A Nationwide Revolution

Assess the reasons for the 1905 revolution
In 1905 the massacre of innocent people during a peaceful protest outside the winter palace in St Petersburg sparked the start of a nationwide revolution. This mass murder of the innocent protestors became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. During the revolution strikes occurred across the nation involving more than 400,000 people, peasants attacked and raided the homes of their landlords and the Tsar’s uncle, the Grand Duke Sergei, was assassinated. Although Bloody Sunday was the immediate reason for the revolution, there were several causes which had caused long term grievances towards the Tsarist regime among the population of Russia leading up to 1905. These include the developments in the countryside and the lives of the peasants, the treatment of the inner-city working class and ethnic minorities, the repression and growth of the political opposition and the impact of the Russo Japanese war. Although all these factors contributed to the initiation of a revolution in Russia, I believe that the attitudes towards and treatment of the working class and the peasants was the most prominent reason for the uprising in 1905.
The first reason for the revolution in 1905 was the developments in the Russian countryside and how they produced a general unhappiness among the landowners and even the peasants. A long-term social and economic cause was the continuing dissatisfaction of both these groups to the Emancipation reform of Alexander II in 1861. The Landowners did not approve of the act because it denied them the free labour they had access to before the emancipation of the serfs. They had lost their free labour and large amounts of their land. By 1905 many of the Landowners were facing large debts. Although the act did end serfdom in Russia, the peasants were still angry due to the redemption payments they were expected to pay and the poor quality of land they received. They also disliked the fact that they were still tied to the local commune, or the ‘Mir’. The peasants were left angry at their rulers and this and the fact that they feared the government would repossess the homes of those who hadn’t paid their redemption payments is why they would have ransacked and occupied the houses of their landlords during the revolution. The backwardness of the Russian agricultural system also left the peasants frustrated. The Russian strip system was a regime in which each family was given a small strip of land and, when the head of the family died it would be redistributed to another family. This was a hugely flawed system because the peasants would not treat the land well as they knew a different family would inherit it. This meant that the quality of the land being received by each new family would keep getting worse. Clandestine political groups like the populists and the liberals had previously tried to rile the peasants into a rebellion. However these attempts had appeared unsuccessful due to the peasant’s ignorance of the harshness of their own treatment. The peasants only really began to revolt when the terrorist acts, organised by the social revolutionaries, spread to the countryside soon after Bloody Sunday. Overall the general displeasure of the peasants was a hugely important component in the start of a revolution because they made up the overwhelming mass of the population. It also revealed more of Nicholas’ poor decision making because of Russia’s faulty farming system

Another, and possibly more significant, element in the birth of the 1905 revolution was the treatment of the inner city working class and the ethnic minorities. Their long term treatment caused great irritation among the working class and is what caused them to protest outside the winter palace on Bloody Sunday. As Russia began to seriously progress industrially at the end of the 19th century, it had some undesirable effects on the workforce. In 1900 there were 2.3 million labourers in Russia and they lived in terrible conditions. The average worker in Russia was working 11 hours a day and by 1904 prices were rising, partly due to the start of a war with Japan. Many factories would sometimes pay their employees in coupons which could only be used at the factory shop, where prices would be unreasonably high. Strikes were illegal at the time and factory owners refused to allow workers to be represented by any form of trade union. Any attempt to join an organisation like this would end in imprisonment or being sent to Siberia, which was almost like a prison itself. Russia was a multi-national country at the start of the 20th century and only 40% of its population were actually Russian. Many ethnic groups were discriminated against by Nicholas, an open anti-Semitic, and his government through the Russification process. Russification was a regime which pushed the idea that all things Russian were superior upon the ethnic minorities. It stated that all legal proceedings had to be spoken in Russian, it encouraged the discrimination of other nationalities and made open racism a more accepted element within society. This oppression of any religion or nationality other than Christianity or Russian left many people frustrated as they could not celebrate their own cultures and it would have added to the growing anti-Tsarist notion spreading across Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century. The dissatisfaction of the labourers was a very important factor in the start of a revolution because it was the workers who marched on Bloody Sunday to immediately spark the uprising. Also when the industrial workers marched in the cities the peasants saw this and then had the courage to rise up and increase the gravity of the revolution.
The influence of the political opposition groups like the Populists, out of which came the Socialist Revolutionaries, and the extreme Marxist views of the Socialist Democratic Party were both key factors in the initiation of a revolution. Revolutionary groups were becoming increasingly organised and the Social Revolutionaries were responsible for the assassination of Plehve Minister of the Interior in 1904. The Populists had previously attempted to reveal to the peasants how badly they were actually being treated and to convince them into joining a revolution. Although this hadn’t quite worked in the countryside political ideas had begun to influence the inner city workers as they sought social and economic justice against the factory owners and the unfair Tsarist regime. In 1903 the Socialist Democrats (SDs) split into the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, which were led by Lenin and Martov respectively. The Bolsheviks were more revolutionary than the Mensheviks. They believed that a revolution was necessary and needed to happen soon, whereas Martov and the Mensheviks thought Russia was not yet ready for a proletarian revolution. However the political organisations could not have made the effect that they did without the support of the industrial workers. Therefore although they helped the revolution take place, they were not as critical as the involvement of the peasants and workers.
Another cause of the revolution in 1905 was an embarrassing loss in the Russo Japanese war. In 1904 Russia declared war on its far eastern neighbour, Japan. Nicholas knew that Russia needed to continue expanding in Asia due to Russia’s general decline in influence in Europe. Russia also desperately needed a port which was ice free all year and wanted to distract the population from its domestic problems. The war could not have gone worse for Nicholas II as he greatly underestimated the Japanese. After heavy defeats at sea and Manchuria Russia agreed to withdraw its troops from Asia, leaving the war with less land than when they started. Nicholas’ amateur military tactics and poorly equipped soldiers were no match for the Japanese and the war only made Nicholas’ and his military look weak in the eyes of the Russian population. This would only have created more opposition to Tsardom and make the Russian revolutionaries think that if Japan could defeat Nicholas, then maybe they could. As more resources were being diverted to the war in Asia, prices in Russia began to rise and the value of workers money fell by 20%. This aggravated the labourers and would have added to the growing sense of anger in Russia. The Russo Japanese war was an important catalyst in the initiation of a revolution because it made Nicholas look weak, but more importantly his military look vincible.
Finally and one of the most important reasons for the revolution was the events that occurred on Bloody Sunday. This was the reason that, many would argue, immediately sparked a revolution across Russia in 1905. As the 3000 peaceful protestors, who were mostly workers led by Father Georgi Gapon, stood outside the Tsar’s Winter Palace in St Petersburg a large group of inexperienced soldiers began firing upon them. Around 100 of the innocent activists were killed and many more were wounded. The sheer mercilessness of the unprovoked Russian soldiers triggered outrage across Russia. This is why it played such a crucial part in the beginning of the uprising.
I conclude that although the Political groups like the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks had begun to organise themselves, they could not have had the effect they did without the participation of the urban workers. The Russo Japanese war also played a key role in frustrating the Russian population economically and in making Tsardom look fragile and weak. The Russian peasants held the overwhelming mass of the population and therefore were significant in the start of any revolution due to their sheer manpower. Therefore overall the urban workers involvement was the critical catalyst in the start of a revolution because the peasants wouldn’t have revolted unless they saw the workers success in the cities and the political parties needed them to be recognised as real organisations.