Chapter 1 – Was Russia Well Governed in 1900?

1. Russia in the Beginning of the 20th Century

a. A vast empire spanning two continents
i. Europe and Asia
1. West to east over 4,000 miles
2. North to south some 2,000 miles
b. Such size brings great difficulties
i. Poor communications
1. Few paved roads
2. Small towns often cut off in winter time
c. Railroads and steamboats main form of transportation
i. Trans-Siberian railway opened in 1904
1. Moscow to Vladivostok took more than a week
ii. Most agricultural regions in European Russia
1. Beyond Ural Mountains, Russia a wild place and very
remote
2. Who were the Russians?
a. The Empire contained around 130 million people, mostly in
European Russia
i. Less than half of the population ethnic Russian
1. Majority lived under tsarist control
a. Many did not speak Russian and were illiterate
b. Russification – Making non-Russians speak Russian and follow
Russian customs
i. Deeply unpopular with other ethnic groups
1. Finland, Poland, Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia) in Europe
2. Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek in Central Asia
3. Georgian, Armenian, Azeri in Caucasus
ii. Native languages banned and ethnic Russians put in
charge of bureaucracy
 c. Russian society was mostly made up of peasants
i. Four out of every five Russians was a peasant
1. Agricultural workers living hard lives
a. Starvation and disease a constant worry
i. 400,000 died in 1891 crop failure and
cholera
1. Average life expectancy: 40 years
ii. Narrow strip method of farming
1. Wooden ploughs, few animals or other tools
iii. Majority of peasants were serfs – owned by landowners
to and tied to the land
1. Serfdom was abolished in 1861 by Tsar Alexander II
iv. Population exploded in the late 19th century
1. Between 1860 and 1897 population had increased
2. Land availability was a major issue
a. Even though freed from serfdom, most still
worked on estates of their former masters
d. The nobility of Russia made up just over 1% of the population
i. Owned almost 25% of all land
ii. ‘Boyars’ – nobles who made up the Russian aristocracy
e. The middle classes of Russia were comprised of bankers,
merchants and industrialists who grew richer from Russia’s
new industrialization
i. St. Petersburg and Moscow become the centers of
Russian commercial life and industry
f. The workers of Russia during this time worked long hours and
lived in terrible conditions
i. Many were villagers forced off the land
3. Tsar Nicholas II
a. Tsar Nicholas II came to the throne in 1894
i. Member of the Romanov family that ruled Russia for
around 300 years
 ii. Absolute monarch (autocrat) with no checks on power
1. Believed had a divine right to rule
b. Ruling a large country difficult and need a large bureaucracy
i. Led to little oversight and because of low wages for lower
officials, bribery
1. ‘God in heaven and the tsar far away’ a common
saying
ii. No parliament (Duma in Russian)
iii. Censorship of newspapers and communication
iv. Secret police (Okhrana) dealt with those who opposed
the tsar
1. Dissidents were jailed, exiled or executed
2. Police would put down riots in times of hunger
a. Cossacks – imperial soldiers who were feared
c. The Orthodox Church
i. Russian religion, a branch of Christianity separated from
Rome and forms of Protestantism
1. Peasants very religious
2. Church closely linked to the Tsar
a. Tsar head of the country and head of the church
d. Tsar Nicholas was very loving with his family (especially his
son Alexei), but could be brutal with the Russian people
i. Violence used often to crush dissent
1. Particularly against Jews, where pogroms were
encouraged
ii. Out of touch with the reality of Russia
1. Did not visit the workers and relied on a small circle
of people for information
e. The Tsar’s wife Tsarina Alexandra greatly influenced Tsar
Nicholas
i. Supported autocracy and believed in divine right to rule