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The XXth Century Political History of Russia: lecture materials
Elena Kotelenets
Gennady Bordyugov
Sergey Devyatov
The XXth Century Political History of Russia presents lecture materials for academics working with undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students as well as researchers of Russian history. The chapters are an unusual insight into the Russian past, which makes the readers think, analyze and also reconsider some events of the Russian history. It is an exciting blend of stories of the past and future trends, allowing to make forecasts and predictions.
G. Bordyugov, S. Devyatov, E. Kotelenets
The XXth Century Political History of Russia
Lecture materials
ebooks@prospekt.org
Информация о книге
УДК 94(47)
ББК 63.3(2)
В78
The authors:
Bordyugov Gennady (PhD), Head of the International Board of the Association of Researchers of Russian Society (AIRO – XXI). Since 1988, he has been teaching courses of History at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Since 1992 – invited professor at several foreign universities.
Devyatov Sergey (PhD), Head of the Department of Russian History of the ХХ – ХХl centuries at Lomonosov Moscow State University Historical Faculty, professor at Russian University for the Humanities and the Moscow Pedagogical State University. Invited professor at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, National Nuclear Research University «MEPhI». Lecturing on Russian History, Historiography and the History of the Moscow Kremlin.
Kotelenets Elena (PhD), since 1977 – professor at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. Lectures on Russian History, Historiography and Political Studies.
Translation editor – Кupriyanova Мilana.
The XXth Century Political History of Russia presents lecture materials for academics working with undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students as well as researchers of Russian history.
The chapters are an unusual insight into the Russian past, which makes the readers think, analyze and also reconsider some events of the Russian history. It is an exciting blend of stories of the past and future trends, allowing to make forecasts and predictions.
УДК 94(47)
ББК 63.3(2)
© Бордюгов Г., Девятов С., Котеленец Е., 2015
ООО "Проспект", 2015
PREFACE
In the middle of last century, many held that the 20th century marked the beginning of a Russian era. Others discussed a «Russian miracle», referring to the rise of the Soviet Union thanks to the communist idea. During the 20th century, Russia found an alternative to capitalism as a result of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917. Industrial modernization and fantastic social mobility not only dramatically changed the image of the country, but also helped to win the mortal battle against Nazi Germany. After World War II, interest in the Soviet Union rose significantly all around the world. The communist idea was changing from a utopian idea into a palpable reality. Both common people and intellectual elites were awaiting the outcome of the «cold war» between the two systems of world order: the USSR and the USA.
«Free market capitalism» was drawing lessons from the world wars, crises, the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and protests by left-minded youth in the 1960s. Meanwhile, «elements of socialism» could clearly be seen in the new course of Franklin Roosevelt and Ludwig Erhard, based on expanding state control over the economy and extensive social programs. However, new challenges, primarily caused by a scientific-technical revolution, did not prevent the West from turning to Reaganomics and Thatcherism – that is, to neo-liberalism – starting in the 1980s.
In Russia, the Bolsheviks resorted to violence as a tool of building a new regime and changing society and individuals. As a result, the country received a state-controlled economy based on the administrative mobilization of people and resources, the GULAG (labor camps), the Great Terror and intellectual isolation. Khrushchev’s «thaw» and Gorbachev’s «perestroika» were attempts to get out of the historical traps the country had fallen into as a result of lingering adherence to Stalin’s and Brezhnev’s views of socialism. In 1991, the country abruptly changed course, towards the restoration of a neo-liberal form of capitalism.
These lectures provide a new understanding and new vision of the dynamics of the historical process in 20th century Russia in all its complexity. They also explain why Russia, in spite of having enormous human potential and natural resources, faced such difficulties in development. Russia is portrayed as an integral part of world history, while at the same time its historical peculiarities as compared to both the East and West.
The articles and reference materials are addressed to our colleagues: university teachers and research staff working with foreign undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students. They will also be of interest to people studying Russian history and to visitors and others who want to get a deeper insight into the Russia’s past while also learning about trends in the development and the chosen paths of Russia in the 20th century.
We are offering our interpretation of a people’s way of life and mentality, of a country’s power structures and regimes, economic policy models, and vision of the future as well as our view of key events of the last century. The book is based on lectures and reports delivered by the authors in universities and research centers in Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, the USA, France, South Korea and Japan.
INTRODUCTION
Theme 1
THE STUDY OF MODERN RUSSIAN HISTORY: MAIN CHARACTERISTICS AND TRENDS
The academic study of history has been significantly reconsidered and retooled during the last two decades. Scholars had to solve a whole number of questions. This process was accompanied by «the struggle for the past» and the filling in of so-called «blank spots», as well as by changes in the subject matter and value orientations of Russian scholars, the destruction of previously existing historical hierarchies, the beginning of coexistence between history and the Internet, market penetration in science and rivalry for the best «packaging» of historical knowledge.
The main reason for understanding the principle characteristics and trends of these transformations is to find out why historical science still attracts public attention in new conditions, and why it is used not only as science but also as a tool for making sense of current events.
Since the middle of the 1980s scholars have been studying Soviet history on the basis of the interests and priorities of Perestroika, elaborating historical patterns according to current political tendencies. While the official state policy was destroying the past, these patterns met the requirements of historical science itself. Researchers were clearing the historical research field of old dogmas and stereotypes. Nobody realized the possible pitfalls of this intellectual revolution. The review of the past was based not on historical science itself but on external factors. Political essays were filling the ideological vacuum. However, the approaches of popular commentators were more political than analytical. Historiography itself was only prepared to remove old concepts taken from Stalin’s Short Course and to replace them with others elaborated in the conditions of a new political situation.
The first animated discussions were actually aimed not at broadening historical science itself, but at «schematizing» it. Some researchers defended and wanted to conserve the old «patterns,» others wanted to destroy them. But neither group went outside the bounds of old stereotypes, stable traditions and claims to have a monopoly on truth. The result of these politicized discussions about the past resulted in a vulgar squabble over whether the country had been moving in the wrong direction for more then seventy years. At the least, this was a positive phenomena because the appearance of many «patterns» and explanatory concepts offered real choices and opened room for debate.
Some historians suggested looking for so called «big algorithms» (that is, large-scale structural imperatives of varying kinds – PTC) of Soviet history in the concepts that «had developed themselves» or penetrated Soviet historical science from western sociology. They could give a fundamental explanation of the historical phenomenon of Russia in the 20th century. These «big algorithms» include: «rapid economic development designed to overtake the West» or industrial modernization, «large-scale revolution», «the algorithm of empire» and the «doctrinal» algorithm. Behind each of them, there is a concept that had already been well elaborated in western sociology and historiography.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the «doctrinal» algorithm was the most popular. This approach reflects the recent past as the realization of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks initial political doctrine. It deals with the different ways Marxist concepts were adapted to fit the Stalinist political system. Today these ideas represent a specific Russian modification of the «totalitarian» approach developed by American Sovietologists of the «Cold War» period.
There are many facts and events in the history of the 20th century that could explain the first algorithm, connected with the modernization pattern, and the «big revolution» algorithm. As for the first algorithm, since the end of the 1960s political scientists had been elaborating concepts explaining the developmental particularities of the second-tier capitalist countries, including Russia. The second algorithm was used by the Bolsheviks’ opponents, such as the Mensheviks, the National-Bolsheviks and the Trotskyists. This algorithm was also supported by those scientists who doubt the revolutionary character of the October Revolution of 1917 and refused to include it among the «great revolutions.» Whatever the attitude toward the Russian revolution, this approach did provide a scientific interpretation of the political extremism, violence and terror that occurred. It also allowed historians to trace the revolution’s ascent, regression and decline – that is, its «Thermidorian» and «Bonapartist» phases. The same can be said of the «algorithm of empire,» which can also be used to explain the birth, development, and collapse of the Russian and Soviet imperial systems.
The «grand algorithms» at best could form a clear historical picture of social development as a whole, but they could not deal with the analysis of concrete historical periods. They cannot explain many seemingly particular questions. This means that we need some «crossover» from global historiographical schemes to particular historical descriptions. It is necessary to find the turning points, notably the periods of fundamental change in the historical interaction of the «big algorithms,» when some algorithms come to the foreground and become determinative and others disappear or become dormant.
For the description of past crucial and routine turning points we can use Hegel’s concepts of «epic» and «prosaic» world conditions. According to Hegel, in its development, society not only goes through various phases, but through comparatively concentrated periods of high social tension and concentrated contradictions as well. They indicate the «crucial moments» of history. Some «crucial moments» develop into «epic» phases leading to great social progress. Others become moments when tactical choices are made concerning ways and means to advance society. The analysis of critical moments allows us to understand how the very nature of societal movement is changing or might change, how social contradictions interact, and what the relative strength among the «grand algorithms» appears to be.
During a period of crisis or social confrontation, we see the destruction of the habitual patterns of mass behavior. We see political extremism spilling out into the historical arena, giving rise to an atmosphere of intolerance and confrontation. Unfortunately, we know far too little about these problems which are so significant for the comprehension of the phenomenon «Russia in the 20th century.» It is important to understand why some crises lead to liberalization of the regime while others lead to its regeneration on even harsher foundations.
Political mechanisms of solving social crises as well as forms of social consolidation and stability differ greatly in conditions of «open» and «closed» political life. Historians have only just begun to study the real causes of the appearance in Russia of the one-party dictatorship, its social functions and concrete historical forms.
The events of 1991 and 1993 intensified discussions about the methodological crisis and new types of historiography. Some scientists even invited their colleagues to follow the «totalitarian» approach for the reason that it had prevailed in the West over so – called «revisionists.» Others were convinced of the advantages of the «civilization»-approach (with its ideological neutrality) over the «stages of development»-approach. While political scientists debating, postmodernism began to dominate the foreground. Postmodernism cast doubt on the necessity of history as science. Earlier, society had been looking for universal historical concepts. Historians freely used such concepts as «people,» «class,» «nation,» «state» etc. However, by the end of the the 20th century, in light of the crisis of modernism, industrial and urban ways of life, and the collapse of many political and intellectual absolutisms, everything has changed. The present is no more a logical result of the forward march of history.
Some scientists saw the way out of crisis in a paradigm shift – the substitution of modernism, with its universal explanatory theories of social development, with postmodernism. Post-structuralism allows us to outline patterns of multidimensional and irregular change. Michigan University Professor P. (full name) Novik said that the «postmodernism era» had dissolved historical time in a diversity of texts and opinions. However, some western researchers (P. Novik, K. Lloyd, J. Applebee, L. Hunt, M. Jacob etc) did not view postmodernism as a new tool of intellectual analysis. On the contrary, they considered it a «tool of control over minds» like Marxism and liberalism. Postmodernism became a mind controlling tool rather than a new tool of intellectual analysis. According to the teachings of postmodernism, historical thinking is destructive, it interferes with the present. Since nothing can be repeated in the world, there is no need to know history. We have to free ourselves from the «burden of history.» Thus the former attractiveness of postmodernism (how to find the meanings and contradictions in a text) turned to an extreme.
The representatives of the «new historical science» justify the search for a new approach through an innovative interpretation of historical objectivity. Every science is based on the interaction of a qualified researcher with an object of investigation. History that can understand and explain the world may still be written (REWRITE). Unlike poststructuralists, practical realists emphasize the ability of words to articulate different forms of interaction between the researcher and object of historical investigation. We can admit that language is a formality, that historians use rhetorical means and that the past has been constructed. However, we can draw a line between the past and the historical view on the past. It may be useful to ask anti-constructivists how to find the hidden meanings in the text. Points of view may be different. However, documents and sources must be carefully checked by different historians. This will facilitate a more positive approach which allows us to locate valid interpretations among the rival opinions on the past (with the existence of different variants of history).
This approach is valuable because of its ways and forms of dealing with the object of investigation. Each generation of historians deals with it in a different way, using notions that are valuable during a concrete period of history. Each generation rewrites history. Meanwhile the historian – a qualified researcher – is not obliged to be an impersonal truth seeker. She must take her own traits into consideration: her character, nationality, gender, and so on. This self-awareness is already a real revolution in historical thinking. Seeking scientific neutrality and objectivity must not turn into a form of religion.
A discussion of new paradigms was seriously complicated by the emergence from underground of «national histories.» In the early 1990s they began to replace State-centered histories of the USSR, which were common at that time. The concept of «national» histories (as opposed to «Soviet» histories) began to predominate in politics as well as in educational systems.
We will try to find an explanation for these phenomena through the examination of the historical circumstances, of the process of so-called nationalization of the popular historical consciousness, through consideration of historians’ inclination for nationalism and elites’ tendency to instrumentalize the past. However, we should emphasize the fact that the concept of «national history» in its sociological meaning is nothing else but a system of knowledge, created by the national school of historiography. It shows varying degrees of ethnocentrism.
For example, the history of France is considered to be the history of the whole population, not the history of the nation as an ethnos. This means that it focuses on the history of the territory and the state (the principle of the «political nation») and less on the history of the formation of the population (of the Gauls, the Teutons, etc.). When it comes to «national» German history it means the history of all the Germans. The Japanese history known as «kokusi» means both the «native history» and the «national history.»
In Russia, «national history» is perceived as a system of knowledge which refers to the past of an ethnos and its cooperation with historical neighbors. The appearance of this concept was caused by the creation of the national idea, which justifies the cultural and political pretensions of the ruling classes. National historians of the Commonwealth of Independent States «change» the history to justify the process of the formation of independent post-Soviet states.
Some kind of rehabilitation of national history began in 1988. Criticism of such notions as «empire» and «imperial thinking» and later of the process of the formation of the Russian Empire as the series of Tsarist Russia’s crimes against peoples, caused in Russian society a peculiar guilt complex about its «imperial» past. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the modification of former complexes and pretensions. «Nationalities» were confronted by the co-existence of old and new identities, including national ones. This provoked an identity crisis and a desire to overcome Russia’s status of being on the historical and cultural periphery, of its role as a nation being driven by outside forces. People started searching for arguments to prove that their achievements were in keeping with the great patterns of world civilization.
Of course not every detail of the national life came to the fore. In the course of reconsidering «their» past, even historians approved of depicting their peoples as heroes and sometimes as victims, they were inclined to make their statehood more ancient, to exaggerate the level of political and social development of ethnic groups, to assert their nation at the neighbors’ expense, and to create a modified pantheon of the outstanding national figures.
Historical circumstances and the «nationalization» of popular historical consciousness automatically consolidated the historians’ inclination toward nationalist ideology and nationalistic movements. Moreover historians often became founders or supporters of nationalist doctrine. German, French, British and Japanese researchers tried to estimate and understand this phenomenon. They created historiography which could substantiate states’ ambitious aspirations. Even the evolution of nationalism became historical, especially when in the 20th century after World War I a new type of nationalism (ethnonationalism) appeared.
There are several stages in the evolution of the national idea in the USSR. Official historiography focused on a class-based and internationalist approach to historical problems. The term «nationalism» was used in a pejorative sense, as a political label to compare it negatively to internationalism. Meanwhile during the first decade after the October Revolution histories were being written in the atmosphere of cooperation between the central government and indigenous elites, which stimulated the nation-building process among large ethnic groups.
In the late 1920s, there emerged a contradiction between the Russian scientific community, which represented the official historiography of the USSR, and national historians of the other Soviet republics. National histories became the equivalent of anti-Marxism or deviation from Bolshevism. Stalin’s reign dealt a serious blow to national elites and cultures, which were consistently and systematically repressed and contained in the context of the assertion of Bolshevik ideological priorities. Stalin’s regime was concerned with the tension among intellectuals. Turning historiography into a way of substantiating Russian greatness was accompanied by the collapse of Lenin’s class-based historiography. The idea of «national» histories was a way to secretly preserve cultural orientations during this period. National historiographies came to function as part of an official Soviet historiography.
After Stalin’s death, political leaders of the country gave up trying to turn Russian patriotism into a total ideology and historiography. That period of time was characterized by reconstruction of the nation, the formation of new national elites and the search for national histories. The ideological system and official historiography supported the domination of the idea of Soviet patriotism.
In the late 1980s national histories obtained the status of official historiographies. A great myth about a new historical community «the Soviet Nation» began to disappear. It was replaced with new historical perceptions on the part of Soviet nationality groups. National histories now offered a way for up and coming political elites to assert themselves. The political elites of post-Soviet states had to create nations with great national traditions. This is why they needed myths that combined the old and the new.
Science has been studying myths for more than two centuries. Researchers began to realize that myths were a valid attempt to make sense of the world and they began to study myths as an important part of culture and a way to perceive people’s consciousness. Myths challenged ideology, and ideology in its turn started to use myths.
Schematization, simplification, simulation of complicated religious and social processes provides a basis for ideological systems (doctrines). Myths reflect rituals as well. Scientific theories try to make something clear through research, examination, and experience, while myths reflect canonical explanations. A theory tries to formulate a law, which is always open to challenge and falsification. A myth is not. It is ideal when myths and scientific theories are balanced. The predominance of myth is dangerous: it is much easier to manipulate people’s consciousness and actions when the irrational dominates (myths always use irrational proofs).
In Russia myths have not only been reconstructed, but have become a strange mixture of pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet myths. They prevent us from approaching actual history, as ideology did before. These old/new myths operate as a support, identity, orientation, protection and demarcation. These functions are neutral but they can become positive or negative according to the situation. Myths can soften crises; they let us deal with all the contradictions and complications of reforms. However they can be used and they are used to achieve certain goals, to take people under control.
Political myths, myths created by and about the ruling class, are of great contemporary interest. They became a distinctive feature of the twentieth century. Political and ideological myths have a tendency to create imagery of a new reality, to determine people’s behavior. Sometimes history chooses as a leading myth a notion advanced by the authorities, such as «enlightened power» or the «power of an iron fist»; sometimes state ideology portrayed the country as a «united and indivisible Russia», or Moscow as the «Third Rome.» The USSR created its own «sacred history» with its own «precursors,» like the «revolutionary events of 1905», with its own predecessors («revolutionary democrats» of the nineteenth century), with its prophets, ascetics and martyrs, its rituals and ceremonies. The October Revolution provided an opportunity to create a new world. History then had to describe the fight against domestic and foreign enemies (the «continuation of class struggle»), and the «era of battles» (The Great Patriotic War). According to Soviet ideology, Stalin was not only the successor of Lenin, he was Lenin’s incarnation: «Stalin is Lenin today.»
It is important to stress that these non-traditional myths were made artificially. But it is pointless to debate whether a myth is «true» or not. As Roland Bart claimed: «the myth doesn’t hide anything, it doesn’t show anything, it’s characterized not by telling lies or the truth, but by diverging.» In other words, the basic principle of myth is to transform history from a record of the actual contingent actions of human beings into the unfolding of a preordained and determined process of nature.
The thesis that only the authorities set the range and define the norms and truths of knowledge was rejected during the last decade. Today history is not officially exploited by the State as a political instrument, although there have been many attempts to revival of Soviet tendencies to «protect» Russian history and of imperial or monarchic tendencies in public thinking.
New conditions of social and academic life, and new communication links, make it impossible to «usurp the past,» although the fight to do so still exists. Understanding the fact that historical science has a public nature strengthens the positions of amateur historians, who defend their right to speak and write about history. Many historians have resorted to «new historicism,» which demands «a more equal exchange between the two halves of a kaleidoscope facing the past» – between history and literature, as Russian sociologist Alexander Etkind has written. Overcoming barriers between the humanities, striving to get out of the «disciplinary ghetto,» and new opportunities for communication has provoked a discussion about the language with which to describe the past and about ascertaining the range of connections between different branches of science which analyze the past.
Theme 2
RUSSIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY: ITS SELF-IMAGE, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, AND CONTRADICTIONS OF ITS DEVELOPMENT
Russia
Russia entered the 20th century with confidence, based on its history and human, economic and political potential. Russia was second in the list of the largest countries with a territory of more than 22 million square kilometers, second only to the British Empire. The Eastern and Northern parts of the country bordered the Arctic Ocean, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea. Overland Southern and Western borders were interrupted by the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. In the South, Russia bordered on oriental countries: Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan and China. One-third of the territory of the country (50 guberniyas of Russia, Northern Caucasia and The Kingdom of Poland) was European, two thirds was Asian (Southern Caucasia, Siberia and Central Asia).
The first population census in the Russian Empire was taken at the end of the XIX century (January, 1897). It recorded 125,640,021 persons, the number of women (50.3 % of the population) was bigger that that of men (49.7 %). Age composition in comparison with other countries differed substantially; there were more children and fewer people of working age and older. About a half of the population was under 20.
To understand the population density (taking into account natural environment and peculiarities of historic development), we have to compare it with that of other European countries. For example, in France population density was about 83.1 people per square kilometer, in Germany it was 118.6, in England 155.7, and in Russia in 1897 it was about 6.7 and in 1910 it was 8.5. This figure compares only with the population density of the USA.
The peoples of Russia spoke 146 different languages and dialects, but the majority of the population, almost 80 %, was representatives of five peoples. «Great» Russians (Velikorossy) made up 44.3 % of the population (55.7 million people), «Little» Russians or Ukrainians (Malorossy) accounted for 17.8 % (22.4 million) and Byelorussians for 4.7 % (5.9 million). All in all it was 66.8 % of the population of the country. In addition, in the Russian Empire there was a large population of Poles (6.3 %, or 7.9 million) and Jews (4.2 % or 5.1 million).
Migration and colonization in some regions led to a large mix of races. Fifty percent of the population of the 50 Russian guberniyas and Siberia were Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians, in the Caucasus they were only 34 %.
Concerning other peoples living in the Russia Empire, the majority (10.8 %, 13.6 million) were those who spoke Turkic languages, the Tartars, Bashkirs, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Chuvash, Nogai, Yakuts and others.
The multinational population of Russia led to a complicated confessional composition. About 69.4 % of the population (Russians, Byelorussians, Georgians, Romanians, Finns and other northern nations) were Orthodox Christians. To the second group belonged Muslims (11.1 %) with Turko-Tartars and Caucasian mountaineers practicing this religion. To the third group belonged Catholics (9.1 %). They were Poles, Lithuanians and some of the Armenians. 4.2 % of the population practiced Judaism. To the group of small confessions belonged Lutherans, in particular Latvians, Germans, Finn, and Gregorian Armenians; Buddhists and Lamaists, Mongolo-Buryats, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and northern peoples.
The population census in 1897 estimated that there were 2.2 million Old Believers and others who did not accept church reforms of the 17th century. However, some specialists think that in fact they were more than 20 million. As they were pursued by the Police and the Court, they concealed their religion.
The result of a century’s cooperation between the state and the various confessions was a decree «On Strengthening the Basis of Religious Tolerance» adopted on April 17, 1905. It guaranteed the right to freely change from one religious community to another, and with certain conditions from Christianity to non-Christianity. Old Believers and other schismatics were given equal rights with all the other religious confessions. It was also officially was forbidden to call Buddhists and Lamaists «idolaters» and «pagans.»
(Actually, when the Provisional Government came to power in February 1917, confessional policy was re-targeted at building a secular society in a religiously neutral state. After October, 1917, an effort was made to eliminate religion not only at the level of the state and public life, but from private life as well).
The population of Russia was divided into 4 «statuses» (with different rights and liberties): nobility, clergy, urban dwellers and country inhabitants. Urban dwellers were subdivided into noble citizens, merchants, bourgeois, and craftsmen. Country inhabitants consisted of peasants, Cossacks, petit bourgeois and artisans. At the beginning of 20th century, two parallel processes were taking place. On the one hand, there was the overall unification of social classes, their coming together and strengthening as classes. On the other hand, the overall class structure was rapidly decaying.
In terms of social structure, we have to take into consideration the fact that at that time about 76.5 % of the population earned its living in agriculture, 5.7 % in trade and transport, 10 % in industry, and 7.8 % in non-industrial activity, including education, medicine, science, and state service. One of the particularities of Russian social structure was its polarization. The upper middle class and landlords were numerically insignificant, while the majority of the population was small-scale owners and semi-proletarian layers. They comprised about 60 % of the population, and if proletarians are included the number rises to almost 80 %. That could not help but aggravate social contradictions in the country.
As is well known, Russia was one of those states trying to catch up in terms of economic development, but it was quite late entering the path of modern industrial development. The basis of this development was the appearance of industrial factories that exploited the labor of serfs who worked under the quit-rent system. In search for the money to pay this tribute, the peasants either had to search for work in the city or were engaged in small-scale craft production in the villages. This is how the textile industry appeared. It was the textile industry that catalyzed organic and autonomous industrial growth of the country. By the turn of the 20th century, the expansion rate of the economy was relatively high from the point of view of global standards. Russia belonged to a group of countries with quickly developing economies like the USA, Japan and Sweden. At the turn of the century, Russia was fourth or fifth in iron ore, iron and steel smelting, mechanical production, industrial consumption of cotton and sugar production. Russia was the leading country in oil production due to the development of the Baku oil production complex. The length of the railway system was the second in the world to the USA.
The economic crisis of 1899–1903 temporarily interrupted economic growth. Many factories were closed, but several fruitful years gave a new impulse to industrial development. After the crisis, monopoly concerns began to develop as syndicates and cartels began working in close cooperation with banks.
Thus, Russia at the beginning of the 20th century can be defined a semi-industrial country – that is, agriculture dominated over industry. Colonial holdings of Western European countries were separated from the metropolis by the sea. Russia was an empire where the metropolis and under-developed colonies were united in one territory and in one state. The European territory of the country accounted for about nine tenths of industrial and agricultural production. Clearly, however, at the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was just beginning the transition to a predominately industrial society.
Russia managed to make progress because of foreign business and investment. In this regard, the Empire was not different from other countries that were rather late to enter the path of industrial development and enjoyed the support of their rich neighbors. While not deprecating foreign investments, it was still national capital that was the determining factor in the economic development of the country. One of the most significant features of Russian monopoly capitalism, however, was the leading role of the state. The state determined the amount and distribution of government acquisitions, fixed taxes and privileges and controlled banks.
Russia entered the 20th century as an autocratic monarchy. The head of state was Emperor (Tsar) Nicholas II, a member of the Romanov family – a dynasty that had occupied the throne since 1623. His power was not limited by formal norms or public institutions. The Tsar relied on the Council of Ministers (a consultative assembly of policymakers) and on the State Council (supreme legislative committee).
Administratively, Russia was divided into 78 guberniyas, 18 oblasts and the Island of Sakhalin. There were administrative units that consisted of several guberniyas. They were called general guberniyas and were established mainly on the outer periphery of the empire. The Tsar usually authorized the Minister of the Interior to appoint the governor (Head of the guberniya). Guberniyas consisted of counties, oblasts, and districts. Further division was specialized. There were volosts (districts) for autonomous peasants, lots for land captains, lots for judicial investigators and so on. By the 20th century local government (zemstvo) had already been introduced in 34 guberniyas in the European part of Russia, in all other parts everything was under control of the state. The zemstvos mainly dealt with economic issues. They consisted of guberniya and district representative councils and an executive board. Elections to zemstvos were held every three years.
Bureaucracy was one of the most important elements in a monarchical authoritarian system. Often, due to his power, an official had extensive opportunities for personal enrichment. In spite of popular conceptions about Russian bureaucracy, the number of officials was not that great. If we compare the number of inhabitants in 1897 (129 million people) to the number of the officials (146,000), we see that for every 800 citizens there was only one official. (To compare, in the 1980s there was one governmental official for every fifteen people).
The political construction of the country outlined above had a corresponding specific ideological doctrine. As far back as in the 1830s, Count Sergei Uvarov (Minister of Education) called this doctrine «official nationality theory.» It was based on a three principles: Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality. The patriarchal basis of Russian conservatism and monarchism reflected Uvarov’s metaphor, and such views faced increasing difficulties fighting against rational liberal and social concepts.
More than 150 political (all-Russian, regional and national) parties supported different ideologies. They fell roughly into three groups: Rightists, Liberals and Socialists. The bitter dispute among them sharpened the key contradictions in Russia; resolving these contradictions was important for the further development of all the events in the country.
The disjuncture between the modern and archaic sectors of the economy (industry versus agriculture) was obvious. Capitalism in rural areas developed much more slowly than in cities and towns. Agriculture was inefficient, and although its productivity was increasing, Russia produced half as much bread per head as the USA and three times less than Argentina. The underdevelopment of agriculture slowed down capital formation, while the artificial attachment of peasants to land prevented the formation of a large and qualified working class.
Changes in the economy and the increasing complexity of the social structure conflicted with the class system, exacerbating national and social conflicts. State control over and interference with industrial production affected the Russian middle class, making it passive and restricting its political freedom and maturity.
Energetic economic growth was accompanied by rapid population growth. British historians A. Milword and S. Soul wrote: «Russia was a country of extremes in climate, luxury, needs, in primitive agriculture and modern steel-casting industry in Europe. Its population was growing so fast that all the efforts that could have been a success in other circumstances did not take proper effect.» Production per capita in Russia was less (2.5–3 times) than in the leading industrial countries, and Russia also lagged behind in labor productivity.
All this affected the level of civilization. It was defined not only by the culture of labor and life, but also by the educational level of the population. Only one fifth of the population at the beginning of the 20th century was literate. Medical care was also poor, and the mortality rate was almost twice as high as in Europe.
The political and religious elite not only tried to draw the attention of the supreme governing power and society at large to these mounting contradictions, but also called on people to take dynamic actions and steps toward reform that could head off social tension and avoid the dangerous consequences of potentially serious clashes.
Theme 3
FESTIVAL OF THE OPPRESSED OR SOCIAL DISEASE? THE NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS
The only way to decode a thousand years of Russian history is to first unlock its root «code» of Revolution.
The First Revolution of 1905–1907 was spawned by the social and political crisis which had arose as a consequence of the disastrous Russian war with Japan. After the massacre in Saint Petersburg on the 9th of January, 1905 («Bloody Sunday»), peasant unrest grew; workers striked; the army and navy rebelled. Soon liberal and conservative parties appeared on the national stage. While the bourgeoisie insisted on liberal political reforms, trade unions and the Soviet of People’s Deputies demanded more radical action. Revolutionary parties (Social Democrats and Social Revolutionaries) sought the destruction of the entire regime. The «All-Russian» (that is national) October political strike and liberal’s slashing attack on absolutism forced Nicholas II to publish the October 17 Manifest which promised to guarantee certain political liberties and to create a «representative» State Duma. These promises gave the government enough legitimacy to marginalize radical political groups and quell the armed rebellions of December 1905 as well as the worker rebellions, taking place in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Novorossiysk, and Ekaterinoslav. But the government was not destined to enjoy peace for long. In 1906, along with renewed labor strikes, the peasants, the armed forces, and several ethnic minorities began to rebel. The so-called «Putsch of June 3» caused the dissolution of the Second State Duma; the first Russian Revolution had ended. Absolutism created new institutions which would be more loyal to the monarchy such as the Parliamentary Representative Office. It also began massive agricultural reform – introduced by Prime Minister Arkady Stolypin – by permitting the peasants to leave the commune (obshchina) for private farmsteads, thereby; it was hoped, creating a middle class citadel against the revolution. Furthermore, Stolypin encouraged mass migration to Siberia as a means of discouraging revolutionary activity. These reforms encouraged the development of Russian capitalism.
The February Revolution of 1917 was concerned with overthrowing absolutism and establishing a democratic republic in Russia. The Revolution was sparked by a grave economic and political crisis. The crisis was exacerbated by the military disasters of the First World War, economic dislocation, and food shortages. On the 23 of February, lack of food in St-Petersburg (renamed Petrograd) provoked anti-war rallies, protests and massive strikes. The General Strike started on the 24–25 of February; on the 26 of February the strikes developed into an open struggle with the army in Petrograd. On the 27 of February, the General Strike grew into an armed rebellion. The troops took the side of the rebellions. The Union of Labor and Soldier Deputies was created along with the Interim Committee of the State Duma. This formed the basis for the new «Provisional» government. On the 2 (15) of March, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate.
