Russia's Historical Legacy, Part III

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Russia's Historical Legacy, Part III
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• Russia 4 (1721-1917)
• The Russian Empire
• A modern European project

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Tsar Peter the Great, first Emperor of All
Russias (reign 1682-1725)
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• Keen sense of Russias backwardness compared to
  Europe (notions of the Third Rome are long
  forgotten)
• This backwardness is seen as a major threat to
  both security and development
• Determination to catch up rapidly, by introducing
  modern Western ways
• Main goal building a powerful military to to
  regain Russias access to warm seas
• Emulation of the West for the sake of making
  Russia more powerful
• Westernize or perish

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• The modernizing reforms are enforced by the iron
  hand of the state
• Creation of an autocratic state
• Concentration of enormous power in the hands of
  the Emperor
• The state imposes itself on society, extracting
  surplus and reducing civic freedoms to a minimum
• Exploitation of labour rises to unprecedented
  levels
• Everybody, including the aristocracy, are ordered
  to serve the Russian state
• Cretaion of a modern bureaucracy
• The Church falls under direct state control
• Creation of a massive modern army and a ruthless
  police apparatus
• State-led economic development

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The Battle of Poltava, 1709 Peters new army
defeats Sweden
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St. Petersburg new capital founded in 1703
as Russias window to Europe
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Under Peter the Great, Russia becomes a naval
power
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The Bronze Horseman monument to Peter I in
St. Petersburg
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• Through Peters emergency program, Russia gets a
  massive upgrade
• His modernizing totalitarianism, when viewed in
  retrospect, becomes an attractive model for those
  bent on rapid progressive change
• But the security and development costs are so
  high that society cannot be maintained in such a
  condition permanently
• After Peters death, the states grip on society
  relaxes to some degree, but the basic features of
  the regime remain in place
• The state continues to grow
• Society periodically rebels against it

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The Russian Empire, 1914
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The empires free people the Stepan Razin
rebellion (17thcent.)
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Stepan Razin a 20th century view
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The empires free people The Pugachev rebellion
(18th century)
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Pugachev captured
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The Battle of Borodino, 1812 Napoleon
vs. Russia
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Napoleons retreat from Russia,
winter of 1812-13
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St. Petersburg, December 18, 1825
Young officers rebel against autocracy
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• Grain production in Russia, late 19th century
• 1/3 of the German level
• 1/7 of the British level
• ½ of the French and Austrian levels
• Richard Pipes, Russia Under the old Regime.
  Penguin Books, 1974, p.8
• The issue of the surplus.
• The costs of security and development

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• Deceptive appearances of Russia
• The image of stability vs.
• The potential for revolution
• Lenins conversation with a police investigator
  
• Yes, it is a wall, but it is all rotten just
  push it, and it will fall down
• REFORM VS. REVOLUTION IS THE SYSTEM REFORMABLE?
• RUSSIAS REBELS
• Cossack uprisings of the 17th and 18th centuries
• (Razin, Bolotnikov, Pugachev)
• The Decembrists 1825
• The Revolutionary Democrats (Chernyshevsky,
  Herzen)
• The Populists
• The Anarchists (Kropotkin, Bakunin)
• The Social Democrats (Plekhanov, Lenin)

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• Russias 19th century
• The apex of expansion and the lag behind the
  West
• From the triumph of 1812 (victory over Napoleon)
  to the disaster of 1855 (defeat in the Crimean
  War)
• The pressures for change
• The reforms of Alexander II
• Development of capitalism
• vs.
• Political modernization
• Capitalism was creating new classes, new issues,
  new conflicts and the state was expected to
  evolve to be able to deal with them.
• But the Russian state was not up to the task.
• It was increasingly ineffective in adapting to
  and managing the processes of socioeconomic
  change

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• By the end of the 19th century, the flaws of the
  Russian system become manifest
• The gap between Europe and Russia widens fast,
  the Russian system is too inefficient, too rigid,
  resistant to reform
• The 1904-05 war with Japan and then World War I
  exhaust the Russian state and expose its flaws
• 1905-1917 12 YEARS OF UPHEAVAL WHICH DESTROYED
  THE RUSSIAN AUTOCRACY AND EMPIRE

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Russo-Japanese war of
1904-05 A Russian cartoon
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Beginning of the end of the
Romanov Empire
Defeat of the Russian navy in the battle of
Tsushima, May 1905
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Russo-Japanese war
triggers a Russian revolution
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• Tests of the Russian battle order
• The effects of wars on the Russian system
• successful wars (1721, 1815, 1878, 1945)
  reaffirmed the status-quo, strengthened the
  state, discouraged reforms
• unsuccessful wars (1856, 1905, 1917, 1989)
  fostered reforms and revolutions

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Tsar Nicholas II
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Russian soldiers pledge allegiance to the Tsar
World War I
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• Russia 5
• The Soviet Union
• The world revolutionary project

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• Russia as the weakest link of the global
  system
• the sudden fall of the state (the February 1917
  Revolution)
• A key conflict within the February revolution in
  Russia
• Reform-minded elites saw removal of autocracy
  as a way to make Russia more successful in the
  war
• The masses revolted, above all, against the war
  (as well as against imperialism, autocracy, and
  capitalism)

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Symbol of state power - or weapon of revolution?
Russian battleship Potemkin, taken over by
revolutionary sailors in 1905
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Symbol of state power - or weapon of revolution?
Russian cruiser Avrora, used by Bolsheviks in
the October, 1917 uprising
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The 1917 revolution The state collapsed, citizen
militias in charge
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Vladimir Lenin
(1870-1924), leader of the Bolsheviks