A Decade of Contrasts, and World War I

Russia changed a great deal as a result of the Revolution of 1905. What did not change is that it remained a land of extremes. On the one hand, the arts continued to flourish during what was known as the silver age of Russian culture, which began in the 1890s. On the other, the gap between the educated elite and the illiterate and semiliterate masses remained unbridged.

Russia had a parliament with limited powers from 1906 until the fall of the monarchy in March 1917.

Russia now had a real parliament, but the country continued to experience revolutionary and counterrevolutionary violence. Between 1906 and 1910 the SRs assassinated more than 4,000 government officials, while the government tried to quell violence by executing more than 1,000 people between August 1906 and April 1907 alone, after what were at best perfunctory trials. Even worse, that figure was only a fraction of the total number of executions carried out between 1905 and 1908.

Based on gross production Russia was a major industrial power, but based on per capita production it was badly outclassed not only by major industrial powers such as Great Britain and Germany but by semiindustrialized countries such as Spain and Italy. Meanwhile, as industrial production grew, so did the number and intensity of strikes by exploited factory workers. The Stolypin reforms produced a class of prosperous peasants, but many less capable or industrious peasants sank deeper into poverty. The Russian Empire controlled 40 percent of Eurasia, but millions of non-Russians dreamed of escaping its clutches.

It was with that heavy baggage that Russia entered World War I. About six months before the war began, Nicholas received a memorandum from Peter Durnovo, a former police official warning him of the risks Russia faced in a general European war, but neither Durnovo’s nor any other warning could keep the continent’s great powers at peace. The war broke out in August 1914 with Russia, Great Britain, and France (the Triple Entente) opposing Germany and Austria-Hungary (the Central Powers), who after several months were joined by the Ottoman Empire.

Within two months, by the end of September, Russia had suffered two disastrous defeats at German hands, and matters deteriorated further after that. The Russian army scored victories over the Austrians, but it was no match for the modern German war machine. Nor was the semi-industrialized Russian economy equal to the demands of modern war. Russia’s generals were inept and its political leadership under Nicholas II incompetent. Things were already falling apart when in 1915 Nicholas, against the advice and even the pleading of his chief advisers, went to the war zone and personally took command of the army. This blunder tied him directly to the army’s defeats. Back in the capital, the unpopular empress Alexandra (like so many czarist wives, she was a German) was officially in charge during her husband’s absence. She in turn was heavily influenced by the self-designated holy man Grigory Rasputin, whose bizarre activities and behavior added layers of scandal to the rapidly deteriorating situation. By 1916 Rasputin controlled most government appointments.

Rasputin’s assassination in December 1916 eliminated him but did nothing to fill Russia’s political vacuum. Nicholas refused to consider the political reforms proposed by leading Duma moderates and liberals, which might have won him some badly needed supporters. Meanwhile, by early 1917 the Russian army had suffered 7 million total losses – dead, wounded, missing, and captured – and was crumbling. Russia’s major cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, were desperately short of food, and during January and February strikes rocked the capital. In March, while Nicholas did nothing, Russia slid into the abyss.

ANNEX ‘A’

Manifesto of October 17th, 1905 [7]

We, Nicholas II, By the Grace of God Emperor and Autocrat of all Russia, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., proclaim to all Our loyal subjects:

Rioting and disturbances in the capitals [i.e. St. Petersburg and the old capital, Moscow] and in many localities of Our Empire fill Our heart with great and heavy grief. The well-being of the Russian Sovereign is inseparable from the well-being of the nation, and the nation's sorrow is his sorrow. The disturbances that have taken place may cause grave tension in the nation and may threaten the integrity and unity of Our state.

By the great vow of service as tsar We are obliged to use every resource of wisdom and of Our authority to bring a speedy end to unrest that is dangerous to Our state. We have ordered the responsible authorities to take measures to terminate direct manifestations of disorder, lawlessness, and violence and to protect peaceful people who quietly seek to fulfill their duties. To carry out successfully the general measures that we have conceived to restore peace to the life of the state, We believe that it is essential to coordinate activities at the highest level of government.

We require the government dutifully to execute our unshakeable will:

(1.) To grant to the population the essential foundations of civil freedom, based on the principles of genuine inviolability of the person, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association.

(2.) Without postponing the scheduled elections to the State Duma, to admit to participation in the duma (insofar as possible in the short time that remains before it is scheduled to convene) of all those classes of the population that now are completely deprived of voting rights; and to leave the further development of a general statute on elections to the future legislative order.

3.) To establish as an unbreakable rule that no law shall take effect without confirmation by the State Duma and that the elected representatives of the people shall be guaranteed the opportunity to participate in the supervision of the legality of the actions of Our appointed officials.

We summon all loyal sons of Russia to remember their duties toward their country, to assist in terminating the unprecedented unrest now prevailing, and together with Us to make every effort to restore peace and tranquility to Our native land.

Given at Peterhof the 17th of October in the 1905th year of Our Lord and of Our reign the eleventh.

ANNEX ‘B’

Manifesto of June 3rd, 1907 (Dissolution of the Second Duma) [7]

Imperial Manifesto of June 3, 1907

The Second State Duma, which convened in March 1907 proved to be just as unwieldy and intransigent from the standpoint of the state as its predecessor, which had been dissolved the previous year. Frustrated by the deputies' refusal to consider his proposals, Prime Minister Petr Stolypin prevailed upon Tsar Nicholas II to dissolve the Second Duma as well. Drawing on the authority of Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws, which allowed the government to legislate by decree when Duma was not in session, Stolypin then orchestrated a comprehensive revision of the electoral law in order to insure a conservative majority in the next Duma. The following manifesto, issued by Nicholas II, justifies the government's actions.

Since the time of the dissolution of the first State Duma, the government has, in accord with Our orders and instructions, undertaken a consistent series of measures to bring peace to the country and establish a proper course for affairs of state. The Second State Duma, which we convened, was called upon to facilitate, in accord with Our Sovereign will, the restoration of peace to Russia: first of all, by legislative work, without which it is impossible for the state to live or for its structure to be perfected; also, by reviewing the budget of revenues and expenditures, to ensure that the economic activities of the state are being conducted correctly; and finally, by rationally exercising the right of interrogating government officials, with a view to strengthening truth and justice everywhere.

These obligations, which We entrusted to elected deputies from the population, laid upon them a weighty responsibility and a holy duty to make use of their rights reasonably, working for the benefit and enhancement of the Russian state.

Such was Our thought and will in granting the population new foundations for the life of the state. To Our dismay, a substantial part of the membership of the Second State Duma did not justify our expectations. Many of those sent by the population did not undertake their work with a pure heart and with a desire to strengthen Russia and improve its institutions, but rather with a flagrant intention of increasing turmoil and encouraging the disintegration of the state.

The activity of these persons in the State Duma either did not under take any review at all of the sweeping measures Our government had developed, or it delayed discussing them or else it rejected them, not even hesitating to turn down laws which would punish the overt celebration of criminality or severely punish those who sow disorder in the armed forces. By refusing to discuss murders and violence, the State Duma failed to render moral support to the government in the matter of restoring order, and Russia, to her shame, continued to experience criminal sedition.

The State Duma's dilatory review of the state budget caused difficulty in the timely satisfaction of many pressing needs of the common people. A significant part of the Duma perverted the right of interrogating the government into a means of struggle with the government and of arousing mistrust for it among wide segments of the population.

Finally there was accomplished a deed unheard of in the annals of history. The judicial authorities discovered that a whole section of the State Duma was involved in a conspiracy against the state and the authority of the tsar. When Our government demanded that the fifty-five members of the Duma who were accused of this crime be suspended, pending the outcome of the trial, and that the most seriously implicated of them be confined under custody, the State Duma did not immediately carry out this lawful demand of the authorities, which did not admit of any delay.

All of this moved Us to dissolve the Second State Duma by an ukaz to the Senate of June 3; the new Duma is to be convened on November 1 of this year.

But, trusting in Our people's love for the motherland and in its statesmanlike wisdom (gosudarstvennyi razum), We see the cause of the twofold failure in practice of the State Duma in the fact that this legislative institution was full of members who did not truly express the needs and desires of the people, and this was due to the novelty of the situation and to defects in the electoral law.

Hence, leaving in force all the rights given to Our subjects by the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, and by the fundamental laws, We have made a decision to change only the means by which the people's elected representatives are summoned to the State Duma, so that every part of the people can have its own chosen men in the Duma.

Since it was created to strengthen the Russian state, the State Duma should also be Russian in spirit. The other nationalities of which the population of Our realm is composed should have their spokesmen in the State Duma, but they should not and will not be there in such number as to give them the possibility of decisive influence on purely Russian questions. In those border areas of the state where the population has not attained an adequate level of citizenship, elections to the State duma must temporarily be brought to an end.

All these changes in the election system cannot be enacted through the ordinary legislative route, that is, through the very State Duma whose composition We have pronounced unsatisfactory. Only the authority that granted the first electoral law, the historical authority of the Russian tsar, is adequate to abolish that law and replace it with a new one.

The Lord God had entrusted Us with monarchical authority over Our people. It is before His throne that We shall give account for the fate of the Russian realm. From this realization We derive a firm resolve to carry through to the end the transformation of Russia which we have undertaken, and so grant to her a new electoral law, which We have ordered the Senate to promulgate.

We expect our faithful subjects to follow the path We have indicated and render unanimous and ardent service to the motherland, whose sons have in all times been a solid support to her strength, grandeur and glory.

Given at Peterhof on the 3rd day of June in the 1907th year since the birth of Christ and in the thirteenth year of our reign.

NICHOLAS

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3. Isaev I.A. History of state and law of Russia, 3^rd edition / I.A. Isaev. – M.: Jurist, 2004. – 797 p.

4. Batalina,V.V. A short course on the history of the State and Law of Russia: Textbook. Guide to Moscow / V.V. Batalina: Okay-Book, 2007. – 176 p.

5. Raeff, Marc. Understanding Imperial Russia. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

6. Statesman’s handbook for Russia, 2 vols / Edited by the Chancery of the Committee of Ministers. – St. Petersburg, 1896. –Vol. I. – 364 p.

7. http://academic.shu.edu/russianhistory/