INDUSTRIALIZATION IN RUSSIA

INDUSTRIALIZATION IN RUSSIA

French Revolution had three effects on Russia:

• Determination to avoid revolution• Western policies as model for Russia faded• Community and stability became more

important. SO

• Russia welcomed Western cultural but not political ideas.

Decembrist Uprising1825 revolt of Western-oriented army officers.

Economic and Social Problems

• Lagged behind in industrialization

• Improved production by tightening labor obligations of serfs

• Some Western style factories opened but no significant change

• In sum: agricultural, serf-dependent, stagnant

Russia Abroad

• 1812: Napoleonic Wars resulted in concerns about defense.

• 1815: Russia sponsored Holy Alliance with Prussia and Austria to defend religion and established order.

• 1830-31: Suppressed Polish uprising in opposition to Russian rule

• 1830s: Continued pressure on Ottoman Empire• 1849: Intervened to help Austria put down

nationalist revolt in Hungary

Crimean War

• Russia vs. France, Britain, Ottomans

• Tsar Nicholas I claimed Russia responsible for protecting Christian interests in Holy Land, but France and Britain sided with Ottomans.

• Russia lost.

Emancipation of the Serfs (1861)

Reforms under Alexander II

• New law codes (fairer to peasants)• Creation of local political councils, zemstvoes• Army: meritocratic promotion, extensive recruitment,

skills training• Improvements in education• Women had better access to higher education, the

professions• Built trans-Siberian railroad• High tariffs to promote Russian industry, improved

banking, encouraged Western investment

Road to Revolution

• Nationalism minority agitation• Famines peasant uprisings, resentment of

redemption payments• Strands of movement for change:– Professionals sought greater political voice, press

freedoms– Radical Intelligentsia sought political freedoms,

social reform but not Western materialism– Anarchists: opposed Tsarist regimes altogether

Alexander II• Late 1870s, Alexander II

scaled back reforms, imposed censorship, exiled dissidents.

• Assassinated in 1881.• As a result of his death:

– Set back for reforms– Anti-Jewish pogroms– Suppression of civil

liberties– “Propaganda by deed”

Marxism• “From each according to his

ability to each according to his need.”

• 1818-1883• Born in Prussia to Jewish,

middle class parents. • In school, more concerned

with drinking than studying. • Most famous for

Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital

Marxism

• Pioneered by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels• All societies progress through class struggle.• Called capitalism “dictatorship of bourgeoisie”• Inevitably produce tensions socialism• Under socialism, society run by proletariat• This would inevitably be replaced by pure,

classless society: communism

Marxism in Action

• China: Maoism. Communism coupled with iconoclasm and extreme nationalism.

• Marxism-Leninism: Seeks to purge anything bourgeois, idealist, or religious and seeks to create totalitarian state.

Vladimir Lenin• 1870-1921• Parents were a

schoolteacher and government education official. Noble background.

• Members of the intelligentsia, Lenin’s parents taught their children to struggle for higher ideas, a free society, and equal rights.

Radicalization of Lenin

• January 1886: father died of brain hemorrhage

• May 1887: Brother hanged for assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander III

• His sister, arrested with his brother, was exiled.

• Studied law at Kazan University but more interested in Marxism.

• In 1895 arrested for plotting against Alexander III and exiled to Siberia.

• Thereafter he left Russia for Western Europe.

• Returns to Russia for Revolution of 1905

Made Marxism more Russian

• Argued because of spread of capitalism proletarian class has developed worldwide in advance of industrialization, so a proletarian revolution is possible without distinct middle class phase.

• Believed in disciplined revolutionary cells to maintain doctrinal purity and effective action even under police repression.

• Motivated Bolsheviks

Marxism-Leninism

• Almost all property owned by state • Economy controlled by the state • Provision of basic social services • Emancipation of women• Liberal divorce and abortion policies initially• “New Man” – class conscious, knowledgeable,

heroic proletarian devoted to work and collectivism• Opposes colonialism and imperialism

Revolution of 1905• Working class unrest grew more radical than in West because:

– Absence of legal political outlets– Rural unrest– Severe conditions of early industrialization

• Russia tried to divert attention abroad with:– Wars in 1870s with Ottomans. Small gains but always pushed back

by Britain and France– Helped Serbia and Bulgaria gain independence from Ottomans;

some dreamed of pan-Slavic nation under Russia– Russia wanted MORE. Problematic because

• Over-extension• Military couldn’t back up aspirations

Russo-Japanese War (1905)

• Japan worried about Russian expansion in China and Russian influence in Korea.

• Japan won because Russia could not move fleet to Pacific quickly enough.

• Japan used this opportunity to move into Korea. This would lead to shift in power.

• Unexpected defeat in Russo-Japanese war unleashed massive protests in the Russian Revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

• Police repression further urban infuriation• Tsar recognized the need for change, so he:– Created duma (parliament)– Stolypin Reforms which gave peasants greater

freedom from redemption payments and village controls, could buy and sell land more freely

– GOAL: market-oriented peasantry– Result: unrest died down and aggressive

entrepreneurial farmers, kulaks, emerged

BUT

• Some workers’ rights were withdrawn new strikes, underground activities.

• Duma was gradually stripped of power.• Police repression resumed. • To detract attention, turned again to Ottoman

Empire and Balkans. • Gained little but determination to back Slavic

allies helped lead to WWI.

Russia and Eastern Europe

• Pattern in Russia paralleled in smaller eastern European states including Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece.

• Established parliaments but restricted parliamentary powers and voting rights.

• Some established monarchies where kings ruled without many limits on power.

• Industrialized less extensively than Russia. Mostly agricultural, dependent on western markets.