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Intelligentsia
- Social group which emerged and stood outside system of social estates
- Characteristically Russian group known as Intelligentsia - Defined less by its socio-economic position than by its critical stance towards autocracy
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Period: to
Growth of the Empire
- Population grew rapidly from 74 million to 164 million
- Put intense pressure on land resources especially in central and Volga provinces where Black earth was fertile
- By 1914 18% of the empires population was urban - Towns grew rapidly as a result of peasant migration which put strain on the urban infrastructure
- High levels of overcrowding, high rents and appalling squalor were the norm in big cities
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Period: to
Crisis of Modernization
- From 1860's and particularly from 1890's the government tried hard to keep abreast militarily and economically of the major European powers by modernizing Russia's economy
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Emancipation of 1861
- Left peasants feeling cheated since the Landed gentry kept roughly one sixth of the land which was usually the best quality land and since peasants had to pay for the land they received at a price above its market value
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War
- Happened because the Russian empire challenged by Japan in the Far East
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Revolution of 1905
- Moderate wing of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party, Mensheviks called on workers and soldiers to elect delegates to a soviet or council - The birth of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies
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Campaigns
- The intelligentsia and middle classes together campaigned for autocracy to give them civil and political rights and establish a constitutional political order
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General Strike
- Following the General strike - autocracy conceded limited legalization of trade unions but employers showed little desire to reform the authoritarian system of industrial relations
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October Manifesto
- Document promising political reforms such as allowing their to be a duma and substantial civil rights
- The October Manifesto, issued by Czar Nicholas II, brings an end to the 1905 Russian Revolution by promising civil liberties and an elected parliament (Duma)
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Bloody Sunday
- Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg begins the 1905 Revolution
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Countryside unrest 1907-1907
- Saw the burning and looting of gentry estates together with the radicalism shown by peasants in elections to the first and second dumas in 1906 and 1907
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Launch of a 'coup'
- Stolypin in June 1907 launched a coup against the duma which limited its power and drastically reduced peasant representation - Regime soon after became more isolated
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Cholera Epidemic
- Caused more than 14,000 people to die
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Failure of Stolypin Reforms
- Stolypin's reforms failed to create a layer of conservative farmers who might have provided a new base for the regime
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WW1
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Nicholas Takes Personal Command
- after a disastrous first year of battle Tsar took matters into his own hand
- Through diligent, he had neither the ability or the imagination to coordinate the external and the home fronts and stubbornly resisted calls from the duma for a 'government of public confidence'
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General Brusilov's Offensive
- Testified tot he resilience of the Russian soldiers and by that stage the army had overcome the shortage of shells that had dogged its first month in the field
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Rasputin is murdered
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The Russian Revolution
- Included the overthrow of the Tsarist autocracy in February & the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in October
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The October Revolution
- Set out to do nothing less than destroy an entire social system & replace it with a society superior to anything that had existed.
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Order No 1
- A rule by the Provisional Government which said that members should only obey the Provisional Government if the Soviet agreed with it.
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Period: to
Increase in protest participation
More workers participated in political strikes than in 1913 -
Abdication of Nicholas
- Following the formation of the Temporary Government - Since his brother could not be persuaded to take the throne , Nicholas abdicated and 300 year old Romanov Dynasty came to an ignominious end.
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International Women's Day
- Thousands of female textile-workers and housewives took to the streets of Petrograd , the Russian capital to protest about the bread shortage and also to make International Women's Day.
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The February Revolution
- Revolution begins with strikes demonstrations, and mutinies in Petrograd
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The Day After International Women's Day
- More than 200,000 workers were on strike and demonstrators marched from outlying districts into city centers hurling rocks and lumps of ice at police as they marched.
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The Increase in Protestors
- Students and members of middle classes had joined in protests which were now bore placards proclaiming 'Down With The War' and 'Down With The Tsarist Government'
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Violence On Protesters
- Soldiers from garrison were rdered to fire on crowds and killed hundred.
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Volynskii Regiment Mutinied
- Morning after soldiers killed hundreds Volynskii regiment mutinied
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More Violence & The Breaking Out Of A Revolution
- 170,000 soldiers swarmed among insurgents whow ere attacking prisons and police stations, arresting officials and destroying Tsarist emblems of slavery - A revolution broke out.
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Formation of a Temporary Government
- Members of the Duma went ahead without a formal mandate and established a provisional or temporary government
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Lenin Returns
- Lenin returns from exile and arrives in Petrograd via a sealed train
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The July Days
- The July Days begin in Petrograd with protests against the Provisional Government after the Bolsheviks unsuccessfully try to direct these protests into a coup, Lenin is forced into hiding
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Appointment of Kerensky
- Alexander Kerensky becomes Prime Minister of the Provisional Government
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The Kornilov Affair
- The Kornilov Affair, a failed coup by General Lavr Kornilov, commander of the Russian Army