In the three Baltic provincesacquiredby Russiaafter Peterthe Great'slengthy war with Sweden, the landowners - the so-called 'Baltic barons' - were German-speakingLutherans,descendantsof the northern crusading orders that had come to this area both to settle and to convert the paganBalts and Lithuanians;the peasantswho worked for them were either Lutherans or Catholics who spoke Baltic (Latvian) or FinnoUgrian (Estonian) languages.In order to ensurethat the Baltic Germanswould remain loyal to Russia,the tsarist regime had welcomed them into its ruling elite without requiring that they convertto Orthodoxy, while using the tool of emancipationto force their peasantsinto

Russia in the Late 19th Century 5

abject economicdependenceupon the landowners.In Turkestan,by contrast,wherethe Muslim populationconsistedof nomads,peasants, and townspeople,the very primitivism of the nomadswas seenas 'a bulwark againstIslam' by Russianofficials who feared the religious fanaticism of the townspeople[25 p. 122]. In such varied circumstancesit was next to impossibleto formulate policies that could be applied consistentlythroughoutthe empire. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REALITIES

One of the greatestchallengesfacing the tsarist regime was the fact that Russiansocial and economicdevelopmentlaggedwell behindthat of England,or Germany,or the United States.In this regard,the 1897 censusconfirmed what foreign visitors had alreadyobserved:Russia was an overwhelminglyrural country. The majority of the population, 86.6 per cent, lived in the countryside,most of them in small villages. Although Moscow had a million inhabitantsand St Petersburgslightly more, there were only about a dozenother substantialcities, and few of thesewere locatedin central Russia[94]. The vast majority of rural inhabitantswere peasants;betweenthree-quartersand four-fifths of the populationof the empire were either engagedin agricultureor in someway dependentupon it. Although migrating to cities, becoming industrial workers,or emigratingto southernfrontier areasor to Siberia were options taken by many peasantsdespite the difficulties involved, the fact is that the rural population continuedto grow so rapidly that thosewho remainedconstantlycomplainedof the shortage of arable land. Despite such misery and want, and in stubborn defianceof Malthus' 'providential checks'to populationgrowth, the peasantswent on creating more mouths than the countrysidecould feed. Ironically, but understandably,the pressureof rising population was strongestin the most fertile, black-soil regions of central and westernRussia. Many of the peasantscountedin the 1897 censushad been born serfs,serfdomhaving survivedfrom the Muscoviteera until TsarAlexanderII embarkedon a programmeof 'Great Refo~ms'Refo~ms' in the 1860s. Whatever its legal implications, emancipationscarcely improved indeed some would say it worsened- the economicsituation of the Russianpeasant.In its wake, many peasantsfound themselvestilling an allotmentof land that was barely able to producea subsistencefor themselvesand their families, let alone to offset the redemptionpaymentsthat the governmenthad imposedin return for having compensatedthe landlordsfor parting with someof 'their' land. Especiallyin

6

The Background

the forest provinces, peasantssupplementedmeagre incomes by resortingto handicraftproductionduring the long winter months. Judgedby the standardsof peasantagricultureelsewhere- France, for example- the land allotmentsof Russianpeasantsmight well have been sufficient, perhapsmore than sufficient, if only they had been worked in a more efficient manner. Striking early photographsof peasantsholding wooden rakes and shovels attest to the relatively primitive agriculturalmethodsthat still prevailedthroughoutmuch of rural Russia.Understandinglittle or nothing about fertilizers or crop rotation, most peasantsemployedtraditional scratchploughingmethods that virtually guaranteedlow yields per sown acre. Moreover, becauseso much of the land was periodically redistributed among membersof the village commune,* peasantshad little reasonto think of the long-term productivity of any particular allotment. For centuries, their peasantforbearshad copedwith the hardshipsof the Russian climate and the deficienciesof soil quality by continually seeking more land to bring under the plough; hencethe persistentcalls in the late Imperial period that still more land be madeavailablefor peasant cultivation. Russia'srural populationgrew steadilyenoughto maintainits proportion of the whole, no meanfeat in a period when someurbanareas were achievingspectaculargrowth rates.Urban populationdoubledin the thirty years before the 1897 census,and continued to increase steadily until the outbreakof war in 1914. Multi-ethnic Odessa,the principal grain export port on the Black Sea;Kharkov and Rostov-onDon, the main southerncentresof heavy industry; Baku, the oil production and distribution centreon the CaspianSea;theseand several other cities experiencedphenomenalgrowth in the late nineteenthcentury. Such rapid growth put pressureon rudimentarymunicipal institutions that were everywherestruggling, not often successfully,with the attendant problems of urban modernization. Contemporaries found the streetsof Russiancities teeming with 'vagrants,paupers, idlers, parasites, and hooligans' [23 p. 1], a situation which in Moscow producedsystematicefforts to discipline the commonpeople through stricter poor relief measures[59]. However, despite this recentand dramaticurban growth, Russiawas still, on the eve of the twentiethcentury,a largely agricultural and peasantcountry [40]. In mattersof health Russiaalso laggedbehind the West. Mortality rates in the late nineteenth-centuryRussianEmpire were appreciably higher than those in Western Europe or the United States.Regional differenceswere apparentin the statistics:rates werelower in the Baltic, the western and southwesternprovinces than in central Russia,

Russia in the Late 19th Century 7

and the lower Volga provinceshad the highest rates of all. Until the 1880s, urban death rates generally exceededrural, but in St Petersburg, reputedly the unhealthiestcapital in Europe, mortality rates remainedstartlingly high as late as 1913 [20]. Epidemiologicalreconstruction revealsthat children accountedfor a high proportion of all deathsand, more surprisingly, that there were significant differences in death rates according to religion: 'Orthodox babies perished at roughly twice the rate of Jewishinfants', and were much more vulnerable than babiesborn into Lutheran, Catholic or Muslim families, a disparity attributable largely to differences in breast-feedingand weaning practices [76]. That Russia lagged behind Europe is clear from the fact that most deaths were still from infectious diseases. Children died mainly from measles,scarletfever, diphtheria,and pertussis; adults from smallpox, cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, malaria and tuberculosis.The lower Volga provinces, especially Astrakhan, and the Black Sea coastwere particularly vulnerableto epidemicsof malaria. Becauseof overcrowding and poor ventilation, respiratory and eye diseasesflourished during the winter months, while summer water shortagesespeciallyin the south often producedgastro-intestinal disorders.Migrating peasantsand pilgrims helpedto spreadtuberculosis, typhus and venerealdiseases.A modest downward trend in mortality rates is apparentby 1900, but whetherit is attributableto better nourishment,as some have argued, or to rising standardsof educationand literacy reinforcedby the efforts of physiciansand sanitarians,remainsan unsettledquestion[52]. REFORMERS AND REVOLUTIONARIES

By the late nineteenthcentury, the Russiantsar usually exercisedhis ostensiblyunlimited powers through certain establishedofficials and institutions.The chief executiveofficers of the Russianautocracywere the commandersof the army and the fleet; the ministers, appointed and dismissedby the will of the tsar; and the provincial governors, who were both the tsar's personalrepresentativesand the executive headsof the provincial administrations[92]. Separatearrangements prevailedin the Grand Duchy of Finland and in the Cossackterritories. Except in Finland, there were no legislative Or representative bodiescomparablewith the English Houseof Commonsor the American Congress.The Committeeof Ministers, by no stretchof the imagination a unified cabinet,might at the tsar'sbehestconsiderand advise on particularmeasuresor generalmatters,but neitherit, nor the State Council, a largely honorific deliberativebody composedof senioroffi-

8

The Background

cials appointed by the tsar, had the power to initiate legislation or indeed to block any specific measureor courseof action that found favour with the ruler. The Governing Senate,founded by Peter the Great to run the country while he made war, had long since become the senior judicial body of the empire; it registereddecrees,tried to ensure consistencyin the application of law, and sent out officials commissionedto enquireinto local abuses,a practicethat was hilariously satirizedin Gogol's The GovernmentInspector. Although the provincial towns portrayed in Russian literature appearedfull of obsequious,corrupt, idle and incompetentbureaucrats, the empirewas probably overgovernedat the centreand undergovernedat the local level. Too many mattersrequiredreferenceto St Petersburg,where the decision-makingapparatuswas plagued by delay, incomprehension,and a lack of co-ordinatedpolicy. Because ministers reportedseparatelyto the tsar, there was no certain means by which overlappingor contradictorypolicies could be identified and reconsidered.Not until the 1860sdid the empire have a co-ordinated annualbudget,and even at the turn of the presentcentury the Ministries of Financeand Interior clashedrepeatedlyover variousaspectsof domestic,especiallylabour, policy [114, 118]. From 1864, after considerable discussionabout whether the empire neededmore or fewer bureaucrats,new institutions of local government known as zemstvos* were createdin the provincesand districts of EuropeanRussia, supplementingrather than replacing the local administrativeapparatus overseenby the governors.Zemstvoinstitutionswere promotedby reformerswho soughtto encourageresponsibleelementsof the population to take part in local government,but the reformers'influenceon Tsar AlexanderII (1855-1881)was underminedby a major uprising in Poland in 1863; consequently,the zemstvoswere establishedwith fewer powers,smaller fields of jurisdiction, and under closer bureaucratic supervision than originally planned. When serf emancipation was still in the offing, somegentrylandownershad sought,as compensation, a greaterrole for themselvesin the governmentof the empire; most St Petersburgbureaucratsreactedstrongly againstsuch powersharingat the national level. If the gentry could be lured into a preoccupation with local zemstvo affairs, then the bureaucratswould be free to deal with national issues,which in practice meant that they could continueto run the empire as they saw fit. Many Russians,including some highly-placedenlightenedbureaucrats, had expectedrather more extensivereforms. In general, they hopedthat the regimewould enthusiasticallyencouragelocal self-government,not only in the countrysidebut also in the cities; that there

Russia in the Late 19th Century 9

would be a clear separationbetweenthe courts and the bureaucracy, so that officials would come to appreciatethe need for responsible conduct within the law; that the importance of rank and estate (soslovie*) as principlesof social organizationwould declinein favour of more rational criteria; and that the allegedly baneful influence of the OrthodoxChurch,particularly in the field of education,would be reducedby a deliberate policyof secularization.Although somelimited progresswas madein most of theseareasbetween1861 and 1873, nothing like the fundamentaltransformationsoughtby somereformers was in fact achieved,or even set in motion. The tsar himself soon lost faith in the regime'sability to control the processof reform, and those who had something to lose were profoundly shaken by the Polish uprising, by the spectreof revolutionary activity in St Petersburg, and by the alarming popularity of nihilist, socialist, and even anarchistviews amongthe youngergeneration. Young Russians,especiallythose who were university studentsin the late 1860sand early 1870s,soughttransformationsfar more drastic than those contemplatedby even the most ardent reformers. Inspired by teacherswho contrastedthe privilegesof the elite with the sufferings of the peasantpopulation, thousandsof populist students (narodniki*) descendedon the countrysidein the summer of 1873, hoping to expiatetheir feelingsof guilt by helping the allegedlyinstinctive socialismof the Russianpeasantryto reach a new level of social and political consciousness. This 'going to the people'was,in practical terms, a fiasco; peasantsreactedwith indifference, suspicion,or outrage, and many narodniki beat hasty retreats,only to fall into police custody.A seriesof grouptrials and exemplarysentencesfollowed, the regime being too shortsightedto resist punishmentsthat were certain to convertnaiveteinto a kind of martyrdom.The next wave of potential recruits to the revolutionarycausebroke upon the shoalsof reality: those who judged such grand gesturesfutile opted for a longer, slower road to social changeby working for the zemstvosas agronomists, statisticians,and physicians;a smaller number, who believed that the populist ideology was at fault, emigratedto Genevawhere, underthe leadershipof GeorgePlekhanovthey formed the first Marxist study group, called Emancipationof Labour; the most impatient, not more than a few dozen, convinced themselvesthat they could ignite the spark of revolution by terrorizing state officials, above all the emperorhimself [83]. When, after a systematiccampaignof terrorism, AlexanderII was assassinated on 1 March, 1881 by revolutionariescalling themselves 'the People's Will', privileged society took fright. Although some

10

The Background

arguedthat further revolutionaryaction couldonly be preventedby an even stronger commitment to reform, conservativesdenouncedas senselessthe idea that the regime ought to encouragepublic initiatives outside bureaucraticcontrol, such as the participation of unofficial 'outsiders'in political debate,or the discussionof political issuesin the press. All such concessions,they claimed, would simply encourage thosewho soughtto dismantlethe empire and destroythe established social order. Even the carefully controlled reforms that had already been introducednow seemedat risk. As for the terrorists, five were executedand dozensof others imprisonedand sent into exile. Ironically but inevitably, their bloody triumph had stunnedall Russians, producingan outpouringof sympathyfor the Imperial family and discrediting revolutionaryactivism for more than a decade. THE IMPERIAL REGIME AND ITS CRITICS

Succeedinghis father in theseappalling circumstances,AlexanderIII brought to the task of ruling Russiaa limited numberof fixed beliefs to which he clung doggedly throughouthis reign. Of these,the most importantwas a conviction that the future greatnessof Russiawas his responsibility. Neither a deep nor an imaginativethinker, he reduced complexissuesto simple, easily graspedpolarities: strengthand weakness,loyalty and disloyalty, courageand cowardice:Yet the most frequently encounteredjudgement of him, as a towering bulwark of reaction,is misleading:it obscureshis conviction that the greatnessof Russia could not now be maintainedwithout embarking on a programmeof rapid industrializationthat necessarilydemandedkeeping the empire constantly at peace. Despite his own discomfort with changeand inveteratesuspicionof reform, AlexanderIII nevertheless headeda regimethat broughtmuch of both to Russia,albeit with little trace of enthusiasmon the part of the tsar himself. If there was idealism, it was apparentnot in FinanceMinister SergeiWitte's extravagant visions of what capitalist industrializationwould do for Russia, but ratherin the regime'senduringconvictionthat merely by makinga few small adjustments,it could continueto rely on the loyalty of both peasantsand nobles despitethe changesit was bringing to the world aroundthem. Many of the laws enactedduring the first decadeof Alexander's reign were aimedat curbingwhat he and most of his advisersregarded as the forces of weakness,disloyalty, andcowardice.The main targets, predictably, were conspiratorsand propagandistswho engagedin unlawful political activity, outspokennewspapereditors, university

Russia in the Late 19th Century 11

professorsand students,and (especiallyrural) schoolteachers.From the point of view of the Ministry of the Interior, which was charged with maintaining the internal security of the state,not only did such peopleoften and impertinentlyassumea right to discussand makerecommendationson mattersof statepolicy, but they also encouragedthe lower orders of society to criticize the government,and sometimes even to defy it. In order to strengthenthe regime'sability to deal with real or apprehendeddisorder, extraordinary measureswere introduced in August, 1881. Cities or even entire provinces could be declared as in a state of 'reinforced security' or, more extremely, 'extraordinaryprotection';onceso designated,city prefectsor provincial governorswere given extraordinarypowersto search,arrest,fine, and deport individuals; to limit or ban gatheringsof any kind; and to interfere with, or even close down, the work of zemstvoinstitutions. Itself an extraordinary measure,this allegedly temporary law was neverapprovedby the StateCouncil, nor could actionstakenunderits specialpowersbe appealedto the Senate;throughoutthe late Imperial period it was constantly criticized, and not only by enemiesof the regime, as the most flagrant exampleof administrativecaprice.A year later, anothersupposedlytemporarylaw tightenedcontrol over editors of newspapersand journals,while making it more difficult to distribute or sell publicationsthat were in any way critical of the government. A new University Statute introduced in 1884 completely destroyedthe fairly substantialautonomy that students,professors, and administratorshad enjoyedfor twenty years.All types of appointments, as well as the contentof the curriculum, were now subject to ministerial authority, backed by carefully selected'public trustees'; student uniforms were revived, and extensive disciplinary authority given to a new appointedofficial, the inspectorof students.To curb disloyalty in the schoolroom,new controls were imposedon schools operated by zemstvos, the Church was encouragedto open more parish schools,and the notorious 1887 'Circular on Cooks' Children' erected administrative and financial barriers to discouragechildren from the lower ordersfrom betteringtheir condition through education. After imposing so many restrictionson the activities of those individuals and institutions which the autocracyregardedas suspect,it was natural for the regimeto give specialrecognitionto the supposed loyalty of peasantsand nobles.The hundredthanniversaryof Catherine II's 1785 Charter to the Nobility provided Alexander III with an occasionfor bolstering the flagging self-esteemof nobles by urging them to play leading roles in the army, in local administration,and

12

The Background

even in popular education,the last no doubt so as to ensurethat the peoplewere taught to acceptand reaffirm the traditional social structure. An 1889 law establishingrural officials called Land Captains brought new careeropportunitiesfor the nobility; if selectedfor this position by the governorand approvedby the Ministry of the Interior, a nobleman could exercise substantialadministrative, judicial, and police authority over the peasantsin his district. Thesenew petty officials enabledthe Ministry of the Interior to assertthe authority of governmentin the villages to a degreethat was unprecedented in Russian history. Creation of the Land Captainsalso permitted the regime to erode still further the reforms of the 1860s: in most rural areas,the new officials effectively replacedthe electedjusticesof the peaceprovided for in the 1864 judicial reform, while the separatesphereof jurisdiction assignedto the Land Captainsenabledthe regime to dispensewith earlier plans to createzemstvosat the cantonal(volost*) level. Thus, instead of all rural inhabitantsin a given area meeting togetherto discusslocal common interests,the regime choseto reinforce the separateposition of the peasants. To be sure, peasantswere not alone in being subjectedto closer bureaucraticcontrol. In 1890, local governmentwas reordered,first by a revisedZemstvoStatute,followed in 1892 by a revisedMunicipal Statute. The 1890 law restricted the franchise and fixed artificial quotasto ensurenoble dominancein zemstvoassemblies,while curbing the autonomyand scopefor initiative not only of zemstvoemployees, but even of zemstvo presidents,whose election now had to be approved by the Minister of the Interior. The 1892 law imposed analogousrestrictionson municipalgovernment.Thesemeasureswere onceseenas proof of the regime'sdeterminationto control social tensions and political dissent,but greateremphasisis now placedon the increasing efforts of the Interior Ministry, faced with the steady expansionof zemstvoactivity, to enlargeits sphereof influence and increaseits authority throughoutthe empireas well as in St Petersburg itself [34, 115]. It would, however,be foolish to reducethe history of late Imperial Russiato a tug-of-war betweena reactionaryregime and its liberal or radical opponents.In the first place, neither the servantsof the tsarist regimenor their opponentswere anythinglike as unified in their opinions, motives, and tactics as the tug-of-war image suggests.On all large issuesthere was a considerablevariety of opinion within and acrossministries, among provincial governors,and among the tsar's official and unofficial advisers. Contradictory policies flourished simultaneously.Wittingly or not, by promoting railway development

Russia in the Late 19th Century 13

and the growth of industry, AlexanderIII's governmentdid at leastas much to encourageas to restrict social and political change.As events elsewherewould demonstrateonly too clearly, there was no innate incompatibility betweenurbanizationand industrializationon the one hand, and authoritarian rule on the other. Russian monarchists proved remarkablyingeniouswhen confrontedby potentially unruly urban workers, and at least as adaptableas those who claimed to speak on behalf of the workers. The truth is that the opponentsof tsarism, whether liberal or radical, were often no more in tune with, let alonein control of, the social dynamicsat work in the country than were the policemenin the Ministry of the Interior. Someexampleswill underline the point. Both the policemen and the liberals mistakenly believed the zemstvosto be in a state of permanentconflict with the bureaucracy,but despite a record of substantial co-operationtheir beliefs at times becameself-fulfilling prophecies.Urban masspolitics might conceivablyhave led to growing supportfor social democracy, but in Russia popular antisemitismand protofascismwere also real possibilities. Similarly, the appearanceof professionalgroups could strengthenthe social basis of liberalism, but professionalsmight also be readyto serveauthoritariangovernments,whethertsaristor (later) Bolshevik. In short, before enteringthe world of late Imperial Russia, it is best to check ideological and prescriptivesociological baggageat the door.

PART TWO: DESCRIPTIVEANALYSIS 2

THE 1890s:HUNGER SETSTHE AGENDA

THE FAMINE OF 1891-92

The defining event of the decadewas the great famine that beganin 1891, compoundedthe next year by epidemicsof choleraand typhus that returnedin 1893. Sixteenprovincesof EuropeanRussiawere the most severelyaffectedby the famine, and the overall loss of life is estimatedat more than a third of a million people.Nature producescrop failures, but it takes human action to turn them into famines. In this case,the endemicpoverty of rural Russiahad beenexacerbatedby the deliberately harsh grain requisitioning policies pursued by Witte's predecessor,Finance Minister Ivan Vyshnegradskii, whose tough 'export or die' approachto maintaining the value of the ruble on world marketsleft many peasantswith less than a bare subsistence, and insufficient seed grain to survive a crop failure. The famine affectednot only peasants,who lost family membersas well as valuable livestock, but all those who servicedagricultural settlements,such as blacksmithsand rural traders; the dockworkersof Odessa,with no ships to load becauseof the suddenban on grain exports, inevitably fell victims to unemployment. An impendingcrisis was apparentin the Volga region and the blackearthprovincesearly in the year, and by May, it was clearthat a major famine was looming. Initial efforts at relief quickly revealednot only the magnitudeof the disaster,but also the formidable difficulties faced by thosewho soughtto savethe peasantsfrom starvationand the agricultural economyfrom total collapse.In order to makethe best use of limited transportfacilities, a temporary'dictator' was appointedto run the railways, while a SpecialCommitteeon FamineRelief (chairedby the Tsarevich,the future Nicholas II) sought to arouse,expand,and above all co-ordinateprivate charitable efforts in the stricken provinces,which were directedespeciallyat helping thoseineligible for governmentfood loans. Soupkitchens,the most famousof them operated by the writer Leo Tolstoi, were set up everywhere.Two speciallotteries authorizedby AlexanderIII raisedthe bulk of the relief funds, usedto provide seedgrain and fodder as well as food (which camemainly from

The 18905: Hunger sets the Agenda 15

the unaffectedprovinces), and to make available at discount prices morethan40,000replacementhorsesto thosewho hadlost draft animals. Theseprogrammeswere directed by the committee'senergeticmanager (and future Minister of the Interior), ViacheslavPlehve.If the government'stemporarypublic works programmefor the unemployedwas a failure, its seedloan programmewas not; when coupled with the more benignweatherof 1893,it enabledthe peasantswho survivedto produce a rich harvest,despitean overall reductionin sown area.Without minimizing the sufferings of thosewho enduredthe famine, the situation might have been considerablyworse: far more people might have starved to death, and complete economic collapse could well have ensued.What is surprisingis not the occurrenceof famine, but rather that its potentialfor total disasterwas kept within boundsby a regime not known for rapid or effective social intervention[91]. To be sure,manyof the difficulties encounteredby thoseorganizing famine relief were, like the famine itself, largely of the government's own making. The single biggestobstacleto reachingstricken peasant householdswas the fact that neither the state administrationnor the zemstvosoperatedat the lowest, cantonal(volost) level. The government, having shelvedthe original plans for electedcantonalzemstvos, had then createdthe Land Captains,many of whom were just finding their feet - and probablytheir cantonsas well - when they were suddenly called upon to playa major role in local famine relief. Co-operation with existing provincial and district zemstvo institutions was imperative,but not so easily achievedin the wake of the 1890 Zemstvo Statute,the thrust of which rankledthe very peopleon whom the governmentwas now forced to lean. Only sucha hugetask, suchan imminent danger, could have brought together officials of the provincial bureaucracy,cocky but inexperiencedLand Captains,resentful zemstvo members,and cautiousbut desperatepeasantelders.Forcedand uncomfortablethoughtheir co-operationmay have been,the fact that it happenedat allIed some participantsand observersto anticipatea changeof hearton the part of a governmentthat appearedto have set itself againstextendingpublic participationin local self-government. In the wake of the famine, Russianshastenedto assignresponsibility and draw lessons.Some blamed the predatorytaxes levied by the government;othersarguedthat communalland tenurewas the real villain, and that achievingrural prosperitydemandedabolition of the village communes.For many prosperousRussianswho volunteeredtheir help to distributerelief suppliesin the countryside,the experiencewas an eye-opener;not only did they learn first-hand aboutrural poverty, but also aboutthe remarkablewillingness of the very poor to sharetheir

16

Descriptive Analysis

last scrapsof food with passingbeggars.Not everyoneregardedthesead hoc relief efforts as praiseworthy.One prominentcharity reformer condemned'carelesslydistributedalms' for increasingthe numberof beggars;sinceboth zemstvosand peasantcommunesneglectedpoor relief, he continued,what Russianeededwere specialagenciesof public assistance, comparableto England'sPoor Law Guardians[59 p. 79]. The epidemics of cholera and typhus that had accompaniedthe famine left a legacythat was largerthanthe deathtoll itself. Physicians in zemstvoemploymenthad alreadycrossedswordswith electedzemstvo deputies,many of whom were unwilling to spendmoney on programmesof sanitaryeducationand regulation.Now that the causative organismand methodof transmissionof cholerahad beenestablished, physicianssaw no reasonwhy they shoulddefer to the wishesof those who knew lessthan they did abouthow to preventdisease.Moreover, in a climate of popular ignorance,rumoursflourished; somehotheads claimed that the governmenthad deliberatelycausedthe epidemicin order to reducethe numbersof the poor, and that physiciansand officials were their accomplices.In some parts of the country, frenzied mobs attackedmedical personnel,and physicians began to fear for their lives; their fears only increasedwhen the army's heavy-handed suppressionof popular disturbancesconvincedrioters that the rumours were indeed correct. Physiciansconcludedthat education,not brute force, was the only way to stop such reactionsin future, but effective preventive and educationalprogrammescould be mounted only if governmentofficials and zemstvodeputieswere willing to grant autonomy to properly organizedsanitary commissions.A desirable model was alreadyto be found in the more enlightenedarrangements that prevailedin the Moscow provincial zemstvo[37]. Conflicts such as this, in which expertisechallengedofficialdom, would becomemore commonthroughoutthe late Imperial period. THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD

Before the full extent of the famine crisis was known, the tsar announced(March, 1891) his decision to build a railway linking EuropeanRussiawith Siberiaand its Pacific possessions. The idea of a railroad acrossSiberiawas not new, but the project was so dauntingly large, risky, and expensivethat successiveministers of finance, especially the ultra-cautiousVyshnegradskii,had consistentlyopposedit. However, Alexander III, sensibly worried that other powers might take advantageof the weaknessof Russiancontrol beyondthe Urals and especiallyin the far east,wished to seethe railroad built quickly.

The 18905: Hunger sets the Agenda 17

He found an enthusiasticsupporter of the project in his recently appointedMinister of Transport,Sergei Witte, ironically the former director of the railways departmentof the Ministry of Finance.Opposition to building the railroad camenot only from fiscal but also political conservatives,who claimedthat encouragingpeasantsto colonize Siberiawould depletethe cheaplabour supply upon which noble landlords had cometo depend,andfrom traditionalists(at both endsof the political spectrum)who deploredthe invasionof the Russiancountryside by the alien, westernizingforces of industrialization.Supporters counteredwith argumentsthat emphasizedinternationalstrategicand military considerations,held up railroads (and technologyin general) as the engineof large-scaleeconomicgrowth, envisionedreducingthe problemof overpopulationby creatingnew settlementson virgin land, and insistedthat drawing Siberiacloserto the restof the empirewould arrest the growth of a regional, perhapseven secessionist,outlook. Theseconflicts continuedlong after the Tsarevichlaid the first stonein Vladivostok, but eventually the supportersof 'taming the wild east' triumphed[66 p. 141]. After Vyshnegradskiiretired in disgracein the summer of 1892, Witte was appointedMinister of Finance. Perceivedby snobs in St. Petersburgas a hard-headedbut uncultured businessman,Witte was neverthelesscapableof eulogizingRussia's'missionof cultural enlightenment',enticing the sincerelydevout Tsar with visions of Orthodox Russia,ratherthan WesternEurope,as the bearerof 'the principles of Christian enlightenment- in the Asiatic East' [Doc. 1]. This remarkably unqualified enthusiasmeven led him to hope that international tradewould soon be reroutedvia the Siberianrailroad, theoreticallya shorterroute betweeneastand west than the Suezcanal. Suchextravagantdreamsbore little relation to the taskat hand.The chosenroute involved building more than 4,000 miles of track, not only traversing the great rivers of Siberia, but also penetratingthe extremelychallengingmountainousregion eastof Irkutsk. With more than 150 million rubles unexpectedlyconsumedby famine relief, and domesticproducersalreadypromisedartificially high returnsfor supplying the necessaryrails and rolling stock, the strictesteconomywas essential. Under orders from the tsar that the railway be built as cheaplyas possible,engineersand designerscut every possiblecorner. Constructionmethodsarguably more suited to a fairground than a transcontinentalrailway were adopted, ostensibly in order to keep costs low, but not surprisingly they produced a distinctly inferior result, and in any caseactualexpenses significantly outranthe original estimates.The track bed could withstand only three trains a day in

18

Descriptive Analysis

either direction, and many stations were located inconveniently far from the towns they were meantto serve.Even in 1901,when the railway was, somewhatprematurely,declaredfinished, Lake Baikal still had to be crossedby ferry; completionof an additional line along its southernshoretook severalmore years.True, the railway project led to important discoveries- gold being the most welcome- of the mineral wealth of Siberia, and to schemesfor peasantresettlement.Between 1892 and 1902, almost a million peasantsboarded the railway to begin new lives, mostly in westernSiberia. On balance,however,current thinking holds that 'the economicadvantagesthe railroad brought to Siberiawere questionableandits costwas indefensibleunderthe circumstances'[66 p. 222]. Even more questionablewere the alleged strategic benefits to be gained.Its very constructionwas perceivedby the Japaneseas both a military threat to their own country, and as an indication of Russia's intentionto infiltrate and eventuallyannexManchuria;the prospectof its completioncertainly played a part in provokingJapan'sshort, victorious war with China (1894-95).When Russialater negotiatedwith the Chineserailway concessionsthat permitted a direct route across Manchuria to Vladivostok (Chinese Eastern Railway, 1896), and a SouthManchurianbranchline from Kharbin (Harbin) to Port Arthur, Japanesefears seemedmore than justified. Ironically, when war with Japanfinally came in 1904, it was the Russianswho suffered most from their own cheeseparingeconomies.Marginally functional at the best of times, this substandardrailway was almost paralyzedby the extraordinarydemandsof war. NICHOLAS THE UNREADY

AlexanderIII did not live to seethe Trans-Siberianrailway completed, or even to celebratehis fiftieth birthday. Sickening quite suddenlyin January,1894, he died before the year was out. Russianswere understandablyshockedbecausehis hitherto robust health and exceptional strengthwere almost legendary.When the royal train was wreckedin an accident,for example,the tsar had usedhis own body to preventa metal roof from collapsingwhile family membersescaped.Premature deathwas the last thing expectedof a ruler whosephysicalpresencebulky, solid and firm - had come to personifythe autocracyitself. No one was more appalled by Alexander's death than his heir, Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich, who now succeededhis father as Nicholas II. An immature, even innocent, twenty-six year old, welltutored but with little experienceof affairs of state, Nicholas was

The 18905: Hunger sets the Agenda 19

utterly dismayedat the prospectof becomingtsar [60]. True, he had beensent on a world tour and had chairedthe SpecialCommitteeon FamineRelief, but he was much more at easeon paradegroundsand in officers' messesthan in the corridors of power in St Petersburg. Until his father's imminent death became a horrifying possibility, Nicholas had expectednothing more taxing in his immediatefuture than the splendidceremonythat would celebratehis marriageto Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt.The actual wedding ceremony, held only weeks after the funeral, was a far more sombreaffair, scarcelya respite from the obligatory period of official mourning. Fate may have thrust a reluctant Nicholas on to the throne, but reluctanceshould not be confusedwith weakness;his own father'sreign provedthat strengthof character and force of will could overcome the appalling circumstancesof a suddenaccession. What sort of autocratthe youngNicholaswould makewas a matter of greatconcernto his advisers,particularlyhis former tutor, Constantine Pobedonostsev who, as Procurator-Generalof the Holy Synod,* was the lay headof the OrthodoxChurch.A professorof civil andconstitutionallawwith an impressiveknowledgeof what might today be called comparativegovernment,Pobedonostsev was an ultra-conservative in his political views [Doc. 2]. Like Dostoevskii'sGrand Inquisitor, for whom he may have beenthe model, Pobedonostsev's view of human nature was extremely pessimistic.He believed that the main taskof thosein authoritywas not to promotesomechimerical'greatest good', but ratherto keep humanbeingsfrom utterly destroyingthemselvesthrough their own vice and wickedness.Well read if not well travelled, he reservedhis greatestvenom for democracy,which he called 'the greatestfalsehoodof our time' [10], andfor the press,which he believedcapableof vulgarizing if not destroyingthe moral valuesof civilized society.With greaterperspicacitythan most of his contemporariesin the West, Pobedonostsev exposedthe underlyingweaknessof representativegovernment,the inevitable moral bankruptcyof mass politics, and the shamelessbehaviourof the popular press.From his perspective,the RussianEmpire was fortunate: althoughalreadybeset from several directions, it had not yet been irredeemablycorrupted. The autocracy,the Church, the peasantryin its village communities: for him thesewere uniquenationalinstitutionsto be lovingly preserved and vigorously defendedagainstenemieswho marchedunderthe banners of individualism, liberalism, and democracy[28]. In Russiathese enemieswould be found amongthe educated,especiallythe educated aristocrats,for whom the intellectualworld of WesternEuropeseemed to hold an irresistible attraction.

20

Descriptive Analysis

In the early daysof AlexanderIll's reign, Pobedonostsev had helped to strengthenthe monarch'sresolve to defend the autocracyagainst thosewho counselledreform, and his continuing influenceon the tsar is apparent,for example,in the limitations placedon the activities of zemstvosand municipalities.Wheneverit was a matter of putting the interestsof Russiansaheadof non-Russians,or of bolsteringthe position of the OrthodoxChurch,or of devisingfurther restrictionson the Jewish population,Pobedonostsev always found AlexanderIII innately sympathetic.Yet his influenceon the tsar fell well short of that of an eminencegrise. Deeply hostile to cabinetgovernment,he himself valued and defendedthe autocrat'sseparaterelationshipwith eachof his ministers,regardlessof the fact that it inevitably limited his own influence. In any case,this ruler was perfectly capableof ignoring Pobedonostsev'sviews when, for example,his own perceptionof Russia'snational interest led him to approve a diplomatic alliance with republican France,or to encouragethe headlongpace of industrializationpromoted by Witte. With Nicholas II now on the throne, observerswonderedwhetherPobedonostsev's influencemight not increase;after all, his participationin affairs of statedatedbackto the reign of Alexander II, and the uncertainyoung ruler might needan experiencednavigator. FinanceMinister Witte, who had a huge stake in maintaining the continuity of stateeconomicpolicy, was equallyinterestedin sizing up the abilities and intelligence of the young emperor. Although Witte agreedwith Pobedonostsev about both the uniquenessof Russiaand the importance of maintaining the autocracy,they disagreedabout much else. Where Pobedonostsevwould have preferred to preserve Russiaby, as it were,petrifying it in amber,Witte enthusiasticallypromotedchange.In his view, only by rushingto catchup with the Industrial Revolution could the autocracy, and therefore the Russian Empire, hope to survive. In 1890, Russiawas the least industrialized of all the greatpowers,and in Witte's opinion its reachhad comedangerouslycloseto exceedingits grasp.In order to catchup as quickly as possible with Europe, Great Britain and the United States, Russia would have to achievephenomenalrates of industrial growth.To do so would in turn require a sweepingtransformationof Russianhabits, customs,and beliefs: attitudesto authority,work, time, discipline, and vodka consumption(to mentiononly the most obvious)would all have to changeas part of the processof industrialization[Doc. 3]. So also would the suspicion and fear, mingled with contempt, which most educatedRussians- whether conservativelandowners or populist intellectuals- reservedfor thoseengagedin commercialand industrial activity. It was a tall order.

The 18905: Hunger sets the Agenda 21

Witte probablyunderstoodmore aboutthe obstaclesto industrialization than he did aboutwhere Russiawould be led if thoseobstacles were removed.His vision of Russia'seconomicfuture was borrowed from the theories of the German economist Friedrich List: use the power and resourcesof the stateto promote a railroad boom, which would foster, in sequence,the growth of heavyindustry, then of light industry, then of greaterprosperityin urban areas,and finally greater prosperityin rural areas.High tariffs, heavyforeign investment,and a stablecurrencythat was convertibleon world marketswere all parts of Witte's programme,as was his deliberateboostingof industrial and technological developmentand education by, for example, special exhibitions, prizes and other promotional devices. Above all, Witte hopedto seethe emergenceof a classof entrepreneurspossessed of an exciting senseof vision, driven by a dynamismyet to be seenin Russia, and rewardednot only by the growth of profits but also by the challenge of weighing and managingrisks. Witte was once regardedas a figure of near-heroicproportions,a veritablePeterthe Great,who almost single-handedlybattledindifference and obscurantismto bring Russia into the modern age [114]. More recent scholarshiphas questionedthe componentsof his 'system', and consistentlyscaleddown earlier evaluationsof his personal responsibilityfor the economicboom that Russiaenjoyed during the 1890s. Some stresshis debt to earlier ministers of finance who had encouragedrailroad developmentand attractedforeign investors by stabilizing the currency and producing export surpluses[94]. The extremely high tariff of 1891, introduced by Vyshnegradskii,was a vital componentof the industrial boom that lasteduntil the end of the decade.Whether the Trans-Siberianrailway, the emblem of Witte's programme,helpedto teachRussiansanythingaboutmanagerialcapitalism has beenquestioned,as has the centrality of railroad development to the industrializationand modernizationof Russia[66]. Witte himself, after leaving the FinanceMinistry, recognizedand lamented the fact that a policy of state leadershipseemedto have accustomed too many Russianbusinessmento expectthat the statewould always lead. Both the weaknessesand the strengthsof his economic programme derived from its ultimate political purpose, thesalvation of the autocracy.Yet would the hesitantnew emperorcontinue to support a programmethat demandedso much from so many, and was thereforevulnerableto criticism from all sides? In the event,Nicholasmadeno immediatechangesin the policies or personnelthat he inherited from his father. Lacking an established political identity of his own, he felt mostsecurein clinging to the status

22

Descriptive Analysis

quo, althoughit is doubtful whetherat this stagehe graspedthe enormous challengesto establishedpatternsand customsthat were essential parts of Witte's programme.What did becomeclear very early on, however,was the young monarch'slack of appreciationfor the sensibilities of his subjects,especiallythose,ironically, who linked the security of their own future to the fortunes of the dynasty.For loyal monarchists,the coronationof a tsar was an important symbolic moment of religious dedicationand national affirmation, but in Nicholas'case the solemnity of the occasionwas overshadowedby disaster:a huge crowd assembledat Khodynka field (on the outskirts of Moscow) for the traditional distribution of coronationkeepsakessuddenlypanicked and stampeded,resulting in the loss of well over 1,300 lives [Doc. 4]. Someaskedwhat responsibilitythe police bore for improperlycontrolling the movementsof more than half a million people, but far more were aghaston learningthat the emperorand empressthat very night attendeda grand ball at the Frenchembassy.True, Nicholas bore no personalresponsibilityfor the disaster,which seemsto have been the product of bureaucraticbungling and infighting, and he went most unwillingly to the ball, having been persuadedby advisersthat his absencewould grievously offend Russia'snewest ally. Nevertheless, the Khodynka tragedy createda literally disastrousfirst impression from which Nicholas was never able to make a completeescape[60]. Furtherdiscomfiting evidenceof the tsar'scapacityfor giving needless offence came in the following year, when he labelled as 'senseless dreams'the humbly expresseddesireof a dozenzemstvoassembliesthat in future 'the voice of the zemstvowould be allowed to reachthe heights of the throne'[65 p. 140]. So timid and deferentiala requestscarcelymerited this stinging rebuke, an early sign that Nicholas' political judgement might be lessthan astute.No doubt the tsar believedthat he was demonstratinghis resolveto be a worthy successorto his father. Nevertheless,these ill-consideredwords were often discussedand much criticized; togetherwith the bad impressioncreatedby the Khodynka disaster,they madean inauspiciousbeginningfor the new reign. HARMONY OR DISCORD?

The 'senselessdreams'speechsuggeststhat Nicholas II had quickly come to seethe zemstvosas antitheticalto the Imperial regime. Pobedonostsev'sadvice would only have reinforcedthis view; what he disliked most about the zemstvos was that any expansion of their activities at the local level would negatively affect his plans for the rejuvenationof the parish life of the Orthodox Church. When a gov-

The 18905: Hunger sets the Agenda 23

ernmentcommissionsetup in the wake of the 1891 famine to examine the problemof poor relief recommendedthat its administrationbe secularized and placedin the handsof the zemstvos,Pobedonostsev sent the Ministry of the Interior a tirade that attackedevery aspectof the plan, accusingthe zemstvosof having imposedon a defencelesspeasantry new tax burdensand a new layer of irresponsibleofficials [59]. On this issueWitte was, for once,on the sameside as the procurator, not only becauseany strengtheningof local autonomywould obstruct his plansfor state-directedeconomicdevelopment,but also becausehe believed,with good reason,that the provincial gentry who dominated most zemstvoassemblieswere bent on protectingtheir own agrarian interests,and would tax commerceand industry far more heavily than landedproperty [65, 114]. When, at the end of the decade,a plan was advancedto extendzemstvoinstitutionsto the westernand southwestern provinces,Witte wrote for the emperora lengthy memorandumin which he claimedthat zemstvoswere self-aggrandizingelectedinstitutions which were fundamentallyhostile to, and irreconcilablewith, the autocraticregime [Doc. 5]. Nicholas found this argumentso persuasive that he dismissedthe minister who had sponsoredthe project.It is no coincidencethat the same argument about irreconcilability was being madewithin a year or two by the so-calledzemstvoopposition, whose leaderswere ready to join forces with the revolutionariesin a tactical alliance that soughtto wrest major political concessionsfrom the Imperial regime. Were the zemstvos bound to clash with the tsarist regime? At momentsof discord,suchclaimswere madeon both sides,but archival researchhas shown that conflicts were the exceptionrather than the rule, and that for much of their history the zemstvosfunctionedin harmony with the bureaucracy,so much so that the Senate,the final court of appeal against an arbitrary administration, sometimesreceived complaintsaboutzemstvosfor their capricious,abusive,and vengeful behaviour[34]. The idea that the zemstvos,simply becausethey were elected,embodiedthe democraticwill is ludicrous; the electoral law gave disproportionate weight to gentry landowners before 1890 through high property qualifications, and after 1890 by means of quotas based on legal estate (soslovie) membership.Peasants,well aware of theselimitations on their participationand especiallyof the extra tax burdenthat they were now forced to shoulder,regardedzemstvos as at best an expensiveluxury, and at worst as yet anothercreation of 'the bosses'(nachalstvo*) [18]. The conflict that developedat the turn of the century betweencentralizers in the Ministry of the Interior and advocatesof zemstvo

24

Descriptive Analysis

autonomy wasnot the culminationof someinevitabletensionbetween electedbodiesand appointedbureaucrats;it happenedchiefly because the central governmentbegan to concern itself quite seriously with mattersof local government.Despiteofficial claim that the zemstvos neededto be restrainedfrom interferingin mattersof nationalor Imperial concern,it was, ironically, the reverseprocessthat was at work: ministries in St Petersburgwere becomingmore involved in local zemstvo affairs, and doing so more regularly. This dramatic changeof course was spurred first by the huge increasein zemstvo activities, budgets,and taxesduring the 1890s,a situationwhich naturallyled to competitionfor scarcetax revenuesbetweenthe various levels of government;and secondlyby the prolific increasein the number of zemstvo employees- agronomists,statisticians,teachersand medicalpersonnel- many of whom, the security agencieswere convinced,were revolutionariesusing these positions as a cover for their subversive activities amongthe peasantry.In fact, most of thesezemstvoemployees,althoughcertainly reform-minded,were on the whole more committed to professionalthan political goals [37, 55]. Such subtleties eludedthe police mentality that was sharedby successiveministersof the interior. RADICALISM REJUVENATED

The famine, greetedon the left as conclusiveevidenceof the regime's incompetence,acted as a catalyst for the renewal of revolutionary activity, the latter largely in limbo since the suppressionof terrorism after 1881. The regime'sefforts to provide relief and stimulatecharitable assistancebroughtit nothing but contemptfrom thosehorrified by sucha flagrant demonstrationof social injustice. To be sure,almost all educatedRussiansfound the famine and epidemicsdisconcerting remindersof Russianbackwardness;civilized countries,they assured one another,did not suffer from famines, nor were they so prone to the ravagesof epidemicdisease.The moderates'responsewas a strong reaffirmation of the importance of popular education and public health, but the radicals went much further. For them, these events than an indictment of the tsarist were less a national embarrassment regime,which in their minds alreadystoodconvictedof moral responsibility for the miseryand exploitationexperiencedby the vast massof the people. That these sufferings appearedto flow directly from the government'seconomicpolicies naturally outragedthoseraisedin the intellectual milieu of Russianpopulism,and openedup for debatethe broaderquestionof how radicalsoughtto respondto the changesthat

The 18905: Hunger sets the Agenda 25

capitalist industrial developmentwas bringing to Russiansociety. In this new phaseof the long-standingdebateover Russia'srelationship with Western Europe, Marxism would playa more important role than populism [80, 117]. How could Marxism have beenthoughtrelevantto an overwhelmingly agriculturalcountry where,as late as 1900, factory and railroad workers and minerstogethertotalled a mere2 per cent of the population, a few tiny proletarianislandsin a vastpeasantsea?For one thing, it was not the immediatebut the potentialsize of the proletariat(or the bourgeoisie)that mattered,and thanksto the regime'senthusiasmfor industrial development,the rapid growth of both capitalistemployers and an industrial labour force seemedassured.Another reasonfor Marxism'sappealto Russianintellectualsand would-berevolutionaries was the quasi-scientificcertainty upon which its analysisof social development was believed to rest. Confronted by a regime that included antimodernistssuch as Pobedonostsev,and that routinely kept order by employing the army, the police, the censorship,and a host of administrativerestrictions,it was extremelydifficult to remain optimistic aboutthe prospectsfor revolution; yet Marxism offered just such missingcertainties- that revolution was inevitable,and was sure to producea more just society. Theseassurances wereespeciallywelcomeduring the 1890sbecause there was otherwiselittle causefor optimism. The peasantry'slargely fatalistic responseto the misery of 1891-92had done nothing to justify the populists' faith in their revolutionary capacities;on the contrary, the 'cholera riots' seemedto demonstratethat ignoranceand senselessviolence were deeply embeddedin the peasantmentality. Witte's headlongrush to industrializethe country, on the other hand, seemed likely to reverse traditions of tsarist paternalism, thereby giving employersa free hand to exploit their workers to the limits of human endurance.Yet on this issue Marxism offered an additional assurance:no government, perhaps least of all the tsarist regime, would be able successfullyto control the social changesthat industrialization would bring. Thanks to the workings of Marx's dialectic, oncethe path of industrializationwaschosen,it would leadinexorably to proletarian revolution and the building of socialism. Instead of anguishingabout the spectreof a capitalist future, as the populists were wont to do, Marxists could grit their teeth and welcome the incipient bourgeoisrevolution as a necessary,indeed a vital, step on the road to socialism. Marxism offered Russiansa road map to the future, but no clearly visible arrow saying 'you are here'. Predictably, the early converts

26

Descriptive Analysis

agonized,arguedandquarrelledover whereto placethe crucial arrow. Did the obvious lag betweenRussianand Europeansocial development mean that Russianswould be little more than spectatorswhile their more advancedneighboursproceededthrough the proletarian revolution to the building of socialism?Or alternatively,as Marx himself hinted, might this time lag work to Russia'sbenefit, enablingit to bypassthe bourgeoisstage of social developmentand thus proceed more quickly to the socialist future? Was it perhapsconceivablethat the uniquenessof their own social and economicdevelopmentcould enable Russiansto bring the revolution to Europe, rather than vice versa?The answersto thesetantalizingquestionslogically determined both the natureand the time frame of revolution in Russia,and hence the appropriaterole and tasksof any Marxist organization,especially its relationshipto other political groupings,and to workers' organizations and movementsof social protest.For Marxists, finding the right answerto the 'Where is here?' questionwas complicatedby the fact that althoughthe map wasfixed, the socialterrainitself wasconstantly shifting; making the appropriate adaptationsto circumstancewas often more a matterof personalityand temperamentthan of ideology. Genuinely different answersemerged,but becausethe adherentsof each believed theirs to be the truly scientific interpretation,disputes quickly beganto resemblereligious conflicts betweenorthodox and hereticalbeliefs. Although the founderof RussianMarxism, GeorgePlekhanov,concededthat Russianbackwardnesscould have somesmall effect on the process,he firmly believedthat socialistrevolution would occur there only after it had happenedin Europe,and that Russiawas bound to experienceboth a bourgeoisand a proletarianrevolution. According to him, the backwardnessof Russianworkers impelled Marxist intellectualsto form a party that would define workers'interestsnot merely as higher wagesand shorterhours but as including the broaderrevolutionary strugglefor the achievementof socialism. PeterStruvedisagreed,arguing that it might take decades,perhapseven centuries,for capitalistexploitation to bring workers to the revolutionaryboil, and thereforetherewas no immediateneedfor Marxists to risk their future by engagingin illegal revolutionary activity. This soundedtoo much like the GermanrevisionistEduardBernstein,and Struvewas soonno longer welcomein the Marxist camp.When anothergroup advocated that economic, not political, goals ought to take first priority, they were labelled 'economists',and cast out of the fold. While theseargumentsraged,the textile workers of St Petersburgsuccessfullyset their own radical pace,striking in 1896-97for a reductionof the working

The 18905: Hunger sets the Agenda 27

day from thirteen to ten and a half hours. Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov were membersof the Social Democraticgroupsthat mergedin October, 1895 to form the St. PetersburgUnion of Struggle for the Emancipationof the Working Class,but both men were almostimmediately arrestedand the subsequentinfluence of this organizationon the striking workers is problematic [83]. Within two years, radical workers were publishing their own journals, cautioningtheir readers aboutintellectualswho 'by somesad (or laughable)misunderstanding regardthemselvesas born revolutionaries... It is well to rememberthat today'srevolutionariesare tomorrow'sprosecutors,judges,engineers, factory inspectors...' [94 p. 146]. Needlessto say, such striking evidenceof the maturity of worker-activistsdid not provokethe Marxists to rethink the needfor a party of intellectualsto guidethe courseof the coming revolution.

3

THE DAWN OF THE NEW CENTURY,

1899-1904

INDUSTRY AND LABOUR

Russiaentereda period of uncertaintywhen the depressionof 1900 brought the industrial boom to an end. It was signalledby a slump in 1899, as foreign investors,jittery about war in South Africa and disturbancesin the Far East, reassessed the altered international situation. As the share of foreign capital investment directed to Russia slowed to a trickle, two spectacularbusinessfailures and numerous bankruptcies raised the stakes, helping to turn the slump into a depressionfrom which the country seemedunable to recover. Industrial prices fell rapidly, and output - especially in heavy industry shrank as a result. Strikes, rising unemployment,and a sharp fall in profits were the inevitable consequences.Witte's critics, seemingly invigorated by the prospect of disaster, renewed their complaints against his policies: not only were they turning Russia into an economic colony of WesternEurope, but also this depressionnow demonstratedhow few benefitsand how much real hardshipcould result from that inferior status.In fact, the critics laid too much blame on foreigners: their own government helped to cause the depression. Faced with declining tax revenuesfrom agriculture, it was placing fewer ordersin the heavyindustrial sector;its suddenchangeof heart, attributable in part to the near completion of a number of large projects including the Trans-Siberianline, was dramatically symbolized by a 10 per cent drop in railway-relatedordersin 1900. For the next severalyears,industrialistsrespondedto the continuing depression by forming cartelsand other associationsto regulateproduction and sales,especiallyfor steel, fossil fuels, basemetals,and metallurgical enterprises.They felt impelled to look to their own interestsin part becauseWitte's position and influence in economicaffairs were much less certain after 1899 than before, even though he retainedthe position of Minister of Financeuntil 1903.

The Dawn of the New Century, 1899-1904 29

Some of Witte's critics believed that paternalisticconcern for the welfare of all the tsar's subjects should guide the regime's policies towards industry and labour. This was not a new idea: in the 1880s factory legislation had attemptedto limit the exploitation of workers by establishingrules for the fair and timely payment of wages, by restricting the employmentof women and children, and by giving the factory inspectorsa wider jurisdiction over employmentpracticesand conditions. Supportersof paternalismknew what extensivedisorders had been causedin Europe by small but unruly groups of industrial workers during the revolutions of 1848 and during the Paris Commune uprising in 1871. To preventa repetition of theseeventsin Russia, they believed the government should ensure that employers treatedtheir workers fairly, so that the latter would have no reasonto form unions or foment disturbances.Needlessto say, Witte did not sharetheseviews; his inclination was to remove as many restrictions on employment practices as possible. He might have preferred to eliminate the factory inspectorsaltogether,but after the textile workers' strikes in St Petersburg,he settledfor turning them into spies and informers, which was at least preferableto their acting as advocates for the interestsof workers. Theseevents,coupledwith police discoveries that undergroundMarxist groups were attemptingto establish links with activist workers, forced senior officials in the Ministry of the Interior to reconsidera long-standinginstitutional myth which held that the loyalty and deferenceof Russianworkers could be relied on, provided they were treated fairly, becauseso many of them retained ties with their villages. PerhapsRussian workers were not inoculated against socialism after ail, they conceded;perhaps their earlier complacencyhad been ill-advised. \Vith Witte knockedoff balanceby the industrial slump, advocates of paternalismin :Moscow seizedthe moment to foster a new initiative aimed at beating the socialists at their own game. Instead of trying to render unions and strikes unnecessary,the paternalistsnow arguedthat since they were alreadyfacts of life, the wisestcoursewas to co-opt them for the purposesof the regime. The specifics of this approachoriginated in a plan drawn up in 1898 by the Chief of the SecretPolice in Moscow, Sergei Zubatov [67, 98]. Naive and imaginative but not stupid, Zubatov believed that with careful nurturing, Russianworkers would blossom as loyal and devoted supportersof the monarchy.All that was necessary,he argued,was that the regime be courageousenough to intervene in the labour market before the greed and indifference of employers drove their frustrated workers into the arms of the socialists. Zubatov wanted workers to be given

30

Descriptive Analysis

all the associationsthey wanted, not only trade unions but also educational and self-help organizations,all run by workers themselves but - and this was the crucial point - supervisedand partially funded by the police. It was absolutelyessentialto the successof the scheme that theseunions be, and be seento be, militant and effective; if this meantdiscreetarm-twisting to ensurethe co-operationof employers, then so be it. Zubatov's proposal, couched in languagesuggesting that the greediestbosseswere Jews,was well receivednot only by his superiorGeneralTrepov, the city's Chief of Police, but also by Nicholas II's uncle, Grand Duke Sergei,who as Governor-Generalof Moscow was the tsar'spersonalrepresentativein the city. In St Petersburgthe responsewas mixed. Paternalistsin the Ministry of the Interior, while agreeingwith the principle of stateintervention, thought this particular schemehare-brained,even hazardous;it might easily backfire, driving the workers irretrievably towards radicalism. Witte, who only learnedwhat was afoot when an employer complained of police harassment,furiously attacked the dangerous amateurismof its promoters,and called for an immediatestop to this absurdexperimentin police socialism. He could make no headway, however, against the zealous Minister of the Interior, Dmitrii Sipiagin, largely becausethe antisemitismand naive popular monarchism of Zubatov'sschemehad now attractedthe tsar himself [60]. Zubatov delighted his royal patrons by putting 50,000 workers on the streetsfor a loyal demonstrationto mark the fortieth anniversaryof the liberation of the serfs in February, 1902. A year later, however, another Zubatov enterprisewent disastrouslyawry, implicating him in fomenting a generalstrike in Odessa;Plehve was now Minister of the Interior - Sipiagin having been assassinated- and he had no choice but to dismiss the now discreditedZubatov. The idea of cultivating a loyalist working classwas almost, but not quite, destroyed;it would soonsurfaceagain underthe charismaticleadershipof a priest, FatherGapon. RUSSIFICATION

The tsar found demonstrationsof popular monarchism attractive becausethey gave him hope that loyal workers as well as peasants could be deployed againstthe various forces of subversionand corruption: unruly students,socialistagitators,know-it-all professionals, and 'Jewish'employers.Thesesentimentswere fully sharedby Plehve, who madeno secretof his anti-semitism[Doc. 6]. From their point of view, only if the Russianheartlandwere politically reliable could the

The Dawn of the New Century, 1899-1904 31

empire deal with seriousthreatsto its integrity, especiallythoseposed by the non-Russianminorities in the borderlands.This was, after all, the RussianEmpire: it might contain many different ethnic groups, but Russiannational identity was the only one officially recognized. Russianmonarchiststhought that the Habsburgshad beenfoolish to accommodatethe Hungariansby turning their empire into a Dual Monarchy. They were determinedto resist any similar move towards federalismin Russia,and their intransigentsupportfor the autocracy was based on the not unrealistic belief that without it the empire would disintegrate. By far the strongestclaims for a separatenational identity came from the Poles, whose venerable kingdom, as they persisted in reminding the Russians,had been part of Christendomlong before anyonehad heard of Moscow. After the 1863 rebellion proved their 'disloyalty', Alexander II's governmentset out deliberately to integrate them into the empire by destroying every vestige of Polish national and cultural identity. The separatePolish viceroyalty was eliminated, and the 'Vistula provinces',as RussianPoland was now called, were run by governorsappointedin St. Petersburg.Poleswere forced to learn Russianin school,and were requiredto speakRussian for transactingall official business,including judicial proceedings.In the hope of weakeningthe Poles' attachmentto the Roman Catholic Church, the Russiansconfiscatedits property, diverting it to secular purposes;with a conqueror'sarrogance,they also built a large Orthodox cathedralin central Warsaw. Polish Uniates were forcibly converted to Orthodoxy. The predictableresult of all thesemeasureswas to heap new hatredsand resentmentson top of an alreadyprofound national humiliation; the Poles' grudging submission to Russian authority was maintainedpartly by the presenceof a large garrison that was really an army of occupation,and partly by the desperate hope of some patriots that if liberalism triumphed in Russia, then Polish independencewould be restored. The treatmentof Polandprovided a model for the Russificationof other borderlandareas,a policy supportedby both AlexanderIII and Nicholas II. Therewere severalother varietiesof conservativenationalism in nineteenth-centuryRussia,but the officially-sanctioneduniformity embodiedin the idea of Russificationdrew supportnot only from the ruling dynasty, but also from security-consciousarmy officers and from a Church hierarchykeen on attractingconverts.For the bureaucratsof the day, who were better educated,more professional, and less tied to the land than their gentry forbears,Russificationhad someappealbecauseit offered the hope of a more homogeneous,and

32

Descriptive Analysis

therefore presumablyless unruly, population [100]. Pobedonostsev was far too intelligent not to realize that crude measuresalone would be counterproductive;ingeniously, he tried to forge a transcending 'all-Russian',imperial identity that would appearless oppressive,but this was too transparenta fraud to be taken seriouslyoutsidea small circle of devotees[28, 110]. Russification, even in its crudestform, was an impossiblegoal becausethe regimelackedthe manpower,efficiency, and systematicapproachthat such a programmewould have required; in any case, the borderlandswere far too disparatefor a 'one-size-fits-all'solution. That Russifying the borderlandswas beyond the capacitiesof the regime did not deter supportersfrom the idea of attempting the impossible,with results that ranged from unfortunateto disastrous. In the caseof the Ukraine, which had benefitedenormouslyfrom the economic boom of the 1890s, the Russiansoverreactedto demands for cultural autonomyfirst expressedby intellectualswho lacked significant popular support,therebyvirtually ensuringthe rapid growth of a Ukrainian nationalist underground,albeit with Austrian connivance.In the Baltic provinces,the Germanlandowningelite had given loyal service to the RussianEmpire for decades,while the incipient nationalistmovementsamongthe largely peasantLatvians and Estonians were directed primarily againsttheir Germanoverlords. Yet in the 1880s, a series of heavy-handedmeasuresdirected against both Protestantismand the Germanlanguageturned many Baltic Germans againstRussia;they also taught Latvian and Estoniannationaliststhe futility of expectingthe Russiansto dispossesslandowners- German or not - in favour of landlesspeasants.In the south, ostensibly to avoid conflict with the Ottoman Empire, the Russianssuddenlyturned againsttheir erstwhile friends, the Armenians,who naturally resisted a Russian assault on the schools run by their national (Gregorian Christian) Church. In retaliation, the RussiansencouragedMuslims from the neighbouringAzerbaijan region to attack the Armenians. Thus, from the Baltic to the Caucasus,programmesof Russification awakenedthe dormant and the indifferent, turned moderatesinto radicals, and friends into foes; only fools measuredtheir successby counting the number of closed churches,forced conversionsto Russian Orthodoxy, and classroomsfull of bitter and resentfulstudents. The Grand Duchy of Finland was a special case: its fully autonomous statusderived from the 1809 agreementthat transferredit from the Swedishto the RussianEmpire. So long as the Russianshonoured the rights and privileges of Finnish autonomy, the Finns had no grounds for complaint, let alone rebellion or revolution; indeed the

The Dawn of the New Century, 1899-1904 33

cultural nationalists in the Ukraine would have been delighted to enjoy even a tiny fraction of Finnish liberties. For their part, most Finns understandablywished only to retain their liberties intact, and to do so indefinitely. By the end of the nineteenthcentury, however, the Russiangovernment,with an eye on the growing strengthof Germany, soughtfrom the GrandDuchy a largercontributionto Imperial defencethan the traditional arrangementsrequired. Defence quickly became the main, although not the sole, issue: Finland's growing industrial economy threatenedto compete with Russia's, while its independent jurisdiction continually frustrated Russian policemen who were well aware that known revolutionariescrossedthe border whenever it suited them. A dispute in 1899 over the amount and extent of military serviceby Finnish conscriptsescalatedinto a larger crisis when Nicholas II issueda manifestowhich assertedthat in matters of Imperial interest,the laws of the empirewould take precedence within the Grand Duchy over laws made by its own Diet and Senate. The manifestowas partially the work of Plehve,who was then State Secretaryfor Finland in St Petersburg;its timing - publishedwhile the Finnish Diet was preparing to consider the most recent Russian demands- was regardedas a further provocation.Half a million signatureswere speedilycollected for a petition to the tsar/grandduke, demandingthe redressof grievances,but instead of preservingFinland's rights and privileges as his predecessorshad done, Nicholas stood by while his Governor-General,Bobrikov, dismantledthem one after another.Bobrikov believedthat Russiahad never completedits conquestof Finland, and sought to repair the mistake [Doc. 7]. In 1900, Russianwas made the official languageof public administration; Bobrikov counteredFinnish resistanceby staffing senior positions with Russiansbrought from St Petersburg.When Finns refused to comply with a new (1901) conscriptionlaw that virtually abolished their autonomousarmy, Bobrikov replied by suspendingwhat was left of the 1809 constitution. Most Finns were appalledbut not surprised when he was assassinated by a young radical in June,1904. In the following year, and for severalyears thereafter,the Russiangovernment would reap the whirlwind that it had sown in the Grand Duchy [111]. PEASANT UNREST

In 1902, disturbancesbroke out in two southernprovinces (Poltava and Kharkov) and in the lower Volga region; peasantstook out their frustrations on the personsand property of local landlords. Tradi-

34

Descriptive Analysis

tional explanationsfor theseeventshave emphasizedthat the perennial problems of productivity and overpopulationwere exacerbated by the difficulties most peasantsfaced in meetingthe redemptiondues owed to a governmentthat was already relying heavily on revenues from indirect taxes imposed on basic consumeritems such as kerosene, matches,sugar, tea and vodka. In these circumstances,so the argumentruns, many found themselvestrappedin a morassof debt and deprivation, first borrowing at high interest to meet tax payments,then scramblingto keep up the interestpayments,then facing punishments- whipping, confiscationof land, perhapsexile - when they were unableto avoid defaulting on thosepayments.Suchexplanations have not gone unchallenged:in an alternative interpretation, peasantsfell into arrearsbecausethey chosenot to make those payments, preferring instead to save their money, or to purchaseconsumer goods (hence explaining why sales tax revenuesincreased); even received wisdom concerninglevels of food production and the nutritional inadequacyof peasantdiet have beencalled into question [48, 103]. On thesecontroversialissues,including the local peculiarities that explain why unrestwas confined to certain regions, there is still considerabledisagreement. In any case, contemporary opponents of government policy, whetherpopulistsor paternalists,were far more interestedin the general than the particular significanceof the disturbances.Their attention focused on two main issues: the extent to which the unrest proved that critics of the regime'sfiscal policies were correct; and the possibility - exciting or alarming, dependingon one'spoint of view that the peasantswere at last becoming a potentially revolutionary force. The ensuingdebateswere by no meansconfinedto bureaucrats and publicists of various stripes: provincial landownershad always been handy targets of peasantresentment,and therefore they were also concerned,usually in a very immediateway, about whether the governmentcould prevent further disturbances.Their often narrow approachwas balancedby the self-consciouslygranderaspirationsof the studentsattending Russia'suniversities and technical institutes, most of whom easily conflatedfreeing themselvesfrom administrative tutelage with liberating the common people from an oppressive reglme. In governmentcircles, the 1902 disturbancesstrengthenedthe convictions of those, like Witte, who had come to believe that only the abolition of the communeand the encouragement of individual peasant landholdingwould solve the problemsof rural Russia.Almost as if he anticipatedthe unrest,Witte had earlier in the year appealedto

The Dawn of the New Century, 1899-1904 35

the tsar to focus the country's attentionon this great task by taking personaldirection of it, as his grandfatherAlexander II had done in planning the emancipationof the serfs. Nicholas was far more cautious, and was afraid to destroysuch a venerableRussianinstitution as the commune, especially when conservativesinsisted that its alleged economicdeficiencieswere less important than its stabilizing role in the countryside.Senior officials in his Ministry of the Interior advisedthat its abolition would certainly lead to a period of instability that might prove evenmore dangerousthan the unrestalreadyevident. Yet although the tsar rejected Witte's appeal, he nevertheless made the finance minister chairmanof a newly-createdSpecial Commission on the Needsof the Agricultural Industry, a move that some interpretedto mean that Nicholas had reluctantly acceptedthe need for sweepingchangein rural Russia.That this was a false hope soon became apparent: the tsar refused to stipulate that the traditional jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior over peasantaffairs should now be subordinatedto Witte's interdepartmentalCommission, in effect giving the defendersof the communeat least as strong an institutional base as that of the would-be abolitionists. Although Witte attemptedto draw support from beyond St Petersburgby proposing that the Commissionconsult with local committeesin the provinces, he faced even more formidable oppositionwhen PlehvereplacedSipiagin as Minister of the Interior. Although Witte retained the chairmanshipof the SpecialCommissionafter he lost the FinanceMinistry in 1903, he was by then in no position to bully the tsar into abolishing the commune.After Plehve himself was assassinated by a terrorist's bomb in 1904, Nicholas was even less likely to contemplate measuresthat might causefurther instability. Not surprisingly, the peasantdisturbancesevoked an entirely different responsefrom the populist wing of the intelligentsia,which was rejuvenatedby this apparentevidencethat the revolutionarypotential of the peasantrywas still very much alive. What ensuedwas much more than a revival of the naive populism of the 1870s:Victor Chernov, who emergedas the most importantleaderof the SocialistRevolutionary (SR) Party, formed in 1902, readily acknowledgedthat in a Russia transformed by capitalist industry, there was much to be learnedfrom the writings of Marx and Engels.In his hands,agrarian socialismadaptedboth its theoreticalbasisand its practicalactivity to the changing economic and social conditions of Russia'sindustrial revolution. Abandoningthe earlier idea of an exclusivelypeasantrevolution that would lead directly to the creation of socialism,the SRs now integratedthe Marxian conceptionof necessaryhistorical stages,

36

Descriptive Analysis

and revisedtheir conceptionof eventualsocialistrevolution to include leading roles for both peasantsand industrial workers. Where an earlier generationof populistshad wrung their handsin despairover the coming of capitalism,the SRs were now able to appreciateits revolutionary potential, and thereforewere able to respondmore positively to this phaseof economicdevelopment,althoughChernovstill hoped to preservefrom its destructiveinroads both the village community and the uniquely Russiancharacteristicsof peasantsocialism. In this new garb, the SRs were active propagandistsand organizersnot only in the countryside, where many village schoolteacherswere party members or sympathizers,but also among factory workers in St. Petersburgand elsewhere[78, 88]. Their messageof a revolution made jointly by peasantsand workers struck a responsivechord amongthe latter, and the old idea that the SRs were simply the voice of peasantRussiawas no longer tenable.On the shop floor, as well as among dispossessedagricultural labourers,they were rivals of, and competitors with, the explicitly Marxist Social Democrats [72]. Nevertheless,the extremism of earlier revolutionary populism still survivedin the SRs' 'Fighting Organization',an undergroundterrorist group responsiblefor several noteworthy assassinations,including thoseof two successiveMinisters of the Interior (Sipiagin and Plehve). For some impatient revolutionary temperaments,propagandaby the deedwas more immediatelysatisfyingthan its less dramaticforms. BOLSHEVIKS AND MENSHEVIKS

The Social Democrats stood somewhat apart from these events becausethey were preoccupiedwith intra-party strugglesover doctrine and organization.The debatecontinuedto focus on finding the organization and tactics appropriate to the stage of development reachedby Russia'sworking class.However,insteadof attackingdissentersagainstparty orthodoxy, the party soon split into two seemingly irreconcilable factions that expendedat least as much energy battling eachother as they did on combatingthe enemiesof the proletariat. In theseclashesindividual personalitiesundoubtedlyplayed a significant role, one that many observers(and some of the participants) considered ironic, given the importance that Marx and Plekhanovhad attachedto impersonalforces in historical development. By 1900, Lenin and Martov b.ad returnedfrom political exile, and both were working with Plekhanov,Paul Axelrod and other leading Marxists on the editorial board of the newly founded party journal

The Dawn of the New Century, 1899-1904 37

Iskra (The Spark). However, while this group were zealouslydefending party orthodoxy againstrevisionistsand 'economists',Lenin was quietly formulating a Marxist variant of his own, one which found expressionin his 1902 pamphlet,What Is to Be Done? In his view, Marxists were too optimistic about the revolutionarypotential of the working class; workers themselveswould never go beyond what he contemptuouslytermeda trade-unionconsciousness, and henceSocial Democratsought to keep them at a distanceso that they would neither corrupt nor dilute the purity and single-mindedness of the party's revolutionarystruggle.The kind of small, conspiratorialparty of professionalrevolutionariesthat Lenin sought'implied nothing less than the permanenttutelageof the proletariatby the radical intelligentsia'. [16 p. 38]. Why his views did not provokean immediaterow is unclear, but their implications becameall too plain when questionsof organization and tactics were discussedat a party congressheld in Brusselsand (thanks to disruption by the Belgian police) London in the summerof 1903. Although the intended purpose of the congresswas to bring together numerous Marxist factions - some of them Russian, some Polish, someJewish- into one unified RussianSocial DemocraticWorkers' Party, Lenin took every opportunity to expoundhis views and to muster support for his position on crucial votes. Although Martov and his supportersmanagedto staveoff defeaton the issueof the definition of party membership,Lenin manoeuvredhis way to victory on several other important votes. Sensingthe advantageto be derived from bold distortion, he immediatelybeganto call his supporters'Bolsheviks' and Martov's followers 'Mensheviks',from the Russianwords for majority and minority. In the wake of the congressLenin beganto devotemore attentionto the peasantry,whoserecentlydisplayedrevolutionary potential madethem possibleallies of the workers, and to the possibility of using them in an armed uprising againstthe regime that was plannedandco-ordinated,naturally, by professionalrevolutionaries who sharedhis views. Martov and Plekhanovcontinuedto believe in the gradualist approachof a broadly-basedparty of workers and intellectuals,and worried that Lenin was risking disasterfor Russian social democracyby trying to do too much, too soon. Axelrod, meanwhile, warned that a successful Bolshevik uprising would simply replacethe despotismof Nicholas II with that of Lenin. At the time, he simply meantto alert Social Democratsto the dangersinherentin Lenin's approach,but in 1918 many would seehis warning as a prediction that was striking in its accuracy.

38

Descriptive Analysis

THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT

The recurring nightmare of Russian monarchists was an alliance between moderate and radical opponentsof the regime, and this finally becamea reality in 1903. During an earlier crisis at the end of the 1870s, moderatereformers in the zemstvoshad been outraged when the governmentseemedto ignore the huge gulf that separated them from revolutionaryterrorists [120]. A quarterof a centurylater, that gulf had narrowedconsiderably,even if more liberals than revolutionarieswere readyto recognizethe fact and behaveaccordingly. The growing influence of the empire's new professionalswas at leastpartially responsiblefor this greatchange.Although still numerically small, Russian academics,lawyers, physicians, and engineers provided formed groupswhoseincreasingcoherenceand assertiveness a congenialenvironmentfor the developmentof new ideas about the organizationof civil society,perhapsin the long run a more congenial environment than the zemstvos, despite the undeniably important contributionsof a vocal minority of gentry landownerswho espoused the causeof zemstvoliberalism. The latter had cometo equateliberalism with freedom from bureaucraticcontrol, and hencethey sought to strengthenthe autonomy, budgetarypowers, and jurisdiction of the zemstvos,although they were often noticeably reluctant to pass these greater powers on to the professionalswhom they employed. For their part, the professionalswere motivated·principally by a sharedrespectfor the power of reason,the authority of knowledge, and the claims of expertise.All too often, in their view, the social and political structure of the Russian Empire put those lacking expert knowledgein positions of authority, while those who possessedthat knowledge found themselvesin subordinatepositions where their advice was either ignored or not even sought.Although someversion of this conflict was commonto most countriesin an age of growing sophisticationin mattersof public administration,in Russiait sometimes seemedthat the obstaclesto professionalization,and to increasing the influence of professionalsin society, were so entrenchedand so formidable that only an extensiveremaking of the existing order would eliminate them [19]. Only a minority of Russianprofessionals consistently put general political issues ahead of particular professional concerns,but thosewho reachedthis degreeof frustration usually found themselveson the left wing of the political spectrum. Another importantcomponentof the new political climate was the fact that some membersof the intelligentsia were preparedto put aside,at leastfor the moment,the narrow sectarianismthat had so far preventedany coalescingof opposition forces. Both a herald and an

The Dawn of the New Century, 1899-1904 39

agent of this changein outlook was the founding in 1902 of a new opposition journal, Osvobozhdenie(Liberation), edited in Stuttgart (and later Paris) by the former Marxist theoreticianStruve,and smuggled back to Russia via the underground[Doc. 8]. Disillusioned by the intoleranceand infighting of the Marxists, Struve decided,with strong supportfrom leading zemstvoliberals, to attemptthe creation of a broad oppositionfront. His novel message,startling in its lack of dogmatism,was that revolutionariesand liberals 'in essencemove in the same direction and merely go to different terminal points' [36 p.86]; if this were true, then both groupscould work togetherto bring down the autocracy.Except for the Social Democrats,who seemed temperamentallyincapableof minimizing differencesof any kind, the responseto Struve'snew tactic was extraordinarilypositive; groupsof self-styled 'Liberationists' beganto meet throughout1903 in several Russianlocations.In January,1904, a more formal organization,the Union of Liberation, was createdin St Petersburgto pursuea definite political programmethat gave first priority to the establishmentof constitutionalgovernmentand the introduction of basic civil liberties for all [Doc. 9]. Local branchesof the Union beganto attract support not only from left-wing liberals in the zemstvosand from professionals, but also from non-Marxistrevolutionaries,many of them SRs. The most outspokenradical among the Liberationists was Paul Miliukov, who had begunhis careeras a history professorat the University of Moscow and was well known in academiccircles for incisive lectures and a definitive published study of the peasantryin eighteenth-centuryRussia. Like Struve, Miliukov was an urban intellectual, but where the former was a disillusionedMarxist, the latter was an enthusiasticpositivist with a wholeheartedand utterly uncritical faith in the virtues of constitutional government. Because of his intenseadmirationfor Westernpolitical culture, particularly the British parliamentarysystem, Miliukov's biographer has called him -