Revo Of 1905 :: essays research papers

At the turn of the twentieth century, Russia was a curious society, still stratifiedinto nobleness and peasantry. The Russian people seemed to be as immovable asthe blue-blooded ground which they farmed, welded to the ground by centuries ofstruggle. While the Europeans fought political battles, the Russians wrestleda urinatest the cold and starvation. foursome decades earlier, Czar Alexander II signedthe Emancipation Manifesto which freed the serfs from deliverership by thenobles.1 He had try ford to finally bring Russia out of the dark ages. Hisbureaucracy keep to elevate the peasants by making all classes of societyequal infra the law and increasing the availability of education.2 Nevertheless,the Dark People of Russia remained in their darkness, discretion little(a)besides their aver existence in the context of their passs. The communeoriented nature of the Russian peasants made Russia a prime purport forMarxist transitionaries. The uniquely backward culture of Russia spawned asingularly Russian form of Marxism, Narodnichestvo. Russian intellectuals ofthe 19th century felt that the socialist revolution must come from the uprising ofthe rural peasant masses, rather than by dint of the proletariat of the cities. Thepeasants were remarkably unreceptive to revolutionary agitators. They wereblind to events outside of their own commune. More often than not, theagitators were run out of town by distrustful peasants. 3 By 1900, the remnantsof the Narodonik philosophy had melted into the Social Republican party. 4 TheEmancipation Manifesto had marked the beginning of the end for the nobility.Deprived of their serfs and unable to gain any power in the government, theNobles were forced to sell off their land, little by little, to support their lifestyle.For a government supported by nought more than the momentum of historyand tradition, the decline of the nobility foreshadowed the destruction of theautocracy. At the turn of the century, the Czar had ver y little support outsidehis own bureaucracy. Young Nicholas II, heir to the throne in the late 1800s,inspired hope in those rallying for governmental reform. Zemstvos and volosts,local governments elected by nobles and peasants, hoped that Nicholas wouldat least let these legislatures to have an advisory function for the Czar. 5They were unhappily disappointed once Nicholas II ascended the throne. Upon thedeath of Alexander III, the zemstvo of Tver petitioned Nicholas II to allowlocal representative bodies to express their opinion on questions of concern tothem, in order that. . . the Russian people might reach the height of the throne.. .. Nicholas replied, I am extremely astonished and displeased with this