Editing Russian Revolution of 1905 (section)

==Causes==

Many factors contributed to unrest across the Russian Empire of 1905. Newly emancipated peasants earned too little and were not allowed to sell or mortgage their allotted land. Ethnic and national minorities resented the policy of "Russification" of the Empire: this represented discrimination and repression against national minorities, such as banning them from voting, serving in the [[Imperial Guard (Russia)|Imperial Guard]] or Navy, and limiting their attendance in schools. A nascent industrial working class resented the government for doing too little to protect them, as it banned strikes and organizing into [[labor unions]]. University students developed a new consciousness after discipline was relaxed in the institutions, and as increasingly radical ideas gained attention.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

Significantly, this was a period of disaffection in the Russian military. Soldiers returning from a bloody and disgraceful [[Russo-Japanese War|defeat with Japan]] found inadequate factory pay, shortages, and general disarray, and organized in protest.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

[[File:Subdivisions of the Russian Empire in 1897 (uyezd level).svg|thumb|right|Subdivisions of the Russian Empire in 1897 ([[uyezd]] level)]]
Because the Russian economy was tied to European finances, the contraction of Western money markets in 1899–1900 plunged Russian industry into a deep and prolonged crisis; it outlasted the dip in European industrial production. This setback aggravated social unrest during the five years preceding the Revolution of 1905.<ref name="skocpol">{{cite book |last = Skocpol |first = Theda |title = States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China |url = https://archive.org/details/statessocialrevo0000skoc |url-access = registration |year = 1979 |publisher = Cambridge University Press |location = Cambridge |pages = [https://archive.org/details/statessocialrevo0000skoc/page/93 93] |isbn = 978-0-521-22439-0 }}</ref>

The Tsarist government did recognise some of these problems, albeit shortsightedly. The Minister of the Interior [[Vyacheslav von Plehve]] had said in 1903 that, after the agrarian problem, the most serious issues plaguing the country were those of the Jews, the schools, and the workers, in that order.<ref>Harcave 1990, 21</ref>

Any residual popular loyalty to Tsar Nicholas II was lost on [[Bloody Sunday (1905)|22 January 1905]], when his soldiers fired upon a crowd of protesting workers, led by [[Georgy Gapon]], who were marching to present a petition at the Winter Palace.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|pp=21, 25}}

===Agrarian problem===
Every year, thousands of nobles in debt mortgaged their estates to the noble land bank or sold them to municipalities, merchants, or peasants. By the time of the revolution, the nobility had sold off one-third of its land and mortgaged another third. The peasants had been freed by the [[emancipation reform of 1861]], but their lives were generally quite limited. The government hoped to develop the peasants as a politically conservative, land-holding class by enacting laws to enable them to buy land from nobility by paying small installments over many decades.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 19">Harcave 1970, 19</ref>

Such land, known as "allotment land", would not be owned by individual peasants but by the community of peasants; individual peasants would have rights to strips of land to be assigned to them under the [[open field system]]. A peasant could not sell or mortgage this land, so in practice he could not renounce his rights to his land, and he would be required to pay his share of redemption dues to the village commune.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 19" /> This plan was intended to prevent peasants from becoming part of the [[proletariat]]. However, the peasants were not given enough land to provide for their needs:<ref name="Harcave 1970, 20">Harcave 1970, 20</ref> 
<blockquote>Their earnings were often so small that they could neither buy the food they needed nor keep up the payment of taxes and redemption dues they owed the government for their land allotments. By 1903 their total arrears in payments of taxes and dues was 118 million rubles.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 20" /></blockquote>

The situation worsened as masses of hungry peasants roamed the countryside looking for work and sometimes walked hundreds of [[kilometre|kilometer]]s to find it. Desperate peasants proved capable of violence.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 20" /> "In the provinces of [[Kharkiv|Kharkov]] and [[Poltava]] in 1902, thousands of them, ignoring restraints and authority, burst out in a rebellious fury that led to extensive destruction of property and looting of noble homes before troops could be brought to subdue and punish them."<ref name="Harcave 1970, 20" />

These violent outbreaks caught the attention of the government, so it created many committees to investigate the causes.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 20" /> The committees concluded that no part of the countryside was prosperous; some parts, especially the fertile areas known as the "[[Chernozem|black-soil region]]", were in decline.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 21">Harcave 1970, 21</ref> Although cultivated acreage had increased in the last half century, the increase had not been proportionate to the growth of the peasant population, which had doubled.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 21" /> "There was general agreement at the turn of the century that Russia faced a grave and intensifying agrarian crisis due mainly to rural overpopulation with an annual excess of fifteen to eighteen live births over deaths per 1,000 inhabitants."<ref name=pipes>{{cite book |last = Pipes |first = Richard |title = A Concise History of the Russian Revolution |year = 1996 |publisher = Vintage |location = New York |pages = 8 }}</ref> The investigations revealed many difficulties but the committees could not find solutions that were both sensible and "acceptable" to the government.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 21" />

===Nationality problem===
[[File:Russia ethnic.JPG|thumb|French ethnic map of European Russia from 1898. In accordance with official [[All-Russian nation|"All-Russian"]] ideology of the time, the group labelled "Russians" includes not only what are considered [[Russians]] today (here called "Great Russians"), but also [[Belarusians]] ("White Russians") and [[Ukrainians]] ("Little Russians").]]
Russia was a multi-ethnic empire. Nineteenth-century Russians saw cultures and religions in a clear hierarchy. Non-Russian cultures were tolerated in the empire but were not necessarily respected.<ref name="Weeks 2004, 472">Weeks 2004, 472</ref>  Culturally, Europe was favored over Asia, as was [[Russian Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christianity]] over other religions.<ref name="Weeks 2004, 472"/>

For generations, [[Russian Jews]] had been considered a special problem.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 21"/> Jews constituted only about 4% of the population but were [[Pale of Settlement|concentrated in the western borderlands]].<ref name=Conroy>{{cite book |last = Conroy |first = Mary |title = Russian Civil Society: A Critical Assessment |year = 2006 |publisher = M. E. Sharpe |location = New York |pages = 12 |chapter = Civil Society in Late Imperial Russia |editor1-last = Henry |editor1-first = Laura |editor2-last = Sundstrom |editor2-first = Lisa |editor3-last = Evans Jr. |editor3-first = Albert }}</ref> Like other minorities in Russia, the Jews lived "miserable and circumscribed lives, forbidden to settle or acquire land outside the cities and towns, legally limited in attendance at secondary school and higher schools, virtually barred from legal professions, denied the right to vote for municipal councilors, and excluded from services in the Navy or the Guards".<ref name="Harcave 1970, 22">Harcave 1970, 22</ref>

The government's treatment of Jews, although considered a separate issue, was similar to its policies in dealing with all national and religious minorities.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 22"/> Historian Theodore Weeks notes: "Russian administrators, who never succeeded in coming up with a legal definition of '[[Polish people|Pole]]', despite the decades of restrictions on that ethnic group, regularly spoke of individuals 'of Polish descent' or, alternatively, 'of Russian descent', making identity a function of birth."<ref name=weeks>{{cite journal |last = Weeks |first = Theodore |title = Russification: Word and Practice 1863–1914 |journal = Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society |date = December 2004 |volume = 148|pages = 473}}</ref> This policy only succeeded in producing or aggravating feelings of disloyalty. There was growing impatience with their inferior status and resentment against "[[Russification]]".<ref name="Harcave 1970, 22"/> Russification is cultural assimilation definable as "a process culminating in the disappearance of a given group as a recognizably distinct element within a larger society".<ref name="Staliūnas">{{cite journal |last = Staliūnas |first = Darius |title = Between Russification and Divide and Rule: Russian Nationality Policy in the Western Borderlands in Mid-19th Century |journal = Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas |series=Neue Folge |year = 2007 |volume = 55 |number = 3 }}</ref>

Besides the imposition of a uniform Russian culture throughout the empire, the government's pursuit of Russification, especially during the second half of the nineteenth century, had political motives. After the emancipation of the [[serfs]] in 1861, the Russian state was compelled to take into account public opinion, but the government failed to gain the public's support.<ref name="Weeks 2004, 475">Weeks 2004, 475</ref> Another motive for Russification policies was the [[January Uprising|Polish uprising of 1863]]. Unlike other minority nationalities, the Poles, in the eyes of the Tsar, were a direct threat to the empire's stability. After the rebellion was crushed, the government implemented policies to reduce Polish cultural influences.<ref name="Weeks 2004, 475"/> In the 1870s the government began to distrust German elements on the western border. The Russian government felt that the unification of Germany would upset the power balance among the great powers of Europe and that Germany would use its strength against Russia. The government thought that the borders would be defended better if the borderland were more "Russian" in character.<ref>Weeks 2004, 475–476</ref> The culmination of cultural diversity created a cumbersome nationality problem that plagued the Russian government in the years leading up to the revolution.

===Labour problem===
The economic situation in Russia before the revolution presented a grim picture. The government had experimented with ''[[laissez-faire]]'' capitalist policies, but this strategy largely failed to gain traction within the Russian economy until the 1890s. Meanwhile, "agricultural productivity stagnated, while international prices for [[grain]] dropped, and Russia's foreign debt and need for imports grew. War and military preparations continued to consume government revenues. At the same time, the peasant taxpayers' ability to pay was strained to the utmost, leading to widespread [[Russian famine of 1891–1892|famine in 1891]]."<ref>Skocpol 1979, 90</ref>

In the 1890s, under Finance Minister [[Sergei Witte]], a crash governmental program was proposed to promote industrialization. His policies included heavy government expenditures for [[History of rail transport in Russia|railroad building]] and operations, subsidies and supporting services for private industrialists, high protective [[tariff]]s for Russian industries (especially heavy industry), an increase in exports, currency stabilization, and encouragement of foreign investments.<ref name="Skocpol 1979, 91">Skocpol 1979, 91</ref> His plan was successful and during the 1890s "Russian industrial growth averaged 8 percent per year. Railroad mileage grew from a very substantial base by 40 percent between 1892 and 1902."<ref name="Skocpol 1979, 91"/> Ironically, Witte's success in implementing this program helped spur the 1905 revolution and eventually the [[1917 revolution]] because it exacerbated [[social tension]]s. "Besides dangerously concentrating a proletariat, a professional and a rebellious student body in centers of political power, industrialization infuriated both these new forces and the traditional rural classes."<ref>Skocpol 1979, 92</ref> The government policy of financing [[industrialisation|industrialization]] through taxing peasants forced millions of peasants to work in towns. The "peasant worker" saw his labor in the factory as the means to consolidate his family's economic position in the village and played a role in determining the social consciousness of the urban proletariat. The new concentrations and flows of peasants spread urban ideas to the countryside, breaking down isolation of peasants on communes.<ref name=perrie>{{cite journal |last = Perrie |first = Maureen |title = The Russian Peasant Movement of 1905–1907: Its Social Composition and Revolutionary Significance |journal = Past and Present |date = November 1972 |issue = 57 |pages = 124–125 |doi = 10.1093/past/57.1.123 }}</ref>

Industrial workers began to feel dissatisfaction with the Tsarist government despite the protective labour laws the government decreed. Some of those laws included the prohibition of children under 12 from working, with the exception of night work in [[glass]] factories. Employment of children aged 12 to 15 was prohibited on Sundays and holidays. Workers had to be paid in cash at least once a month, and limits were placed on the size and bases of fines for tardy workers. Employers were prohibited from charging workers for the cost of lighting of the shops and plants.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 22"/> Despite these labour protections, the workers believed that the laws were not enough to free them from unfair and inhumane practices. At the start of the 20th century, Russian industrial workers worked on average 11-hours per day (10 hours on Saturday), factory conditions were perceived as grueling and often unsafe, and attempts at independent unions were often not accepted.<ref>John Simkin (ed), "[http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUS1905.htm%20 1905 Russian Revolution] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120504044801/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUS1905.htm |date=4 May 2012 }}", Spartacus Educational, undated.</ref> Many workers were forced to work beyond the maximum of {{frac|11|1|2}} hours per day. Others were still subject to arbitrary and excessive fines for [[tardiness]], mistakes in their work, or absence.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 23">Harcave 1970, 23</ref> Russian industrial workers were also the lowest-wage workers in Europe. Although the cost of living in Russia was low, "the average worker's 16 [[Russian ruble|ruble]]s per month could not buy the equal of what the French worker's 110 [[franc]]s would buy for him."<ref name="Harcave 1970, 23"/> Furthermore, the same labour laws prohibited the organisation of [[trade union]]s and strikes. Dissatisfaction turned into despair for many impoverished workers, which made them more sympathetic to radical ideas.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 23"/> These discontented, radicalized workers became key to the revolution by participating in illegal strikes and revolutionary protests.

The government responded by arresting labour agitators and enacting more "paternalistic" legislation.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 24">Harcave 1970, 24</ref> Introduced in 1900 by [[Sergei Zubatov]], head of the Moscow security department, "police socialism" planned to have workers form workers' societies with police approval to "provide healthful, fraternal activities and opportunities for cooperative self-help together with 'protection' against influences that might have inimical effect on loyalty to job or country".<ref name="Harcave 1970, 24"/> Some of these groups organised in [[Moscow]], [[Odesa|Odessa]], [[Kyiv|Kiev]]<!--Historical naming. Do not change per consensus at WP:KYIV-->, [[Mykolaiv|Nikolaev]], and [[Kharkiv|Kharkov]], but these groups and the idea of police socialism failed.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 24"/>

From 1900 to 1903, the period of industrial depression caused many firm bankruptcies and a reduction in the employment rate. Employees were restive: they would join legal organisations but turn the organisations toward an end that the organisations' sponsors did not intend. Workers used legitimate means to organise strikes or to draw support for striking workers outside these groups.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 24"/> A strike that began in 1902 by workers in the railroad shops in [[Vladikavkaz]] and [[Rostov-on-Don]] created such a response that by the next summer, 225,000 in various industries in southern Russia and [[Transcaucasia]] were on strike.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 25">Harcave 1970, 25</ref> These were not the first illegal strikes in the country's history but their aims, and the political awareness and support among workers and non-workers, made them more troubling to the government than earlier strikes. The government responded by closing all legal organisations by the end of 1903.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 25"/>

===Radicalization of students===

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S01260, St. Petersburg, Militär vor Winterpalast.jpg|thumb|January 9, 1905. Cavalrymen at the [[Pevchesky Bridge]] block the march of the protesters  to the [[Winter Palace]]]]
The Minister of the Interior, Plehve, designated schools as a pressing problem for the government, but he did not realize it was only a symptom of antigovernment feelings among the educated class. Students of universities, other schools of higher learning, and occasionally of secondary schools and theological seminaries were part of this group.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 25"/>

Student radicalism began around the time [[Tsar Alexander II]] came to power. Alexander abolished serfdom and enacted fundamental reforms in the legal and administrative structure of the Russian empire, which were revolutionary for their time.<ref name="morrissey">{{cite book |last = Morrissey |first = Susan |title = Heralds of Revolution: Russian Students and the Mythologies of Radicalism |year = 1998 |publisher = Oxford University Press |location = Oxford |pages = 20 }}</ref> He lifted many restrictions on universities and abolished obligatory uniforms and military discipline. This ushered in a new freedom in the content and reading lists of academic courses.<ref name="Morrissey 1998, 22">Morrissey 1998, 22</ref> In turn, that created student subcultures, as youth were willing to live in poverty in order to receive an education.<ref>Morrissey 1998, 20</ref> As universities expanded, there was a rapid growth of [[newspaper]]s, [[Academic journal|journals]], and an organisation of [[public lecture]]s and [[professional societies]]. The 1860s was a time when the emergence of a new public sphere was created in social life and professional groups. This created the idea of their right to have an independent opinion.<ref name="Morrissey 1998, 22" />

The government was alarmed by these communities, and in 1861 tightened restrictions on admission and prohibited student organisations; these restrictions resulted in the first ever student demonstration, held in [[St. Petersburg]], which led to a two-year closure of the university.<ref name="Morrissey 1998, 22" /> The consequent conflict with the state was an important factor in the chronic student protests over subsequent decades. The atmosphere of the early 1860s gave rise to political engagement by students outside universities that became a tenet of student radicalism by the 1870s. Student radicals described "the special duty and mission of the student as such to spread the new word of [[liberty]]. Students were called upon to extend their freedoms into society, to repay the privilege of learning by serving the people, and to become in [[Nikolay Ogarev|Nikolai Ogarev]]'s phrase 'apostles of knowledge'."{{attribution needed|date=December 2016}}<ref name="Morrissey 1998, 23">Morrissey 1998, 23</ref> During the next two decades, universities produced a significant share of Russia's revolutionaries. Prosecution records from the 1860s and 1870s show that more than half of all political offences were committed by students despite being a minute proportion of the population.<ref name="Morrissey 1998, 23" /> "The tactics of the [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] students proved to be remarkably effective, far beyond what any of the students would have dreamed. Sensing that neither the university administrations nor the government possessed the will or authority to enforce regulations, radicals simply went ahead with their plans to turn the schools into centres of political activity for students and non-students alike."{{attribution needed|date=December 2016}}<ref name="Ascher, Abraham. 1994. The Revolution of 1905: Russia in Disarray">{{cite book |last = Ascher |first = Abraham |title = The Revolution of 1905: Russia in Disarray |year = 1994 |publisher = Stanford University Press |pages = 202 }}</ref>

They took up problems that were unrelated to their "proper employment", and displayed defiance and radicalism by boycotting examinations, rioting, arranging marches in sympathy with strikers and [[political prisoner]]s, circulating [[petition]]s, and writing anti-government [[propaganda]].<ref name="Harcave 1970, 25" />

This disturbed the government, but it believed the cause was lack of training in [[patriotism]] and [[religion]]. Therefore, the curriculum was "toughened up" to emphasize [[classical language]] and [[mathematics]] in secondary schools, but defiance continued.<ref name="Harcave 1970, 26">Harcave 1970, 26</ref> [[Deportation|Expulsion]], [[exile]], and [[Conscription|forced military service]] also did not stop students. "In fact, when the official decision to overhaul the whole educational system was finally made, in 1904, and to that end [[Vladimir Glazov]], head of General Staff Academy, was selected as Minister of Education, the students had grown bolder and more resistant than ever."{{attribution needed|date=December 2016}}<ref name="Harcave 1970, 26" />