by Riazanovsky
as a vehicle for Russian penetration into Korea. Witte, who objected energetically to the dangerous new scheme, had to leave the Ministry of Finance; the Foreign Office failed to restrain or control Russian policy in the Far East; and Nicholas II himself sided cheerfully with the adventurers, apparently because he believed in some sort of Russian mission in Asia and, in common with almost everyone else, grossly underestimated Japan. Russian policy could hardly be defended in terms of either justice or wisdom, in spite of the efforts of such able scholars as Malozemoff.
Japan proved to be the more skillful aggressor. Offering partition, which would give the Russians northern Manchuria and the Japanese southern Manchuria and Korea, the Japanese gauged the futility of negotiating, chose their time well, and on February 8, 1904, attacked successfully the unsuspecting Russian fleet in the outer harbor of Port Arthur - thus accomplishing the original Pearl Harbor. What followed turned out to be a humiliating war for the Russians. The Russian colossus suffered defeat after
defeat from the Japanese pigmy. This outcome, so surprising at the time, resulted from ample causes: Japan was ready, well-organized, and in effect more modern than Russia, while Russia was unprepared, disorganized, troubled at home, and handicapped by a lack of popular support and even by some defeatism; Japan enjoyed an alliance with Great Britain and the favor of world public opinion, Russia found itself diplomatically isolated; Japan used short lines of communication, Russian forces had to rely on the enormously long single-track Trans-Siberian railroad, with the section around Lake Baikal still unfinished. In any case, although Russian soldiers and sailors fought with their usual courage and tenacity, the Japanese destroyed the Russian navy in the Far East, besieged and eventually captured Port Arthur, and gradually, in spite of bitter engagements near Mukden and elsewhere, pushed the main Russian army north in Manchuria. Finally, on May 27-29, 1905, in the battle of Tsushima Strait, they annihilated Admiral Zinovii Rozhdestvensky's antique fleet which had been sent to the Far East all the way from the Baltic. That fleet, it might be added, had caused a serious international incident when on its journey to the Far East it had fired by mistake at some English fishing vessels on the Dogger Bank, inflicting casualties.
An armistice followed soon after Tsushima. The Russians had suffered numerous defeats, and the government had to cope with revolutionary unrest at home. The Japanese had exhausted their finances and, despite their victories, could not destroy the main Russian army or force a conclusion. In response to a secret Japanese request, President Theodore Roosevelt arranged a peace conference at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in August 1905. The provisions of the Treaty of Portsmouth reflected the skillful diplomacy of Witte, who headed the Russian delegation, and represented, everything considered, a rather satisfactory settlement for Russia: Russia acknowledged a paramount Japanese interest in Korea and ceded to Japan its lease of the Liaotung Peninsula, the southern part of the railroad up to Chang-chun, and the half of the island of Sakhalin south of the fiftieth degree of latitude; both countries agreed to restore Manchuria to China; in spite of strong Japanese insistence, there was no indemnity.
The Russian government ended the war against Japan none too soon, for, as fighting ceased, the country was already in the grip of what came to be known as the Revolution of 1905.
XXXI
THE LAST PART OF THE REIGN OF NICHOLAS II: THE REVOLUTION OF 1905 AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL PERIOD, 1905-17
Russia at the dawn of the twentieth century knew no more magic word than "revolution." The idea of revolution was viewed with fear and hatred by the propertied classes of the population, and was loved and revered by all who dreamed of liberty. To the Russians who longed for a new life, there was enchantment in the very sound of the word. Even as they conceived it, even as they pronounced the sacred words, "Long Live the Revolution," Russians felt obscurely that they were already halfway to liberation.
STEINBERG
There is an easier and more convincing explanation for the failure of the constitutional monarchy: it puts the blame primarily on the king himself. Although Louis was well-meaning and showed occasional flashes of insight, his narrow mind had a stubborn and devious quality about it, too. The king did little to consolidate the new system, even though it left him a role of real importance…
… The explanation may lie in the constant pressure of the queen and her advisers, which weakened Louis's resolution and changed his flabby mind. Or it may be that this pious king had serious pangs of conscience at some of the reforms built into the new system… Or again, perhaps the course of events brought out his own true character as an irritable, small-minded, stubborn man who built up a neurotic resentment at his loss of initiative after 1789. It is true that even if Louis XVI had been ideally suited to his new role, the system might have broken down nevertheless.
WRIGHT
Whereas actually the main weakness of the Russian monarchy of the imperial period consisted not at all in representing the interests of a "minority," restricted in this or that manner, but in the fact that it represented no one whatsoever.*
FLOROVSKY
M. Kovalevsky and many other Russians hoped that the period of blind reaction, "the time out of joint," which descended upon Russia in the second half of Alexander II's reign and was certainly present in the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II, would give way to a new wave of sweeping liberal reforms. But the government refused to change its course. Instead the country finally exploded into the Revolution of 1905. * Italics in the original.
The Background of the Revolution of 1905
The Revolution of 1905 could occur because of the social transformation that had been going on in the empire of the tsars and because of the concomitant growth of opposition to the regime. In the decades that followed the "great reforms," capitalism at last became prominent in Russia. In fact, the 1880's and 1890's witnessed rapid industrialization of the country with resulting social changes and tensions. While the Russian society of that period will be discussed in a later chapter, no special exposition is needed to make the point that the growth of capitalism led to the rise of two social groups, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The middle class, traditionally weak in Russia at least after the times of Kiev and Novgorod, began finally to come into its own. Even though the Russian commercial and industrial bourgeoisie remained still relatively underdeveloped and inarticulate, professional people seemed eager and ready to participate in politics. These professional groups - whether they should be classified as part of the middle class or as a separate adjoining stratum is of no consequence here - had profited especially from the "great reforms": thus, the judicial reform of 1864 had virtually created the lawyers, while the introduction of the zemstvo system provided numerous openings for doctors, veterinarians, teachers, statisticians, and many other specialists, the so-called "third element" of the zemstva. Liberalism found particularly propitious circumstances for development among the professionals, as well as among some gentry landlords of the zemstva. The rise of the proletariat and the emergence of a labor movement pointed in their turn to a more radical trend in Russian opposition. And, of course, behind dissatisfied bourgeois, critical intellectuals, and bitter workers there spread the human ocean of destitute and desperate peasants - an ocean that had risen in uncounted storms through centuries of Russian history.
The opposition began to organize. The frightful famine of 1891-92 marked the end of a certain lull in Russia and the resumption of social and political activity with emphatic criticism of the regime. The liberals, who could boast of many prominent names in their ranks and who represented at that time the elite of the opposition, eventually formed the Union of Liberation in 1903, with its organ, The Liberation, published abroad by the noted economist Peter Struve. In 1905 they organized the Constitutional Democratic party - or "Cadet," a word based on the two initial letters in the Russian name - led by the historian Paul Miliukov and encompassing liberals of different kinds, both constitutional monarchists and republicans.
tury: the Social Democratic, or "SD," and the Socialist Revolutionary, or "SR." The Social Democrats were Marxists, and the creation of their party represented a landmark in the development of Marxism in Russia. Propounded by George Plekhanov and other able intellectuals, Marxism became prominent in the empire of the tsars in the 1880's and especially in the 1890's. Its close association with the labor movement dated at least from 1883, when Plekhanov organized the Emancipation of Labor Group; but a Marxist political party, the Social Democratic, appeared only in 1898. In fact, the convention of 1898 - although commemorated in the U.S.S.R. as the first and founding congress - proved abortive, and most of its few participants were shortly arrested. The party became a reality only after the second convention held in Brussels and London in 1903. At that time the Social Democrats also split into the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ulianov, better known as Lenin, who wanted a tightly knit organization of professional revolutionaries, and the Mensheviks, who preferred a somewhat broader and looser association. In time the ramifications of that relatively slight initial difference acquired great importance. The Socialist Revolutionaries, who engaged in a running debate with the Marxists concerning the nature of Russian society and its future, represented essentially the older populist tradition of Russian radicalism, even though they too were influenced by Marxism. They formed their party in 1901 and had Victor Chernov as their most noted leader.
As the twentieth century opened, Russia was in turmoil. Strikes spread throughout the country. Student protests and disturbances became more frequent, constituting an almost continuous series from 1898 on. Sporadic peasant disturbances kept the tension high in rural areas and offered increased opportunities to the Socialist Revolutionaries, just as the growth of the labor movement encouraged the Social Democrats. In 1902, 1903, and early 1904, committees dealing with the national economy, conferences of teachers and doctors, and other public bodies all demanded reforms. Moreover, the Socialist Revolutionaries resumed the terrorist tactics of their predecessors such as the "Will of the People." Their "Battle Organization" assassinated a number of important officials, including the two especially reactionary ministers of the interior, Sipiagin in 1902 and Plehve in 1904, and early in 1905 Grand Duke Serge, commanding officer of the Moscow military region and Nicholas II's second cousin and brother-in-law. The war against Japan and resulting defeats added fuel to the fire. In November 1904, a zemstvo congress, meeting in St. Petersburg, demanded a representative assembly and civil liberties. The same demands were made with increasing frequency by numerous other public bodies. In particular, professional organizations, such as unions of doctors and teachers, and other associations spread rapidly throughout Russia and made their voices heard. Several months after the zemstvo congress fourteen professional unions
united to form a huge Union of Unions led by the Cadets. The government tried both repression and some conciliation, appealing for confidence, but its generally ineffectual efforts only helped to swell the tide of opposition.
The Revolution of 1905
January 22, 1905, came to be known in Russian history as "Bloody Sunday." On that day the police of the capital fired at a huge demonstration of workers led by an adventurer and priest named George Gapon, killing, according to the official estimate, one hundred and thirty persons and wounding several hundred. Ironically, Gapon's union had been essentially a "police union," part of policeman Serge Zubatov's plan to infiltrate the labor movement and direct it into officially desirable channels. Ironically too, the workers were converging on the Winter Palace - ignorant of the fact that Nicholas II was not there - with icons and the tsar's portraits, as faithful subjects, nay, children, of their sovereign, begging him for redress and help. The entire ghastly episode thus testified to official incompetence in more ways than one. The massacre led to a great outburst of indignation in the country and gave another boost to the revolutionary movement. In particular, as many authorities assert, it meant a decisive break between the tsar and those numerous workers who had until that "Bloody Sunday" remained loyal to him.
Under ever-increasing pressure, Nicholas II declared early in March his intention to convoke a "consultative" assembly; in further efforts toward pacification, he proclaimed religious tolerance and repealed some legislation against ethnic minorities; nevertheless, the revolutionary tide kept rising. The summer of 1905 witnessed new strikes, mass peasant uprisings in many provinces, active opposition and revolutionary movements among national minorities, and even occasional rebellions in the armed forces, notably in the celebrated instance of the battleship Potemkin in the Black Sea. On August 19 an imperial manifesto created an elective Duma with consultative powers, but that too failed to satisfy the educated public or the masses. The revolutionary movement culminated in a mammoth general strike which lasted from the twentieth to the thirtieth of October and has been described as the greatest, most thoroughly carried out, and most successful strike in history. Russians seemed to act with a single will, as they made perfectly plain their unshakable determination to end autocracy. It was in the course of the strike, and in order to direct it, that workers in St. Petersburg organized a soviet, or council - a harbinger of the then unknown future. Paralyzed in their essential activities and forced at last to recognize the immensity of the opposition, Nicholas II and his government finally capitulated. On October 30, the emperor, as advised by Witte, issued the October Manifesto. That brief document guaranteed civil liberties to
the Russians, announced a Duma with the true legislative function of passing or rejecting all proposed laws, and promised a further expansion of the new order in Russia. In short, the October Manifesto made the empire of the Romanovs a constitutional monarchy.
Also, it split the opposition. The liberals and moderates of all sorts felt fundamentally satisfied. The radicals, such as the Social Democrats, on the contrary, considered the tsar's concession entirely inadequate and wanted in any case a constituent assembly, not handouts from above. Thus divided, the opposition lost a great deal of its former power. In the middle of December the government arrested the members of the St. Petersburg Soviet. The Soviet's appeal for revolution found effective response only in Moscow where workers and some other radicals fought bitterly against the police and the soldiers, including a guards' regiment, from the twenty-second of December until the first of January.
The year 1905 thus ended in Russia in bloody fighting. However, the revolution had spent itself with that last effort. In the course of the winter, punitive expeditions and summary courts-martial restored order in many troubled areas. The extreme Right joined the army and the police; Rightist active squads, known as the "Black Hundreds," beat and even killed Jews, liberals, and other intellectuals. Proto-fascist in nature, this newly awakened Right throve on ethnic and religious hatreds and appealed especially to wealthy peasants and to members of the lower middle class in towns. More important, the great bulk of the people was tired of revolution and longed for peace. It might be added that Witte further strengthened the hand of the government by obtaining a large loan from France.
The Fundamental Laws
On May 6, 1906, virtually on the eve of the meeting of the First Duma, the government promulgated the Fundamental Laws. These laws provided the framework of the new Russian political system; the October Manifesto had merely indicated some of its guiding lines. According to the Fundamental Laws, the emperor retained huge powers. He continued in complete control of the executive, the armed forces, foreign policy - specifically making war and peace - succession to the throne, the imperial court, imperial domains, and so forth. He maintained unchanged his unique dominating position in relation to the Russian Church. And he even retained the title of autocrat. He was to call together the annual sessions of the Duma and to disband the Duma, in which case, however, he had to indicate the time of the election and of the meeting of the new Duma. He had the power of veto over legislation. Moreover, in
case of emergency when the Duma was not in session, he could issue ukazes with the authority of laws, al-
though they had to be submitted for approval to the next session of the Duma no later than two months after its opening.
The Duma, to be sure, received important legislative and budgetary rights and functions by the Fundamental Laws, but these rights were greatly circumscribed. Notably, almost 40 per cent of the state budget, encompassing such items as the army, the navy, the imperial court, and state loans, stayed outside the purview of the Duma, while the remainder, if not passed by the Duma, was re-enacted in the amounts of the preceding year. Ministers and the entire executive branch remained responsible only to the emperor, although the Laws did contain complicated provisions for interpellation, that is, questioning of ministers by the Duma. Furthermore, the State Council, which had functioned since its creation by Alexander I as an advisory body of dignitaries, became rather unexpectedly the upper legislative chamber, equal in rights and prerogatives to the Duma and meant obviously as a conservative counterweight to it. "No more than half" of the membership of the upper house was to be appointed by the emperor - appointed not even for life but by means of annual lists - and the other half elected by the following groups: 56 with very high property standing by the provincial zemstva, 18 by the gentry, 12 by commerce and industry, 6 by the clergy, 6 by the Academy of Sciences and the universities, and 2 by the Finnish Diet.