How did the Tsar survive the 1905 revolution?

Describe the 1905 revolution and its aftermath, and attempts at reform. At the beginning of 1900, many Russian people began to lose their respect and loyalty to Tsar Nicholas the Second. They began to be very unhappy because there was a poor harvest during 1900 to 1902. This poor harvest caused many food shortages among the many peasants. The Russian people called upon the Tsars government for assistance; however they were ignored and furthermore were not allowed to stage protests and demonstrations against the Tsar. In 1902, there was a big economic slump. This slump caused many workers to lose jobs, no longer had wages, and furthermore factories were forced to close down. This fuelled food shortages and more dissatisfaction towards the Tsar government. Land continued to become a bigger issue because of the growing population. Furthermore, most of the Russians were peasants who were freed in 1861 and were given some land along with a sum of money to be returned. However, the amount of land was unable to cover the costs of the money and unable to produce enough food to pay the amount of money back to the government. The Russian government sucked in a lot of tax from the Russian people, and furthermore used the majority, if not all, of them for the purpose of Russian industry and did not benefit the Russians at all, or their living conditions. Furthermore, there was extreme outrage directed from the Russian-Japanese Naval war which lasted from 1904-5. This war was actually the idea of the Tsar. He believed that a small victory along against a small nation would bring more content and support for his style of government. However, he deeply underestimated the power of the Japanese. Russia wanted some land in Manchuria, because there was an ice-free sea port there called Port Arthur. The Japanese also wanted this area of land for expansion and colonization. However the Russians were deeply humiliated and were forced to surrender in January 1905 at Port Arthur. In May 1905, when the Russian Navy travelled nearly half the length of the whole world in 6 months to get to the side of the war zone due to frozen sea in the North East of Russia, they were destroyed by the Japanese navy in less than one hour near the Tsushima Strait. This created extreme outrage and disbelief among the Russian people. Japan was a small country, less than 400,000 square kilometers, and small than California in the US, compared to Russia, who had a land mass accounted for 1 out of 6 of the total world land mass, and stretched for over 6000 kilometers. The war created food shortages back at home, and many factories did not have industrial raw materials to work, hence shut down and caused more unemployment. In addition, many Therefore in January the 22nd, 1905, a group of 200,000 Russian people, mainly working men, led by Father Gapon, walked to the Winter Palace in St. Petersbury, where the Tsar and his royal family lived. They acted in a very friendly manner, and did not want to be aggressive with the Tsar. They wanted the Tsar to help solve their problems. First of all, they stated their dissatisfaction for the workers in the factories who had to work for extremely long hours, up to 12 hours a day. They wanted to have only 8 hours per working day. In addition, living conditions were very unbearable and poor. Two workers had to share the same bed under two working shifts; one would sleep while the other worked. The factories were extremely crowded, and some even had to sleep on loud, noisy, dirty working factory floors. Moreover, wages were even lower, and it was not enough for them to pay for necessities. Therefore they wanted to have higher pay and wages, and the freedom to have trade unions to express their feelings at work.

However, the reaction from the Tsar was very negative. Rows of soldiers appeared in front of the Winter Palace, and they began shooting the protestors with their rifles. Lines of incoming Cossacks, who were great warriors on horses, attacked the demonstrators more, with swords and killing them. Although the official government record states only a few hundred were injured, it is believed that thousands or even more were killed and numerous other casualties occurred as a result of this. By this time, the Tsar has lost all the trust and respect of the Russian people. He was no longer called as the, Little Father, and literally went into a war with his own people, as they entered the Year of the 1905 Revolution. By the end of January, more than 400,000 demonstrators and protestors filled the streets of Russia. In the beginning of February, workers demanded to have better working conditions, higher pay, lowering working hours; they had 12 at the moment, they wanted to have 8 per working day. On February the 4th, the Tsars uncle, Grand Duke Sergei, was assassinated. In March to May, there was great humiliation at the defeat out in sea in the Russo-Japanese Naval war, where the Japanese won. This war created more food shortages and economic problems, as money were diverted to the war, hence there were fewer or even no industrial materials supplied to factories to work, causing more unemployment and food shortages. In June, the Russian battleship Potemkin mutinied, which was a threat to the Russia government, as they feared this mutiny would spread to the rest of the Russian armed forces at that particular stage of time. From May to June, many different national groups voiced their demands to the Tsars government. The Poles and the Finnish people wanted to have national freedom. The Jewish minority wanted to have equal civil rights, while the middle class liberals wanted to have an elected parliament, free elections, and the freedom of speech, expression and conscience. In June to July, many peasants voiced their anger by burning, rioting and looting the residences and land which belonged to the landlords. They demanded to be given land due to the land problem which existed in Russia for many decades already. In September, the peace treaty between Russia and Japan was signed. This treaty stated that the war was over. Its significance is that it freed up thousands of Russian troops who were in the battlefield to come back to Russia to put down the unrests in the East of Russia. In October, all classes of society, teachers, students, peasants, factory workers, all united together in the streets and set up barricades to protest against the Tsar. An even bigger threat was when the St Petersbury Soviet of Workers Deputies was formed on the 26th. This was seen as a threat to the government because they were organizing strikes and sending representatives to each factory to coordinate them. Eventually, the Tsar realized that he must do something to stop the unrest. Therefore on the 30 of October 1905, he issued a Manifesto, which was a document that stated there would be civil rights allowed in Russia; there would an elected parliament/ the Duma; there uncensored newspapers and the media, meaning people can criticize the government freely. In addition, the Tsar promised to adopt the system of constitutional monarchy.
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Therefore, the middle class liberals believed that they had won the war because they were now granted the freedom of speech, conscience, and had an elected parliament to contribute to. Furthermore, the peasants were told that they no longer had to keep up with the redemption payments regarding the land that they were given along with the sum of money lent from the government. Therefore, the peasants were happy because they no longer had to pay mounting debts to the government. However, the Tsar by far had meant the complete opposite of the October Manifesto he signed. Once all of the Russian troops were back in Russia from the Russo-Japanese Naval War, the troops were ordered to fight back the protestors and put down the unrest. This was seen as an act of revenge towards the Russian people. Reform: The Tsar appointed Stolypin as his minister for reform in Russia. He began office in 1905. One of the first tasks he had to do was repression. He and the Tsar believed that they must teach the Russian people a lesson. Therefore, in 1906 alone, over 1000 people were hanged because they took part in the protests during the 1905 Year of the Revolution. A further 21,000 people were sent to either prison or labor camps in Siberia. However, this series of hangings did not stop. From 1907 to 1911, Stolypin continued to hang a further 18,000 people, whom were mostly people who had political connections, i.e. who were revolutionaries. Stolypin used Law 87 to pass all of his laws during the time period of 1905 to 1907. Law 87 allowed Stolypin and the Tsars government to pass any law without the approval of the elected parliament in the event of an emergency. However, during those two years, Russia was not in a state of emergency, and therefore Stolypin misused this law. This action shows the repressive nature of Stolypins government. Stolypin understood that he still had to do several actions of reform in order to stop the Russian people from staging another revolution again. Therefore, he introduced an aggressive policy called Russification. This meant that they would force all of the national groups living in Russian soil, or even surrounding Russia (i.e. Turkmenistan) to use Russian as their official language. They were barred from practicing their own religion, culture and also various traditions. Stolypin introduced health care schemes to gain the loyalty of other Russian people to avoid another revolution from coming out. Another policy Stolypin set up was called the Land Reform. Firstly, the workers were told that they no longer had to pay endless payments to the government. Most of the Russian people were serfs until they were freed in 1861. After that, they were given some land and a sum of money borrowed from the government. They had to repay that sum of money over a period of time using the output they produced from the piece of land. However, the size of the land did not fit the amount of money needed; too much money to be paid. Therefore, many peasants were happy to know that the government no longer needs them to pay for redemption payments. The Land reform Stolypin suggested was to give each village a large piece of land. It was known as the Khutor farms; independent of the Mir. The land was to be divided into a many, long pieces of strips of land. Each family was allowed to have at least one strip of land, which contained

both the worst and the best part of the land, as it had both end. By doing so, he wanted to make agriculture more efficient, therefore producing more food for the industrial workers. His approach was known as the carrot and stick approach. However, he had failed in this aspect because the farming method he introduced was extremely inefficient. It was inefficient in a number of ways; 1.) Due to the long, thin length of the strip of land, the peasants often had to walk from one end to the other end, meaning that it would take a lot of time. A lot of time was wasted by doing so. 2.) Due to the thing length, this dissuaded any ambitious peasants to buy expensive machinery to aid the farming process due to technical problems; it was too small for a tractor to go through, and they cannot afford to own several strips of land. Therefore, they went back to using extremely backward methods of farming, such as the small, portable wooden ploughs. 3.) Because no animals were allowed to be on these farms, it meant that they did not have any manure from the animals to supply nutrients to the crops, meaning that they had little or even no nutrients at all. Therefore, they were forced to use the rotation system, meaning that some fields were left fallow for a certain period of time in the year, therefore certain times in the year, there would be very few food production, thus creating the problem of food shortages. Stolypin failed to reach the expectations and satisfy what the workers wanted. Although factories were made to more efficient, therefore increasing output and there was also an economic boom, it did not improve the working conditions of the Russian workers. The incident of the Lena Gold-Fields protest in Siberia in which workers strike and demanded for higher wages and better conditions outlined the harsh treatment of the Tsar. He sent in troops to put down the uprising, and therefore 250 workers were killed, with 250 others injured. We can see to some extent Stolypins reforms in the aspect of factory workers failed. The political reform we saw was not too satisfying either. The elected Parliament/ Duma did not have any real powers at all. The Tsar himself said, I have created the Duma not to instruct me, but to advise me. This was further enforced by Law 7 and 8 of The Russian Fundamental Laws, which stated, The Sovereign Emperor (the Tsar) possesses the initiative over all legislative matters. No law can come into force without his approval The Sovereign Emperor (the Tsar) approves laws; and without his approval no legislative measure can become law. This meant that the Duma can consider and suggest laws; however the Tsar can veto any of their decisions. This meant that can reject any, or all of the laws the Duma suggested to the Tsar. Therefore the Duma did not have any real power at all. The Tsar ended the Duma of the 1906-1907. However, because he formed an alliance with Britain and France before the World War One, they also wanted Russia to have a parliament elected by the people. Furthermore, he did not want the Middle Class Liberals to rebel against him. Therefore, the 3rd Duma was created. However, peasants and industrial workers were not allowed to vote. Therefore, this created a Duma mainly of people who supported the Tsar. This 3rd Duma lasted from 1907-1912. The 3rd Duma was dominated by Octoberists. The Octoberists were the supporters of the Tsar who did not want him to go so far to restore autocracy but wanted him to keep the October Manifesto.