Today’s objectives

 

  1. Identify: key groups of actors central to Russian Revolution
  2. Distinguish: revolutionary mobilization in theory vs. practice
  3. Discuss: who (or what) planted the seeds of empire’s collapse

Revolutionary actors

  • peasants
  • factory workers
  • intellectuals
  • ethnic, religious minorities
  • military personnel
  • someone else?

Note: these groups not mutually exclusive.

 

Discussion:
Who do you think presented the greatest threat to the imperial regime in 1917?


Angry Mob

Marx’s Theory of Class Revolution

 

What is capitalism?

  1. private ownership of means of production
  2. existence of wage labor

Marx believed that capitalism’s success will lead to its own demise.


Founding Fathers

Marx’s Three Economic “Laws”

  1. Law of Disproportionality
    1. capitalist economies tend to overproduce certain goods
    2. disproportionality b/w production, consumption causes econ crises
    3. \(\to\) proletariat rebel against system
  2. Law of Concentration
    1. competition forces capitalists to raise efficiency, accumulate capital
    2. concentration of wealth, inequality
    3. \(\to\) proletariat rebel against system
  3. Falling Rates of Profit
    1. capital accumulates, rates of return decline
    2. unemployment rises, wages fall
    3. \(\to\) proletariat rebel against system

Is this what happened in 1917?


Workers Unite!

The Countryside

Peasants

What did emancipation accomplish?

  1. New rights

    • peasants’ status changed from “serfs” to “temporarily indentured”
    • peasants given rights of full citizens, including property rights

  2. Local self-government

    • peasants given right to form communes (obshchiny)

  3. Land reform

    • landlords retained property rights over their land, but were required to allot land for peasant use
    • peasants pay state for land use, through labor (barshchina) or tax
    • state compensated landowners


The Emancipator

What did emancipation not accomplish?

  1. Peasant land ownership

    • peasants received land for homestead, not fields for farming
    • field land given only to communes
    • less acreage/family than pre-1861
    • landlords retained “strips” of land (otrezki) that partitioned peasant holdings, made them unusable

  2. Freedom from predatory taxes/rents

    • buyout cost 2-5\(\times\) market rate
    • peasants still had to pay landlords rent to use “strips”
    • peasant debt was written into law
    • no “opt out” from land allotment

Result: all of this strengthened the institution of peasant communes


Hard at Work

What were peasant communes?

  • village collectives, 300-2000 people
  • field land communally owned, distributed among families
  • open field system: several large fields subdivided into smaller family plots

Advantages

  • provided financial security, insurance
  • cheaper than private land holding
    (due to debt/taxes/above-market rates)

Disadvantages

  • overuse / Tragedy of the Commons
  • stunted growth of agro labor market
  • slowed industrialization of agriculture (most farmers grew crops for household consumption, not for trade)
  • city food shortages b/c terms of trade


Family Plot

Village Center

The City

Urban Population as Percent of Total (1816-1914)

Russia’s cities started growing at a fast rate after emancipation…

Total Population (thousands)

Russia’s overall population growth rate also gathered pace.

Urban Population in Comparative Perspective (percent)

But Russia’s urbanization levels still lagged way behind its peers.

Total Population in Comparative Perspective (thousands)

On eve of revolution, Russia remained an empire of peasants.

Workers

From farm to factory

  • Russia’s “urban proletariat” was small by European standards
  • 12.3 million urban dwellers
    (7.24% of total population)
  • 3 million factory workers
    (1.75% of total population)
  • most factory workers were just 1-2 generations removed from peasant life
  • many were seasonal workers from the countryside, with families still on farm

What did this mean for Marx’s theory?

 

Was a proletarian uprising possible in Russia?


Petrograd Rising

Intellectuals

Narodnik movement (agrarian socialism)

  • left-wing radical intellectual movement, emerged after emancipation
  • key ideologues: A.Herzen, V.Chernov
  • goals:
    1. overthrow of monarchy
    2. redistribution of land to peasants
  • key difference from Bolsheviks:
    • wanted land socialization (collective ownership by peasants), not land nationalization
      (state ownership, collectivization)
  • saw peasants as revolutionary class, commune as nucleus of mobilization
  • but… believed peasants too innately passive to start revolution on their own
  • peasants needed to be somehow “emboldened” for revolution to occur…


Vote SR 1917!

Revolutionary Terrorism

 

Key Narodnik terrorist groups:

  • Land and Liberty (Zemlya i Volya)
    1860-1879
  • People’s Will (Narodnaya Volya)
    1879-1887
  • Socialist Revolutionary Party (esery)
    1900-1920

The toll:

  • 17,000 killed by terrorism, 1897-1917
    • targeted govt officials, police
    • but 2/3 of victims were civilians
  • counter-terrorism: \(\sim\) 10,000 executions

Intent of terrorist violence:

  1. mobilize masses / accelerate revolution
  2. intimidate government into concessions


Alexander II

Duke Sergey

Urban violence, rural audience

 

Challenges in “going to the people”:

  1. Educational gap (1897 census)
    • 45.3% literacy in urban areas
    • 10.8% literacy in rural areas
    • how many peasants could read Narodniks’ pamphlets?
  2. Cultural gap
    • Narodnik positions on gender, church landed poorly with conservative rural population
  3. Violence
    • NV assassination of Alexander II alienated many peasants
    • SR more successful at mobilizing support, by capitalizing on backlash to government repression


Meet the People

Give Pamphlet

Colonies and Barracks

Minorities

Discussion:
Why were some minorities over-represented in the revolutionary movement?

 

For example:

  1. In 1900, Jews were 5% of empire’s population, but accounted for 50% of revolutionary party members, 30% of individuals arrested for political crimes.

  2. Polish Socialist Party carried out “bacchanalia of murders,” but hardly any terrorist violence in Finland.

Could different strategies of colonial management / integration of minorities have prevented this?


Eksplozja

Military

Number of Military Personnel (1816-1918)

Half of military-age male population mobilized for WWI. 2.2M killed.

Impact of WWI on domestic politics

  1. Battlefield losses

    • Russia loses control of Poland
    • mass casualties
    • mutinies, high desertion rates

  2. Economic crises

    • loss of access to export markets
    • agro, industrial labor shortage
    • supply shocks, breadlines in cities

  3. Crisis of confidence

    • Nicholas II takes personal command of army in 1915
    • leaves power vacuum at home
    • regime seen as incompetent, aloof

  4. Social change

    • new roles for women


Territory Lost

 

Breaking point

 

February 1917 Revolution:

  • public outrage over Tsar’s prosecution of WWI, food shortages
  • \(\sim\) 250,000 striking workers, protesters gather in Petrograd in February
  • Petrograd military garrison refuses Tsar’s order to fire on protestors
  • soldiers switch sides, join protestors
  • protestors, soldiers storm Duma, occupy government buildings
  • Duma forms Provisional Committee
  • Army Chief, Duma deputies meet with Tsar, convince him to abdicate throne


Bigger Rations!

People in Power

NEXT MEETING

 

Building Communism (Tu, Sep. 24)

  • the dog catches the car, now what?
  • things to consider:
    • how did the Bolsheviks go about consolidating their power?
    • what was “war communism”, and how did it affect the peasants?