Russian Chronology, 1904-1914
- ️Charles Parmely
“All Russia is one vast madhouse...” - Count Witte, 1906
Before 1905, Russia was an autocracy with no limitations on the authority of the Czar. But the Czarist establishment was oppressive, inept, and inadequate - especially under a feeble ruler like Nicholas II - and the allegiance of the Russian people had been quietly eroding for years. Disaffection had long been widespread among intellectuals, some of whom had become revolutionaries, but urban workers, peasants, and ethnic minorities all had their own serious grievances.
In 1904, Russia blundered into a war with Japan and suffered a series of humiliating defeats. Then on Jan.22.1905, a peaceful workers’ march in St. Petersburg was brutally fired on by troops, electrifying the nation and setting off full-scale revolution. For months after Bloody Sunday, a series of ever-stronger waves of turmoil rocked the state: liberals forcefully demanded immediate reform, workers became radicalized and organized, the army and navy grew mutinous, peasants and ethnic minorities occupied estates and in some cases declared independence, and for the first time the revolutionary parties attracted a mass following. The real crisis came in October, when one of the most effective general strikes in history completely shut down the Russian Empire; only then, with the regime on the verge of collapse, was the reluctant Czar persuaded to issue the October Manifesto. Russia had become a constitutional monarchy… sort of.
But instead of trying to reach accommodation with its opposition, the government took a very tough line, undercutting liberals and the Duma, cracking down hard on radicals, sending bloody punitive expeditions against unruly peasants, and encouraging right-wing mobs to attack dissidents, while the revolutionary left responded with assassinations, terrorism, and open revolt. By about 1909 the state had restored order, though at the cost of permanently alienating its subjects. Attempts were made at agrarian reform, but for the most part the regime squandered this temporary reprieve, and by 1914 new troubles were beginning to brew. At that point, Russia was sucked into World War I and the Czarist system began to move towards its terminal crisis.