VCE History: Unit 3 Saving Tsarism

The failing Duma Tsar Acts 1 Four days before opening the First Dumas on 27 April 1906, Nicholas publishes the Fundamental State Laws. The aim of this was to reassert his autocratic power by reminding everyone that he had ‘supreme power’. These laws removed the sharing of power offered in the October Manifesto.

The failing Duma Tsar Acts 2 First and Second Dumas dominated by radical deputies who asked for limits on the Tsar’s power, land reform for peasants, free education, equality of all citizens and shared tax burdens. All of these were ‘completely unacceptable’. The radicals complained and a subsequent outbreak of violence and assassinations resulted in the Tsar dismissing the First Dumas and calling for new elections

The failing Duma The Tsar Acts 3 To decrease the representation of radicals the Tsar illegally changed the electoral laws to a ‘college’ system aimed at reducing the number of deputies representing workers, peasants and minorities. Voting power was now unequal as to elect one deputy required 230 landowner votes, 60,000 peasant votes or 125,000 industrial worker votes. The Tsar had regained control of Russia.

The Failing Duma The Tsar Acts 4 The Third and Fourth Dumas were totally unrepresentative of the Russian people due to the conservative majority which increased discontent within the radical parties. However, radical deputies like Alexander Kerensky gained experience in this political system and the Dumas increased the political consciousness of the population.

Stolypin’s Reforms On 21 July 1906 Sergei Witte was replaced as Prime Minister by Peter Stolypin, whose aim was to strengthen the position of the Tsar. He aimed to increase the size of peasants’ land holdings without upsetting the landlords. This was an attempt to create a wealthy class of land-owning peasants to stimulate the agrarian economy. Changes included allowing peasants to purchase land, adjusting prices to meet the ‘buying power’ of the farmer, lending money to peasants to buy more land, equipment and improve their farming and allowing peasants to leave the mir to combine their separate strips of land.

Stolypin’s Reforms Socially he introduced insurance for peasants form potential sickness, mutilation, disablement and old age. Proportional taxation exempted most landless peasants from the burden of taxes. Religious tolerance and freedom of conscience was granted. Compulsory primary education was introduced.

Stolypin’s Reforms Some industrial reforms were made including banning night and underground labour for children, teenagers and women and the maximum working day was shortened for adult workers. These reforms were received favourably by the Russian population as, slowly, the demands of the workers petition from 1905 were met.

Strengthening Tsarism? What was the impact? As tsarism regained its strength, opposition weakened. After the October Manifesto, the opponents of Nicholas were crushed and their leaders sent into exile. Stolypin increased the Okhrana vigilance to wipe out opponents, with the hangman’s noose being known as ‘Stolypin’s Necktie’. However, a growth in economic and political strikes from as low as 47,000 in 1910 to 1,337,000 in 1914 gave Marxist revolutionaries hope that the division between rich and poor would evoke more discontent. Stolypin was assassinated in October, 1911 by the revolutionary Mordka Bogrov.

How strong was Russia in 1913? Politically Nicholas’s position was more secure than in 1905 as the nations grievances were being addressed and opponents of tsarism were being effectively suppressed. For the first time the Tsar ruled in conjunction with an elected Duma. Economically Between 1906 and 1913 national debt was reduced, growth of 6 percent was the highest in Europe, savings doubled, exports doubled and government expenditure and income doubled. Russia was, however, still behind the powerful industrial nations of France, Germany and Britain. Socially Growing production figures led to small groups of peasant landowners, a larger industrial workforce and a wealthy commercial class.