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The Revolutionary Masses
By refusing
to take the Duma seriously, the government alienated not merely the
new upper classes of intellectuals and entrepreneurs, but also its
more traditional supporters amongst the landed nobility. It had also
deprived itself of their advice and expertise which were so crucial
for mounting an effective war effort. From then on the regime had as
little support amongst Russia’s upper classes as it had in 1905. |
RUSSIA’S MAIN POLITICAL PARTIES DURING THE CONSTITUTIONAL PERIOD
Party's
Name |
Main
Aims |
Support Base |
Russian Social-Democratic
Labor party (1898) |
minimum: overthrow of autocracy
maximum: proletarian revolution
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radically-minded intelligentsia |
Socialist Revolutionary Party
(1901) |
Socialization of all privately owned land |
small owners: peasants, town-dwellers, artisans, small
traders |
Constitutional
Democratic Party: Kadets (1905) |
a
new order on the Western constitutional model |
liberal intelligentsia, part of liberal-minded landowners,
medium and big bourgeoisie, the professions |
Union of 17
October: Octobrists (1905) |
constitutional monarchy |
big
industrial and financial
bourgeoisie, the new business class |
Union of the Russian People (1905) |
preservation of the autocratic system |
big landowners, merchants, shop-keepers, the police, the
clergy, lower middle class in towns, wealthy peasants |
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Enthusiastic
supporters of autocracy could be found only on the far Right of
Russian politics, among anti-Semitic, proto-Fascist organizations
such as the ‘Union of the Russian
People’, first formed in 1905. The ‘Union’ blamed all
Russia’s problems on socialists, democratically-minded
intelligentsia and the Jews, calling on the population to combat the
‘enemies of the Tsar and Fatherland’. It waged open chauvinist
propaganda in the press and from the church pulpit, whilst its
activists, united in the so called
Black Hundreds, helped the
government disperse workers’ strikes and students’ rallies and staged mass pogroms of
Jewish communities. |
The
constitutional reform had failed to bridge the gap between the
government and Russia’s rapidly changing educated elites. The new
upper classes were politically disaffected, antagonized by Nicholas’
attempts to stifle the potentially democratic institution of the
Duma and his refusal to introduce a Western-style government. Even
the backing which the regime could expect from its traditional
supporters, such as landed nobility, was hesitant and uncertain. Its
power rested now on the bureaucracy and the army alone. The most
dangerous aspect of the government’s position was the political
blindness of the Tsar who still believed in the loyalty of the
masses of the peasants, the army and the nobility. Nicholas simply
was unable to see how isolated his government was and how narrow was
the base of support for a government about to lead its country into
a devastating international war.
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Tsarist Russia |
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