Someone else who felt that Russia was headed for disaster in 1914, especially if a war broke out-which it did-was the Russian Minister of the interior, Petr Durnovo. Those people were going to demand change indeed, they already were. The slow penetration of primary education in Russia meant that more and more people in Russia were being given the tools to understand the nature of the political regime in Russia. Russia was still 85% or more rural what to do with all the peasants whose situation was not improving what to do about all the peasants fleeing to the cities to try and find work in the factories? The fact that sectors of the population felt so disenfranchised to resort to terror to try and achieve political ends was not a good sign of political stability. I would also include here the widespread terrorist movement in Russia. The existence of a very radicalized intelligentsia and middle class that were both willing to consider the use of political tactics towards the radical side of the scale. Grigorii Rasputin (1869-1917), need I say more. As soon as I find some of the tsar's diary entries and letters, I will post them on the website as further evidence of his disconnect from the real world. His coup d'état of 1907 and also his unwillingness to work with the Duma also did not bode well for a peaceful evolution of a constitutional regime in the country. OK, he might not have been the most-loved minister in Russia and true he had resorted to some rather harsh tactics in dealing with terrorists, but he was one of the few politicians who had a vision of Russia and the competence to carry out his ideas.Ī tsar who was completely clueless about the political realities of Russia one has only to read the " Fundamental Laws" (article four should suffice) to see that. The assassination of Petr Stolypin in 1911. Workers were further radicalized by the massacre there was little good will left towards the regime. The public was outraged there were inquests held but the ultimate outcome was a spectacular rise in worker unrest and the strike movement in Russia. This was unbelievably-sorry that I had to use that word twice in a single paragraph-stupid. The troops opened fire on the crowd, 270 dead and 2500 or so wounded. Soldiers arrived to restore order, and when the strike organizers were arrested, a crowd gathered to demand their release. In March 1912 a strike broke out at one of the goldfields over working conditions, and soon the strike spread. Workers toiled in unbelievably harsh working conditions in a number of goldfields along the Lena River in Siberia. Why do I feel that Russian was headed for disaster?ġ912 Lena Goldfields Massacre (4/17 April 1912). Personally, I feel that Russia was headed for disaster with or without the war (I am pretty certain that the Bolsheviks would never have been able to seize power in Russia without the conditions generated by World War I-the revolution would have been of a far different character, but there would have been a revolution nonetheless). On the one hand, you had an impressive cultural resurgence taking place in the Silver Age while on the other hand the figure of Rasputin towered over the royal family. On the one hand, there was an effort made to address peasant affairs on the other hand it was unclear how far or fast any transformation of the Russian countryside was taking place. On the one hand, there was continuing rapid, economic growth on the other hand that meant the further development of a very radical working class, growing larger and concentrated in the key political centers of the country. On the one hand, there did exist a very conservative parliamentary regime on the other hand, there was a tsar who still believed that he was an autocrat. Compare that to the contemporary debate over Russia's direction in Vekhi. pessimists who held that Russia was not getting better and that revolution was imminent in 1914, postponed only by the outbreak of war) over Russia's "progress" before World War I took place in the Slavic Review issues of December 1964 and March 1965: Leopold Haimson, "The Problem of Social Stability in Urban Russia, 1905-1917" (in two parts) Arthur Mendel, "Peasant and Worker on the Eve of the First World War" Theodore von Laue, "The Chances for Liberal Constitutionalism" and, Haimson, "Reply." Also in this vein, Hans Rogger, "Russia in 1914," Journal of Contemporary History (October 1966). An interesting debate (optimists argued that conditions were getting better and that it was only World War I which doomed Russia to revolution vs. There has always been much discussion among scholars about whether conditions in Russia were improving between 19.
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