How the tsarist autocracy managed to survive the 1905 Revolution?

Résumé du document

The aspiration for freedom of Russian society dominated the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century until the fall of Tsarist autocracy in the wake of the 1917 revolution. The latter gave birth to a new literature with different interpretations on the question whether this was inevitable or could have been avoided by appropriate reforms of the autocracy. However, the first revolution in Russia's history occurred in 1905, often qualified as the “dress-rehearsal” of the revolution that finally put an end to the hundred years old Tsarist regime.

Could have a good management of the 1905 revolution avoided the collapse of Russian autocracy? At that time was there an opportunity to end the increasing mass discontent that the government could not seize? It was the inability of the Russian government to understand the problems Russia was facing and it couldn't be solved without a change of traditional policies that led to the events of 1905. Then, we will see that the fractions of society were surrounded by revolts, the Czar had to make a choice between massive repression and concessions. His choice went with the latter. And finally, we will analyze, if these concessions allowed the Russian autocracy to gain time. Its serious strategic mistakes prevented the problems to be solved at the time and made the 1917 revolution inevitable.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the ruling Czar Nicholas II had more power. As the autocracy regime demanded he exercised unlimited power over Russia's population. No legislative chambers could limit his power in any way, and he had all the power over the government– whose most important position was the Minister of the Interior– the bureaucracy and the Army.

Extraits

[...] The Russian autocracy could also have relied on popular support of the patriarchal figure of the Czar. Indeed, before 1905 most of Russia's population had not yet broken with the traditional institution of tsarism. The Czar was venerated as a god whenever he traveled in the Russian Empire. But the repression such as the one of the “Bloody Sunday” crushed the hope of people that the Czar could modernize the Empire. Moreover, while the regime was facing serious troubles all over the country, the Czar decided to wage a war with Japan from January 1904. [...]

[...] Yet, in the wake of the 1905 revolution Russia became a constitutional monarchy ruled by an autocrat. The Czar was already going back on a lot of its words though. Indeed, the first Duma (from April to July 1906) wasn't directly elected as promised, and the suffrage was unequal, based on social classes. Moreover, the Fundamental Laws reaffirmed the power of the autocrat stating in the first chapter that All-Russian Emperor possesses the supreme autocratic power. Not only fear and conscience, but God himself, commands obedience to his authority”. [...]

[...] And the bureaucracy remained widely corrupt and inefficient. The process of modernization was in truth affecting Russian society as a whole, in the arts for instance with the “Silver or in the economy with the start of a capitalistic transition. Even the latter however was left unfinished. The autocracy was blinded by its past glories and didn't understand the real need for modernization of Russia in the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. There were increasing signs of discontent within the population but the Tsarist government preferred to consider that it was essentially the result of a few intellectuals particularly noisy. [...]

[...] These concessions allowed the Russian autocracy to survive the 1905 revolution. Nevertheless, there were strategic mistakes within the Tsarist autocracy's policy to manage the revolution of 1905 that made the one of 1917 inevitable. First of all, the concessions came far too late to satisfy the population and the elites. As stated in words attributed to Bismarck, power of revolution lies not in the extreme ideas of its leaders, but in that small portion of moderate demands unsatisfied at the right time.” Indeed, some limited changes made before 1905 could have avoided the radicalization of the opposition to the regime and thus the events of 1905, but the same changes extracted by force were not sufficient anymore. [...]

[...] How the tsarist autocracy managed to survive the 1905 Revolution? The aspiration for freedom of Russian society dominated the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century until the fall of Tsarist autocracy in the wake of the 1917 revolution. The latter gave birth to a whole literature, with different interpretations on the question whether this was inevitable or could have been avoided by appropriate reforms of the autocracy. However, the first revolution in Russia's history occurred in 1905, often qualified as the “dress-rehearsal” of the revolution that finally put an end to the several hundred years old Tsarist regime. [...]