Translated from the Russian by George H. Hanna
Designed by Maximilian SMosberg
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First printing 1965 Second revised printing 1977 Third printing 1981
English translation tromrevised Russian edition ©Progress Publishers 1977
Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
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~ 0505000000 [2]CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................
Chapter One. EARLIEST HISTORY
Palaeolithic, Mesofithk, Neolithic, Aeneolithk, Bronze Age, Iron Age. The slave-owning states of the Transcaucasus, Central Asia and the Northern Black Sea littoral. End of the period of antiquity .....................
7
Chapter Two. THE ANCIENT RUSSIAN STATE
The East Slavs. Formation of the ancient Russian state. Rus and Byzantium. The conversion of Russia to Christianity. The social and political structure of the ancient Russian state. The struggle between the classes of ancient Russia. Feudal disunity in the ancient Russian state, eleventh and twelfth centuries. Novgorod. Vladimir-Suzdal. GaliciaVolhynia. The culture of ancient Rus ................................................ 23
Chapter Three. THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. FEUDAL DISUNITY. THE UNIFICATION OF THE RUSSIAN LANDS IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
Mongolian conquests. The peoples of Central Asia and Transcaucasus under the Mongols. Timur and his empire. The establishment of the Tatar yoke in Rus. The straggle of the Baltic and Russian peoples against the Swedish and Teutonic Knights. The Battle on the Ice, 1242. The feudal disunity of Rus. The rise of Moscow. The socio-economic development of Rus in the fourteenth century. The Battle of Kulikovo, 1380, and its historic significance. The Principality of Moscow in the first half of the fifteenth century. The feudal war of the second quarter of the fifteenth century and the victory of the Grand Prince. Russian culture in the thirteenth to the fifteenth century ..................................................... 53
Chapter Four. THE CENTRALISED RUSSIAN STATE. RUSSIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE FIFTEENTH AND THE SDCTEENTH CENTURY
The social and economic development of Rus. Completion of the unification of Russian lands and the abolition of the Tatar yoke. Ivan HI. Formation of the autocracy. Vasily HI. Rule of the boyars. The Moscow revolt, 1547. Ivan the Terrible. Reforms of the fifties. Formation of the Russian monarchy with representation of the social estates. Destruction of the Khanate of Kazan. Livonian War. Oprichnina. Economic crisis of the seventies and eighties and its consequences. Reign of Tsar Fyodor. Boris Godunov. Russian culture in the second half of the fifteenth and the sixteenth century .......................................................................... 76
Chapter Five. FEUDAL RUSSIA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The peasant war and Polish-Swedish intervention in the early seventeenth century. The economic and social development of Russia. Condition of the peoples of Siberia, the Volga area, Central Asia and the Trancaucasus. Evolution of the political system and the church reforms. Sharpening of social contradictions. Urban revolts, 1648--62. War against Poland and Sweden, and reunion of the Ukraine east of the Dnieper with Russia. 3 Increased feudal oppression. The peasant war under the leadership of Stepan Razin. The church schism and the participation of the masses. Russian culture in the seventeenth century ......................................... 118
Chapter Six. EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE FORMATION OF THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY
Beginning of the reign of Peter the Great. The Northern War. The Eastern policy. Peter the Great and reforms in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Years of palace revolutions. Biron's ascendancy. Russia in the mid-eighteenth century. Culture in the first half of the eighteenth century ....................................................................................... 150
Chapter Seven. FEUDAL RUSSIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Russia's economy at the close of the eighteenth century. "Enlightened absolutism"---sixties to eighties. Catherine II. Turkish war, 1768--74, and the first partition of Poland. Peasant war, 1773--75. Reaction---seventies to early nineties. Turkish war, 1787--91. French Revolution, 1789--94, and Russian autocracy. Second and third partitions of Poland. Social thought and culture in the second half of the eighteenth century ......................... 176
Chapter Eight. THE COLLAPSE OF SERFDOM---THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The break-up of serfdom and the development of capitalism. The home and foreign policy of Paul I and Alexander I. The Patriotic War of 1812. The Decembrist movement. The home policy of Nicholas I. The mass movement in the thirties and forties. The revolutionary democrats Belinsky and Herzen. Russian culture in the first half of the nineteenth century. The foreign policy of Nicholas I. The Crimean War .................. 194
Chapter Nine. RUSSIA AFTER THE PEASANT REFORM. THE SECOND HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The people's struggle for emancipation and the collapse of serfdom. Reforms of the sixties and seventies. The development of capitalism. The revolutionary movement after the reform. The Narodniks. Reaction of the nobility in the eighties and early nineties. Development of the workingclass movement and the birth of the Russian Social-Democratic movement. Russian culture and the culture of the peoples of Russia ---........... 232
Chapter Ten. RUSSIA IN THE EPOCH OF IMPERIALISM
The main changes in the economic and social system of the country; tsarism, its home and foreign policy at the turn of the twentieth century. The beginning of the proletarian stage in the emancipation movement and the growing revolutionary crisis in the early twentieth century. The Russo-Japanese War and the first Russian revolution. The Stolypin reaction. The new revolutionary upsurge. Russia on the eve of the First World War. Science, education and culture in the early twentieth century ....................................................................................... 281
Chapter Eleven. RUSSIA IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR. THE FEBRUARY BOURGEOIS-DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION
Diplomacy on the eve of the war. War operations. Economic ruin. The growing revolutionary crisis. The fall of tsarism and the seizure of power by the bourgeoisie ......................................................................... 340
Chronological Outline . 356
Geographic Index ..... 359
Name Index ............. 367
[4] __ALPHA_LVL1__ INTRODUCTIONThe peoples inhabiting the territory of the USSR have played an important role in world history ever since the days of remote antiquity. In the Transcaucasus, Central Asia, the Northern Black Sea area and the Dnieper Basin a number of big states emerged and flourished in ancient times. In the Middle Ages the fate of Europe was to a considerable degree determined by Russia, whose people barred the way to Jenghiz Khan and Timur (Tamerlane). The entire mediaeval history of the Russian state is one of struggle for national independence, the bitterest period of which was that of the Mongol invasions (thirteenth century) that left Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus in ruins.
However, Russia survived the unfavourable conditions --- the Mongol yoke and isolation from the countries of both East and West---that made her development almost impossible, but by the eighteenth century she had taken her place among the Great Powers as a multinational state whose population was made up of Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, the Baltic peoples and (from the nineteenth century) the peoples of the Transcaucasus and Central Asia.
Russia became firmly established as a European Great Power in the early nineteenth century when the heroic struggle of the Russian people in 1812 put an end to Napoleon's dream of founding a world empire.
Although Russia was numbered among the Great Powers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, she remained a country ruled by an absolute monarch, the tsar. The people suffered under serfdom and national oppression in a country where remnants of feudalism were closely intertwined with highly developed capitalist forms until the very last days of the tsar's empire. Russia was a country in which outstanding cultural achievements were accompanied by the poverty and ignorance of the underprivileged masses who were the vehicle of a powerful revolutionary spirit.
Russian names abound in the history of world culture --- Lomonosov, Mendeleyev, Pavlov in science, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gorky in literature, Chaikovsky, Moussprgsky in music, Repin and Surikov in art, Shalyapin and Stanislavsky in the theatre.
A revolutionary spirit had been developing for some two centuries, so that at the turn of the present century, when the Russian proletariat joined the political struggle, Russia became the centre of the world 5 working-class and revolutionary movement. Russia was the birthplace of Leninism and it was in Russia that Lenin founded the first mass Marxist party of the new type, the party that led the struggle of the Russian working class and the peasants against tsarism, the party that aroused all the peoples of Russia for the October Socialist Revolution. This revolution opened a new era in world history.
This book aims to provide a brief outline of the history of the USSR from the earliest times right up to 1917. The history of the October Revolution, and the formation and development of the multinational Soviet socialist state are the theme of the next book. This second book gives a detailed description of the enormous successes achieved by the fraternal family of the Soviet peoples in their struggle to build and defend the new socialist society and to advance towards communism. This book is intended for the general reader. It contains the most important features of the history of the peoples of the USSR and the development of their economy, social and political system, class struggle, ideology and culture. The range of topics covered was naturally limited by the small size of the book.
A Short History of the USSR was prepared by the USSR Academy of Sciences Institute of History, and its first edition appeared in Russian in 1963. It was later translated into English, French and Spanish. The text of this new edition has been revised so as to incorporate the latest results of Soviet historical research.
This book was written by the following authors: Chapter 1---D. P. Kallistoy; Chapter 2---I. I. Smirnov and A. I. Kopanev; Chapter 3 --- 1.1. Smirnov and N. A. Kazakova; Chapter 4---N. Y. Nosov; Chapter 5 --- A. G. Mankov and I. P. Shaskolsky (the last-named wrote the section on the peasant war and the Polish and Swedish invasion of Russia at the beginning of the seventeenth century); the sections on the history of culture for Chapters 2-5 were written by D. S. Likhachov; Chapters 6-7--- M. P. Vyatkin (supplemented after his death by A. G. Mankov); Chapter 8---S. S. Volk; Chapter 9---Sh. M. Levin; and Chapters 10--11 ---R. Sh. Ganelin (except for the section on culture in Chapter 10, which was written by Sh. M. Levin).
[6] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter One __ALPHA_LVL1__ EARLIEST HISTORYThe territory now known as the Soviet Union, a huge area stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, has been inhabited since the dawn of history. The earliest history of this area is known only from archaeological finds. Ancient artifacts unearthed in the Soviet Union are being widely studied by Soviet archaeologists. The earliest of them, crude stone implements from Armenia, the Altai Territory (on the bank of the River Ulalinka) and the Amur Region (by the village of Kumary), belong to the Chellean culture which was widespread between 400,000 and 100,000 years ago.
Artifacts belonging to the Acheulian Epoch, the Early Palaeolithic, that followed the Chellean, have been found on the Black Sea littoral of the Caucasus, in Ossetia, in several places in the Ukraine, on the Turkmenian coast of the Caspian and on the Tien Shan highlands in Kirghizia.
Towards the end of the Acheulian Epoch a great change took place in the climate of the whole globe. The Ice Age set in. In Eastern Europe the huge sheet of ice spread southwards as far as the middle reaches of the Dnieper and the Don. The tundras, lands that remained frozen all the year round, stretched into the fertile lands of what is now the Ukraine. A similar sheet of ice invaded a huge area of the continent of Asia. The former flora and fauna disappeared, and warmth-loving animals either retreated to the south or became extinct.
These climatic changes had a no less serious effect on primitive man and his conditions of life. But man proved able to hold his own in the struggle against nature and to adapt himself to the new conditions; he began to occupy tremendous stretches of land that had formely been uninhabited.
In the later Acheulian encampments unearthed in the USSR traces of fire are found everywhere. It is safe to assume that man had by this time learned to use and"to preserve fire although he may not have been able to make fire himself. In the period that followed, known as the Mousterian Epoch (or Middle Palaeolithic---100,000 to 40,000 years ago), archaeologists have found traces indicating that man made fire himself.
Many traces of the Mousterian culture have been found in the Soviet Union, all of which show considerable progress in the manufacture of 7 tools. The earliest burials discovered belong to this epoch, and enable us to gain some idea of man's outward appearance in those early days. One such burial was that of a boy, 8 or 9 years old, found in 1938 in the Teshik Tash Grotto in Central Asia. The boy's features are those of the anthropological type known as Neanderthal, the type of man common in the Mousterian Epoch. In the archaeological periods that succeeded the Mousterian (the Late Palaeolithic) this type everywhere disappeared, giving place to a physical type that differs little from that of modern man. By this time the human race was represented by three already distinct racial types---Europeoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. The remains of individuals belonging to the first two have been found on the territory of the USSR.
During the Late Palaeolithic, 40,000 to 14,000 years ago, the climate and other natural conditions of the area covered by the present Soviet Union remained severe in the extreme although the ice sheet had begun to recede. The Late Palaeolithic encampments that have been discovered over an area stretching from the Crimea and the Caucasus to Yakutia and beyond the Arctic Circle show that the severe climate did not prevent the growth of the population.
Man's chief means of subsistence at this time was hunting. Improved weapons of the chase, the use of pits for trapping animals, and the organisation of battue hunts by large groups of hunters provided him with greater quantities of food. The study of some Late Palaeolithic encampments shows that the primitive hunters were at times able to kill whole herds of mammoths. Fishing gradually developed on lakes and rivers, providing the necessary conditions for more permanent settlements.
There is every reason to believe that in this period primitive man evolved a new form of social organisation. The collective search for food, the common habitation, the common hearth all required an association of people more lasting than the primitive horde or herd. This new organisation, based on blood relationship, was the matriarchal clan, the most ancient form of the clan system of society. Group marriage, typical of the earliest stages of social development throughout the world, made the recognition of relationship possible only through the mother. The dominant position of the woman, furthermore, was due to her role in economic life. The gathering of plants, the maintenance of the fire on the common hearth, the cooking and storage of food, the making of clothes and participation in the hunt gave women the leading role in the clan over a long period of its history.
The end of the Late Palaeolithic and the beginning of the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age---14,000-4,000 years ago) coincided with the end of the Ice Age. The climate again underwent a considerable change, and the world became warmer. Forests grew up on the areas freed from ice; in the north there were forests of conifers, further south mixed forests of conifers and deciduous trees and still further south the steppes---all very much the same as they are today. New varieties of animals made their appearance---elks, the noble deer, wild pigs, beavers, brown bears and others in the north, and in the steppes, there were antelopes, horses and wild asses. The last of the mammoths still roamed the northern parts of Siberia.
8The encampments of man during the Mesolithic have been studied to a lesser degree than those of the earlier and later periods, both in the Soviet Union and in other countries. The Mesolithic hunters did not live long in one place, they followed the herds of reindeer and other animals with which they had been living side by side for thousands of years; with them they moved northwards as the country was freed from ice, until they reached latitude 65°N, where flint tools of an archaic type from the Mousterian culture were found between 1964 and 1961 by the River Pechora (near Ust-Tsilma and Mount Krutaya).
In this period the local differences in the way of life became much greater. Among the people living in the ancient settlements discovered on the shore of the Kola Peninsula, fishing and the hunting of marine animals, particularly molluscs, had assumed great importance. In the Crimea, at the opposite end of the country, shellfish occupied an important place in the diet; huge piles of shells have been found in Crimean caves that were occupied in the Mesolithic Period. Hunting, however, was still the chief pursuit of the peoples living in the south.
It was at this time that primitive man made one of his greatest inventions, the bow, which gave hunting a completely new scope. With his arrows man was now able to shoot down the smaller animals found in the steppes and forests in huge numbers. The time was also ripe for the development of animal husbandry, the source of which was the taming of wounded animals or their offspring. The skeletons of dogs found in Mesolithic encampments show that the dog was the first domestic animal.
In the south the new type of weapon involved a new technique, the making of implements known as microliths from tiny pieces of flint. The microliths were used as arrow-heads inserted into the split ends of wooden or bone arrows. In the Mesolithic settlements found in the southern parts of the country, there are more microliths than any other type of tool or weapon. In the more northern forest areas, in the settlements on the middle and upper reaches of the Dnieper, the middle reaches of the Desna, the Northern Donets and the Upper Volga, microliths have not been found. In these regions the older technique of the hunt still prevailed, but the inhabitants apparently also engaged in fishing, the gathering of berries, nuts, edible roots and other vegetable foods. In the Baltic area fishing and the hunting of aquatic birds predominated.
In 1969 a burial site was discovered near the River Sungir not far from the town of Vladimir. There remains of two boys were found and a number of skilfully fashioned articles made from mammoth tusk. This discovery is of great use to specialists in their attempts to reconstruct man's appearance at this time, his clothing and weapons.
The Neolithic (New Stone Age) and Aeneolithic (Copper Age), that lasted through the fourth and third millennia B.C., marked another huge step forward in history.
Animal husbandry and farming developed, and the new conditions enabled groups of many hundreds of people to live together. Tribes and tribal alliances were formed that were homogeneous ethnically and culturally.
9Animal husbandry and agriculture naturally developed first in the south where the climatic conditions were most favourable. An ancient farming settlement belonging to the fourth millennium B.C. and extant over a very long period, has been unearthed and studied on the slopes of the Annau Hills in Southern Turkmenia, Central Asia. The people of this settlement lived in rectangular houses made of unbaked brick; they planted barley and wheat and bred cattle, goats and pigs. Traces of similar settlements have been found in other parts of Southern Turkmenia. In the Transcaucasus the first known agricultural settlements belong to the beginning of the third millennium B.C. By the end of the third and the beginning of the second millennia agriculture had spread throughout the Transcaucasus and the North Caucasus; this was due not only to the favourable climatic conditions but also to contacts between the local people and the more advanced countries of Anterior Asia and the Mediterranean, the cradle of the civilisation of the ancient world. The world-famous burial mound, Maikop Kurgan, dating back to the middle or end of the third millennium B.C., bears evidence of these contacts. The rich contents of this burial mound have direct and indisputable parallels in the artifacts of the Sumerian cities of ancient Mesopotamia.
To the north of the Black Sea, the farming culture of the Neolithic and Aeneolithic is splendidly illustrated by the Tripolye settlements, named after a village on the right bank of the Dnieper where this culture was first discovered in the nineties of the last century; these Tripolye settlements belong to a period from the early third millennium B.C. to the middle of the second. Several hundred Tripolye settlements have been discovered and studied on the right bank of the Dnieper, and in the basins of the Southern Bug, the Dniester and the Lower Danube. They consist of adobe houses above ground, occasionally dugouts, as a rule erected on the banks of small streams or around springs. The biggest of these houses are as much as 27 metres long and six or seven metres wide; a Tripolye settlement was usually inhabited by several hundred people.
Among the artifacts found in the Tripolye settlements, copper articles are rare; most of the objects found are farm implements made of stone or antlers. The Tripolye folk were tillers of the soil, their chief implement was the hoe; animal husbandry was a secondary pursuit and hunting was of no economic significance. Pottery was a highly developed art among them. They made vessels of many different shapes that were so beautifully finished and decorated so artistically with a black, red and white ornament that their pottery occupied one of the first places in the Europe of those times.
To the north and north-west of the Tripolye settlements---in Podolye, Volhynia and the basins of the rivers Vistula, Oder and Elbe---in the third and at the beginning of the second millennia, there lived tribes that differed greatly from the Tripolye folk and from each other in their way of life. Some of them engaged in agriculture, combining it with such pursuits as hunting and fishing, others were predominantly herdsmen. In any case, the living standards of these tribes were at a much lower level than those of the Tripolye people. The same is true of the people living to the east of Tripolye---the numerous tribes of hunters and fishers inhabiting the steppes in the Black Sea area and around the Sea of Azov.
10Throughout the Neolithic and the Aeneolithic, and even in the Bronze Age, there were tribes living in the more northerly forest regions of Eastern Europe that archaeologists usually define by their pottery with its pit-comb ornament, an ornament that remained unchanged over a lengthy period. The pit-comb vessels were made with a round, convex base, unlike the flat-bottomed vessels of the Tripolye folk. The people who used these vessels must have lived in primitive houses and possessed neither tables nor cooking stoves; they dug the bottoms of their vessels into the ground and when they used them for cooking, stood them in the fire supported by stones around the base. They lived mainly by hunting and fishing and knew neither agriculture nor animal husbandry.
The economy of the tribes inhabiting the huge expanse of Siberia is noteworthy for its great variety. Those who dwelt along the River Angara and around Lake Baikal lived exclusively by hunting in the fourth millennium B.C. It was not until the second millennium that fishing began to take priority over hunting. Towards the end of the third millennium the tribes living in the steppes around the upper reaches of the River Yenisei began to engage in animal husbandry; in the middle of the second millennium they began to till the soil. The Neolithic population of the Pacific coast and the Arctic seaboard engaged mainly in the hunting of seals and other marine animals; in the valley of the River Amur fishing predominated.
Neolithic art is well represented in the USSR by the figurines and cliff drawings discovered on the east bank of Lake Onega, on the White Sea coast, in Siberia, the Ural Mountains and Central Asia.
The various tribes inhabiting the present territory of the USSR continued their development in the Bronze Age along lines that had become clearly defined in the preceding period. Animal husbandry and farming, at first common only in the south, gradually moved northwards. This form of economy, however, did not reach the huge expanses of the taiga forests and the tundra, where farming was impossible and animal husbandry was confined to reindeer breeding.
The Bronze Age brought the greatest changes to the way of life of the southern tribes, those that inhabited the Black Sea steppelands, the Volga Basin, the North Caucasus, Central Asia and Southern Siberia. Many of these tribes now obtained their meat by breeding cattle and not by hunting, which gave them a higher standard of living. After a lengthy period the pastoral tribes separated into a special group---this must be regarded as the first great social division of labour. The Bronze Age did not bring many changes in the life of the farming tribes since no traces of the plough have been found in the archaeological strata of that period either in the USSR or in Western Europe.
The growth of the productive = forces^^*^^ was naturally accompanied by fresh changes in the social structure. Male labour increased in _-_-_
~^^*^^ Productive forces include all raw materials, lands, means and instruments of production and people with experience and habits of work which they can apply to produce material values. In the course of the production of material values, people improve the instruments of labour, invent machines, learn to make ever wider use of natural resources and improve their work techniques, thus ensuring a constant growth of the productive forces; this growth is the material basis of all human progress. Any check in the growth of the productive forces, or their destruction, holds back progress and prevents normal development.--- Tr.
11 importance, especially in such spheres as metalworking and the herding of cattle, which was a new branch of economy. As a result, the hitherto predominant matriarchy began to give way to'patriarchy. Another result was a noticeable inequality in property status. During this period individual ethnic groups began to appear among the population of the country. There is no reason to doubt that the tribes of herdsmen living in Central Asia in the second millennium B.C. were the ancestors of the future Tajiks, or that the Transcaucasian tribes were the ancestors of the Hittite-Iberian, Armenian and other peoples who later inhabited the same region, while the herdsmen living in the East European steppelands were the Iranian-speaking ancestors of the later Scythians and Sarmatians. There is also good reason to believe that a possible genetic link exists between the population of the Dnieper Basin and Volhynia in the second millennium and the future Slav tribes. Scholars, who support this view, point to the cremation of the dead, predominant among all these tribes, as being one of the later ethnographic features of Slav culture.The population of the European part of the USSR made the acquaintance of iron at the same time as did the peoples of Western Europe, at the beginning of the first millennium. Iron came to Siberia two or three hundred years later.
The appearance of iron brought about a real revolution in technology and in the economy throughout the country. The ploughing of the land by tribes already familiar with agriculture became possible only after its appearance. Only iron could make possible the further advance of agriculture to the north, since the iron axe enabled the tribes to clear areas of virgin forest ready for the plough.
On the other hand, the settled and semi-nomadic cattle-herding tribes of the southern steppes had gone over to a nomadic way of life and abandoned agriculture. The breeding of horses progressed rapidly and dashing horsemen armed with iron weapons became the most militant part of the population. Armed clashes between tribes became more frequent, and promoted the formation of groups and alliances. The victors seized the property of the conquered, enslaved the people, or demanded tribute from them.
The clan system of social organisation was entering the last phase of its historical development and was in a state of almost complete collapse. The old communal relations and communal economy began to breakup. Individual families separated from the commune and each family began to acquire its own property. This process was accelerated or retarded according to the conditions actually obtaining in each commune. A factor that acquired considerable importance was that of the greater or lesser proximity of the tribes to the slave-owning civilisations of the time. In the Iron Age some of the slave-owning states were in direct contact with peoples inhabiting the territory of the USSR.
The earliest state formation on the present territory of the Soviet Union was Urartu. According to Assyrian cuneiform sources it was founded by a powerful tribal alliance in the middle of the ninth century B.C. on the Armenian Highlands. It was a despotic state of the type common in the ancient East. Its centre was the Lake Van area, on the eastern shore of which was the city of Tushpa, capital of Urartu. In the 12 following century the Urartu kings, in a number of wars of conquest, spread their rule over territory to the north of the River Arax, but their invasions of Southern Armenia and Georgia were mere raids made for the seizure of booty.
Urartu's chief enemy was Assyria, against which the Urartaeans scored notable successes in the middle of the eighth century B.C. This was the beginning of Urartu's period of great progress, when the whole Transcaucasus area came firmly under Urartu rule. Inscriptions of the period mention not only victorious campaigns, but also tell of huge construction works, the building of fortresses, temples and irrigation canals. The fortress of Argishti, built on the left bank of the Arax, became the stronghold and administrative centre of Urartu rule in the Transcaucasus. Similar strongholds were built in other parts of Southern Armenia and Georgia; the most important of them was the town and citadel of Teishebaini (on the Karmir-Blur Hill, near Yerevan), a splendid specimen of Urartaean architecture.
Urartu's rule of the Transcaucasus lasted only two centuries. By the middle of the seventh century there were already signs that the Urartu state was on the decline. Urartu ceased to exist for history at the beginning of the sixth century when she was attacked by the Medes from the south and the nomadic Cimmerians and Scythians from the north.
The Kartvelian tribes, the ancestors of the present Georgians, who had been under Urartu rule, were known to ancient historians as Colchians and Iberians, the former inhabiting what is now Western Georgia and the latter Eastern Georgia.
The formation of an independent Colchis state was retarded because that tribe came under the rule of the Persian Achemenids in the latter half of the sixth century B.C. and subsequently formed part of the Pontian Kingdom. The Colchians maintained trade relations with the Greek city-colonies on the Caucasian coast and this greatly influenced their further historical development.
According to ancient legends recorded in Georgian chronicles, the emergence of the Iberian state is connected with the alleged campaign of Alexander the Great in the valley of the River Kura. There is no doubt, however, that the Iberian state actually existed in the third century B.C.
The Armenians, the people inhabiting the southern part of the Transcaucasus area, also came under the rule of the Achemenids and later of the Seleucids after Urartu ceased to exist, but the chiefs of some of the Armenian tribes retained a certain independence even under the rule of a foreign power. After the Romans defeated the Seleucids at the battle of Magnesia in 190 B.C., two Armenian regions, Sophene and ``Great'' Armenia, declared their independence. The united Armenian state took shape throughout the second century B.C. as the Armenian kings gradually brought all the lands inhabited by Armenians under their rule.
The steppes and mountainous regions of Central Asia, with their rich pasturelands, were inhabited by war-like nomadic tribes throughout the first millennium B.C. The historians of antiquity called them collectively Masagetae and Sacae, the latter holding the territory to the east of the River Syr Darya and the former to the west of that river, south of the Aral Sea. Their way of life and their culture were similar to those of the 13 tribes inhabiting the steppes to the north of the Black Sea, with the exception that iron found its way into Central Asia some two or three hundred years later than into the Northern Black Sea area. The settled tribes of Central Asia farmed irrigated lands as early as the middle of the first millennium. In the second half of the sixth century B.C. a large part of Central Asia was conquered by the Persians and formed part of the Achemenid state; Khwarizm (modern Khorezm) was the only state to free itself from Persian domination in 4he early fourth century B.C. During the campaign of conquest conducted by Alexander the Great, both the settled and nomadic tribes of Central Asia put up a long and stubborn struggle against the conqueror, and Alexander was able to consolidate his rule over only part of the country. After the collapse of Alexander's empire, Central Asia was linked historically with Parthia and the Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom until the latter was broken up by the raids of horsemen from the steppes towards the end of the second century B.C. In the first century B.C., two areas of Central Asia, Khwarizm and Sogd, formed part olthe Kushan Kingdom whose centres were in Northern India.
The Greeks who founded the city-colonies on the northern and eastern shores of the Black Sea did not come as conquerors. At the turn of the sixth century B.C., the period when the Greek colonisation of the Northern Black Sea area began, many of the Mediterranean Greek cities were in need of imported grain and other raw materials; they were also interested in marketing goods produced by their handicraftsmen. Many of the Greek settlements served as trading posts or factories.
In the first half of the sixth century B.C., colonists from Ionian Miletus founded Olvia, on the right bank of the Bug-Dnieper lagoon, which later became one of the biggest and richest of the Greek cities in the Northern Black Sea area.
In the sixth century B.C. these same Ionian Greeks founded a number of settlements on both shores of the Kerch Strait. The biggest of them were Panticapaeum (on the site of modern Kerch) and Feodosia on the eastern coast of the Crimea, Phanagoria and Hermonassa on the Tainan Peninsula. The only Doric city on the northern coast of the Black Sea was Chersones, founded in the fifth century B.C. near modern Sevastopol by colonists from Pontian Heracleus (the modern town of Eregli in Asia Minor). On the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea the Greeks founded the towns of Phasis (modern Poti), Dioscurias (to the south of Sukhumi) and Pitius (modern Pitsunda).
The situation obtaining in the Northern Black Sea area at the time of the Greek colonisation differed vastly from that of the Transcaucasus in the Urartu period. Because of their small numbers the Greek colonists, living far from their native land, could not hope to subdue the population of this huge area by force of arms. They were, furthermore, greatly interested in maintaining peaceful relations with the local population because the barter of goods with them promised the Greeks big profits. The local people, too, especially the tribal nobility, were interested in maintaining economic relations with Greek coastal colonies. The relations that became established between the local tribes and the colonists, however, did not preclude a number of armed conflicts. Even the smallest Greek settlements on the northern shores of the Black Sea 14 __CAPTION__ Pan-athenian amphora from a banal mound near Yelizavetinskaya, Kuban, end of fifth-early fourth centuries B.C. were surrounded by strong walls and guarded by towers. Nevertheless, the first centuries of Greek colonisation were predominantly years of peace and not war between the colonists and the local population. In the course of their economic and cultural relations there was a certain assimilation of the two groups.
As the role of the Northern Black Sea area in the economic life of Greece increased century by century, the Greeks displayed a growing interest in the country and its inhabitants. The names of several hundred authors whose writings contained information on the Northern Black Sea area are recorded in the literature of the period of antiquity; first place among these writers undoubtedly belongs to Herodotus (484--425 B.C.).
At the time when Herodotus wrote his history, the Northern Black Sea area was inhabited mainly by Scythians. Herodotus, like other writers of antiquity, used the term ``Scythian'' as the collective name for a large number of tribes that seem to have been mainly Persian-speaking; they occupied the extensive steppelands from the mouth of the Danube, the Lower Bug and the Dnieper to the Sea of Azov and the River Don. Herodotus divides the Scythians into two groups, according to their way of life---the settled tillers of the soil and the nomad herdsmen.
15The archaeological study of many Scythian settlements of this period provides a picture of a relatively highly developed system of agriculture combined with the breeding of cattle, horses and poultry.
The nomad Scythians and those known as the "Royal Scythians'', whom Herodotus considered the most warlike, inhabited the steppes to the east of the River Dnieper as far as the Sea of Azov, including the Crimean steppelands. Herodotus describes in great detail the laws, customs, beliefs and way of life of the nomad Scythians; he stresses the fact that they did not obtain their food by tilling the soil but by cattle-breeding. They lived in tents and were constantly on the move across the steppes of the whole southern part of the country with their huge herds of horses and cattle. Burial mounds of the early period provide a certain picture of the life of the Scythians. One of these mounds, dating back to the sixth century B.C., contained the skeletons of over 400 horses tethered in straight rows. The richness of such burials contrasts sharply with the graves of the ordinary Scythians, which are almost bare of funeral artifacts; this is an indication of the noticeable social and property inequality already present in Scythian society. This process was accelerated by trade with the Greek city-colonies and by the constant armed conflicts between tribes, which provided both booty and prisoners. It must be stressed, however, that there is considerable evidence to support the view that slave-labour was not widely employed in Scythia proper, and that such slavery, as there was, was still of a patriarchal nature. It may be assumed, therefore, that Scythian society had not evolved a class differentiation or achieved state unification. Nevertheless, it stands to reason that the big campaigns of the Scythians against Asia Minor and Anterior Asia, mentioned in cuneiform inscriptions, and their repulse of the invasion of the Northern Black Sea area by the hordes under King Darius I of Persia (as recorded by Herodotus) point to the existence of big tribal alliances. These alliances, however, were not of a stable character and rapidly collapsed. The first indisputable evidence of Scythian statehood belongs to the third century B.C.
Our knowledge of the culture of the Scythians comes mainly from the numerous artifacts found in the world-famous tumuli at Kul-Oba (Kerch), Chertomlyk and Solokha (Southern Dnieper area), Gaimanova Mogila (excavated in 1969 in the Zaporozhye Region) and many others. Scythian culture was very widespread; its pottery, articles of bronze, iron and precious metals, weapons (short swords --- akinaki, arrow-heads and spearheads), objets d'art with a mainly animal ornament, have been found not only on the territory described by Herodotus as that belonging properly to the Scythians, but in many other places as well---in the Caucasus, Bulgaria, Hungary, in the Eastern Baltic area, in Siberia, Central Asia and even in Anterior Asia.
The culture of the Northern Black Sea Scythians was undoubtedly close to that of the contemporary population of the Upper Yenisei and the Altai Mountains, two groups that were separated by thousands of kilometres. Several bronze cauldrons, for example, have been found on the Yenisei that resemble those of the Black Sea area, not only in shape and size, but also in their ornament; the same is true of weapons and of the carvings of animals. Weapons and various other articles of the 16 __CAPTION__ Scythian day toy cart from Kerch, first century A.D. Scythian type have been found in Central Asia, the Volgaside and the Kamaside. These finds bear witness to the extensive intercourse that took place in the early Iron Age between the peoples inhabiting the steppelands that stretch right across the south of the present USSR.
It would, of course, be incorrect to overlook the differences between the various groups of the population of that time. Herodotus always draws a sharp distinction between the Scythians and related tribes, and tribes that are not Scythian. According to him, the territory occupied by the Scythians proper only stretched as far eastwards as the River Don. The tribes that lived beyond the Don, in the Lower Volga and Urals steppes were not Scythians, but nomad herdsmen of Sauromatians (or Sarmatians) who resembled the Scythians in language and culture. South of the Sarmatians there were numerous tribes known collectively to the writers of antiquity as Maeotae; they inhabited the eastern shores of the Sea of Azov---ancient Maeotis---the Taman Peninsula and part of the Kuban area. Herodotus had little knowledge of the tribes living further from the Greek colonies and which were not greatly influenced by them.
The history of the Greek city-colonies on the northern coast of the Black Sea is above all that of the three main centres --- Olvia, Chersones and the towns on the Cimmerian Bosphorus.
When Herodotus visited Olvia in the fifth century B.C., it was a big and flourishing city. Some of the inhabitants of Olvia engaged in farming in the vicinity of the city, but commerce was the most highly developed branch of economy. Olvia maintained lively commercial relations with many Mediterranean Greek cities, with the. Black Sea Greek citycolonies and with the local tribes who provided grain and raw materials. In its political structure Olvia was a typical Greek city-state (polls).
Another big centre, Doric Chersones, unlike Olvia, did not engage so much in compradore trade as in selling the produce obtained from its own farms on the adjacent Heracles Peninsula. Chersones also had possessions on the western coast of the Crimea, in the vicinity of modern Evpatoria. In the fourth century B.C. agriculture in Chersones was conducted for commercial purposes. Grapes were made into wine for the market. Chersones also traded in fish, salt and handicraft produce.
The Greek city-colonies that sprang up on both shores of the Kerch Strait---the ancient Cimmerian Bosphorus---unlike Chersones and Olvia, united under the common government of the hereditary archons of Panticapaeum between 490 and 480 B.C. The frontiers of the Bosphorus state were extended under the semi-Greek dynasty of Spartocids which came to power in the thirties of the same century. In __PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2--160 17 __CAPTION__ Electrum vessel from the Kul-Oba burial mound near Kerch, fourth century B. C. the fourth century B. C. the Bosphorus state extended its power over the entire Kerch Peninsula and also on the other side of the Strait---its possessions stretched from modern Novorossiisk in the south to the mouth of the River Don in the north-east. The local tribes of Scythians and Maeotae were subordinated to Bosphorus which, in time, ceased to be a Greek state and became a powerful slave-owning state with a mixed Greek and local population. This set its mark on all aspects of economic, social, political and cultural life.The concentration of such a large territory under a single authority made possible the better use of natural resources and the development of trade with the entire Hellenic world, primarily with Athens, on a scale incomparably greater than that of Olvia and Chersones combined.
The prosperity of Bosphorus, Olvia and Chersones, however, was short-lived. Towards the end of the fourth century and, particularly, in the first half of the third century B.C., there were sharp changes in the whole situation throughout the Northern Black Sea area, due to the appearance of new large tribal alliances, hostile to the Greek cities and the Bosphorus Kingdom, and also to a considerable movement of the tribes. The powerful and warlike tribes of Sarmatians, who at the time of Herodotus had lived beyond the River Don, united into several powerful tribal alliances and, advancing westwards, drove the Scythians from a larger part of their former territories. The Sarmatians in their westward drive reached the Dnieper and the Danube, and the Scythians they displaced concentrated in the steppes and foothills of the Crimea. A strong Scythian state, headed by King Skilur, grew up in this area with its centre at Neapolis in the second half of the third century. This was an alarming situation for the Greeks, and was followed by a period of constant armed conflicts.
The Bosphorus Kingdom entered a period in which it was greatly weakened economically. A new and dangerous rival had appeared on the grain market, Hellenic Egypt, that had begun to export grain to Greece. The reduction of the grain export led to a financial crisis and weakened the military power of the Bosphorus Kingdom. The centrifugal tendencies of the tribes, that had even before this been troublesome to the Bosphorus kings, became greater than ever. The ruling nobility of the Bosphorus, headed by King Perisad, last of the Spartocid dynasty, lost all hope of handling the growing crisis with their own forces and at the 18 __CAPTION__ Golden ornament in the form of a deer from a burial mound at Kostromskoye, Kuban, late fifth-early fourth centuries B. C. end of the second century B.C. appealed for help to the Pontian King Mithradates Eupator. Perisad saw no way out of the situation, but to abdicate in favour of Mithradates. A large part of the Bosphorus population, a considerable section of which consisted of Scythians and slaves of Scythian origin, responded to the act of abdication by an insurrectioli. Perisad was killed and Saumacus, the leader of the insurrection, one of Perisad's palace slaves, became king.
The situation in Chersones was no better. The city lost much of its former territory in the constant battles with the advancing Scythians and appealed for help to the Pontian Kingdom. In 110 B.C. Mithradates sent his general Diophantus by sea with an army to help Chersones.
Diophantus cleared the territory belonging to Chersones of Scythians and Taurians, crushed the Scythians and allied tribes and occupied Neapolis and Cabei, their chief strongholds in the Crimea. The Scythian Kingdom proved unable to recover from this severe defeat. Diophantus then engaged in three campaigns against the Bosphorus Kingdom, took Panticapaeum and Feodosia by storm and suppressed the insurrection of Saumacus. After these campaigns Bosphorus and Chersones became part of the Pontian Kingdom-.
The same fate overtook Olvia, after which Mithradates extended his rule over the towns of the Western Black Sea area.
In a stubborn struggle between Mithradates and Rome over a period of three wars, the Northern Black Sea area played no small role; the area supplied the armies of Mithradates with provisions, and Scythians, Sarmatians, Maeotians and Taurians fought side by side with his troops.
__PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 19After the defeat and death of Mithradates, the deciding factor both in the Northern and Western Black Sea areas was no longer the coastal cities or the Bosphorus state, but the warlike local tribes. The Romans had come into conflict with them even during the war against Mithradates, when he still had Thrace on his side.This compelled the Romans to maintain a large army in their province of Macedonia with the aid of which they overcame the resistance of the Thracian tribes and extended their rule as far as the Lower Danube. Their rule, however, proved very unstable. In the fifties and forties of the first century B.C. a powerful tribal alliance of the Gettae was formed on the Lower Danube under the leadership of Burbista. In a short time the Gettae conquered the entire littoral from Burgas Bay to Olvia, which they captured and razed to the ground.
Several decades passed before the Romans, by a great effort, were able to restore their frontiers on the Lower Danube. The situation of this frontier, however, remained tense. The Dacians, Sarmatians and other tribes made constant raids on Rome's Danube frontier and compelled the Romans to maintain a stronger army there than in any other of their provinces.
The situation that developed on the Danube" frontier, which covered the routes to the most important centres of the empire, was bound to affect Roman politics in the Northern Black Sea area. The Romans' experience of the wars against Mithradates taught them that they did not possess the strength necessary to subdue the country by force of arms. After the death of Mithradates they granted autonomy to the city of Phanagoria that had revolted against him, and gave the Bosphorus throne to Mithradates's son, Pharnaces, who had defected to them. This, however, did not prevent Pharnaces from attacking Rome shortly after. He took advantage of civil war in Rome, obtained the help of the Scythians and Sarmatians, and invaded Asia Minor through the Caucasian littoral; in the first big battle he was defeated by Caesar. The Romans made several further attempts to put their own prot6g6s on the throne but this they usually failed to achieve and had to be satisfied with the formal recognition of Roman overlordship by the Bosphorus kings.
There was no further Roman political activity in the Black Sea area until the time of Nero. His death and the crisis of 68--69 A.D. put an end to Roman Black Sea expansion. At this time a new and powerful alliance of the Dacians was forming on the Danube under the leadership of Decebal; Sarmatians, Rpxolans and other tribes were moving towards the Roman frontiers. This was the beginning of a new period of wars that were a heavy drain on Roman resources and in which the Romans suffered a number of heavy defeats from the tribes that attacked their frontiers. There was no longer any question of the Romans strengthening their position in the Northern Black Sea area and the troops that had been quartered there under Nero were hurriedly transferred to the Danube. Relations were then established between Rome and the Bosphorus Kingdom and continued unchanged almost to the end of the period of antiquity. Now it was Rome that was interested in obtaining military aid from Bosphorus to protect the approaches to its frontiers from hostile tribes. With this aim in view Rome began to pay Bosphorus 20 Gold mask irom the tomb of a Bosphorus king in Kerch, third century A. D. an annual subsidy for the maintenance of an army. Although the official inscriptions and coinage still continued to show respect for the Roman emperors, Bosphorus was, in practice, an independent state.
A certain normalisation and even progress in the Bosphorus economy took place during the Roman period of its history. Bosphorus not only preserved its formed territories, but even extended them slightly, since Chersones was factually its protectorate. The agriculture, viniculture, fishing, handicrafts and trade of Bosphorus were revived. Bosphorus exports of grain, salted fish and other foodstuffs went, in particular, to supply the Roman armies. Indicative of the social life of Bosphorus in this period are inscriptions that have come down to us on the manumission of slaves, which show that slavelabour was gradually becoming obsolete on the outskirts of the ancient world. Politically, Bosphorus remained a centralised monarchy in which there was a noticeable development of a bureaucratic system of government. Considerable changes took place in the country's cultural life, which had beea increasingly influenced by its local environment. Bosphorus art in this period shows very obvious traces of Sarmatian influence. Christian symbols appeared sporadically on Bosphorus artifacts and gravestones at the end of the third century. In the fourth century Bosphorus became an independent bishopric. Christianity penetrated into the Transcaucasus and Christian monuments have also been unearthed in Chersones, whose economic life was revived to a certain degree in Roman times. Olvia became a second-rate settlement after it had been destroyed by the Gettae and its trade was confined to the cities of Western Pont. The constant battles with the local tribes exhausted the strength of the coastal states and in the mid-second century Roman troops had to be sent to Chersones and Olvia since these cities were unable to hold out alone against the enemies that beset them from all sides. At the end of the century Olvia was officially included in the Roman province of Mesia. The more powerful Bosphorus continued to hold out with its own forces and, as inscriptions of the time show, was at times victorious over its neighbours.
The situation, however, was growing more tense. In the second century a new alliance of tribes made its appearance; the writers of the 21 time called these tribes by the collective name of Alan, which was probably the name of one of the Sarmatian tribes. This alliance included, in addition to the Sarmatians, the Scythians and Maeotae. The Alan alliance advanced far to the west. The Romans fought against it on the Danube during the reigns of the Roman emperors Antonus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. Then, at the beginning of the third century, the Goths, who belonged to the group of Germanic tribes that inhabited the Baltic seaboard, entered the history of the Northern Black Sea area. Many other tribes, probably Slavs among them, joined the huge alliance headed by the Goths. It was under the impact of this new enemy that the rapidly progressing decay of Bosphorus began. By the middle of the third century Bosphorus had lost all ability to resist and entered into an agreement with some tribes, apparently part of the Gothic alliance, and provided them with ships for maritime raids. Between 250 and 280 A.D. many terrible raids on the coasts of the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea were made in Bosphorus ships.-The raiders left waste and devastation behind them. In the course of the struggle against the Alans and the Goths the Romans were compelled to withdraw their garrisons from Chersones and Olvia; after this the coining of money was discontinued in Olvia and within another hundred years all life in the settlement ceased.
The final and most terrible blow of all was struck at the Northern Black Sea states of antiquity by the Huns. The powerful tribal alliance of the Huns had been formed as far back as the third century B.C. in the steppes and deserts of Central Asia. China was well acquainted with the Huns who had formerly made constant and devastating raids on her frontiers. Later the Huns, held together by a sound military organisation, conquered many other tribes and ruled over a huge territory in Central Asia. In the third century A.D. they advanced far to the west, routed the Alans and in the seventies of the fourth century invaded the territory of Bosphorus. The Bosphorus towns and villages became heaps of rubble and life in them ceased forever. Because it was not situated on the main road of the Hun invasion, Chersones survived for a time and life continued there for another hundred years.
Such was the end of the period of antiquity on the territory now occupied by the Soviet Union. The states that had existed through all the centuries of this period suffered the same fate as Rome and the entire ancient world, to which they were bound by numerous economic, social, political and cultural ties.
Another page in history was turned, and the age of feudalism came to replace the age of antiquity.
[22] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Two __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE ANCIENT RUSSIAN STATEThe economy of Europe and Anterior Asia, based on slave-labour, suffered a serious decline about the middle of the first millennium of our era. Slave-owning states, that in the past had been big and powerful, were collapsing. New social relations were emerging among the peoples and tribes---the Germanic and Slav tribes in Europe, the Turkic tribes in Asia---and even among tribes that had been far removed from the centres of the old slave-owning states. The aristocracy that was growing up in these tribes and peoples could not employ slave-labour on a large scale; they had become rich by constant armed raids on their neighbours and also at the expense of members of their own communities whom they forced to hand over part of their labour or their produce. The working population never left the soil, but the ownership of the chief means of production, the land, was gradually concentrated in the hands of the newly emerging aristocracy. Marx classed as feudalism the social relations under which the exploited working people are owners of means of production and of their own farms.
The general features of feudalism as it affected the lives-of the peoples inhabiting the present territory of the Soviet Union began to appear to some degree in the middle and, especially, towards the end of the first millennium.
The Transcaucasus and Central Asia were the first to adopt the feudal system, in the fourth to the sixth centuries; these were the parts of the country most closely connected with the old slave-owning states of Europe and the East. The feudal state of Rus (or ancient Russia) took shape later, in the second half of the first millennium A. D., that is, at approximately the same time as the West European feudal states.
Ever since it was formed, the ancient Russian state, situated on the Great East European plain, was one of the largest states at the time and played an important role in the history of the peoples of the whole of Europe, and not just those of the Soviet Union.
The ancient Russian state emerged as the result of the, long process of development of the East Slav tribes. The Slavs constitute one of the biggest and most important ethnic groups of Europe.
The first mention of the Slav tribes in written sources dates back to the first and second centuries A. D. (Tacitus, Pliny, Ptolemy). Known as Venedi, Slavs were then settling in the Vistula basin and, probably, along the Baltic coast. Hardly any mention is made of the Slavs in 23 written sources dating from the third to the fifth centuries. Only the Tabula Peutingerana, which are not later than the fourth century, refer to the Slavs, calling them Venedi-Sarmati (north-west of the Carpathians) and just Venedi (Danube estuary).
Much more was written about them in the sixth century, due to the role the Slav tribes were beginning to play in Eastern Europe and to their struggle against Byzantium. According to Byzantine sources, the Slavs occupied an enormous area stretching from the Danube to the Vistula in the sixth century and were divided into three large groups; the Sclaveni, the Antes and the Venedi. The Sclaveni lived between the Dniester, the middle reaches of the Danube and the upper reaches of the Vistula, the Antes were in the area between the lower reaches of the Dniester and the Dnieper and in the Black Sea area, and the Venedi had settled in the Vistula basin. It has been suggested that these three groups subsequently gave rise to the threefold division of the Slavs, with the Sclaveni becoming the South Slavs, the Venedi the West Slavs and the Antes the East Slavs. Yet sixth-century sources provide no indication of any differences between these groups; if anything, they show their unity, pointing out that they had the same language, customs and laws.
The unity of the Slavs was expressed in their social system. In the sixth century the Slavs were going through the last stage of development of the clan system of social organisation, the basis of which was the patriarchal family commune. Statehood had not yet been achieved in the sixth century. A contemporary Byzantine writer stated: "These tribes, the Slavs and Antes, are not ruled by any one man, but have lived in democracy from time immemorial.'' Side by side with the people's assembly there were the tribal chiefs or knyazya (princes). Chronicles record, for instance, that Musoky, Piragast and Ardagast were chiefs of the Sclaveni who warred against Byzantium. The tribal chiefs belonged to the tribal aristocracy, who were beginning to emerge from the mass of the tribesmen on account of their property status. In the sixth century tribal disunity had still not been overcome, but there were signs that the Slavs were ready for unity on a more stable basis. This development was largely prompted by the constant wars that the Slavs waged against Byzantium throughout almost the whole of the sixth century. Alliances were set up between the Slav tribes in the course of the struggle. When the Slav emissary Lavrit addressed the Byzantines with the proud words "Has the man who could subdue our strength yet been born on earth, and is he warming himself in the sun's rays?'', he could only have been speaking on behalf of a powerful military and political amalgamation of Slavs.
Unlike the Western Roman Empire that collapsed under the blows of the Germanic tribes, Byzantium proved able to withstand the advance of the Slavs. Byzantium as a state remained, but a considerable part of its territory south of the Danube and in the Balkans was settled by the Slavs who subsequently founded the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the Principality of Serbia and other Slav states, and who constituted the southern branch of Slavdom.
In its struggle against the Slavs Byzantium made use of the Avar hordes that surged into the Danube area in the second half of the sixth century. The nomadic Avars constantly attacked the Slavs, plundering 24 and lading waste the land. A Russian chronicle tells of a defeat inflicted by the Avars on the Dulebian tribal alliance in the Carpathian foothills. The Avars also dealt a heavy blow to the Antes, the most powerful amalgamation of the Slav tribes in the Black Sea area. At the beginning of the seventh century the Avar kagan sent his warriors to completely annihilate the Antes, and after this their name disappears entirely from Byzantine chronicles. This disappearance should not, of course, be explained by supposing that the tribes comprising the Antes were exterminated; it is simply that they withdrew from direct contact with Byzantine possessions and moved on to the areas along the Dnieper, where they were safe from nomadic incursions.
This migration of the Slavs is recorded in a Russian chronicle in the narrative about the dispersal of the Slavs from the Danube in various directions ``(they scattered over the land''), with some heading into Eastern Europe. The migration of the Slavs from the Danube into the Dnieper area is also enshrined in the story of Prince Kii, who wished at first to settle "with his kinsfolk" along the Danube, but who was driven out by the people already there and moved on to the Dnieper. The Slav migration that is recorded in the chronicle is also supported by archaeological evidence. Early archaeological traces of the Slavs (turn of the sixth and seventh centuries) found on the right bank of the Dnieper are similar to the Slav remains along the Danube. The Sc/avem'probably joined in this north-eastward movement from the Danube as well as the Antes. The view has even been put forward that the tradition whereby the Radimichi and the Vyatichi arrived in Eastern Europe "from the land of the Lyakhs" (Poles) is evidence showing that some of the tribes of the Venedi, which occupied the northern part of the East European Plain, were also involved in the process of migration from west to east that occurred at the turn of the seventh and eighth centuries.
A grandiose picture of the migration of the Slav tribes on the Great East European Plain was given by a Russian chronicler living at the end of the eleventh and in the early twelfth century. Although he was describing events that had taken place nearly 300 years earlier, most of his statements have been corroborated by other sources, written and archaeological alike.
The chronicler begins his description with the right bank of the middle reaches of the Dnieper. This was the home of the Polyane, the people of the plains with their centre in the town of Kiev; to the north and west of the Polyane, between the rivers Ros and Pripyat, lived the Drevlyaneor forest people, whose centre was the town of Iskorosten; in the swamps of the left bank of the Pripyat, to the north of these two tribes, lived another tribe, the Dregovichi; to the west of the Polyane, on the upper reaches of the Southern Bug, were the Buzhane or Volhyniane, and further to south-west, in the basin of the River Dniester, the Ulichiand Tivertsi; in the Transcarpathian area there were the White Croatians; on the left bank of the Dnieper, in the basin of the rivers Sula, Seim and Desna and as far to the east as the Northern Donets, lived the Severyane; north of them, between the upper reaches of the Dnieper and the Sozh, were the Radimichi, and still further north, around the upper reaches of the Volga, the Dnieper, and the Dvina, were the Krivichi, with their centre in the town of Smolensk; along the River Polota, a tributary of the 25 Western Dvina (Daugava) lived the Polochane whose centre was the town of Polotsk; around Lake Ilmen there were the Slovenye&nd, lastly, the most easterly of the Slav tribes were the Vyatichi who occupied the basin of the upper and middle reaches of the Oka and the Moskva rivers.
During their slow advance northwards and north-eastwards the Slav tribes took over large areas that were already peopled by Baltic tribes (the upper Dnieper) and Finno-Ugrian tribes (the Lake Ladoga area and the territory between the Volga and the Oka). The newly arrived Slavs settled among the small local populations and eventually, after long contact, assimilated them.
The chronicler singles out the Polyaneas being the Slav tribe that was far ahead of the others in its development. Yet archaeological finds dating from the eighth and ninth centuries show that the Slav tribes differed little from one another in material culture. The Slavs had a settled mode of existence. They fortified their settlements by building ramparts, or chose a site that was eminently defensible. But in areas where there was no threat of attack the settlements were not fortified (in the area to the west of the Dnieper). The settlements were arranged in clusters consisting of 3-4 smaller communities. The distance between the communities would be up to five kilometres, while that between the clusters would be anything from 30 to 100 kilometres. A Slav dwelling took the form of a semidugout with a roof sloping in two or three directions. Inside there would be a stove or hearth, with the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof, and benches up to a metre wide were placed around the walls. The work premises were alongside the living quarters.
The Slavs' main occupation was farming, which had already become ploughland cultivation everywhere. The land was tilled with animaldrawn tools of the plough type, and a wide range of grain crops was grown: there was wheat (of two kinds: soft and hard), rye (winter and spring), barley, leguminous and fibrous plants. The slash-and-burn and the fallow field methods, which were still prominent, particularly in northern areas, began to give way to the two- and three-field system involving fallow strips. Livestock raising was very important in Slav farming. Fodder was prepared for the winter, as is shown by the scythes found during excavations. To judge by the quantities of bones unearthed in Slav settlements, the most important animals were big-horned cattle, next came pigs and then small-horned cattle. Relatively few bones from horses were found, showing that the horse was only used as a draught animal. Hunting and fishing were practised everywhere, with animals being hunted for their fur as well as for meat.
The spread of permanent ploughland farming throughout the area settled by the Slavs marked an enormous advance on the earlier slash-and-burn system.
A further important indication of the growth of productive forces among the East Slavs was the development of handicraft industries. The working of iron developed in areas where there were deposits of bog ore. Dozens of small blast furnaces in which iron was smelted have been found on the sites of several Slav settlements. Nearly every settlement had a number of forges. Jewellers worked on imported materials. 26 Excavations show that spinning, and hence weaving, was carried out in Slav houses, furs and skins were dressed and pottery was produced. Some of the commodities were undoubtedly made for exchange.
Handicraft production paved the way for the appearance of towns as centres of the handicraft industry. By the beginning of the tenth century several fortified Slav towns had already become centres of the handicraft industry; they included Kiev, Chernigov, Smolensk and Novgorod.
The period from the seventh to the ninth centuries was also one in which external economic relations grew up between the East Slavs and the countries of the East, Byzantium and the Baltic countries. The Great Volga Route was a link between the East Slavs and the tribes inhabiting the Middle Volga and, farther, across the Khvalyn (Caspian) Sea, with the countries of the East. The Dnieper Route connected the East Slavs with Byzantium. By the end of the ninth century, both the Volga Route and the Dnieper Route ``(the path from the Varangians to the Greeks'') were extended to the Baltic area and thus became trade routes of all-European importance.
Archaeological evidence shows that the social system of the Slavs in the eighth and ninth centuries was characterised everywhere by the existence of a village or territorial commune as a union of individual households (small families) owning their living accommodation, their tools, the product of their labour, and the plot of land that they cultivated. The small size of a dwelling, accommodating only 4-5 people, the siting and size of the work premises, and the smallness of the stock of products all indicate the individual nature of the Slav economy. This is also supported by the fact that among the Slavs tribute was collected from each house, as is recorded in a Russian chronicle. Although archaeologists have not unearthed any traces of collective life or activities in the Slav communities of the eighth and ninth centuries ``(large houses'', common storehouses, common cattle enclosures, etc.), nevertheless, to judge from the subsequent development of the peasant commune, one must also assume that collective ownership of the land and, here and there, collective work and vestiges of the clan system in everyday life, notions of law and ideology must have been features of the Slav commune of the eighth and ninth centuries.
Private ownership and the individual labour based on it led inevitably to inequality as regards property and hence to social inequality. The emergence of property-owning elite from the commune bore witness to the formation of classes. This process was also reflected in the appearance by the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth centuries of both rich and poor Slav burials which have been found by archaeologists in the largest Slav towns, and in the formation within the Slav settlements of fortified houses set apart from the others --- the castles which were the homes of the economically powerful e"lite that had emerged from the commune. All these developments were reflected in the ancient Russkaya Pravda (Russian Law), a code of laws compiled in the eleventh century under Prince Yaroslav the Wise (for which reason it is also known as Pravda Yaroslava) but which basically refers to the period immediately preceding the formation of the ancient Russian state.
27This first Russkaya Pravda undoubtedly reflects a class society, but one that had still not freed itself from the outward forms of clan society. That important institution of the clan system of social organisation, the blood feud, still existed. Clan relations, however, were giving way to territorial relations. The main social organisation mentioned in the document was the mir, the territorial village commune (the word mir means ``world'', but right up to the twentieth century, it also conveyed the idea of the community in which the peasants lived---the village commune that was their ``world''). The mir, however, had ceased to be a community of equals.
The ancient Russkaya Pravda demonstrates clearly that the Slav mir contained antagonistic class elements. Russkaya Pravda is devoted mainly to the protection of the interests of the muzh, the man of upper social stratum of Slav society. The muzh was closely connected with the mir, he lived in the mir, but unlike the other members of the mir, he was not a tiller of the,soil, not a worker; he was a man of war, or mostly so. The muzh lived in the hall (khoromi) with his numerous retainers (chelyad). The retainers were mostly slaves, but as time went on larger numbers of free men appeared among them, members of the mir who had been ruined and had become dependent on the rich muzh. The hall was not only the residence of the muzh but was also the centre of his estate, the lands, meadows, forests and waters that he had seized from the commune and converted into his hereditary private property (otchina or votchina, i. e., that belonging to the father, the basic term for feudal landed estates in ancient Russia). As the muzh grew richer, his political power increased too.
The emergence of classes among the Slavs went hand in hand with the formation of the state.
It can be concluded from Byzantine sources that the Antes of the sixth century had not as yet developed a state, their princes or reges were military commanders who had not interfered with the prerogatives and rights of the people's assemblies, and their troops were drawn from all the people who bore arms. The princes' military cohorts had not yet appeared. By and large, it was the troops who retained the booty: valuables and captives were shared, and the conquered land was settled by the victors.
During the further development of the Slav tribes on the East European Plain between the seventh and ninth centuries, the democratic elements gradually disappeared. The Slite that had emerged from the Slav commune, the muzhi, to use the term of the ancient Russkaya Pravda, took over the organs of tribal self-government. Forming a group around the tribal prince, the muzhi came to constitute his armed retinue, through which the prince was already able to pit his strength against the vestigial organs of tribal self-government and to make use of them for the benefit of the rising class of rulers. The common law which had taken shape in the commune altered in accordance with the new conditions. The principal aim of these changes was to protect the feudal ownership that was developing. The ordinary member of the commune tilling his small plot of land ceased to be a soldier of any kind and became a mere farmer. War was now a matter for the prince and his army. Thus, in the course of a lengthy period of development, individual elements of the 28 __CAPTION__ Novgorod is being built. Miniature from the Radziwill Chronicle, fifteenth century state apparatus gradually took shape, i. e., the apparatus used as the instrument for the rule of one class over another.
The old Russian chronicler did not ignore the fact that the initial elements of statehood had appeared among the Slavs. In an undated section of the chronicle he refers to princely rule among the Polyane, Drevlyane, Dregovichi and the Novgorod Slovenye, and mentions by name the princes of the Vyatichi (Khodota) and the Drevlyane (Mai). Tribal alliances were also formed. Arab sources speak of three political centres in the area occupied by the Slav tribes in the eighth century---Kuyaba, Slavia and Artania. Kuyaba (Kuyava) was apparently the political union of the southern group of Slav tribes headed by the Kiev Polyane, Slavia was the alliance of the northern group of tribes headed by the Novgorod Slovenye. As far as Artania is concerned, the Eastern writers were probably referring to the south-eastern group of Slav tribes, perhaps the Vyatichi and the town of Ryazan.
The Russian chronicles confirm the Arab historians; they divide the Slavs into two groups --- the southern group consisting of the Polyane, Severyane and Vyatichi, and the northern group of Slovenye, Krivichi and a number of non-Slav tribes. These two alliances of Slav tribes constituted the core of the ancient Russian state.
The final stage in the formation of the ancient Russian state is mentioned in the sources as the foundation of ``Rus'', the "Russian land''; these sources call the people who founded this state ``Rusi'' or ``Rosi''.
The terms are met with in many sources, beginning with the sixth century. A number of Arab writers mention the campaigns of the Rusi against Derbent and the Transcaucasian possessions of the Persian King Khosrow in the thirties and forties of the seventh century.
Historical sources contain much greater information on Rus and the Rusi in the eighth and ninth centuries. Frequent mention is made of the 29 trade between Rus and Byzantium and other countries, and there is information on the political system of Rus and on the Rusi. In the ninth century the Rusi were already a powerful force with a political organisation and headed by princes (kagans); they were by then well known beyond their own territory. The information enables us to define the area occupied by the Rusi between the sixth and ninth centuries. This was the region around the middle reaches of the Dnieper and its tributary, the Ros. Rodnya, the chief town of the Rusi, stood on the high, sheer bank by the confluence of these two rivers. For a very long time this area had been called ``Rus'' or the "Russian land''. Later, when the dominant position in the tribal alliance in the Dnieper area passed to the Polyane, the names ``Rus'' and "Russian land" were transferred to a much wider area, centred on Kiev, and were later assumed by the ancient Russian state.
At the same time as the core of the Russian state was formed by the unification of the southern group of the East Slav tribes around Kiev as the centre and was headed by the Polyane, the northern group of the East Slav tribes united around Novgorod and were headed by the Slovenye.
The culminating point in this process was the unification of the southern and northern groups of East Slavs into a single Russian state with its centre at Kiev. This was accomplished when the southern group was fighting against the Khazars and the northern group against the Varangians.
The Slav tribes had reached a higher level of social and economic development than the nomad Khazars. The Khazars did not succeed in maintaining dominance over the Slavs for a long period. The first to free themselves from Khazar dominance were the Polyane.
Events in the north developed somewhat differently. The inroads made by the Varangians "from overseas'', i. e., from Scandinavia, into the lands of the East Slavs were piratical raids by Varangian freebooters for whom the Slav tribes were a new object of plunder and predatory commerce. The Russian chronicles tell of the atrocities of the Varangians, perpetrated against the Slavs and other tribes. The Slovenye, Krivichi and others revolted against the Varangians, drove them "over the sea" and became "masters of themselves''. By this time Novgorod, like Kiev, had become a political centre of emergent Slav statehood. The Novgorod Chronicle has preserved the legend of an elder named Gostomysl who governed Novgorod together with other elders. It seems, however, that the traditions of the clan system were still strong in Novgorod and this led to an acute struggle for power between the elders of Novgorod and other towns.
It was in this period of internecine struggle that Rurik made his appearance in Novgorod to become the legendary founder of the ruling dynasty in Russia.
The legend of Rurik, the legend of the "invitation of the Varangians'', gave rise to the Normanic theory of the origin of the Russian state that was invented by German historians living in Russia in the eighteenth century; this theory was widespread in pre-revolutionary Russia and is still sometimes met with in the historiography of other countries. The ``Normanists'', the supporters of this theory, tendentiously distorted 30 historical facts and represented the Slavs as primitive savage tribes at a very low level of historical development and incapable of founding a state without outside help. According to the Normanic theory, the Varangians, that is, the Normans of Scandinavia, were simultaneously the conquerors of the Slavs and the founders of the Russian state. In actual fact, the Slavs began to lay the foundations of their statehood long before the ninth century, the period of the Norman raids into Eastern Europe. The raids of the Norman freebooters served only as a hindrance to the development of Slav society and state.
The efforts of the Normanists to present the legend of the "invitation of the Varangians" as the historically authentic relation of real events are also groundless. Scholars who have studied the Russian chronicles have proved beyond doubt that the tale of the "invitation of the Varangians" was the invention of a Novgorod chronicler living in the eleventh century, who tried to explain the origin of the power of the princes in Russia on the basis of contemporary events in eleventh-century Novgorod, when the Novgorod people did invite to their city princes that were to their liking.
In addition to the legend of the "invitation of the Varangians'', the Russian chronicles have preserved a few real data on Rurik which provide a picture of the events in Novgorod that were connected with the name of Rurik and constitute the reality underlying the legend. Among them is the important information contained in the Ipatyevskaya Letopis (Ipatyev Chronicle) that before he came to Novgorod, Rurik had lived in the castle he built at Ladoga. This evidence, confirmed by Scandinavian sources and by archaeological finds of Scandinavian artifacts in the Ladoga area, refutes the story that the Varangians were "invited from over the sea''. Actually Rurik came to Novgorod from Ladoga and not from overseas; his castle was only about two hundred kilometres from Novgorod down the River Volkhov on which both Novgorod and Ladoga stood. The real circumstances of Rurik's appearance in Novgorod were also different. The prominent nineteenthcentury historian, Klyuchevsky, expressed the idea that Rurik came to Novgorod as the head of a band of Varangian mercenaries invited by the Novgorod elders at the time of the internecine struggle. It was this struggle that enabled him to seize power in Novgorod. The internecine warfare, however, did not lead to the collapse of the northern tribal alliance or the weakening of Novgorod's role as the political centre of the alliance. On the contrary, when Rurik ceased to be the captain of a band of mercenaries and became Prince of Novgorod, the struggle ceased and the power of Novgorod was consolidated. This enabled Rurik's successor, Prince Oleg of Novgorod, to organise a campaign to the south in which he conquered Kiev and killed the Kiev Princes, Askold and Dir. Kiev became the centre of the united state. This event, which the chronicles date at 882, is traditionally regarded as the date of the foundation of the ancient Russian state.
Although Rurik and Oleg were of Varangian origin, the state was Slav and not Varangian. The success of Rurik and Oleg is due to their activities having objectively promoted the unification of the Slav tribes, which had begun long before the appearance of the Varangians and independently of them, and which was determined by the development 31 of the social system of the Slavs themselves. Rurik did not become Prince of Novgorod as a conqueror, but because he was supported by the Slav tribal aristocracy, which saw in him a defender of its interests. The decisive role played by internal Slav social forces is seen still more clearly in the activities of Oleg. The main body of his army for the campaign against Kiev consisted of Slav tribes (Slovenye, Krivichi and others); there were very few Varangians. The Slav nature of the emergent state is also evident in the inability of the small number of Varangians, who were at a lower cultural level than the Slavs, to maintain their ethnical integrity. They were rapidly assimilated, and merged with the Slav aristocracy to form the ethnically uniform ruling class of feudal Rus.
The most important feature of the early period in the history of the ancient Russian state was the conquest of the Slav tribes and their subordination to Kiev as the political centre. Oleg (882--912) subdued the Drevlyane, Severyane and Radimichi, freeing the Severyane and Radimichi of their dependence on the Khazars to whom they had been paying tribute. Cleg's successor, Igor (912--945), subdued the Ulichiand Tivertsi and again brought under his rule the Drevlyane who had broken away from Kiev after the death of Oleg. Svyatoslav (965--972) and Vladimir (978--1015) carried out campaigns against the Vyatichi, the last Slav tribe to maintain its independence. In these campaigns the old tribal divisions were broken down and disappeared, and the territory of the ancient state of Rus was defined. The initial period in the history of the ancient Russian state is marked by the completion of the process whereby the ancient Russian nationality took shape. The economic and cultural ties that had long existed between the individual East Slav tribes, which were the basic component in the ancient Russian nationality, gave rise to the community of language, economy and culture which was responsible for the fusion of the separate tribes and other ethnic elements absorbed by the Slavs into an ancient Russian nationality.
Simultaneously with the unification of the Slav tribes, the tenthcentury princes of Kiev made war on the neighbours of the state of Rus---the Khazars, the peoples of the North Caucasus, the Bulgars of the Kama and the Danube, and the Poles. These wars served to extend the territory of Rus and to strengthen her frontiers. Instrumental here were Svyatoslav's defeat of the Khazars in 965 and the conclusion of an agreement with the Kama Bulgars.
The wars of Rus against Byzantium in the ninth and tenth centuries were of a different character; they were, in a way, the continuation of the wars against Byzantium of the sixth and seventh centuries. It was the struggle of a young and developing barbarian state against a big centre, against the successor to the civilisation of antiquity; it was a struggle to affirm its international position and strengthen economic and cultural ties with Byzantium.
If we discount the campaign of 860 which took place before the foundation of ancient Rus, the first campaign against Byzantium was undertaken by Oleg in 907; in this campaign he reached Constantinople (called Tsargrad by the Slavs) and concluded a triumphant peace with Byzantium. The terms of this peace were given legal form in the Russo-Byzantine Treaty of 911 and were very favourable to Rus. Oleg's 32 successor, Igor, made war on Byzantium on two occasions, in 941 and 944. The first campaign was a failure --- the Russian fleet reached Constantinople but was destroyed by "Greek fire''; the second was more successful and ended with the conclusion, in 944, of a new treaty with Byzantium. During the visit paid by Princess Olga to Constantinople in 957 the treaty of 944 was probably confirmed and extended. The luxurious reception that was accorded to Princess Olga by the Emperor Constantine (she was received in the sumptuous hall of the Mangaura Palace in which only great rulers were received, and she was allowed to sit in the Emperor's presence and to greet him not on her knees but merely with a nod of her head, etc.) and the rich gifts that were presented to Princess Olga and her retinue were all evidence of Byzantium's wish to preserve friendly relations with Kiev.
Soon, however, the successes achieved by Rus in the Black Sea area gave rise to concern in Byzantium. The Byzantine Government embarked on a three-handed game: it stirred up conflict between Rus and Bulgaria, and between the Pechenegs and Rus. Prince Svyatoslav, the son of Igor and Princess Olga, became the hero in this war. He invaded Bulgaria, seized a number of towns and set himself the task of turning the Danube area of Bulgaria into the centre of his state and moving his capital from Kiev to Pereyaslavets on the Danube. On June 21, 971, however, the Byzantine Emperor loann Zimisces succeeded in defeating Svyatoslav in a battle near Dorostol on the Danube; although the Greeks were unable to destroy the Russian forces who took cover behind the walls of Dorostol, Svyatoslav was forced to negotiate and sign a treaty with the Byzantine Emperor (July 971) in which Rus undertook never again to engage in campaigns against Byzantium and Bulgaria. On the way back to Rus, Svyatoslav was killed by Pechenegs, probably not without the participation of the Byzantines who were anxious to get rid of a dangerous enemy.
Despite the defeat of Svyatoslav, the struggle between Rus and Byzantium continued under his son Vladimir, and on this occasion Rus achieved an important victory. An insurrection of the Bulgars and a mutiny among the troops in Asia Minor raised by Phocas compelled the Emperor Basil II to turn to Vladimir for help. Vladimir sent an army against Phocas, suppressed the mutiny and then demanded that Basil II give him his sister Anna in marriage. The political significance of such a marriage was obvious. It would mean that Byzantium recognised the might of the young Russian state. For this reason Basil attempted to evade fulfilment of the promise he had made; this inspired Vladimir to attack the Greek town of Korsun in the Crimea. When Vladimir captured Korsun, the Byzantine Emperor was compelled to fulfil the terms of the agreement.
The campaigns of Rus against Byzantium in the ninth and tenth centuries had great significance for the development of the Russian state since they led to the establishment of economic and cultural relations between Rus and Byzantium and brought Rus into the orbit of the advanced states of Western Europe.
One important outcome of these relations was the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of Rus by Prince Vladimir (circa 988). With the development of classes and of statehood, the old pagan religion __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3--160 33 of Rus that had been the ideological expression of the primitive clan social system was in contradiction to the new conditions of social life and was not capable of fulfilling the main function of religion in a class society, that of strengthening and making sacred the existing social order.
At the beginning of his reign Vladimir tried to reform the pagan religion. He ordered the wooden statues of six gods from different tribes (Perun with his silver head and golden moustaches, Khors, Dazhdbog, Stribog, Semargl and Mokosha) to be placed on a hill next his palace and established a fixed ritual for offering up prayers and sacrifices. This curious pantheon of pagan deities was intended to express the unity of Rus, the supremacy of Kiev in the country, and the rule of the prince and the feudal elite within the state.
But this mechanical amalgamation of the pagan gods was unable to perform these functions or to produce any unified religion, since the pagan beliefs were deeply rooted in the remote past of Slavdom, continued to disunite certain parts and regions in the state, and preserved certain ideas of equality and democracy.
The ruling class of Rus needed a new religion, and the gap was filled by Christianity.
Christianity had long been known in Kiev. According to tradition, Princess Olga was baptised in Constantinople and prompted her son Svyatoslav to follow suit. Tenth-century Kiev had its Church of Elijah, and Christian literature spread into Rus from Bulgaria. The feudal circles undoubtedly knew the basic dogmas of the Christian faith, which were well suited to the social relations of a feudal society and state. Consequently, the supposed choice of faith (according to the chronicle, Vladimir consulted the representatives of different faiths---Judaism, Islam and Christianity) was, historically, a foregone conclusion in favour of Christian Byzantium, a state that was similar in its social essence and political system to the growing state of Rus.
The events that preceded the adoption of Christianity and which were described above (Vladimir's demand for the hand of the Emperor's sister, the capture of Korsun, etc.) show that Vladimir's government did everything to see that their baptism by the Byzantines did not imply in any way that Rus had become a vassal of Byzantium.
Rus turned out to be sufficiently powerful to accept Christianity without sacrificing any of its independence.
The adoption of Christianity by Rus was a relatively progressive event, and one fraught with great significance. For the ruling classes of Rus, Christianity was a powerful weapon with which to strengthen their domination, and the Christian Church became a new branch of the state organisation whose task was to give sacred sanction to the social system then in existence. The conversion of Rus to Christianity also served to strengthen the ideological unity of the state. And, lastly, together with Christianity Rus acquired the art of writing and an opportunity to take advantage of the higher culture of Byzantium, the successor to the civilisation of antiquity.
Following the adoption of Christianity, the international links of the ancient Russian state expanded and grew stronger. As a Christian state, it entered into relations with Catholic countries as well as Byzantium. 34 According to the chronicle, Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich "lived in peace with the neighbouring princes--- Boleslaw of the Poles, Stephen of the Hungarians and Andrich of the Czechs---and there was peace and love between them''. Subsequently ties were established with more distant countries---France, Germany and = England.^^*^^
The reign of Vladimir I brings to a close the first period in the history of the ancient Russian state, the period of its formation.
The economic basis of the social order established in Rus was feudal landed proprietorship, with the big estates in the hands of the princes, the boyars, their armed retainers and, after the adoption of Christianity, the church.
Feudal economy was based on the exploitation of the labour of numerous categories of actual producers: smerdi, zakupi, ryadovichi, izgoyf^^**^^ and, lastly, the kholopi (slaves). The smerdi constituted the largest section of the population; these were the peasants who belonged to the communes and who owned their own farms and implements. The smerdi were divided into two big groups, those who still maintained their independence and those who had become dependent on the feudal landowner. The other categories of the dependent population were also made up of smerdi who had been ruined and had become the bondsmen of the feudal upper classes.
The Chief form of the exploitation of the actual producers was through corvee service---rent paid in the form of labour on the estates of the feudal lord. Quit rent in kind was also current in Rus.
Side by side with the feudal estates, the towns continued to grow; they were centres of handicraft industries and commerce. The towns were also the centres of political and cultural life; the greater part of the urban population consisted of artisans of various trades.
Commerce was closely connected with the urban industries. Every Russian town had its market (torg, torgovishche, where local and foreign merchants and artisans sold their wares. The local traders and the artisans were the most important groups of townsmen. Higher on the social ladder than the artisans and merchants were the boyars, the feudal aristocracy, the chief political power in the towns of Rus.
_-_-_~^^*^^ The expansion of Kiev's international links can be well illustrated by the matrimonial ties between the Russian princely dynasty and foreign courts. After his baptism, Vladimir was married to Anna, the sister of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, and after her death he married the daughter of the German Count Kuno von Ennigen. Prince Svyatopolk was married to the daughter of the Polish King Boleslaw I, Prince Yaroslav the Wise to the daughter of the Swedish King Olaf, Prince Izyaslav I to the daughter of the Polish Prince Mieszko II, Prince Vsevolod I to the daughter of the By zantin Emperor Constantine Monomach, Prince Vladimir Monomach to the daughter of the English King Harold II, and so on. Daughters of the Kiev princes were married to the rulers of many states. The Polish Prince Boleslaw the Brave courted Vladimir's daughter Predslava, Vladimir's other daughter Maria-Dobronega married the Polish King Kazimierz I, and daughters of Yaroslav the Wise illustrate the same trend: Anastasia married the Hungarian King Andrew, Elizabeth married the Norwegian King Harald, and Anna married the French King Henri I. Sixty-five such marriages are known to have taken place, most of them being contracted with aristocrats in Byzantium (7), Poland (16), Germany (10) and Hungary (7). From the second half of the twelfth century onwards a large number of marriages took place between Russian princes and Polovtsian princesses (10).
~^^**^^ The terms zakupi, ryadovichi and izgoyi refer to various categories of people not enjoying full rights.
__PRINTERS_P_35_COMMENT__ 3* 35The social structure of the towns of Rus made them the scene of an acute class struggle in which the boyars and the bigger merchants were opposed by the "lower orders'', the mass of the urban population.
The development of feudal relations in Rus brought about the formation of local political centres and as they grew bigger, the importance of Kiev as the state political centre began to fade. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the struggle of the local feudal centres against Kiev brought about the division of the ancient state of Rus into a number of independent feudal principalities.
The first signs that Rus was collapsing as a centralised state became evident at the end of the reign of Prince Vladimir I. They were to be seen in the struggle between Kiev and Novgorod, where a tendency to independence first made itself felt. For instance, the people of Novgorod decided to discontinue the annual tribute of 2,000 grivny to Kiev. Only Vladimir's death prevented a Kievan military campaign against Novgorod. After the death of Vladimir in 1015, his son Svyatopolk the Accursed ascended the throne and continued his father's policy of consolidating the rule of the Kiev Prince over the whole of Rus. Vladimir's other sons---Yaroslav, Boris, Gleb of Murom, Svyatoslav of Drevlyane and Mstislav of Tmutarakan---defended the interests of the local feudal aristocracy and adopted a position hostile to Svyatopolk. A bitter struggle ensued in the course of which three of Svyatopolk's brothers (Boris, Gleb and Svyatoslav) were killed; Yaroslav, aided by an army from Novgorod, attacked Svyatopolk and defeated him (1016). Svyatopolk fled to his father-in-law, the Polish King Boleslaw the Brave, returned with a Polish army and defeated Yaroslav (1018). Yaroslav, however, with the aid of Novgorod, launched a new campaign against Svyatopolk and on this occasion ousted him from Kiev and himself ascended the throne.
The struggle for power, however, was not over; Yaroslav still had to fight Mstislav. During this struggle Yaroslav was driven from Kiev once again and was unable to return to his capital until 1026, when he had been obliged to hand over control of the east bank of the Dnieper to Mstislav. Yaroslav managed to consolidate his power throughout Rus only after the death of Mstislav in 1036.
Yaroslav, however, did not overcome the centrifugal tendencies that were manifest in Rus. He was compelled to admit the disintegration when, shortly before his death (1054), he divided the territory between his five sons. Izyaslay, the eldest, was supposed to stand in loco parentis to the others. In reality, however, he never became the ``elder'' among the princes and was forced to share power with them --- Svyatoslav ruled over Chernigov and Vsevolod over Pereyaslavl.
The joint rule of the three sons of Yaroslav (1054--73) over the three biggest regions of Rus enabled them to exercise control of the entire state of Rus and be the arbiters of its fate. Their most important act in domestic policy was the publication of a new Pravda (Code of Laws) which in part annulled (the blood feud was eliminated) and in part complemented the old Russkaya Pravda. This new Code, known as Pravda Yaroslavichei (Law of the Sons of Yaroslav), was intended to protect the big feudal landed estates and regulate internal relations within those estates.
36 __GOBLYGOOK_COMMENT__t^-45UfrH fT \Sf-
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__CAPTION__ Insurrection in Kiev, 1068. Izyaslav's flight to Poland. Miniature from the Radziwill Chronicle, fifteenth centuryThe external relations of the period were concerned mainly with the beginning of the struggle against the Polovtsi, a tribe of Turkic nomad horsemen. Before this, in the tenth century and during the first half of the eleventh century, the princes of Kiev had been forced to protect their frontiers against the inroads of other peoples, mainly the Turkic Pechenegs; in the mid-eleventh century, however, the Polovtsi appeared, a more powerful tribal alliance of nomad horsemen who came out of the southern steppes and drove the Pechenegs to the west (to Hungary) and occupied their territory.
The development of feudal relations and, as a result, the increased exploitation of the direct producers in town and country, served to sharpen class contradictions. As early as the eleventh century there were open revolts of the oppressed classes against the feudal lords of ancient Rus.
The first important action---"the great revolt"---took place in Suzdal in 1024. But probably the biggest during the entire period of ancient Rus was the Kiev insurrection of 1068. The urban lower classes were the main force of the insurrection; the insurgents destroyed the court of the governor of Kiev, and Prince Izyaslav fled to Poland. The ruling classes, however, were able to suppress the insurrection on account of its sporadic, unorganised nature.
Shortly after this (c. 1071) there was a widespread revolt of the smerdi (peasants) at Beloozero in the land of Rostov.
In that same year of 1071 the urban lower classes of Novgorod made an attempt to revolt against the prince and his retainers.
The insurrection of 1068 and the events which followed broke up the alliance of the three sons of Yaroslav and led to the internecine wars, typical feudal wars that filled the second half of the eleventh century. These wars were complemented by meetings of the princes at which the 37 results of the current struggle were discussed and the lands and power redistributed among them according to the new alignment of forces. One of the most important meetings was at Liubek in 1097 which formulated a new principle in relations between the princes---"each shall hold his estate''; this reflected the collapse of the paramount rule of the Kiev princes and marked the independence and autonomy of the local feudal centres.
All these events worsened the international position of Rus as evidenced by the growing strength of the attacks on her by the Polovtsi at the turn of the twelfth century. Kiev no longer played the leading role in the war against the Polovtsi --- that role was taken over by Vladimir Monomach, Prince of Southern Pereyaslavl; this naturally strengthened his position in the struggle for power, the more so because his most powerful rivals, the sons of Svyatoslav of Chernigov, acted in alliance with the Polovtsi. The urban population was the determining factor in this struggle, especially the people of Kiev.
During the reign in Kiev of Prince Svyatopolk, son of Izyaslav (1093--1113), there was a considerable deepening of class contradictions due mainly to the increase of usury with the resultant ruin of the artisans and traders of Kiev who became the bondsmen of the usurers. Prince Svyatopolk himself engaged in usury and speculation (especially in salt). When Svyatopolk died in 1113, a sharp struggle over the succession arose between those who championed the descendants of Svyatoslav and who had the support of a strong group led by the Kiev tysyatsky (military governor) Putyata, and the champions of Monomach, Prince of Pereyaslavl. This struggle for power between the two Kiev political groups, however, was pushed into second place by the revolt of the urban lower classes of Kiev that broke out spontaneously. The insurgents first attacked Putyata's palace and the palaces of local and foreign merchants. Then the insurrection began to threaten not only the boyars, but also the monasteries and even the widow of Svyatopolk. Under these circumstances the feudal aristocracy of Kiev, "great and important men'', united in promoting the candidacy of Vladimir Monomach. In response to their appeal to put an end to "the spirit of revolt among the people'', Monomach arrived in Kiev and suppressed the revolt.
When Vladimir Monomach became Prince of Kiev, he strengthened his alliance with the Kiev feudal aristocracy by issuing new laws --- the Ustav o Rezakh (Ordinance on Interest) and the Ustav o Zakupakh (Ordinance on Bondsmen). The first of these regulated trading and, especially, money credit and usury, protecting the interests of the creditors (with, however, certain elements of social demagogy). The second ordinance provided legal grounds for the exploitation of bonded peasants (smerdi-zakupi) by the boyars; it stated in particular that a bondsman who attempted to escape from his master would be made a slave.
The regnal years of Vladimir Monomach (1113--25) and his son Mstislav (1125--32) were marked by the first attempts at overcoming feudal disunity by strengthening the power of the Prince or Grand Duke by means of an alliance with the towns. After the death of Mstislav, however, feudal struggles began again and did not cease throughout the 38 __CAPTION__ Raid by Polovtsi; the Polovtsi drive off cattle and prisoners. Miniature from the Radziwill Chronicle, fifteenth century twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries. In the course of this feudal struggle, when Kiev passed from one warring prince to another, the state of ancient Rus finally ceased to exist as a political unit. By the second half of the twelfth century a number of feudal principalities differing in strength and importance had grown on the ruins of the old state. Novgorod showed a marked tendency to separatism earlier than the other Russian lands.
Three features of the economic life of Novgorod, the town and its land, are of importance. First, the tremendous significance of commerce, including foreign trade, owing mainly to the situation of the town at the northern end of the great waterway "from the Varangians to the Greeks''. Second, the great significance of handicraft industries, of which Novgorod was the biggest centre in Rus. Third, the existence of Novgorod's extensive ``colonies'', which provided many valuable commodities --- furs, silver, wax and other items.
The tiny minority of boyars and rich merchants in Novgorod were opposed by the great majority of the rural and urban population. For the ruling class to be able to rule and maintain its power, it had to dominate the body that had always possessed considerable authority in Novgorod side by side with that of the prince --- that is the veche, the assembly of all free townsmen. The boyars, the real masters of Novgorod, took advantage of their ability to organise themselves politically and of their economic strength to guide, in actual fact, the work of the veche, to determine its decisions and to dictate to it their own political line. Organs of executive authority existed parallel to the Novgorod veche; these were the posadnik (vicegerent) and the tysyatsky (military governor) --- up to the thirties of the twelfth century the posadnik, factually the head of the Novgorod government, was appointed from Kiev.
39Novgorod's struggle for independence became particularly acute in the thirties of the twelfth century, and ended in the victorious insurrection of the Novgorod people against Prince Vsevolod in 1136 and 1137. This insurrection put an end to Novgorod's dependence on Kiev and established the Novgorod Republic. The prince no longer possessed any authority as the head of the Novgorod state. Supreme power was vested in the veche which now not only elected the posadniK and the tysyatsky, but invited its own princes and concluded treaties with them. The rights and duties of the prince were reduced mainly to the fulfilment of functions of a military nature.
The people, the masses of Novgorod, played the leading part in the events of the thirties, but the results of those events were made use of by the boyars who were able to rule Novgorod through the elected republican institutions; the boyars monopolised the posts of posadnik and tysyatsky, and later introduced a special organ of power, the Sovet Gospod (Council of the Lords), the real government of Novgorod.
The historical development of the other two big political formations that resulted from the collapse of Rus was on different lines; these two formations were the Vladimir-Suzdal land in the north-east and the Galicia-Volhynia land in the south-west.
The north-eastern part of the old Russian state was distinguished by a number of specific features in its social and political structure. As it was rather far removed territorially from the centre of the state, its dependence on the authority of the Prince of Kiev was relatively small. The development of feudal relations produced there a powerful group of boyar farmers who were the factual masters of the region. The political centres were the towns of Rostov---the citadel of the ``old'' boyars --- and Suzdal; it was these two towns that at first gave theirnames to the territory (Rostov-Suzdal land). In the twelfth century important changes took place. There was a considerable increase in the population, due mainly t6 colonisation from other regions of the ancient Russian state. New groups appeared in the population that were not connected with the ``old'' Rostov boyars and that were independent of them; new towns grew up (Vladimir, Pereyaslavl Zalessky, Yuriev Polsky and others), the most important of which was Vladimir on the River Klyazma, founded during the reign of Vladimir Monomach.
The political weight and the importance of the Rostov-Suzdal land became considerably greater during the reign of Yuri Dolgoruki, a younger son of Vladimir Monomach. It was during his reign that the records first made mention of Moscow (1147). The Rostov-Suzdal land and the power of its prince were further consolidated during the reign of Yuri Dolgoruki's son, Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky (1157--74). Andrei began by transferring his residence to Vladimir and by building a castle in the neighbouring village of Bogolyubovo (hence his surname of Bogolyubsky), thus demonstrating that he looked for support to the new towns. And it was with the support of the new stratum of feudal farmers, the new nobility that emerged from the groups of armed retainers, and of the artisans and tradespeople of the new towns (miziniye lyudi, or "little people''), that he got rid of the old boyar counsellors. In 1169, Andrei organised a campaign against Kiev in an effort to subordinate the Grand Duke of Kiev and keep him under his control; in this campaign he 40 enlisted the aid of eleven other princes. The campaign ended with the capture and plunder of Kiev. Andrei set up his brother as vicegerent in Kiev and himself remained in Vladimir. This spelled the end of Kiev's rule, and the role of political centre of Rus passed over to Vladimir (and partly to Galich). Andrei also tried to extend his rule over Novgorod, but in this he was not successful; the army he sent against Novgorod was defeated in 1170 and Novgorod retained its independence.
The greatly increased power 'of the Vladimir ruler aroused the discontent and direct opposition of the boyars. Their resistance took the form of a conspiracy and in 1174 Andrei was assassinated by them.
For two years after Andrei's assassination the boyars of Rostov and Suzdal carried on a persistent struggle to re-establish the old order and restore their former political supremacy. They were, however, unable to achieve any lasting success. Under Andrei's successors Vladimir regained its political importance.
It was during the reign of Andrei's younger brother, Vsevolod Bolshoe Gnezdo (Vsevolod of the Great Nest---1176--1212) that the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal reached the zenith of its power. Vsevolod was successful in his policy because he relied mainly on the support of the tradespeople and artisans of the towns and the armed retainers who formed the new nobility, i. e., on the social forces that were interested in strengthening the rule of the prince. Despite his achievements Vsevolod did not succeed in putting an end to feudal disunity. He was opposed by the feudal aristocracy of Vladimir-Suzdal and also by those of other principalities, especially by the boyars of Novgorod and Ryazan. After the death of Vsevolod, a new period of internecine struggle began. These internal struggles to a considerable extent nullified the results of Vsevolod's policy of consolidating the Principality of Vladimir and by the time of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, the prince of Vladimir proved unable to unite the forces of the Russian lands under his leadership.
At this time important changes were taking place in the southern parts of the disintegrating ancient Russian state. In the south-east, in the Chernigov land, the fall of Kiev accelerated the process of feudal break-up with the result that in the twenties of the twelfth century the Murom-Ryazan land separated and was then (in the sixties of the same century) divided into the principalities of Murom and Ryazan; the process ended in the disintegration of the former Principality of Chernigov into twenty-odd tiny feudal domains that were preserved right up to the fifteenth century.
The historical development of the south-western parts of the ancient Russian state --- Galicia and Volhynia---was much more complicated and of a contradictory nature. The principalities of Galicia and Volhynia separated --- the former in the nineties of the eleventh century and the latter in the mid-twelfth century --- and continued independent up to the end of the twelfth century, when they were united under the rule of Prince Roman Mstislavich of Volhynia (1199). In the twelfth century the Principality of Galicia made great economic progress and its political power grew considerably, largely due to its favourable geographical situation. When the waterway "from the Varangians to the Greeks" lost its international significance owing to the inroads of the Polovtsi, the 41 trade routes shifted to the west and passed through the Galician land; the internecine wars among the princes and the constant raids of the Polovtsi on Rus increased not only the colonisation of the north-east, but also of the west, the Galician land included. This led to the strengthening of the Galician towns and an increase in their commercial and political significance. Furthermore, Galicia was the meeting point of three important East European countries---Rus, Poland and Hungary, which gave the principality considerable international importance and promoted the strengthening of the power vf the prince which was resisted by the local boyars. The prince had gained power in Galicia at a relatively late date, when feudal relations were already firmly established; the class of boyar farmers had possessed exceptional economic and political power and this made the struggle between them and the Grand Duke (or Prince) an unusually bitter one.
The most brilliant of the princes who ruled Galicia and Volhynia was Roman Mstislavich who united those two regions into a single principality with its centre in the town of Galich. Roman ruled for six years (1199--1205), the years of struggle against the boyars and of an active foreign policy. Although he achieved some success in the straggle against the boyars, Roman was unable to break their power. His death led to another period of internecine conflicts that lasted almost forty years. Hungary and Poland took an active part in these minor wars with the object of profiting from them.
In the long and bittef feudal struggle for power, the urban population, the merchants and artisans were extremely hostile to the boyars. Because of this situation, Daniil, the son of Roman, was finally able to regain his throne. In 1236, he laid siege to Galich and the townspeople forced the boyars to surrender the town and recognise the authority of Daniil. In this way the lengthy crisis in Galicia and Volhynia ended in the defeat of the boyars and the victory of the prince. This victory was progressive because Daniil's policy was one of strengthening the power of the prince with the support of the townspeople and uniting under his rule the surrounding lands; this objectively reflected the urge to overcome feudal disunity. This important historical process of unification was interrupted by the Mongol-Tatar invasion.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Russian culture from the tenth to the thirteenth century developed along its own original lines and had reached a high level as early as the eleventh century. __NOTE__ 2 of 2 LVL2's added.Russian culture from the tenth to the thirteenth century developed along its own original lines and had reached a high level as early as the eleventh century. Up to the time of the Mongol-Tatar conquest, the culture of Russia was the equal of that of other European countries, with the probable exception of those that had inherited the high culture of antiquity---Italy and Byzantium. Russian civilisation grew up in the fertile soil of the culture of the East Slav tribes and maintained regular contact with the cultures of other countries, especially Byzantium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Germany, Scandinavia, the Khazar Kingdom, the Arab East and the Caucasus.
The great revolution that effected profound changes in the development of Russian culture was the introduction of a uniform system of writing; it ensured the accumulation of cultural experience and 42 __CAPTION__ Inscription on birch bark, second half of the eleventh century. Found by A. Artsikhovsky in 1954 during excavations in Novgorod knowledge, and promoted the development of literature. There had apparently been several systems of writing in use in the territory of Russia for a long time---the tenth-century Arab travellers and geographers spoke of Slav writing.
With the development of private property and commerce some form of writing was essential; quantities of goods, debts, various obligations, and so on, had to be recorded and there had to be written records of the wealth that had been amassed and of those who were to inherit it. The state also needed a system of writing, especially for the conclusion of treaties.
It stands to reason that only a uniform system of writing could really serve for intercourse between people and preserve their cultural achievements for posterity. This uniform system of writing came to Russia from Bulgaria along with Christianity.
There were at first two different Slavonic alphabets, known respectively as the glagolitsa and the kirillitsa, both of which appeared in Russia in the tenth century. The kirillitsa or Cyrillic alphabet later became dominant and developed as the standard Russian alphabet. Somewhat later a system of punctuation was introduced and Russians learned the art of preparing parchment from animal skins and making ink and colours for writing and ornamenting books; another art introduced at this time was that of bookbinding. By the eleventh century these "book arts" had reached a high stage of development.
Literature developed because society felt the need for it. Religious literary genres were borrowed from Bulgaria and Byzantium, but secular literature developed independently.
Russia also felt the need for a history; knowledge of the past came from ancient oral tales and legends and from the epic bylini which were 43 inaccurate and always subject to change. The first Russian chronicles were compiled in Kiev and Novgorod at the beginning of the eleventh century, probably even earlier, in the tenth century. These annals grew in size until, at the turn of the twelfth century, they had become an extensive systematic story that, in the hands of Monk Nestor of the Pechersky Monastery in Kiev, was given literary form as the Povest Vremennykh Let (Chronicle of Contemporary Years).
__CAPTION__ The Cathedral of St. Sophia in the Novgorod Kremlin, eleventh century [44] __CAPTION__ Church of Our Saviour in Nereditsa, Novgorod, 1198The Povest is a veritable encyclopaedia of old Russian life in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries; it provides us with information on the history of Russia, the language, the origin of writing, religion, philosophy, geography, art and international relations. In the Povest the narrative art is highly developed, and some episodes from Russian history are related with astonishing vividness. The language of the book is rich, flexible, accurate and laconic. The chronicler was a man of education who was familiar with Russian, Byzantine, Bulgarian and West Slav writings. The Povest reflected the highly developed sense of history and keen patriotism of its compiler.
The art of religious preaching was at a high level in the eleventh century; the Slovo o Zakone i Blagodati (Sermon on Law and Grace) by Metropolitan Ilarion is well known. This work combines preaching with a political speech in which Ilarion tries to indicate the place of Rus in the historic process of the worldwide diffusion of Christianity. It is very skilfully written, following, all the canons of Byzantine rhetoric.
The features of Russian life and the social ideas that emerged in the eleventh century---the need for unity and discipline among the princes, specially the subordination of the junior princes to the senior--- are reflected in a number of lives of the first Russian saints, Boris and Gleb.
45Prince Vladimir Monomach was himself an outstanding writer. He wrote Poucheniye k Detyam (Precepts for Children), a short autobiography, and a letter to his enemy Prince Oleg Svyatoslavich. His writings are notable for their strict political purposefulness; they are permeated with the urge to organise the state life of Russia where, as early as the eleventh century, a tendency to disunity made itself manifest; the quarrels between the princes weakened Russia's struggle against the Polovtsi, the enemies from the steppes; these writings have great literary merit, the language is excellent and the author displayed tremendous erudition, which places them among the finest examples of old Russian literature.
In the twelfth century there were new achievements in this field, new genres appeared, and literature ceased to be the monopoly of Novgorod and Kiev; the towns of Vladimir, Suzdal, Smolensk, Galich, Chernigov and even tiny Turov produced their own writers.
The compilation of chronicles began in Volhynia, Southern Pereyaslavl, Chernigov, Vladimir, Smolensk and in many other Russian towns and principalities. The chroniclers were monks, the priests of the urban churches, occasionally the priors of monasteries, bishops, posadniki, and even the princes themselves.
The chroniclers were amazingly productive; although the greater part of their work has been destroyed, there are still thousands of manuscript books in the repositories, to the study and publication of which students of the Russian chronicles devote their whole lives.
At the turn of the thirteenth century other literary works were no less numerous and varied than the chronicles. Here we shall mention only a few of the more important---the books of sermons by Kirill of Turov and Kliment of Smolensk; historical tales, secular in content: the story of the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204; the lives of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky and Prince Daniil of Galicia, and, lastly, the famous Paterik or Lives of the Monks compiled in the Kiev-Pechersky Monastery. The tales contained in the Paterik are filled with domestic details and give a very complete picture of life in the monasteries; they reflect a number of real historical events and different aspects of life interwoven with fiction.
An outstanding work in old Russian literature is the Prayer of Daniil the Recluse, written in the form of a letter to the prince (mid-twelfth century). The author attempts to give valid reasons for the inequality of people in society and the consequent need for the sound rule of the prince.
The greatest of all works of old Russian literature, however, is the Slovo o Polku Igoreve (The Lay of Igor's Host), which describes the unsuccessful campaign of Prince Igor Svyatoslavich of Novgorod Seversky against the Polovtsi, and may be compared with the old French Song of Roland.
The ideas expressed by the author of this poem were very progressive for that time; he condemned the internecine struggle of the princes and called for unity in defending the frontiers of his native land. He wrote as an ardent patriot who loved the Russian land, its flora and fauna, its towns and villages. One senses the pain he feels when he describes the misfortunes that befell the country as a result of the Polovtsi raids. The 46 __CAPTION__ The Golden Gate in Vladimir, 1164 Slovo bears witness to the high level of the culture of the individual in Rus; it speaks of the sense of honour, of martial valour and duty, and of the dignity of man.
Many translations from world literature also made their appearance in Rus in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This was facilitated by the similarity of the Old Russian and Old Bulgarian languages; at that time there was a very extensive literature in Old Bulgarian, both translations from the Greek and original Bulgarian works. Some books came to Rus from Bohemia where the traditions of the Church Slavonic writings of the monks Cyril and Methodius (Kirill and Mefodi) were strong in the eleventh century.
The works that came to Rus were books of prayers, bible history, sermons, lives of saints, religious tracts, Byzantine chronicles (including those of Georgios Amartolos and loannes Malala), geographical works (the Topographia of Cosma Indicoplous, the "seafarer to India''), cosmographical works (the Six Days of loannes, Exarch of Bulgaria), the 47 animal kingdom (the Physiologos), translations of Greek novels ( Alexandria, a novel based on the life of Alexander the Great, the Acts of Deugenios, the life and adventures of the Byzantine Titan Digenes Acritas), etc. In addition to these translations made in Bulgaria, Russian translations of foreign books began to appear in Kiev, Novgorod and other towns. Whole armies of translators worked in Kiev under Prince Yaroslav the Wise. Books were translated from Greek and Ancient Hebrew, and probably from other languages as well.
Education reached a high level of development in Kiev Rus. By the third quarter of the eleventh century, education in the big Kiev monasteries had reached the level of that of Western Europe.
Literacy was widespread, not only among the higher classes of society, but also among the ordinary townsmen, as can be seen from the numerous documents written on birch bark that have been found during excavations made at Novgorod; these documents date back to the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries (the birch bark has been well preserved in the damp soil of Novgorod). The writing was either scratched on the birch bark or the letters were impressed by a sort of stylus made of bone or iron. The documents found were private letters, accounts, wills, commercial records, and school exercises. These birch bark writings now give us an idea of the intricacies of the everyday life of the ordinary townsfolk in those centuries.
The architectural monuments of Kiev, Novgorod, Vladimir (Suzdal Principality), Chernigov, Smolensk, Polotsk and many other old Russian towns attest the heights reached by the culture of Kiev Rus; most of them date from the period between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.
Stone was first used for building at the turn of the eleventh century, but prior to that Russian builders erected big timber structures such as churches, bridges, palaces, etc.
With the introduction of Christianity, Russian architecture was greatly influenced by that of Byzantium and other countries of the Byzantine Empire, where stone was widely used for building. Byzantine masons came to Russia, and in a very short time Russian builders, who had for centuries erected large timber structures, began to work in stone.
The remains of the big Desyatinnaya Church in Kiev have come down to us from the end of the tenth century. This church was built in the reign of Prince Vladimir I Svyatoslavich and remained until it was destroyed by the hordes of Khan Batu in 1240. Buildings of a somewhat later date were those erected under Prince Yaroslav the Wise --- the Cathedral of the Redeemer in Chernigov (1036), the world-famous Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev (1037), and the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod (1045--50)---have all been preserved to the present day; the building technique is excellent and the mosaics and frescoes, and the tiled floors of the Kiev and Novgorod churches still bear witness to their rich interior decoration.
When Rus split into a number of small feudal principalities in the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries, the buildings became smaller and poorer, since the small principalities did not possess the huge resources of the powerful Kiev state. The rich mosaics were replaced by simpler 48 __CAPTION__ Church of the Intercession on the River Nerl, 1165 [49] frescoes, the structure of the churches became simpler, and the interiors smaller. Although the churches built were smaller, the overall amount of building greatly increased. Thousands of churches and other stone buildings were erected in the twelfth century and at the beginning of the thirteenth. Local features began to make their appearance in architecture--- Novgorod and Pskov differed from Kiev, and towns like Smolensk and Chernigov developed their own specific architecture. Galicia and Volhynia developed a very distinct style in architecture that differed from all others.
In Novgorod, in the second half of the twelfth century, building was mainly in the hands of the boyars and merchants. Novgorod builders developed a type of simplified church with a single dome, several of which still stand. The most famous of them was the Church of Our Saviour in Nereditsa, built in 1198 and destroyed by the nazis during the Second World War.
The architecture 01 tne churches and palaces of Vladimir-on-Klyazma differed greatly from the stern, simple squat buildings of Novgorod; the princely and church buildings of Vladimir are noteworthy for their elegant lines and proportions.
The suburban castle of Andrei Bogolyubsky in the village of Bogolyubovo and the Cathedral of the Assumption in Vladimir, also built by Andrei, are magnificent buildings. Another church built by Andrei, the Church of the Intercession on the bank of the River Nerl, with its __CAPTION__ Mountebanks. From a fresco in die South Tower of the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev, eleventh century [50] __CAPTION__ The Archangel from the Ustyug Icon of the Annunciation, twelfth-thirteenth centuries. Detail graceful and harmonious lines, is among the best Russian buildings of its [missing "time"] [missing]
The churches of Vladimir not only reflected the ideology of the upper strata of feudal society and served to glorify the power of the prince, they also embodied the creative initiative of the people and the tastes of simple Russian builders.
The painting of the eleventh, twelfth and early thirteenth centuries also testifies to the high degree of development attained by the culture of Rus prior to the Mongol invasion. Painting as an art had existed in Russia from much earlier times, but with the adoption of Christianity the basic art forms --- mosaics, frescoes, iconography and miniatures --- prospered under the influence of Byzantium.
Old Russian mosaics have been preserved in the Kiev Cathedral of St. Sophia (mid-eleventh century). Fragments have also been found in the gold-domed Cathedral of Kiev's Monastery of St. Michael. Mural paintings belonging to the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries are better represented. The murals in St. Sophia's are secular as well as biblical in subject matter; the whole family of Yaroslav the Wise figured in the paintings. Two fragments of this work have been preserved containing the figures of Yaroslav's two younger sons and all the female members of the family, possibly including his daughters Anna, the future Queen of France, and Elizabeth, the future Queen of Norway. Of the later murals, those of the Novgorod Church of St. Sophia (early twelfth century), the Church of St. George in the Yuriev Monastery, St. Antoni Monastery and the Church of Our Saviour at Nereditsa (late twelfth Century) are the most noteworthy. The frescoes in some of the churches of Kiev, Pskov and Vladimir are also excellent examples of twelfthcentury mural painting.
The old Russian frescoes were distinguished by the beauty of their lines and colouring. The artists were able to create the impression of a wealth of colour although they had but few pigments at their disposal; ley were able to portray movement and depict the individual features of 51 the human face. The portraits were simple and monumental, could be easily seen from a distance and blended well with the flat surface of the walls. Painting and architecture were not rivals, but harmonised in a general striving for magnificence, solemnity and profound significance.
In pre-revolutionary Russia the iconography of this period was not valued very highly. Today there are many icons dating back to the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the museums of Moscow, Leningrad and Novgorod. The saints are shown in them as calm and courageous people with intelligent faces, conscious of their own dignity, fearless and ready at any moment to take up arms in defence of honour and truth.
The applied arts flourished magnificently. Supremely beautiful were gold articles with cloisonne enamel decoration and silver articles with niello designs. Filigree work was also exquisite. Old Russian granulation work approached the filigree craft in excellence, and was sometimes used together with filigree. Coloured glass bracelets, majolica work and bone carving were also of rare beauty.
The rich and intricate culture of Rus reached its zenith just before the Mongol-Tatar invasion. It was on a par with the culture of the rest of Europe. It was dominated by a single monumental style distantly similar to the Romanesque style in Western and Southern Europe but closer to the style that was prevalent in Byzantium and the countries within its sphere of cultural influence.
52 __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Three __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. FEUDALThe beginning of the thirteenth century is an important dividing line in world history. It is the line that marks the beginning of the Mongol conquests that embraced the whole of Asia and a number of European countries, including Rus, and had consequences on a global scale.
From time immemorial the Mongols had led a nomadic existence with their herds in the steppes of Central Asia, and their sudden thirst for conquest was the outcome of a change in their social system. During the twelfth century the Mongols' clan system had gradually disintegrated, and early feudal relations had arisen. The Mongol aristocracy came to own vast herds of cattle and began to seize pasturelands. Military plunder became -an important source of aristocratic wealth. The beginning of the thirteenth century saw the formation of a Mongol state, headed by Jenghiz Khan.
Under the leadership of Jenghiz Khan, a ruler of exceptional cruelty and treachery, the Mongols invaded Northern China and subjugated it. In 1219 the Mongol hordes appeared in Central Asia and attacked the state of the rulers of Khwarizm, which was famous for its rich cities and flourishing culture. One Central Asian city after another---Bukhara, Samarkand, Urghench and Merv---fell to the invaders and suffered fearful devastation.
In 1222--23 the Mongol forces skirted round the Caspian Sea from the south and swept through Iran into Transcaucasus. Leaving nothing but smoking rubble in their wake, they made their way through the mountain passes into the steppes of the North Caucasus. They routed the Polovtsian tribes in the area and moved into the steppes adjacent to the Black Sea, heading for the Russian lands. The South Russian princes had been alerted by the Polovtsi and, under Prince Mstislav Romanovich of Kiev, advanced with their armies to meet the invader. The first encounter between Russians and Mongols took place on the River Kalka on May 31, 1223. Owing to the Russian princes' lack of co-ordination in action the Russian armies suffered a crushing defeat. After the battle on the Kalka the Mongols advanced as far as the Dnieper, then swung eastwards and withdrew into the steppes beyond the Volga.
53As a result of the campaigns led by Jenghiz Khan and his commanders, a vast Mongol empire came into being. The Mongols' successes can be explained by the fact that they were still at the early feudal stage, where internecine feudal strife had not as yet developed and military organisation was welded by iron discipline; on the other hand, the more highly developed peoples opposing them were experiencing the period of mature feudalism and the resulting political disunity.
However, Jenghiz Khan's vast empire could not survive for very long: it incorporated various peoples with different economic, political and cultural traditions, and, what was more, the Mongols themselves, influenced by the peoples they had conquered, were undergoing the process of further feudalisation, which was inevitably accompanied by political fragmentation. Following the death of Jenghiz Khan, his empire was carved up by his sons into three provinces: Mongolia proper and Northern China made up the ulus (province) of Ugedei, Jagatai ruled Central Asia, and Juchi held sway over the vast expanses to the west and south of the Irtysh as far as the Urals and the Aral and Caspian seas. Between 1240 and 1250 a further ulus was created, consisting of a part of Iran and Transcaucasus, and this was entrusted to Jenghiz Khan's grandson Hulagu.
Referring to the Mongol conquests, a contemporary writer, the Arab historian Ibn al-Asir, declared that "there has never been a more terrible disaster for humanity since the world was created, and there will be nothing like it till the end of time and the Last Judgment''. This view accurately describes the nature and scale of the blow that the Mongols dealt to the peoples they conquered.
The Mongol conquest had fateful consequences for Central Asia and Transcaucasus, and not simply because rich cities were laid waste during the conquest, or because the irrigation system, the basis of agriculture, was destroyed, or even because hundreds of thousands of people were annihilated or led off into captivity. The very organisation of the Mongol domain retarded the historical development of the conquered peoples: the settled population was driven from its ancestral lands, and the territory was handed over to nomadic Mongol tribes with their extensive type of agriculture. Moreover, the conquered nations were obliged to pay taxes and take part in the Mongols' campaigns, and so, consequently, they too became embroiled in the quarrels between the rulers of the various regions that largely comprise the history of the Mongol states that were set up in Central Asia and Transcaucasus. Only Georgia managed to retain a certain measure of independence; the country had its own rulers, who were subject to the approval of the Hulagid khans.
The masses of the people frequently rose up against the conquerors and the local aristocracy who had transferred their loyalties. A particularly formidable popular movement was the one that arose in Central Asia during the 1330s, and whose participants became known as the Seberdars. The Seberdars were opposed by the united TurkicMongol aristocracy and the rich merchant class, who sent against them one of the local beks (princes). This was Timur (Timur-lang or Tamerlane), a man of exceptional military and administrative ability, and notorious for his iron will and cruelty.
54Having suppressed the Seberdar movement, Timur embarked on a series of military campaigns, which resulted in the formation of a vast new empire covering a large part of Central Asia, Iran, the countries of Transcaucasus and even Asia Minor. Timur's empire survived foe 35 years (1370--1405).
Timur's campaigns brought death and destruction to the peoples of the conquered countries, but they brought untold wealth to him and the aristocracy of Central Asia. Together with gold and other treasures, Timur brought back to his capital of Samarkand and to other Central Asian towns tens of thousands of artisans, artists and scientists from the conquered countries. Using this wealth and exploiting the labour of the artisans, Timur began to dig irrigation canals and build towns, primarily Samarkand. Many rich buildings were erected, among them such architectural gems as the gigantic Bibi Khanum mosque and the Gur-i-Emir mausoleum in Samarkand. On the same basis the crafts and commerce flourished in Central Asia, but not for long.
After Timur's death his empire started to collapse. The Timurid state finally disappeared at the beginning of the sixteenth century under the attacks of the Uzbeks.
Like Central Asia and Transcaucasus, Rus also experienced the horrors of Mongol conquest. The decision to head westwards, in the direction of Europe, was taken in 1235 at the kurultai (assembly) of Mongol princes at Karakorum. The campaign was led by Khan Batu, the son of Juchi. Having subjugated the kingdom of the Kama Bulgars, the Mongols, who came to be known as Tatars in Rus, advanced on the Principality of Ryazan in 1237. Receiving no help from the other Russian territories, Ryazan was obliged to face the Mongol-Tatar hordes alone. The people of Ryazan fought boldly, but the vastly superior forces of the enemy crushed their resistance. Batu occupied the entire territory of Ryazan and inflicted on it such fearsome devastation that a number of towns in the area never rose again from the ashes. From Ryazan, Batu's army moved against Vladimir, and captured and destroyed Kolomna and Moscow. The capture of Vladimir and the battle on the River Sit on March 4, 1238, in which the Russian forces were completely routed and Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich of Vladimir was killed, completed Batu's conquest of North-Eastern Rus. He then moved on towards Novgorod, but the spring floods intervened and Batu was within a hundred kilometres of the city when he ordered the army to turn south so as to make preparations for spending the winter in the Volga steppes.
In 1239 Batu moved his hordes against Southern Rus. In the autumn of 1240 the Tatars approached Kiev, whose defence was entrusted to the Voyevoda Dmitr. When the Tatars managed to force their way into the city through breaches in the fortress walls, fierce fighting continued in the streets, with the ordinary townsfolk taking part as well as the Russian soldiers. Having taken Kiev, the Tatars surged on through the Principality of Galicia and Volhynia, Poland and Hungary, and were only defeated in Bohemia, at the Battle of Olomouc in 1242. They then turned round and headed back towards the east, subsequently settling in the Lower Volga steppes, where they founded the state known as the Golden Horde with the town of Sarai as its capital.
55As a result of the campaigns of 1236--38 and 1239--42, the Tatars had conquered all the Russian lands with the exception of Novgorod. But Novgorod too was soon to acknowledge the power of the conquerors. The Tatar yoke lay over the whole of Rus.
For the Russian people, as for the peoples of Central Asia and Transcaucasus, the Mongol-Tatar conquest meant slaughter and deva tatipn on a vast scale. The unprecedented damage that the Tatars inflicted on Rus was figuratively described by a thirteenth-centur writer: The earth drank the blood of our fathers and brothers like ; much water; ...many of our brothers and children were led off in . captivity; our villages became overgrown with weeds, and our greatness declined; our beauty perished; the heathen inherited our wealth ... and our labour ... and our land became the property of foreigners."
The system instituted after the Tatar conquest was a terrible burden to the Russian people. Although the Russian principalities were not part of the Golden Horde, the Russian princes became the vassals of the Great Khan, and the people were forced to pay a heavy tribute to the conquerors. At first the tribute was collected by Tatar officials, knov, r as basqaqs. Their methods are vividly depicted in the folk song about the basqaq Shchelkan:
If you have no money, He'll take your child; If you have no child, He'll take your wife; If you have no wife, You'll go yourself.
Frequent Tatar raids, accompanied by the razing of towns and villages and the enslavement of their inhabitants, were another constant scourge to the Russian people. The Tatars committed horrible atrocities when suppressing the popular uprisings that would flare up against the foreign invaders. One such rising occurred in Tver in 1227, and another in Rostov, Yaroslavl, Suzdal and elsewhere in 1262. Tatar rule also imposed severe limitations on Russian economic and political ties with eastern and, even more so, western countries. All this did much to retard the development of the Russian people. The Tatar yoke was as a hideous brake on historical progress.
The Tatars managed to conquer Rus, despite the heroic resistance of the Russian troops and the Russian townsfolk, because the country was divided into a number of feudal principalities and there was no sense of unity among the princes. But the struggle offered by the Russian people sapped the invaders' strength, and the wave of conquest that swept on into Western Europe was already weakened. This made it possible for the Bohemian forces to bring the Tatars to a halt. By bearing the full weight of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, Russia saved Western Europe from the horrors of foreign enslavement and ensured that it could develop in more favourable conditions.
As a result of Tatar conquest and the Tatar yoke, which lasted for 240 years, Russia lagged far behind Western Europe.
At the time of the Tatar invasion the Russian people also had to repulse invasion from the west.
56The lands of Novgorod the Great, through which lay the important trade route linking Northern Europe with Rus and the countries of the Orient, had long been coveted by the Swedish feudal barons. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, preparations for aggression against the Russian lands were also started by two German knightly religious orders--- the Livonian Order or Order of Swordbearers (Schwertbruder), founded in the East Baltic area in 1202, and the Teutonic Order, which operated in the lands of the Prussians (a Lithuanian tribe). By the end of the 1220s the German knights had overcome the resistance of the weak and disunited Baltic tribes, and they then began to prepare for an extension of the Drang nach Osten, which this time would take them into Russian territory.
The Swedes were the first to attack. In the summer of 1240 Swedish troops landed on the bank of the River Neva. Russian troops led by Prince Alexander Yaroslavich hastened to the area at great speed from Novgorod. In a sudden and swift attack on the Swedish camp the men of Novgorod achieved a brilliant victory, for which Alexander Yaroslavich was called Alexander Nevsky ``(of the Neva'') as a mark of honour.
The German knights also embarked on a campaign against Rus in 1240. Helped by treacherous boyars, they seized Pskov. This development posed a direct threat to Novgorod. Alexander Nevsky again led the forces of Novgorod. This time, he made long and careful preparations, recruiting a volunteer army throughout the areas ruled by Novgorod and awaiting the arrival of detachments from the Principality of Vladimir. At the head of this combined Russian force, he advanced on the Germans and liberated Pskov in the spring of 1242.
Pursuing the enemy troops, the Russian army approached Lake Chudskoye, and it was here, on the ice of the frozen lake, that a famous battle took place on April 5, 1242. The troops attached to the German knights were drawn up in a wedge-shaped formation with the point directed at the enemy. This formation was termed a ``pig'' in the Russian chronicles (clearly, because of its resemblance to a pig's head). The Russian disposition consisted of a large regiment in the centre and two regiments on the flanks. The German plan was to split the Russian forces at a single stroke and then to destroy them piecemeal. In fact, the mail-clad German knights did at first manage to slice through the Russian fine, to "break through the regiment in a pig'', as the chronicle puts it. But the "pig's" breakthrough did not cause the Russian regiments to panic. Instead, the knights came under attack from the flanks. In the words of an eyewitness, the Russian troops fought "like lions''. After bitter fighting, the German knights were totally routed. Of the knights alone four hundred were killed and fifty captured. Many Germans were drowned in the lake when they fell through the ice. The remnants of the German force fled shamefully, pursued over seven kilometres by the Russians.
The defeat of the German knights on the ice of Lake Chudskoye warded off the danger that the Russian people might share the fate of the paltic tribes, which had been enslaved by the German barons. This is the immense historical significance of the Battle on the Ice.
57Rus in the mid-thirteenth century presented a sorry picture. Towr had been destroyed and burnt to the ground, villages had been abandoned and the forests had encroached upon the ploughlands. In this period of economic decline, the feudal fragmentation had increased. The Grand Duchy of Vladimir disintegrated into a number of miner principalities called udely in Russian, from the word udel or "share'', with each udel going to a member of the ruling prince's family. Politic; fragmentation in Rus was encouraged by the Tatars, who constantly s< the princes against one another.
By the beginning of the fourteenth century, of the numerous mine principalities that had arisen after the disintegration of the Grand Duch of Vladimir the principalities of Tver and Moscow had strengthened the positions. Together with the Principality of Ryazan, which had split oi long before, in the eleventh century, and the Principality of Nizhn Novgorod and Suzdal, which arose later, in the mid-fourteenth centurj these principalities formed a group of "Grand Duchies''. Other larg feudal centres were Novgorod and Pskov, which separated fror Novgorod in the mid-fourteenth century, both of which were citj republics with a veche (assembly) to run the republic's affairs. Politic* supremacy over the whole of Rus belonged to the prince who receive from the Khan of the Golden Horde the licence to rule (yarlyk) the Gran Duchy of Vladimir.
In 1304, Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver became Grand Duke o Vladimir. He was the first of the princes to adopt the title of "Gran Duke of All Russia" and to attempt to bring the important politics centres of Novgorod, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod and Pereyaslav under his rule. This attempt by the princes of Tver to unite Rus met wit! the fierce resistance of Moscow.
The first information on the existence of Moscow dates back to the twelfth century (1147), the history of the town up to that date being practically unknown. Moscow began to acquire political significance in the last quarter of the thirteenth century under Prince Daniil, a younger son of Alexander Nevsky, when its princes took an active part in the political struggle.
A number of circumstances combined to increase the economic and political importance of Moscow. Chief among them was its favourable geographical position. Moscow was in the centre of the Russian principalities, which protected it from attacks from without, and this made it a sort of asylum for Russian people and brought about a rapid increase of its population. Moscow stood at the junction of important trade routes, both waterways (the River Moskva, through its tributaries, connected the Upper Volga with the Middle Oka) and roads (roads from Kiev, Chernigov and Smolensk to Rostov and Vladimir passed through Moscow). This position as a junction of roads connecting South-Western Rus with North-Eastern Rus, and Novgorod with the Oka-Volga basin, stimulated the economic growth of Moscow and the Moscow Principality. The tolls exacted by the Moscow princes on goods passing through their territory kept the treasury filled. Apart from the reasons already given, Moscow's rise was also fostered by the personal qualities of its princes, who were single-minded, yet sober and flexible politicians.
58 __CAPTION__ The Battle on the Ice. Miniature from sixteenth-century chroniclesThe rivalry between Moscow and Tver ended with the licence to rule the Grand Duchy passing into the hands of the third Prince of Moscow, Ivan Danilovich, nicknamed ``Kalita'' (the ``Moneybag''), who ruled from 1325 to 1340. At the beginning of Ivan Kalita's reign, the licence to rule was in the possession of Alexander Mikhailovich of Tver, who tried to conduct a policy that was independent of the Tatars. In 1327 a massive popular uprising broke out in Tver against the Tatars, provoked by the excesses of the Tatar tax-collectors. Ivan Kalita offered the Great Khan his services in suppressing the rising, and was rewarded by being presented in 1328 with the licence to rule the Grand Duchy of Vladimir, as well as the right to collect the tribute for the Tatars. He made use of his good relations with the Tatars in order to strengthen his authority over the other princes, and employed his tax-collecting rights in order to enrich his own treasury, from the coffers of which a proportion of the money collected failed to find its way to the Tatars (hence the Prince's nickname). With considerable financial resources at his disposal and through his very deft adaptation to the political situation, Ivan Kalita 59 consistently pursued his policy of expanding the Principality of Moscow thanks to which he has gone down in history as "the gatherer of the Russian lands".
A contemporary chronicler was full of praise for Ivan Kalita, noting that under his reign the Tatars "stopped raiding the Russian land and killing Christians, and the Christians rested after their great exhaustion and many hardships ... and from then on a great calm spread throughout the land''. This view, which rightly stressed the positive results of Ivan Kalita's rule, nevertheless idealised him as a person: after all, his successes were bought at the cost of grovelling to the Tatars and through a policy of extorting money from the people.
Ivan Kalita's policies were pursued by his sons Semyon the Proud and Ivan the Fair, under whom the Principality of Moscow continued to grow stronger. The successes of the Moscow princes' policy of gradual unification became particularly apparent during the reign of Ivan Kalita's grandson Dmitry Ivanovich (1359--89).
Dmitry Ivanovich's rule began in very complicated circumstances. Taking advantage of the Grand Duke's tender years (he ascended the throne at the age of nine), Dmitry Konstantinovich, the Prince of Nizhny Novgorod and Suzdal, managed to obtain from the Golden Horde the licence to rule the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. But at this critical moment the Moscow boyars, led by Metropolitan Alexei, flocked to the young Prince's assistance and managed to secure the return of the yarlyk to the Prince of Moscow. Following the attempt by the Prince of Nizhny Novgorod and Suzdal, the Grand Duke of Moscow was opposed by Prince Mikhail Alexandrpvich of Tver, who attempted to resurrect the age-old dream of the princes of Tver---supremacy over the whole of Rus. Thus, the first half of the reign of Dmitry Ivanovich was taken up with the struggle against the claims of the local princes who opposed him.
The involved domestic political situation was further complicated by a deterioration in foreign relations. Rus was being threatened from the west by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Having taken shape in the thirteenth century through the amalgamation of the Lithuanian tribes, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania developed in the fourteenth century into one of the strongest states in Eastern Europe, and its princes were pursuing a broadly expansionist policy towards the Russian lands (during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Grand Duchy of Lithuania absorbed considerable chunks of land in the western and southern parts of Rus). In the 1360s and 1370s Grand Prince Olgerd of Lithuania led his armies against Rus on three occasions, and during one of his campaigns even came close to Moscow. The Lithuanians were supported by Prince Alexander Mikhailovich of Tver, who hoped to defeat Moscow with the help of Olgerd. The anti-national policies of Alexander of Tver aroused a storm of indignation in Rus, and in a campaign against Tver in 1375, in which regiments supplied by various princes took part, Dmitry Ivanovich managed to defeat his rival.
Dmitry Ivanovich's victories in the wars against Lithuania and in the struggle against the claims of other Russian princes strengthened the role and significance of Moscow as the political centre of the Russian lands. These important changes in the political development of Rus were firmly 60 underpinned by changes that occurred in the fourteenth century in socio-economic relations.
The economic development of Rus in the fourteenth century, and articularly during the second half of the century, was typified by a oeneral upsurge in all sectors of the economy.
In agriculture this upsurge took the form of the further growth of rnductive forces, improvements in the implements of labour and the transition to new and better forms of farming. The three-field system became firmly established as the basic farming system, and squeezed out the slash-and-burn and fallow-field systems to the northern forests and the southern steppes on the fringes of Rus. Alongside farming, the importance of livestock raising, fishing and the collection of the honey and wax of wild bees also grew.
,
At the same time the fourteenth century is also notable for ushering in a further stage in the development of feudalism. There was a rapid growth in the large estates of the secular feudal aristocracy---the princes and boyars. Simultaneously, the landed property of the middle and lower strata of the feudal class ---nobles, euphemistically called "boyars' children'', and various servants (later known as dvoryane---from dvor, ``court'')---began to expand. Unlike the boyars, who owned their hereditary estates outright, these other strata were given tracts of land and the peasants living on them only on certain conditions and as a reward for services rendered.
The possessions of the lords of the church were also growing. The fourteenth century saw the founding of a whole number of monasteries, including the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery and the Monastery of St. Cyril of Beloozero, and their vast hereditary estates began to take shape, as well as the landed property of the see of the Metropolitan of Moscow, who was not just the head of the Russian Church, but was also an immensely rich feudal landowner.
By combining the seizure of lands of the ``black'' (state) peasants by force with acquisitions in the form of grants from the prince, and by using such methods as the purchase and mortgage of peasant lands, the secular and spiritual feudal lords converted the lands of the peasants into their own property. The Russian peasants lost their liberty as well as their land, and the former free member of a village commune became a feudally dependent peasant, obliged to carry out certain duties for the benefit of his lord, such as providing him with gratuitous labour (corvee) and paying quitrent.
Although feudally dependent, the peasants of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries still enjoyed the right to move from the estate of one lord to another, but this right became increasingly restricted. In the fourteenth century an article appeared in agreements between princes forbidding them to accept peasants who had come from another Principality. As for the bulk of the peasantry, the starozhiltsy (those who had lived on the land of a particular lord for a long time and who were closely tied to the estate), it was all but impossible for them to transfer. Feudal oppression became particularly heavy towards the end of the fourteenth century, when the feudals tried to increase quitrent and corvee service. This led to a sharply increased class contradictions between the peasants and the landowners. The peasants protested 61 against increased rents and services and accused the feudals of forcing them to work in a way that was not in accordance with custom. Extreme forms were also assumed by the contradictions between the ``black'' (state) peasants and the monasteries that were encroaching on them: the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Lives of the Saints have preserved accounts of how peasants armed with spears drove away ``saints'' trying to found monasteries, since they feared that the monasteries would seize their lands.
The growth of the towns was to a greater degree typical of economic development of fourteenth-century Russia than the growth of agriculture. The old Russian towns that had not been destroyed during Batu s invasion, such as Novgorod, Pskov and Smolensk, increased in size. The newer towns, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow also began to grow, and in the fourteenth century Tver and Moscow were Russia's biggest economic centres. The growth of Nizhny Novgorod in the fourteenth century was due to the town's key position on the Volga trade route which ,was of great importance to the trade of Rus with the countries of the East.
The fourteenth century, especially the second half, was a period of rapid urban industrial development. The old crafts that had declined after the Tatar invasion underwent a new phase of development and new crafts appeared. The first water mills were built and firearms were introduced (the first mention is made of them in the story of the defence of Moscow against the Tatars in 1382). Moscow became an important centre of artisan industries. The Moscow founders, who were famous throughout Russia, cast the first Russian cannon. During the reign of Dmitry Donskoi Moscow began the coining of money.
The Russian town consisted of the walled citadel proper and the ``settlement'' (posad) that contained the market-place (torg). Commerce occupied as important a place in the life of the towns as handicrafts. Novgorod, for instance, was divided into two parts or ``sides'' by the River Volkhov, and one of them was called "the trading side''. The towns were centres for both internal and foreign commerce.
Among the most important centres for trade with the countries of Western Europe still were Novgorod with its "younger brother'', Pskov. Hanseatic merchants acted as middlemen in the trade between them and the west (the Hanseatic League was an alliance of North German towns). The Hanseatic merchants had their own office in Novgorod. But from the very end of the fourteenth century onwards the people of Novgorod began to resist the Hanseatic monopoly, wishing to establish direct trading links with the European states. Moscow traded with the Genoese colony of Sudak (or Surozh, as it was called in Russia) in the Crimea. A special corporation of Surozh merchants was formed in fourteenth-- century Moscow for trade with the Genoese. Another Moscow corporation handled the West European cloth trade.
Trading with the East was also highly developed, mostly down the Volga, as the main artery connecting Russia with the countries of the East. Russian merchants sailed down the Volga to Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde, to trade with Arabs, Persians, Armenians, Khwarizmians, Bukharans and even merchants from India and China. Foreign traders also brought their wares into Russia by the Volga route. Another 62 important route was the River Don, with the Venetian colony of Tana at its mouth; this was the meeting place of Russian, Italian and Oriental ~
~ the Western countries Russia imported felt cloth, fine linen, ironware, gold and silver articles, wines, fruits and spices. From the East came silks and other fabrics, dyestuffs, perfumes, spices, weapons, iewelry and other items. To the West Russia exported furs, leather, wax, tallow, bristles, hemp, whalebone, walrus tusks and caviar. Furs, wax, honey and caviar also went to the Eastern market.
The industries and commerce that formed the basis of Russian urban economy determined the composition of the population. The inhabitants of the towns fell into two sections --- the feudals (princes, boyars and church hierarchs) and the townspeople proper, the trading and artisan or ``settlement'' population of the towns. The townspeople, too, were not a homogeneous group in the social sense, but consisted of big and small merchants, artisans and all sorts of working people, the plebs of the towns. This highly developed stratification of the towns led to sharp class contradictions within the urban population, both between the feudals and the townspeople proper and among the townspeople themselves --- between the rich upper stratum and the urban plebs.
Various heresies constituted one of the manifestations of the class struggle in the towns: the heretics' opposition to the established church and its doctrines reflected the protest of the ``settlement'' population against the feudal system, which the church sanctified with its authority. The first large heretical movement in Rus appeared in Novgorod and Pskov in the mid-fourteenth century. The members of the movement, known as strigolniki (the name of a religious sect), rejected the whole church hierarchy as having been set up "po mzde" (for bribes), denied the church sacraments and ceremonies, and taught that true Christians should not seek to enrich themselves. Such heresies were ruthlessly suppressed. The leading strigolniki were thrown from a bridge into the River Volkhov and drowned.
With the quickening of the economy and the growth of the social division of labour, as were reflected in the separation of craft industry from agriculture and the development of commerce, the social forces interested in ending feudal disunity and in establishing a united Russian state grew stronger. The townspeople were more anxious than anybody else to put an end to feudal disunity because it interfered with the development of industry and commerce. The countless political barriers, the tollgates where duty was exacted at the frontiers of the principalities, made exchange and the free movement of commodities extremely difficult, while the feudal wars undermined the economy of the towns.
The main feudal strata also had an interest, though for different reasons, in setting up a united Russian state. As far as the Moscow boyars were concerned, the increasing political might of the Principality of Moscow and the extension of its territory meant the growth of their °wn power. Still more interested in a united Russian state were the nuddle and lower feudal strata who were totally dependent on the Grand "uke. These unificatory tendencies were also supported by the church, wnicn sought to consolidate its privileges on an all-Russia scale.
63The tendencies seeking to overcome the feudal disunity of Rus, which became clearly apparent in the fourteenth century, were in accord with the onward march of history, since the political unity of Rus was the essential condition both for the country's continued economic growth and for the attainment of state independence.
The growing strength of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its firm position as the political centre of North-Eastern Rus provided the conditions necessary for a radical change in the policy of the Grand Dukes of Moscow towards the Golden Horde; it was a change from submission to the Horde to a policy of struggle against it.
The political development of the Golden Horde in the second half of the fourteenth century, unlike that of Rus, took the form of a growing process of feudal disunity. Feudal wars increased, parts of the Horde became more independent and the authority of the khan began to wane. In the course of two decades, from 1360 to 1380, fourteen khans ascended the throne of the Horde; this continued crisis resulted in the weakening of the Horde militarily and the loss of its international importance. Conditions were ripe for the struggle to free the Russian lands from the Tatar yoke.
In response to this policy of breaking off relations with and struggling against the Golden Horde, the khans of the Horde made war on Rus. One of the warlords of the Horde, Mamai, succeeded in effecting a temporary cessation of feudal hostilities and concentrating power in his own hands. In 1378, he set out on a big campaign against Rus but his forces were routed by the Moscow army in a battle on the River Vozh (a tributary of the Oka). This was already open warfare. Mamai began to make preparations for a new campaign with the aim of destroying the Grand Duchy of Moscow and re-establishing, in its worst forms, the Tatar yoke over Rus.
An important feature in Mamai's war preparations was the conclusion of an alliance with Jagailo, Grand Duke of Lithuania. The Golden Horde and Lithuania hoped to divide Rus up between them. Mamai also entered into secret contacts with Prince Oleg of Ryazan, who resented the supremacy of Moscow.
The government of Grand Duke Dmitry, preparing for defence against Mamai, tried to enlist the military forces of all the Russian principalities. But Tver, Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod (to say nothing of Ryazan, of course) refused to take part in the struggle against Mamai. However, the mobilisation of the forces of the Moscow Principality, and of the towns and lands of the "Grand Duchy of Vladimir'', provided Dmitry with an army of an unprecedented size---between 100,000 and 150,000 men under arms. Apart from Dmitry's regular troops, the army was made up of townsmen and peasants, who constituted the main body and gave the Russian force the character of a national army.
The outcome of the war was decided by the Battle of Kulikovo, fought on September 8, 1380; the site of the battle was the right bank of the Don, at its confluence with the River Nepryadva.
The carefully masked concentration of the Russian army and the speed with which it reached the battlefield frustrated Mamai's plan to join forces with Jagailo and Oleg of Ryazan, and forced the Tatars to accept battle without their allies.
64 __CAPTION__ The Battle of Kulikovo, late sixteenth-century miniatureThe selection of Kulikovo Field as the site of the decisive battle shows that Dmitry was fully determined to defend Rus at all costs. When he crossed the Don and deployed his forces in combat order, he cut off any possible path of retreat; this was a challenge to Mamai to fight to the death. Kulikovo Field possessed considerable advantages from the military point of view. First, the Don and the Nepryadva covered the flanks of the Russian army and prevented the Tatar cavalry from employing their favourite tactics of sweeping round their enemy's flanks. Secondly, a dense forest of oaks on the bank of the Don at the left-hand edge of Kulikovo Field was used by the Russians to conceal a reserve regiment.
The Tatars opened the battle by hurling all their forces against the Russians. Bitter fighting lasted several hours. As The Tale of the Mamai Slaughter records, "Gilt armour rang, and the red shields clashed. Steel swords resounded, and sharp sabres flashed around the warriors' heads. The blood of the horsemen flowed over their armoured saddles, and gilt helmets rolled beneath the horses' hooves."
The Russians held their ground against the onslaught of Mamai's hordes. At last, however, the Tatars succeeded in breaking the Russian ranks; the Russians began to fall back and the Tatars thought the battle was won. It was at this critical moment that Dmitry brought his reserve __PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5--160 65 troops out of ambush. The unexpected appearance of fresh Russian forces decided the outcome. The Tatars wavered and then fled in panic. Contemporary writers called the Battle of Kulikovo "the Mamai Slaughter''. For his victory over the Tatars, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich was given the honourable title of ``Donskoi'' ``(of the Don''), the name by which he is known to history.
The historical significance of the Battle of Kulikovo was enormous. The defeat of Mamai put an end to the plans of the Tatars and Lithuanians to share out Rus between them. The victory of Kulikovo showed that the Tatars could be defeated; it lent strength to the forces that favoured the unification of Rus and contributed to strengthening the Principality of Moscow --- the cradle of the future united Russian state. The defeat of Mamai was the cause of fresh internecine warfare in the Golden Horde, in the course of which Mamai himself was killed. In 1382, Khan Tokhtamysh who had deposed Mamai undertook a fresh campaign against Russia. Although Moscow was defended with great fortitude by its townspeople, Tokhtamysh succeeded in defeating Rus.
The campaign of 1382 again put the country under the rule of the Horde. In 1384, after a long interval, the tribute to the Horde was again levied, this time in a harsher form. The levying of the tribute did not, however, rob the Battle of Kulikovo of its significance in the struggle against the Tatars. When Timur defeated Tokhtamysh in 1395, there was a new outburst of internecine warfare within the Horde and the harsh forms of tribute that had been paid since 1382 were abolished.
The reign of Dmitry Donskoi, a brilliant military commander and an intelligent and discerning politician, was an extremely important stage in the process of uniting the Russian lands thanks to his successes in the straggle against the local feudal centres and against foreign enemies. Fully aware of the successes he had achieved and of the power of the Grand Dukes of Moscow, Dmitry Donskoi bequeathed the Grand Duchy of Vladimir to his son Vasily I, thereby making the point that the Moscow princes could inherit the whole territory, despite the right of the Golden Horde to grant the actual licence.
Under Vasily I (reg. 1389--1425), relations with the local principalities remained the most important feature of domestic politics. The beginning of the reign of Vasily I was marked by an important step forward in the unification of Russia---the loss of independence by the Principality of Nizhny Novgorod with all its petty principalities and its annexation to Moscow. As far as the other Grand Duchies and Novgorod were concerned, however, matters took a different turn. There was a growing tendency on the part of the Prince of Tver to convert Tver into an independent, "``parallel'' Grand Duchy. Although he concluded a treaty with Moscow in 1385, Prince Oleg of Ryazan still sought independence. At the end of the fourteenth century, the separatist tendencies of the Novgorod boyars again became manifest in their efforts to strengthen Novgorod's independence by manoeuvring between Lithuania and Moscow.
The growing independence of local Grand Dukes and of Novgorod at the end of the fourteenth century is to a considerable extent to be explained by the intricate international situation that hampered the internal political activity of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
66In 1385 a union was effected between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland. The main reason for the union was Lithuania's need to increase its strength for the struggle against the Teutonic Order, the age-old enemy of the Lithuanians. Towards the Russian lands the ruling circles of Lithuania continued to pursue a policy of expansion even after the union. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Lithuanians seized Smolensk, and in 1406 they started a war against Pskov, in which the Livonian Order also participated subsequently. At the request of the people of Pskov, Vasily I sent his brother Konstantin Dmitriyevich to them, and under his leadership they fought a successful campaign in Livonia. The peace treaty between Pskov and Lithuania was also concluded with the Grand Duke of Moscow acting as intermediary.
The impending clash between Lithuania and the Teutonic Order was as much responsible for ending the war against Pskov as the intervention of the Grand Duke of Moscow. The momentous engagement took place on July 15, 1410 near the Prussian village of Griinwald. In the famous Battle of Grunwald the combined forces of Lithuania and Poland, with the help of Russian regiments from Smolensk, dealt the Teutonic Order a blow from which it never fully recovered.
The death of Vasily I in 1425 initiated a long and severe political crisis that almost lasted throughout the reign of his son Vasily II (reg. 1425--62). The crisis developed into the feudal war that lasted from the 1420s to the 1450s and involved the Principality of Moscow itself.
The internecine strife was sparked off by the question of the succession. During the period of feudal disunity the custom had grown up in Rus that, after the death of the senior prince, the throne would go to his brother, an independent (udelny) prince. But from the midfourteenth century onwards the Moscow throne had been handed down from father to son. This procedure had largely come about through the fact that, from the second half of the fourteenth century, whenever a Grand Duke of Moscow died none of his brothers had usually been alive, and so the throne had passed to the deceased prince's eldest son without any conflict. But when Vasily I died in 1425 and the throne was handed to his son Vasily II, a claim to the throne was lodged by his uncle, the brother of the late ruler, the independent prince Yuri Dmitriyevich of Galich (near Kostroma). The conflict that arose over the succession concealed the clash of two political orders --- the incipient hereditary monarchy, which was a form of centralised state, and feudal disunity--- since the procedure whereby an independent prince succeeded the late ruler strengthened the position of the independent princes and so helped to preserve the political fragmentation.
The fact that the clash of these two political orders really lay behind the struggle is shown by the alignment of the forces which took part in it: Yuri Dmitriyevich of Galich and, after his death, his sons Vasily the Cross-Eyed and Dmitry Shemyaka were supported by a coalition of independent princes and local boyars associated with them, while Vasily II secured the allegiance of the dvoryane, the Moscow boyars, the Church and the townsfolk.
The struggle was fierce and was waged with alternate success. The internecine strife in the Principality of Moscow was complicated by the intervention of the Tatars. In 1445 the principality was invaded by Ulu __PRINTERS_P_67_COMMENT__ 5* 67 Mahmet, one of the Tatar khans, who defeated the forces of Vasily II and took him prisoner. The Grand Duke was only released after the promise of an enormous ransom. Taking advantage of the discontent aroused by the collection of money for the ransom, Dmitry Shemyaka captured Vasily II, put his eyes out (hence the name "Vasily the Dark'') and occupied Moscow in February 1446. However, Shemyaka's drive to strengthen the positions of the independent princes and the reign of terror that he inflicted on the people of Moscow (memories of which have been handed down in the folk tale about the unjust Judgment of Shemyaka) led to a mass movement against him. He was opposed by the townsfolk and by the feudal strata associated with the Grand Duke of Moscow, and the Church. Dmitry Shemyaka had to release Vasily the Dark, who then came to be the focal point of all the elements that were dissatisfied with the feudal reaction instigated by Shemyaka, and in December 1446 Vasily the Dark entered Moscow.
The outcome of the struggle between Vasily the Dark and his opponents showed in practice the hopelessness of attempts to halt the process of the unification of the Russian lands and to restore feudal disunity.
After his victory over Shemyaka, Vasily the Dark destroyed nearly all the independent principalities that formed part of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The Grand Duchy became a single area that was under the rule of the Grand Duke (the only small principality to survive was Vereya). Vasily also strengthened the power of the Grand Duke vis-a-vis Great Novgorod. Using Novgorod's support for Shemyaka during the last period of the feudal war as an excuse, he organised a campaign against Novgorod in 1456, which ended with the conclusion of the Treaty of Yazhelbitsk. In accordance with the treaty, Novgorod undertook not to maintain any relations with the members of Shemyaka's family, not to give refuge to any enemies of the Grand Duke, and to return the lands that had been seized from the Grand Duke. The treaty also increased the Grand Duke's legislative rights in Novgorod and correspondingly limited those of the veche.
An important ecclesiastical event also occurred during the reign of Vasily the Dark. In 1439 the Council of Florence, which was attended by the supreme hierarchs of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, passed a decision to form a union between the two churches. By means of this union the Curia of Rome attempted to bring the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox countries into its sphere of influence. The Greek clergy and the Emperor of Byzantium, who was also present, sanctioned the union, hoping thereby to receive West European support against the Turks. The act of union was also signed by the Russian Metropolitan Isidor, who was Greek by nationality. When Isidor returned to Russia, however, both the Russian clergy and the Grand Duke refused to recognise the union. Isidor was removed and in 1448 Bishop lona of Ryazan was elected Metropolitan at an assembly of Russian bishops---the first to be appointed without the sanction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Russian Church became autocephalous ( independent). The refusal of the Russian ecclesiastical and secular authorities to recognise the Florentine union was of considerable importance as regards the strengthening of the international position of Rus, since the 68 danger that the country might become subject to the political influence of the Papal Curia was thereby removed.
The Principality of Moscow emerged from the feudal war of the second quarter of the fifteenth century as a much stronger entity: major successes had been achieved in the establishment of internal cohesion, and the status of the principality among the other Russian lands and on the international scene was enhanced. This paved the way for the completion of the process of the "gathering of the Russian lands" through the abolition of the still independent principalities of Tver and Ryazan and the veche republics of Novgorod and Pskov, and their incorporation into the Grand Duchy of Moscow. This final stage in the creation of a united Russian state was effected during the reigns of Ivan III and Vasily III.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The incursions of Batu's hordes caused a serious setback in the cultural field. The Tatar-Mongol invasion was described in many literary works as a catastrophe arising out of the intervention of supernatural forces, as something unprecedented and incomprehensible.The incursions of Batu's hordes caused a serious setback in the cultural field. The Tatar-Mongol invasion was described in many literary works as a catastrophe arising out of the intervention of supernatural forces, as something unprecedented and incomprehensible.
The Tatar-Mongol yoke, which Russia bore for many long years, was no less an evil than the invasion itself. Foreign oppression had a deadly effect on the development of Russian culture. Building in stone ceased altogether for a long period. The crafts declined very badly, some branches of industry died out altogether. In the early period literature, especially the chronicles, suffered less than any other branch of culture. The Russian people garnered hope for their deliverance from the history of their native land; its great past strengthened their patriotism and spread among them a conviction of Rus's lofty historical mission.
The literature of the second half of the thirteenth century contains a number of works devoted to events connected with the Tatar-Mongol invasion. These writings are all marked by a lyrical sorrow for the former greatness of the Russian land; they are very emotional and show the influence of folk poetry. Of the greatest significance among them are The Lay of the Death of the Russian Land and The Story of Batu's Destruction of Ryazan.
The well-known Life of Alexander Nevsky was also written in this period.
The rebirth of culture began in the second half of the fourteenth century. The outstanding feature of the cultural revival was the great attention paid to the country's state interests, to its national unification under the rule of Moscow. It is worth noting that the Russians looked back to the pre-Mongol period, to their former independence, for a basis for their cultural revival.
This appeal to the past bore a specifically folk character as can be seen from the bylini, the Russian folk epics; the bylini are, in the main, divided into two cycles, the Kiev and the Novgorod cycles, with both reflecting themes that date from the period of Russian independence. The basic Kiev Cycle with such heroes as Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich was compiled around events in Kiev at the time of Prince Vladimir I Svyatoslavich (Vladimir the Beautiful Sun), 69 the period in which Kiev's might reached its peak. The compilation of the bylini in a single Kiev Cycle began in the eleventh century and was continued on a greater scale in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth also saw an upsurge in Russian literature, arising from the appeal to traditions dating from the times of national independence. Some of the Russian works of the time are imitations of the eleventh-- thirteenth-century works the Sermon on Law and Grace by Metropolitan Harion, The Lay of the Death of the Russian Land, the Life of Alexander Nevsky and, of course, The Lay of Igor's Host. The victory at Kulikovo caused various works on the subject to appear in Moscow. The most sophisticated of them is the Zadonshchina, a poetic glorification of the Russian victory over the Tatars at Kulikovo in 1380. In the Zadonshchina this glorification is combined with elegiac sorrow for those who fell---the author of the poem speaks of "pity and praise'', pity for the fallen and praise for the victors. The Zadonshchina follows The Lay of Igor's Host in its artistic method and its ideology. It compares the events described in the latter poem with those contemporary to it. In The Lay the Russians were defeated, in the Zadonshchina they were victorious; Kulikovo, according to the Zadonshchina, was retribution exacted from Russia's enemies for the defeat by the Polovtsi of Prince Igor Svyatoslavich on the River Kayala, and for the defeat by the Tatars on the River Kalka.
Another work dealing with the Battle of Kulikovo was written in the first half of the fifteenth century and was widely distributed in Russia; this was The Tale of the Mamai Slaughter.
In the fifteenth century opposition to the foreign yoke became the favourite theme of Russian literature. The numerous folk tales and reminiscences of the struggle against the Tatars preserved in Tver, Ryazan and Smolensk were elaborated in complicated literary forms.
There was a very considerable development of chronicle writing, especially in Moscow, from the end of the fourteenth century. The Moscow princes used the evidence of the chronicles in their politics, cleverly adapting the historical past of the Russian people to the tasks of the day. Early in the fifteenth century a big Moscow chronicle was compiled; it was later given the name of the Troitsky Chronicle. This chronicle was destroyed in the fire of Moscow in 1812, but the Soviet scholar M. Priselkov has succeeded, after years of research, in reconstructing the text (approximately in some places, but definitively in others).
Big books of chronicles were compiled at this time in Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov, Smolensk, Pskov and other towns. The extensive chronicles of Great Novgorod are especially famous for their valuable historical material.
Interest in world history never flagged in Russia. This history took the form of a series of huge chronographies, the most famous of which was that known as the Hellenic and Roman Chronicler. In the mid-fifteenth century another world history was compiled, less massive and more convenient to read; it also contained brief information on Russian history---this was the book known as The Russian Chronography.
70 __CAPTION__ Theophanes the Greek. Fresco in the Church of Our Saviour in Hyin, Novgorod, 1378Painting underwent a particularly rapid development in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the best of the Russian paintings of this period also appealing to the pre-Tatar period. The old church buildings were decorated witl frescoes, and old paintings were restored. This new art, however was more lively and more sincere than the old. It was full of movement, the pigment was bright and joyful, the colours close to natural were used in strict harmony and were less conventional. At its best, the new art was devoted to man, to man's inner world. In the ``sacred'' subjects the artists tried to reveal the psychology of the persons involved rather than the religious content of the theme.
Among the monumental paint ings of the fourteenth century, the wonderful frescoes of the Nov gorod churches deserve special mention, particularly those of the Church of the Assumption in Volotovo and the Church of St. Theodores Stratilatos (destroyed by the nazis during the war).
There were a number of famous masters working in Russia in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, among them Theophanes the Greek. He came to Novgorod from Byzantium and his painting exercised a profound influence on Russian artists. At the same time Theophanes assimilated a great deal from Russian art. His pictures show a remarkably confident style, an ability to achieve tremendously effective results with modest means, a content of profundity and great wisdom and deep psychological understanding. In Novgorod, Theophanes decorated the Church of Our Saviour in Hyin; the murals are today still remarkable for their perfection. He then worked in Moscow, in Nizhny Novgorod and, apparently, in other places. In 1395 and 1396, Theophanes the Greek, with Simeon the Black, decorated the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Moscow. In 1399, he decorated the Cathedral of the Archangel in the Moscow Kremlin. In 1405, with the monk Prokhor from a Volga monastery and the famous Russian painter Andrei Rublyov, he worked on the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Moscow Kremlin. Theophanes also did some secular painting.
A younger contemporary of Theophanes was the Russian painter of genius Andrei Rublyov. The date of his birth is not known (some time in the sixties or seventies of the fourteenth century); he 71 __CAPTION__ Shepherds. From the Icon of the Nativity, mid-fifteenth century died circa 1430. Very few of his paintings have been preserved. His work was done mostly in Moscow, where, as we have said, he participated in the decoration of the Cathedral of the Annunciation. In 1408, with his constant companion Daniil the Black, he worked in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Vladimir. From 1424 to 1426, he and Daniil painted frescoes and decorated icons for the Trinity Cathedral in the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery (in the town of Zagorsk, near Moscow). His famous "Holy Trinity'', now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, apparently belongs to this period. For many years it was believed that the "Holy Trinity" was the only authentic Rublyov painting in existence, but in Soviet years several more have been discovered.
The work of Andrei Rublyov has always attracted considerable attention and has been the subject of many disputes. If nothing but Rublyov's paintings had come down to us from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, they alone would have been sufficient to show the high level of development of the individual and of culture in general in the Russia of that period. Rublyov's paintings are profoundly national; his ``Saviour'' in the Zvenigorod Cathedral and other works also display the national type of face.
The best of Rublyov's works, however, is undoubtedly the "Holy Trinity''; it combines a symbolic religious subject with lofty humanism and simple human truth.
Of all the arts, that of building in stone was slowest to recover; owing to the general impoverishment Of the country under the Mongol-Tatar yoke, there was a long period in which no stone was used. During the second half of the thirteenth century, building ceased almost entirely.
In 1292, the first stone church to be built after Batu's invasion was erected near Novgorod---the Church of St. Nicholas on the Lipna. Novgorod fourteenth- and fifteenth-century churches were of smaller dimensions than those erected before the invasion. In the midfifteenth century a number of stone buildings were erected inside the Novgorod Kremlin and the Kremlin itself was enclosed within a stone wall. There was also a revival of building in other parts at about this time.
Moscow played an important part in the new development of Russian 72 __CAPTION__ A. Rublev. The Holy Trinity, first quarter of the fifteenth century architecture. In 1366 (other sources give 1367), the building of stone walls around the Kremlin began; these replaced the timber palisade that had been erected at the time of Ivan Kalita, This building activity was undoubtedly indicative 9f the rise of Moscow, its increasing military power and supremacy among the other Russian principalities.
The Cathedral of the Assumption in Zvenigorod was built in 1400, the Cathedral at the Monastery of Savva the Watchman in the same town in 1404, the Church in the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery (Zagorsk, Moscow Region) in 1423 and the Cathedral of the Andronicos Monastery (one of the oldest buildings how standing in Moscow) between 1420 and 1427.
Architecture in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Rus developed under the influence of the same ideas as the national renaissance and patriotic national consciousness that were typical of all aspects of Russian culture in that period.
Russian applied art and handicrafts again reached a high level of development.
73The early development of Russian artillery was of great significance. In the chronicles cannon are first mentioned in the year 1382. Shortly after this there were master gun founders in Moscow, Tver and other towns.
Certain progress was made in the accumulation of the naturalhistorical data and empirical knowledge. Ancient pagan beliefs and animistic conceptions were gradually disappearing, at least among the ruling class. In the fifteenth century translations were made of medical, cosmographical and astronomical books. The chronicles of the second half of the fourteenth century contain exact descriptions of the symptoms of the plague.
The arithmetical knowledge of old Russia, as can be seen from the terminology employed, developed on the basis of the practical needs of commerce. Geometry had the same practical importance and was developed in close connection with land surveying---methods of calculating the areas of the square, the parallelogram, trapezium, triangle, etc. This practical character of the development of various branches of knowledge is typical for all the natural sciences in Russia from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. Interest in the chemistry of dyes and inks arose out of the requirements of production; at the same time there developed knowledge of medicine, anatomy and herbal remedies.
Extensive contacts with the South Slav countries contributed greatly towards the development of Russian culture in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
A number of manuscripts copied by Russian scribes in the monasteries of Afon and Constantinople have been preserved. Furthermore, Greeks, Bulgars and Serbs visited Novgorod, Moscow and other Russian towns. Many works of art were brought to Russia from Byzantium and the South Slav countries. The contact between Russia and the South Slav countries was of great importance to the cultures of Russia and also of Bulgaria and Serbia.
The Russian culture that developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was permeated with the idea of national liberation from the foreign yoke and the unification of the country into an integral and inseparable whole. The Russian people turned naturally to the times when Russia had been united, independent and strong. In almost all spheres of Russian culture of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we see great interest displayed to the period of Kiev Rus, the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, to the works of art and literature and the political ideas and traditions of that period. The Russian people showed great interest in their history and the compilation of chronicles developed on an unprecedented scale. In this renascence of Russian culture, the epoch of national independence, the epoch of the ancient states of Kiev and Vladimir Rus, played the same role in the conditions of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Rus, as the period of antiquity played in the Renaissance in the West European countries. There are features in common between the style and world perception prevalent in Rus during this time and the style and world perception of the pre-Renaissance period in the West. Man gradually began to free himself from religious influences, but did not break with them. Emotional sensitivity and an 74 interest in man appeared deep within the church culture. Pictures of Christ, the Blessed Virgin and the saints became more human, simple and close to the ordinary person, the severe and monumental nature that had hitherto predominated finally disappeared, and the compositions became more dynamic. Greater expressiveness, emotionality and an interest in psychological experiences invaded literature. Professional writers made their d6but. Rus developed stronger contacts with Byzantium and the South Slav countries, and there was a consequent influx of new ideas and new architectural and artistic forms. The ``free'' city-communes of Novgorod and Pskov played a particularly important part in this new movement.
[75] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Four __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE CENTRALISED RUSSIAN STATE.The history of Russia at the end of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth --- an age of great achievements and terrible sanguinary tragedies, a stormy and extremely contradictory age --- has always come in for particular attention from researchers in the USSR and in other countries. This is only to be expected, since the end of the fifteenth century, which ushered in the age of the great geographical discoveries and the inception of capitalism, the great reformations and the consolidation of the absolute monarchies, was also a turning point in the history of Russia. Needless to say, the Russia of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was not an advanced European country (the 200 years of the Tatar yoke had seen to that), but it was during this period, right up to the mid-sixteenth century, that an intensive economic upsurge took place which might have, given favourable circumstances, marked the beginning of substantial advances in all fields, advances of a bourgeois, or rather pre-bourgeois, nature. Although, as a result of the oprichnina and the ``great peasant ruin'' of the late sixteenth century, serfdom triumphed in Russia in the social, and not just peasant, sphere and autocracy triumphed in the political sphere, this does not prove that the Russian people could not have followed a different path. Nevertheless, it is the basic ``objective'' reason that was largely responsible for the economic and cultural backwardness of serf-owning tsarist Russia.
By the end of the fifteenth century, Russia had become the biggest state in Europe; its territory stretched from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the middle reaches of the River Seim in the south; and in the west from the Gulf of Finland, Lake Peipus and the upper reaches of the Western Dvina (Daugava) and the Dnieper to the Ural Mountains in the east and the River Ob in the north-east. From the mid-fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century the area of Russia increased sixfold.
The unification of the Russian people (the Great Russians) within the framework of a single state and the country's general economic progress led to a considerable increase in the indigenous Russian population, especially in North-Eastern Russia. According to the latest Soviet research, at the end of the fifteenth century, the population of the 76 Russian state was between five and six million, but by the mid-sixteenth century it had increased to about nine million. This was, for instance, almost twice the size of the population of England at the time (some 4-5 million).
This general increase in the number of the population promoted the growth of villages and towns; there appeared new settlements on the outskirts of the state. The increase, however, was greatest in the area immediately surrounding Moscow. That city itself had become one of the biggest in Europe by the sixteenth century and had some 200,000 inhabitants. Maciej Miechowski, a Polish historian, wrote in the 1520s that Moscow was twice the size of Florence or Prague. The English explorer, Richard Chancellor, who was in Moscow in 1553 and 1554, thought that Moscow was even bigger than London and its suburbs. Chancellor was also struck by the size of the rural population in theareas adjacent to Moscow. He commented that the area between Moscow and Yaroslavl abounded in small villages which were so full of people that it was amazing to look at diem.
Novgorod, which Miechowski thought was "much larger than Rome'', and Pskov, which foreigners compared to Paris, were both big sixteenth-century towns.
Fairly recently, Soviet researchers carried out a great deal of work on the surviving cadastres of the time in order to study the growth and distribution of the population in sixteenth-century Russia. They reached some rather intriguing conclusions. It turns out that, although the urban population of Russia at the time constituted a relatively insignificant percentage of the overall population (even in the Zamoskovny region, in the heart of the country, it comprised no more than about five per cent and only reached 9-10 per cent in the Novgorod and Pskov areas), its growth was proceeding at a considerably faster rate than that of the rural population, especially before the mid-sixteenth century. From the end of the fifteenth century to the sixties of the sixteenth the overall population of the Russian state grew by some 40 per cent but in the towns for which we have comparable data it grew by over 60 per cent. However, during the oprichnina and the general socio-economic crisis of the sixties and seventies of the sixteenth century that accompanied it, the situation changed abruptly: there was a slowing down not only in the general rate of population growth, but primarily in that of the towns --- a factor that became particularly noticeable with the massive exodus of people from the western and central areas of the country to its southern and south-eastern fringes---the black-earth areas of the Volga and the Dnieper. This was to have far-reaching consequences for the future of Russia.
Substantial changes also occurred in feudal land tenure at the end of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth. The large hereditary estates of the princes and boyars gradually broke up, particularly the estates of the former udelny princes and boyars, who were frequently stripped of many of their old hereditary lands. They were replaced by pomestya---lands that were distributed by the major and minor princes to feudal vassals for then- temporary use in exchange for services rendered to the suzerain. This was tantamount to a redistribution of the land. It passed out of the hands of the big landowners, the petty 77 princes and boyars, and became increasingly concentrated in those of the dvoryane and the boyars' children, whose feudal holdings were of medium size. Just as important in the development of pomestye land tenure was the feudal lords' seizure of the lands of the peasant communes and also their development of lands newly annexed to the Russian state.
The creation of a large army consisting of landowning nobles and the emergence of the dvoryanstvo as a social estate began with the annexation of the Novgorod lands to Moscow. Prior to that, the Novgorod lands consisted primarily of the huge hereditary estates of the boyars. Over half of the privately owned land belonged to 68 large owners. After the annexation of Novgorod, the government of Ivan III distributed the free peasant communal lands among the new nobility and confiscated much of the land belonging to the Novgorod boyars and merchants. Two thousand Moscow dvoryane and the boyars children were settled on these confiscated lands.
Some idea of the vast scale on which these pomestyavsere handed out is given by the fact that, according to Moscow's own records, pomestye land constituted 40--50 per cent of all land in the Shelonskaya, Derevskaya, Bezhetskaya and Votskaya pyatiny (administrative areas) of Novgorod, with church lands accounting for 10--15 per cent and quitrent peasant lands that belonged to the state (known as ``black'' lands) for 20--30 per cent at the end of the fifteenth century, while in the mid-sixteenth century 90 per cent of the land had been parcelled out to the pomestya and the ``black'' lands only accounted for about one per cent. The peasant lands belonging to the state had been eaten up by the new estates. A roughly similar process in land tenure can also be traced in Pskov, Toropets and other West Russian lands annexed to Moscow, although, with the exception of Pskov, the process there operated more slowly.
The situation was different in the central part of the country, the old territory of the Moscow Principality; here the large hereditary estates, like the Moscow boyarstvo itself, remained intact, while by the mid-sixteenth century there was already comparatively little state-owned peasant land, apart from the north-eastern part of the Volga area. Most of the land was still retained by the lords, both spiritual and temporal, and the pomestye system of land tenure was not developed to any extent until the second half of the sixteenth century.
Even in the territory of Tver, where the boyars were subjected to a fairly thorough-going ``purge'' by the new authorities hi Moscow, the pomestye and military-class lands comprised only 33 per cent of all land, the hereditary estates 36 per cent and monastery lands and those belonging to the Archbishop of Tver 27 per cent, according to a document dated 1548.
At the same time, in the central areas of the country another tendency in the development of feudal land tenure ---the onslaught of the monasteries against the secular hereditary estates --- stood out clearly, and particularly so from the end of the fifteenth century onwards. The monasteries made quicker use of new ways of exploiting the peasants and energetically adapted their economy to market requirements. By the mid-sixteenth century the monasteries had taken possession of about a 78 third of all privately owned land. The Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery alone had extensive holdings in over thirty uyezds by the 1540s.
Only the Russian Pomorye, the name then used to designate the vast region (almost half the area of Russia) along the shores of the White Sea, Lake Onega and the rivers Onega, Northern Dvina, Mezen, Pechora, Kama and Vyatka, remained largely the domain of the ``black'' peasant commune. There was no pomestye land tenure in the Pomorye at all, and, despite their firm desire to exploit tile riches of the North, the northern monasteries lagged a long way behind the northern peasant, who was a colonist and pioneer industrialist.
Significantly, this spread of feudal land tenure in sixteenth-century Russia corresponded, to some extent, to the various types of feudal economy of the time, and determined the various ways in which agricultural production (the basis of the feudal economy) adapted itself to the commodity-money relations that were developing in the country. The big landowners (the princes, boyars and monasteries) mainly strove to replace quitrent payments in kind by money rent. The boyars also introduced the tilling of a part of their lands (comparatively modest as yet) for their own benefit, using for this purpose bondsmen (kholopi) who had been settled on the land. The same course appears to have been adopted by the middle feudal strata, the owners of both hereditary and pomestye estates. But since their lands and, consequently, the financial returns from them were relatively small and they had few kholopi, they were way ahead of the big landowners as regards the use of the corv6e system. They carved up the peasants' allotments and forced them to till the fields for the landowners before working on their own plots. Between the 1530s and 1550s, for instance, the fields tilled for the landowners on the Novgorod pomestya averaged about 15--20 per cent of the land, whereas at the end of the fifteenth century they had not usually risen above 5-10 per cent in the area. The size of the peasant allotments fell sharply, again mainly in the small pomestya and the hereditary estates. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the peasant allotment on the hereditary and pomestye estates of the Zamoskovny region and the lands of Novgorod and Pskov generally consisted of some 10--15 dessiatines of "good earth" in three fields (5 dessiatines of good earth in 1 field was the taxable unit, corresponding to the Moscow vyf or the Novgorod obzha---the area that one man could plough up on one horse), but by the 1550s and 1560s it had diminished to 8-12 dessiatines. Yet on the land owned by the state and the court the peasant allotments tended to grow right up to the economic crisis of the 1560s and 1570s, and frequently reached 20 dessiatines or more.
Measures of this kind on the hereditary and pomestye estates ultimately led to the enslavement of the peasants, who were in no mood to voluntarily (i.e., without coercion from the state and the feudal landowners) foresake their land and become bondsmen. Yet that is what the pomestye estate-owners were striving for. The dvoryanstvo's economic and legal ``radicalism'' was shaking the foundations, from inside, of both the peasant commune and the allodial peasant economy.
But although the corvee-based economy promised to supply the feudal landowners with marketable grain in the quickest and most efficient way (which is what they saw to be its particular benefit), it was, in the broad 79 economic perspective, more conservative than a system of money rent. The corv6e system led to the ruin of the individual economy of the peasants and, more important than anything else, it undermined the peasants' interest in raising their labour productivity and in marketing its results. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the greatest economic successes (and marketable surpluses) were produced by the peasant economy of the time in those areas where free peasant land tenure prevailed, and on the lands of the large Church estates or boyar (princes') villages, in which the most widely practised form of feudal exploitation of the peasantry was not corv6e work but money rent. As for the rural craft economy, the advantages of both money rent and small-scale commodity production were even more striking.
Thus, in the Russia of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries two trends in agricultural production for the market---the feudal method of the dvoryane (a corvee-based serf economy) and the purely peasant method (petty farming)---took shape and entered into conflict. Like most of the East European countries, Russia adopted the first type.
So, by die beginning of the sixteenth century three main groups of peasants had eventually been formed in Russia: there were the landowners' peasants, the court peasants and the chernososhniye; the latter name referred to the peasants who lived on the state-owned (``black'') lands. The majority of the taxable population consisted of landowners' peasants. It was this category that was subjected to the most intensive exploitation by the feudal class. The major feudal landowners were able to achieve this high level of exploitation through their own resources (not only by coercion, but by creating more ``privileged'' conditions for their own peasants on their estates as compared with the small hereditary and pomestye estates), but most of the feudal landowners sought assistance from the state --- through legislation that attached the peasants to their estates. In this, they were conspicuously successful. According to the Sudebnik (Book of Law) of 1497, the peasants' right of tiansfer to another estate was limited to a single period in the year---the week before and the week after the autumn Festival of St. George (26 November, Old Style).
In the final analysis, these changes in agriculture reflected the general processes that were taking place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the whole feudal economy of Russia.
As Soviet studies have demonstrated, the period was one in which industry and handicrafts were intensively developed on a broad scale. Prominent among the industries was the mining of iron ore, since the development of new farming techniques, the revival of handicrafts and the introduction of firearms greatly increased the demand for metal. The pottery, wood-working, leather-working and other crafts were also extensively developed. There was greater differentiation among the craftsmen. Sixteenth-century cadastres mention over 220 different handicraft occupations. Although many peasants continued to make their own implements, clothing, tools, etc. in addition to farming, by the mid-sixteenth century handicraft work had begun to separate from agriculture, giving rise to a category of craftsmen who generally worked for the market. A special category of torgoviye muzhiki, or rich peasants engaged in the production and sale of goods, even made its appearance. 80 __CAPTION__ Farming. Miniature from sixteenth-century chronicles
They were the owners of small country blast furnaces, salt-works, tallow-works, tanneries, potters' workshops, pitch-works and sometimes even whole commercial and industrial tovarishchestva ( companies), which were set up on corporative principles.
For instance, in the Dvina region, the centre of the Northern areas, in which state-owned lands predominated, we find quite a lot of rich peasants who as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century owned dozens of villages, salt-works and fisheries j and made wide use of hired labour (mainly landless peasants, Cossacks and other labourers) recruited for the most part from the local poor or from ruined peasants and newcomers. The value of the property owned by these rich provincials sometimes equalled the total value of the property belonging to a whole volost (rural district) of peasants, i.e., it amounted to two or three thousand roubles, or more. It was from such commercially minded peasants that the famous Russian merchant and industrial family of the Stroganovs emerged in the sixteenth century. They made their fortune through the salt-works, at which they had more than 10,000 labourers and Cossacks working in Sol-Vychegodsk alone, and through their wholesale trade in Siberian furs. Merchants of this kind comprised the first Russian trade delegation to England, which was sent there, together with their goods, on English ships by Ivan the Terrible in 1556, accompanied by Richard Chancellor, who was returning home from 81 Moscow. At the beginning and, particularly, in the middle of the sixteenth century some of these northern peasant industrialists sailed to Novaya Zemlya, where they hunted for seals and shot walruses for their tusks. Others sailed to the mouth of the River Ob and even reached the famous Siberian Mangazeya, a region that was renowned for its large numbers of fur-bearing animals, particularly sable.
Similar developments, and particularly social differentiation, occurred among the peasants living on state land in the central areas of the country too, as can be clearly seen from the cadastres and legal documents from the mid-sixteenth century, yet here it took place on a smaller scale. The braking effect that the developing system of serfdom had on the country's economy was too strong in the centre. It simply stifled peasant commerce and crafts.
The development of handicrafts led to the ubiquitous appearance, particularly from the end of the fifteenth century onwards, of numerous handicraft stalls and small markets. They usually appeared in villages that bordered the trade routes. In fact, in the Russia of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as in England, rural crafts, industries and commerce were so highly developed that sometimes there was hardly any difference between the well-to-do of town and country, especially in the case of peasants living in the state-owned areas around the towns. However, from the end of the sixteenth century onwards new measures to intensify serfdom came into force almost everywhere and the differences between town and country sharply increased once again.
On the whole, as is shown by the latest research, the towns played a substantial part in the economic development of Russia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and they grew very quickly. Their numbers are a fair indication of this. In the second half of the fifteenth century there were about 100 of them, yet there were over 160 by the mid-sixteenth century. Their general appearance also underwent a change. Artisans' quarters and market places grew up, new types of handicraft production appeared in the towns, and more and more people from the countryside drifted into the towns and settled there. The section of the urban population engaged in industry increased sharply. For example, artisans made up 12 per cent of the population of Serpukhov (in 1552), 27.3 per cent in Kargopol (in the 1560s), and 49 per cent in Novgorod -(in the 1580s). The role of die towns as commercial centres was also noticeably enhanced. In the mid-sixteenth century there were about 1,500 trading establishments in Pskov alone, and there were even more in Novgorod. Even in the relatively small town of Kolomna there was a permanent market place and 379 stores, in Mozhaisk there were two market places and 239 stores, and in Serpukhov 250 stores.
In the sixteenth century local regional markets appeared with specialised wares in each district. Flax and hemp were the speciality of the Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk and Yaroslavl regions; grain was grown and sold in the Ryazan, Opolye, Zavolochye and Volga areas; ironware was sold in the Serpukhov-Tula, Tikhvin, Ustyug-Zhelezopolye areas. Other important centres for the manufacture of wares from iron were Tver (which, according to a contemporary writer, had "the best and most skilful smiths in the whole land''), Yaroslavl and Vologda. The leather-working centres were Novgorod, Vologda, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, 82 __CAPTION__ Handicraftsmen in a feudal town. Miniature from sixteenth-century chronicles [83] Mozhaisk and Murom, wood-working was developed in Tver and Kaluga, salt production near Galich and Pereyaslavl, in the Pomorye, in the Perm area (on the Vychegda and near Solikamsk) and in the vicinity of Staraya Russa. The regional markets were mostly big towns such as Novgorod, Pskov, Yaroslavl, Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Ustyug Veliky.
Moscow acquired great importance as the country's economic centre. By the beginning of the sixteenth century Moscow was surrounded by artisans' quarters (slobodi) where craftsmen pursuing the same trade lived and had their shops --- blacksmiths, leather-workers, carpenters, potters, bakers, soap-boilers, silversmiths, tailors, gunsmiths and others. There were also merchants' establishments in the same quarters. The main Moscow market had been established long before this in the largest quarter ---the Veliky Posad ---close to Red Square.
Moscow was the biggest centre for internal trade; almost all the trade routes in North-Eastern Russia to a certain extent led to Moscow. Fish, furs and salt came from the Dvina basin, Perm and Vyatka; grain, meat, poultry, tallow and leather from Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod and Ryazan; flax and hemp from Novgorod and Pskov.
The Moscow market was at its liveliest during the winter months when booths were erected on the ice of the River Moskva, and wares of all kinds were offered for sale. The Venetian Ambassador Contarini, who was in Moscow in the 1470s, recorded: "People bring grain, meat, pigs, firewood, hay and other essentials to this market every day throughout the winter. At the end of November all the people in the surrounding countryside slaughter their cows and pigs, and cart them into the town to sell. It is pleasant to behold this enormous quantity of frozen cattle, already completely skinned and standing on the ice on their hind legs.'' Another Venetian, losafato Barbaro, was also struck by the size of the Moscow market of the end of the fifteenth century, pointing particularly to the cheapness of food in Moscow as compared with the European countries. The Englishmen Chancellor and Randolph, who visited Moscow in the mid-sixteenth century, also wrote of the richness of the market.
In the mid-sixteenth century Moscow's grain trade grew considerably. Enormous cartloads of grain were delivered by peasant traders, middlemen or the monasteries. The people of the Northern areas 500 or more kilometres from Moscow also bought their grain in Moscow (through middlemen), and it was then brought to them along the Yaroslavl and Uglich roads. Like Vologda, Yaroslavl acted in the mid-sixteenth century as a kind of centre in Moscow's trade with the rich North.
Russia's foreign trade increased considerably in this period, especially with Lithuania, Livonia and the Hansa towns. By the mid-sixteenth century regular trade relations had been established with Poland. There was also an increase in trade with the Tatar khanates, Central Asia, Persia, the Caucasus and Turkey. Trade between Russia and Italy, especially Venice, developed with Turkey as the intermediary.
Russia's main exports to the West were still furs, leather, tallow, salted meat, wool, walrus tusks, wax, honey, flax and hemp. The last two 84 __CAPTION__ Russian merchants trading with Dutch merchants in the North. Engraving of the late sixteenth century commodities began to be exported to the West in large quantities in the sixteenth century. Surviving records testify to the sixteenth-century export of wheat and buckwheat, as well as salt ---to Lithuania, for instance. Various industrial goods, fine cloths, weapons and luxury goods were imported from the West. Trade with the West was mainly conducted through Novgorod, Pskov, Tver and, after 1514, Smolensk. Trade with the Baltic area developed more intensively in the sixteenth century. Despite competition from Sweden and Denmark, it soon occupied one of the leading positions in Russia's foreign trade.
Regular trade with England was established in the mid-sixteenth century after Richard Chancellor, in his search for the north-east passage to India, entered the White Sea and visited Moscow in 1553. The Muscovy Company of Merchant Adventurers was formed in England in 1555 which traded with Russian merchants through the White Sea. Somewhat later (from the 1570s) Dutch merchants also reached Russia through the White Sea and began to compete with the Muscovy Company.
The development of direct trading links with England and Holland was very important to the Russian economy, and particularly to that of Northern Russia. As a Russian historian aptly remarked, the whole country "did, as it were, face north" in its dealings with Western Europe at the time. The North ceased to be a remote fringe of the state, and now became one of its most active areas. True, the English and Dutch merchants carried out of Russia more goods than they brought in. They were particularly interested in valuable furs, hemp (to produce which 85 the Muscovy Company even had special factories in Vologda and Kholmpgory), tallow, pitch, meat, caviare, salmon and wheat. At the same time the Western industrial goods, English cloths and the other imported commodities were in great demand in Russia.
Trade with the East was of great importance to Russia, despite the difficulties placed in its way by the hostile Tatar khanates on the eastern and southern frontiers. Chief among these was the Kazan Khanate which, although it conducted extensive trade with Moscow, deprived the Russians of the Volga as a trade route to Central Asia, the Caucasus and, especially, Persia.
Russian merchants maintained close relations with the Crimea, although the Crimean khans, no less than those of Kazan, frequently treated them to "great insults and ruination''. Russian merchants also traded, through Feodosia in the Crimea, with the Transcaucasus, Turkey, other countries in Anterior and Central Asia and even with Egypt. How far Russian merchants penetrated into Asia may be judged from the famous journey made between 1466 and 1472 by Afanasy Nikitin, a Tver merchant, "across three seas" (the Caspian, the Indian Ocean and the Black Sea) to India. Journeys by Russian merchants, even if not so lengthy, were by no means rare.
Such Oriental wares as silk, woollen and cotton goods, spices, dyestuffs, precious stones and luxury goods reached Russia from the East through Kazan and the Crimea. Thoroughbred horses were brought in from the Tatar khanates, mainly through the Nogai Horde. In exchange for these wares Russian merchants took to the East furs, walrus tusks, leather, hunting birds and handicraft wares. The work of Russian handicraftsmen was highly valued in the Tatar khanates, especially in the Crimea.
Despite the volume of trade reached by the mid-sixteenth century, Russia's foreign commerce, because of the country's international situation, was almost without further prospects of development. There were too many obstacles in the way of foreign trade. In the east there was, as we have said, Kazan, which held sway over the Volga trade route. In the south the Khanate of Crimea closed the road to the Black Sea. In the west the Lithuanian-Polish state, the Livonian Order, the Hanseatic League and Sweden persistently prevented direct commercial relations between Russia and Western Europe.
Under these circumstances the struggle for the Volga and also for an outlet into the Baltic Sea---in other words, the problem of Kazan and the Livonian Order---was the paramount question for the development, not only of foreign trade, but for the entire economic progress of Russia in the sixteenth century.
Thus the growth of agricultural production and industry, the increase in home and foreign trade, all speak of the important changes that took place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in this self-contained feudal state with its natural economy. Commodity-money relations had begun to perform a more important function and the conditions obtaining favoured closer economic relations between the Russian lands within the centralised state, which had itself, in the final analysis, been created by these new economic conditions.
As for the results of this development, at the end of the fifteenth 86 __CAPTION__ Ivan III. Engraving of the late 16th century century and the beginning of the sixteenth the question was still being decided as to the socio-economic path that Russia would tread---either the path of an estate and serfdom-based economy, for which broad strata of the ruling class were striving, particularly the estate-- owning dvoryane, since it was clearly to their advantage, or the opposite path of weakening feudal ties and intensively developing a petty goods economy in town and country. This latter course was in the interests of the townsfolk and the peasants. It was also supported by a group of large feudal landowners who were associated with the rising merchant class (like the Novgorod boyars, for instance, in the past) and who thought they would derive large economic gains from the urban and rural industries and from trade. But it was the rising dvoryane, and not they, who were coming to play the decisive role in the development of Russia. And the reasons for this were not only economic.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The reign of the Grand Duke Ivan III was an important stage in the formation of the unified Russian state.The reign of the Grand Duke Ivan III was an important stage in the formation of the unified Russian state. It was the period in which the basic territory of Russia was welded into a single state and completely liberated from the Tatar yoke, and in which the political foundations of that state took shape.
Ivan HI (reg. 1462--1505) was an outstanding statesman of his time, a man of unusual political foresight and bold enterprise. He was clever and persistent and at the same time cautious and cunning to the extreme and, in general, a man worthy to continue the work begun by his father.
The victory of Vasily II over Dmitry Shemyaka provided the conditions necessary to complete the unification of the Russian lands. Ivan III realised this and made it the main purpose of all Moscow policy.
The decisive stage of this policy was the annexation of Novgorod. The Yazhelbitsk Treaty of 1456 had made Novgorod the vassal of the Grand Duke of Moscow but had by no means ended Novgorod's political independence.
The Novgorod boyars were afraid that they would lose their privileges and their lands if Novgorod were to be included in the Grand Duchy of Moscow and launched an open struggle against Moscow.
87The conflict came to a head in 1470 when the anti-Moscow party,, headed by the Novgorod boyars, the Boretskys, succeeded in obtaining the consent of the Novgorod veche to form an alliance with Lithuania. Novgorod agreed to become the vassal of Kazimierz IV, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland.
Ivan III replied to this act by launching a campaign against Novgorod. On July 14, 1471, a decisive battle was fought on the banks of the River Shelon between the ``great'' army of Novgorod and the Moscow regiments. Novgorod was utterly defeated and the new treaty between Ivan III and Novgorod not only re-established the terms of the former treaty but compelled Novgorod to renounce all independent foreign politics.
This was not enough for Ivan III who wanted the complete abolition of Novgorod's independence.
In the seventies a struggle again broke out in Novgorod between Moscow supporters and opponents. There was another campaign against Novgorod (September 1477), and another capitulation, on this occasion complete and final.
This time Ivan III demanded the abolition of the Novgorod Republic. "We, the Grand Duke,'' he declared to the people of Novgorod, "want absolute power; as we are in Moscow, so we wish to be in our land in Novgorod the Great.'' The terms were then spelled out: "The veche bell shall not ring again in our land in Novgorod, and there shall be no separate ruler; we shall rule our domain.'' That was the end of Novgorod's independence.
The fall of Novgorod predetermined the fate of Tver, now surrounded on all sides by the Moscow lands. In 1485, Ivan III entered the Principality of Tver at the head of a big Moscow army. Tver swore allegiance to Ivan III. Abandoned by his boyars, the Grand Duke of Tver, Mikhail Borisovich, fled to Lithuania. A contemporary commentator on this sad fate of the last Prince of Tver recorded with biting irony: "Mikhail Borisovich. Played his pipe. And betrayed Tver. Fled to Lithuania."
Other principalities still independent of Moscow suffered the fate of Novgorod and Tver. Only Pskov and Ryazan now remained formally independent of Moscow, but they had long been feeling the heavy hand of the Moscow ruler.
The successful unification of the Russian lands under the rule of Moscow was a condition necessary for the final liberation of Russia from dependence on the Tatars. By this time internecine warfare had split the Golden Horde into a number of khanates. By the mid-fifteenth century the khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberia, the Nogai Horde and the Crimean Khanate had become independent feudal states. Inside the Golden Horde itself there was a fierce struggle going on between different groups of feudals. Although the Tatars still continued their bandit raids on the Russian lands, they did not possess the real strength to re-establish their rule over Russia.
This was demonstrated very clearly towards the end of the seventies and early in the eighties when Khan Ahmat of the-Golden Horde attempted to re-establish Tatar rule. The situation seemed to be, in his favour. The fall of Novgorod in 1478 and the wavering of Tver had 88 obviously disconcerted Russia's Western neighbours. Poland, Lithuania and the Livonian Order decided to intervene in the affairs of the ``Muscovites'' who were becoming dangerous. The Livonian Order started operations against Pskov. Kazimierz IV also intensified preparations for a war against Moscow.
It was at this time (the summer of 1480) that Khan Ahmat, relying on Kazimierz's promise of military aid, set out with a huge Tatar army for a "grand campaign" against Moscow. When, however, the Tatars reached the Oka, the crossings were all held by the Moscow regiments under the command of the Grand Duke himself. Ahmat did not risk accepting battle and moved along the River Oka to its upper reaches to join forces with the Lithuanians. At this moment Ivan III suddenly left his troops and returned to Moscow (he hoped to make peace with his brothers Boris and Andrei with whom he had quarrelled, and draw theni into the fight against the Tatars). Ivan's action was regarded as flight. The townspeople demanded that the Grand Duke return to the army and defend Russia against the Tatars. Ivan made peace with his brothers and returned to the army; his brothers also joined him in the fight against the Tatars.
In the meantime Ahmat had reached the right bank of the River Ugra (a left tributary of the Oka), but when he saw "the great Moscow army" he did not attempt a crossing. Ivan III also adopted a waiting attitude. Sickness and famine broke out among the Tatars'. Ahmat was relying on aid from Kazimierz IV, but hopes of this were in vain because Ivan's ally, Khan Mengli-Girei of the Crimea, invaded Poland. On November 11, 1480, Ahmat suddenly withdrew from the Ugra, so hurriedly that contemporaries were left with the impression that he had fled. The famous "stand on the Ugra" had come to an end. On their return home, Ahmat's troops were attacked by the Nogai tatars aided by the Siberian Khan Ibak on the lower reaches of the Volga. Khan Ahmat was killed in the battle.
Thus ended Khan Ahmat's attempt to re-establish Tatar rule over Russia. Shortly after this, the Golden Horde itself ceased to exist; in 1502, it was completely routed by Khan Mengli-Girei.
The final liberation of Russia from the Tatars after 1480 allowed Ivan III to make a decisive move against Kazan. He made good use of the enmity existing between the Kazan and Crimea khans, enmity that he helped foment; he was able to isolate Kazan from the other Tatar states and, as a result of his successful campaign in 1487, force Kazan to become the vassal of Moscow. This was an important victory for Moscow foreign policy. Right up to the twenties of the sixteenth century Kazan was ruled by those khans that Moscow found convenient. As far as Khan Mengli-Girei was concerned, Ivan skilfully turned him against the Lithuanian-Polish state. At the end of the fifteenth century the Crimean khan became the vassal of Turkey.
Under Ivan III the Russians began their extensive expansion to the north-east, to the Northern Kama area and to the Urals. From the sixties to the nineties of the fifteenth century, Ivan III succeeded in annexing all the Perm lands inhabited by the Zyryans (Komi) and Permyaks and in crossing the Urals along the upper waters of the Pechora as far as the lower reaches of the Ob where, in the campaign of 1499, Russian 89 troops seized many encampments and made 58 petty local princes their prisoners. Other areas that came under the rule of the Moscow Grand Duke were the northern seaboard inhabited by the Nenets (Samoyed) tribes and the Yugor Peninsula inhabited by the Khanty (Ostyaks) and Mansi (Voguls) who from that time on paid tribute to Moscow.
The successes achieved in pursuing the "eastern policy" gave Ivan III an opportunity to begin the struggle for the return of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian Jands that had once belonged to the Kiev princes and had then come under the rule of Lithuania and Poland.
The fierce struggle that flared up in the second half of the fifteenth century between the West Russian princes and Kazimierz IV who was supported by the Catholic nobles was obviously opportune for Moscow. The descendants of the Chernigov Seversky princes came over to Moscow one after another, bringing their lands with them. The Russo-Lithuanian War that broke out as a result of this and which lasted from 1487 to 1494, far from checking the process, only served to consolidate these lands as part of the Russian state. A fresh war between Russia and Lithuania (1500--03), resulting from the ``defection'' of another group of West Russian princes, was still more favourable for Moscow. The Russian state had added to it the huge territory embracing the upper reaches of the Oka and the Dnieper with such towns as Chernigov, Novgorod Seversky, Gomel and Bryansk.
Ivan III was the initiator of another important feature of the Russian centralised state's politics in the West---the struggle for the Baltic area. In this the main adversary was the Livonian Order that held the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland and whenever opportunity offered made bandit raids into the Pskov and Novgorod lands. In its struggle against the Muscovites, the Livonian Order had the support of Lithuania and Sweden. In 1500, the Order took advantage of the outbreak of the Second Russo-Lithuanian War to invade the Pskov lands. But the Russian forces inflicted a severe defeat on the knights of the Order near the town of Yuriev (Derpt). Under the treaty which Ivan III concluded with Livonia in 1503, the Order undertook not to place any further obstacles in the way of Russia's trade with the West, and the Bishop of Yuriev undertook to continue paying tribute to Moscow in perpetuity for the occupation of the Yuriev Region, formerly a possession of the Kiev princes and of Novgorod.
The victories achieved by Ivan III not only strengthened the Russian state; they also promoted the growth of its international significance. The West European countries tried to make this strong new state of ``Muscovy'' their ally. The ties between Russia and Venice, Naples and Genoa were expanded, and contact was established with the Moldavian and Hungarian states. Diplomatic relations with the Baltic states took on an active character. Lastly, under Ivan III, Russia's contacts with the Eastern states became much more important---with powerful Turkey, Persia, the Caucasian and Central Asian states. Russia had begun to acquire importance in world affairs.
The unification of the Russian lands that was effected under Ivan III and the final liberation of Russia from dependence on the Tatars and, most important of all, the social and economic changes that were taking 90 place in the country led to the establishment of an autocracy in Russia, and provided the necessary conditions for the conversion of the Grand Duchy of Moscow into a monarchy with government by representatives of the social estates.
The class basis of the Moscow monarchy extended beyond the dvoryanstvo. The power of the Grand Duke was also supported by the townsfolk, who had an interest in abolishing the remnants of feudal disunity that were hampering the development of commerce and industry. The boyars took a dual attitude towards autocratic rule. Most of the former petty princes and boyars wished to defend their hereditary lands and political privileges, and so favoured a limited monarchy. The other section of the boyars, consisting basically of the old Moscow aristocracy (the boyars and princes who had been in the service of the Grand Dukes), at first gave the government of the Grant Duke active support, regarding it as the source of their own influence and material prosperity. It was this section of the boyars that was most closely connected with the rising Moscow merchant class, which, to a considerable extent, produced the new bureaucracy of the capital, the moskovskoye dyachestvo, and it was on them that Ivan III relied for support in his politics.
On the death of his first wife, Princess Maria Borisovna of Tver, Ivan III wished to further enhance the power of the Grand Duke and, with the co-operation of the Pope, married Sophie (Zoe) Paleplog, niece of the last Byzantine emperor. By this marriage the Papal diplomats hoped to increase their influence on the foreign policy of Moscow, but Ivan III repulsed all their attempts. He himself made good use of his new relationship with the imperial house of Byzantium. In official diplomatic documents he not only called himself "ruler of all Russia'', but sometimes even ``tsar'' (Caesar) which according to Russian concepts of that period was the equivalent of emperor. A new state coat of arms was introduced bearing a double-headed eagle, similar to that of Byzantium. The court of the Grand Duke was also recast on the Byzantine model.
Supporters of the old order expressed discontent at these innovations. Many of them regarded Sophie Paleolog to be guilty of them. It had, of course, nothing to do with her; the reason was to be found in the general changes in the government of the state that had taken place under Ivan III. The important features of this new system were, on the one hand, the all-Russia character of the Grand Duke's government (with representatives of all the lands) and, on the other hand, the expansion of the government apparatus, its conversion into a bureaucracy to serve the interests of the growing autocracy.
In the second half of the fifteenth century, the BoyarDuma (Boyars' Council), an advisory body of boyars close to the Grand Duke, was converted into a permanent supreme body under the Grand Duke. Only representatives of the biggest princely and aristocratic families had the right to sit on the Council. All important questions of state were settled by the Grand Duke sitting in the Council. To deal with questions of outstanding importance such as war and peace, the testament of the Grand Duke, and similar issues, a joint meeting of the Boyars' Council and the hierarchy of the church (the Holy Conclave of the Church) was 91 called: sometimes representatives of the dvoryanstvo also attended. It was out of these conferences that the Zemsky Sobor or National Assembly arose.
The executive bodies of the government also underwent considerable change. At the end of the fifteenth century the first prikazi (offices) appeared; they were central bodies responsible for the various departments of the Grand Duke's government. A most important role in the offices was played by dyaki (secretaries).
Local government remained conservative under Ivan III. It was based on the system known as kormleniye or ``feeding'', and was one of the means of enriching the top stratum of the ruling class at the expense of the population. The governors of the provinces and volosts (the smaller administrative divisions) were maintained by the local population, i.e., they were literally ``fed'' by the people, hence the term kormleniye. These governors possessed universal power; they were rulers, judges, collectors of the Grand Duke's taxes and customs duties, and the governors of provinces were, in addition, commanders of the armed forces. The right to obtain such a post belonged only to princes, boyars and other former "free servants" of the Grand Duke. This system of central and local government was given legal form in the Sudebnik(Code of Law) of 1497, the first Legal Code published by the Grand Duke which introduced a uniform judicial system and uniform government throughout the territory of Russia.
And lastly, there was the important innovation of ``precedence'', which was given final form during the reign of Ivan III. Under this system all the boyar families were arranged according to a hierarchical ladder and all their appointments, both civil and military, had to be in accordance with their genealogy. In this way the former "rulers of the lands" who had gathered in Moscow distributed among themselves the material benefits and political privileges accruing from service to their new ``lord''---the Grand Duke of Moscow.
Ivan III was succeeded by his son, Vasily III (reg. 1505--33), a ruler still more despotic and a man with a heavier hand than his father.
Vasily III did not make any great changes in the Moscow political line laid down before him, and, like his father, made the unification of the Russian lands and the strengthening of the new state system his chief aim. This policy proved successful---in 1510 Pskov and in 1521 the Principality of Ryazan were annexed to Moscow.
The Russo-Lithuanian War of 1512--22 resulted in the capture of Smolensk, which had been under Lithuanian rule for over a hundred years. By and large, this completed the unification of the basic lands inhabited by Great Russians.
Vasily III was less successful in the East. As a result of an insurrection in Kazan, engineered by the Crimean khan in 1521, the Kazan khan, a supporter of Moscow, lost his throne. The Crimean and Kazan Tatars, supported by Lithuania, launched an attack on Russia and laid waste to almost all the southern and south-western border provinces as far as Moscow. This brought about a complete change in the relationship of the Kazan and Moscow forces.
The early twenties of the sixteenth century were critical for Vasily's 92 home and foreign policy. The attack of the Crimean Tatars on Russian lands in 1521 served as a signal for some of the former petty princes to come out openly against Vasily. With the aid of Lithuania and the Crimea, the Novgorod Seversky and Starodub princes entered into a conspiracy with the Prince of Ryazan to separate their possessions from the Moscow Grand Duchy. Vasily succeeded in crushing the conspirators. There were also expressions of discontent among the old Moscow boyars on account of the Grand Duke's too autocratic acts. The direct cause of this was Vasily's divorce; in 1525 he divorced his first wife, Solomonia Saburova, on the pretext that she was "sick and barren'', and married Yelena Glinskaya, niece of Prince Mikhail Glinsky, an aristocrat of Lithuanian origin. This act was perceived by the old Moscow boyars as a blow at their prestige and political privileges since Solomonia Saburova belonged to one of the oldest boyar families.
In 1533, Vasily died suddenly, but before his death he announced that Yelena would rule and that during the minority of their son Ivan (he was three years old at the time), a regency council of the most trusted people was to be set up. In the summer of 1534, however, Yelena, an energetic and ambitious woman, dismissed the Regency Council and took power directly into her own hands. The real ruler of the country was her favourite, Prince I. Ovchina-Obolensky-Telepnev. The sad period of "boyar rule" began. It was a time of boyar plots, urban risings and unrest among the dvoryane. The question of Russia's political future arose once again, and in a much more acute form than under Ivan III.
The crisis broke out in 1537 with the revolt of Prince Andrei Staritsky, the younger brother of Vasily III, who claimed the Grand Duke's throne. The revolt set off a series of widespread anti-government acts on the part of the Moscow artisans and merchants. The government rapidly suppressed the revolt, but the situation in the country remained tense. In April 1538, Yelena died suddenly, apparently poisoned by the boyars, and power fell into the hands of two groups of boyars, the Shuiskys and the Belskys, between whom a constant struggle was going on. Those in favour of limiting the monarchy became active once again.
In the autumn of 1538 the Shuiskys succeeded in ousting the Belskys and taking the reins of government into their own hands, but by the summer of 1540, the Belskys again managed to take over the most important government posts.
But neither the Shuiskys nor the Belskys were capable of far-reaching reform. The boyars were more interested in sharing posts and incomes than in governing the country. Although they tried to follow in the footsteps of Vasily III, particularly in foreign policy, they were markedly unsuccessful. As for land policy, the period of boyar rule is typified by the feudal lords' unrestrained plundering of the state-owned and court lands, as well as by a further wave of Church ``expansionism''. On the other hand, the boyars themselves were obliged by the growing unrest among the peasants and the lower classes in the towns to satisfy a number of political demands advanced by the provincial dvoryanstvo and the merchants.
One of these concessions was the guba (administrative) reform carried out between 1539 and 1541. According to this reform special local 93 punitive bodies were set up consisting of persons elected from among the dvoryanstvo to fight against bandits and to suppress the anti-feudal acts of the peasants and bondsmen (also ``bandits'' from the standpoint of the ruling class); these punitive bodies were given the task of searching for and executing "obstreperous people''. The reform was the first serious attempt to reorganise local government on the basis of representation of the social estates, and to give the dvoryanstvo and merchants greater local authority.
Early in 1542, the Shuiskys succeeded in overthrowing the government of the Belskys. But again they were unable to retain power for a lengthy period. Neither the dvoryanstvo nor the higher Moscow clergy were interested in strengthening the power of the boyar oligarchy. At the end of 1543, Prince Andrei Shuisky (grandfather of the future Tsar Vasily Shuisky), who was notorious for his "cruelty and autocratic acts'', was seized and assassinated by kennelmen on the orders of the thirteen-year-old Grand Duke Ivan.
It is true that the overthrow of the Shuiskys did not put an end to the rule of the boyars, but beginning from 1543 the influence of those who favoured the strong rule of the Grand Duke was becoming noticeably greater. Although the ``uncles'' of the Grand Duke, the Glinsky princes, in the period from 1544 to 1547 tried to play the same role in the government as the Shuiskys and Belskys had played before them, real power was gradually concentrated in the hands of those sections of the old Moscow boyars who were closely connected with the leading members of the dvoryantsvo and defended their interests in the government. A plan was formulated among this new entourage of the Grand Duke to carry out important reforms to strengthen the social and political basis of the Russian centralised state.
The reform was started by crowning Ivan IV tsar (January 16, 1547), carried out on the initiative of Metropolitan Makarii. This was an act of great political significance. The adoption of the title of tsar not only emphasised the autocratic nature of the power of the Moscow ruler, but also stressed the high place enjoyed by the Russian state among other European states. In February of the same year Ivan IV was married to Anastasia Zakharyina who belonged to one of the biggest of the old Moscow boyar families that did not possess a princely title.
The Moscow government did not, however, succeed in settling the lengthy political crisis by peaceful means. The oppression and the heavy burdens the peasants and townspeople had been forced to bear during the years of dissention among the boyars were far too great. In the summer of 1547, the "grand revolt" of lower classes broke out in Moscow; this was the biggest urban revolt in sixteenth-century Russia.
The intensification of the class struggle that had begun under Yelena continued into the forties. Furthermore, it was in this period that a number of open anti-feudal revolts on the part of the peasants and townspeople occurred. The year 1547 was the most tempestuous. The "Great Drought'', which began in the spring and lasted almost all summer, brought tremendous losses to the countryside and the towns were visited by fires, one of the worst terrors of mediaeval times. Moscow was one of the towns that suffered and the "Great Fire" of June 94 __CAPTION__ Ivan IV. Portrait on wood, late sixteenth-early seventeenth centuries. Copy 21, 1547, which destroyed a large part of the town, prompted the Moscow revolt.
Rumours were spread to the effect that the Glinskys had set fire tothetown.The "common people'', the chronicle relates, said this "because at the time the Glinskys were close to and favoured by the ruler, and the common people were suffering violence and plunder from them''. Riots broke out all over the town. Ivan IV and his court fled to the village of Vorobyovo, outside Moscow.
On June 26, the rebels entered the Kremlin and demanded that the Glinskys be handed over to them. Yuri Glinsky, who had hidden jn the Cathedral of the Assumption, was killed. The houses of the Glinskys were ransacked, and their people and the "boyars' children" in the Kremlin were all killed. Moscow was in the hands of the people for several days, and the government had great difficulty in suppressing the revolt.
The Moscow revolt of 1547 had its reverberations throughout the country. In a number of places the peasants and bondsmen set fire to the houses of the dvoryanstvo and killed their masters. Even in the outlying districts, in Ustyug in 1549, for instance, there were serious riots.
Broad sections of the ruling class, scared by the intensification of the class struggle, demanded that the government take decisive measures to ensure law and order in the country and strengthen the government apparatus, especially the army. In the opinion of the dvoryane and the merchants, this could only be ensured by the broader and more direct involvement of their own elected representatives in the running of the state.
The revolt of 1547 brought about changes in the government. Under the young tsar, a special body was set up---later referred to as a "select council" by Andrei Kurbsky. Apart from representatives of the highest aristocracy, the leaders of the dvoryanstvo also formed part of the council. Two men enjoyed particular influence among the tsar's new entourage---Father Silvester, the tsar's confessor, and the courtier Alexei Adashev. Silvester, who did not favour the Church's unlimited expansion and who was an enemy of Makarii, evidently gravitated towards those circles of the Moscow boyartsvo which insisted on the secularisation of Church land and which also energetically supported the Moscow merchant class. Adashev favoured a course that was more beneficial to the dvoryane. The "select council" was, however, united by the unanimous recognition of the need for major state reforms designed to strengthen the economic and political foundations of the Russian 95 __CAPTION__ Revolt in Moscow in 1547. Miniature from sixteenth-century chronicles monarchy and to satisfy the interests of large sections of the ruling classes---the boyars, dvoryane and merchants. The young ruler himself supported these ideas at the time.
Ivan IV, or Ivan the Terrible, as he was later called by the people, was undoubtedly an outstanding individual, the personification of the despotism and tyranny of the Russian autocracy. He was brought up parentless (his mother died when he was eight years old) in the years of the boyars' rule, and at an early age experienced all the horrors of dissension and licentiousness among the boyars. He saw blood and flattery, and at a far too early age learned what was meant by the right to "punish and pardon" his subjects. An outstanding intellect and an education that for the times was very extensive and which Metropolitan Makarii had been at great pains to give him, were combined with a complete absence of restraint and excessive cruelty. Overbearing, cruel and morbidly suspicious, he inspired the boyars around him with fear even as a youth. No matter how great the influence of his closest 96 favourites, Alexei Adashev, for instance, and "the almighty priest Silvester" may have been, even in his younger days Ivan followed only such of their "advice and teachings" as coincided with his own plans, personal or political.
To satisfy the demands of large sections of the ruling class, especially of the dvoryanstvo, the government of Ivan IV undertook a number of important social and political reforms for the purpose of overcoming the consequences of the boyars' rule. These reforms were largely influenced by the demands of the rising third estate---the merchants and townsfolk.
Ivan IV outlined the programme of reforms in his Declaration of February 27, 1549, first at a joint meeting of the Boyars' Council and the Holy Conclave, and then at a meeting of military governors and nobles (dvoryanstvo) who seem to have been especially called to Moscow for the purpose of what was the first recorded Zemsky Sobor. In his speech the tsar accused the boyars of having done harm to and oppressed the dvoryanstvo and the peasants at the time when he was not yet of an age to rule, and demanded that such acts cease under threat of disgrace and execution. The chief feature of the tsar's Declaration, however, was not its threats. The government wanted peace and not a sharpening of the situation in the country. It strove to achieve this by consolidating the forces of the ruling class and by ``pacifying'' the townspeople and the peasants with promises to protect them in the future from lawlessness on the part of the boyars and the local rulers. The reforms were not confined to speeches.
In that same year of 1549, the government took steps to regulate the relations between the boyars and the dvoryanstvo (in particular a new law that did not allow the arraignment of the dvoryanstvo before the governors' courts except in cases of murder and banditry), and began to compile a new Sudebnik, or royal Code of Law, which was approved the following year by the Boyars' Council and was subsequently upheld at the Conclave of the Hundred Articles in 1551.
The main difference in the Sudebnik of 1550 and that of 1497 was that it introduced a more centralised judicial and government system. This was achieved by augmenting the powers of the central government bodies (the prikazi or offices) and by greatly curtailing the powers of the local administrators. The new Code also limited the tax-collecting privileges of the temporal and spiritual feudal lords. The articles of the Code dealing with feudal landownership were less radical. On the one hand, they limited the right to buy and sell inherited estates, and on the other hand, protected the inherited estates from the encroachments of the monasteries. The chief question, the secularisation of the church lands, was virtually passed over in the Code. Lastly, the Code contained an article of great significance regulating the position of the peasants and the bondsmen. It increased the payment for liberation from the master on St. George's Day, thus drawing the noose tighter round the peasant's neck.
The Code of Law was the beginning of a series of reforms carried put by Ivan's government in the fifties of the sixteenth century, all of which were aimed at strengthening the socio-economic and political foundations of the Russian state.
__PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7--160 97Of great importance was the Ulozheniye o Sluzhbe (Service Ordinance) of 1556, under which the inherited estates were to be held in return for military service in the same way as those of the dvoryanstvo. The Ordinance completed the organisation of the Russian army that had been begun in the late fifteenth century.
The system of prikazi or government offices took final shape in the mid-sixteenth century, and the governmental bureaucracy was formed. The Boyars' Council also underwent a change; in addition to the boyars it was attended by "Council nobles and secretaries" drawn from the upper ranks of the dvoryanstvo.
The new alignment of class forces in the country led to the formation of the Zemsky Sobor, or National Assembly, which from the midsixteenth century onwards was called to settle the most important questions of home and foreign policy. The first Zemsky Sobors consisted of the Boyars' Council, the top government officials, the clergy (the Holy Conclave) and representatives of the towns (urban and provincial dvoryanstvo). Representatives of the merchants, the third social estate in Russia, also took part in the Zemsky Sobors. With the appearance of the Zemsky Softer the Russian state became a monarchy with representative government by three social estates.
The fact that in the mid-sixteenth century the Russian state became a monarchy with representative government by three social estates was reflected in the widespread development of local self-government bodies, the formation of which started with the reforming of the guba, or province, and the edicts of the Zemsky Sobors and Church Conclaves of 1549--51. In 1555 and 1556, the kormleniye system was finally abolished. The appointed local administrators in towns and the contryside were replaced by local elders elected from among the wealthier townspeople and peasants. Supervision over local government affairs was now concentrated in the hands of the provincial elders, who supervised the criminal courts and carried out the functions of police, and in the hands of military commandants of towns who were responsible for the military, administrative and financial affairs of the uyezds, the smaller administrative divisions of the guba or province. This new system allowed the dvoryanstvo to keep using extensively the local government bodies in their own interests; but the greatest gain was that of the local merchant class. The local government reform completed the general restructuring of state administration along the lines of estate representation.
Lastly, mention must be made of the church reform carried out on the initiative of Metropolitan Makarii to strengthen the Russian Orthodox Church and give it a greater role in the state. The Conclaves of 1547 and 1549 carried out an all-Russia canonisation of the saints, which was to symbolise the unification of the Russian people in a single national state. In 1551, at the Conclave of the Hundred Articles, steps were taken to unify divine service and church ritual and, especially, to strengthen the moral authority of the church. The decisions of the Conclave of 1551 were recorded in a book The Hundred Articles (hence the name of the Conclave) and were for a very long period a sort of code of Russian church law.
The fifties of the sixteenth century were also a period of Russian foreign political successes, the most important of which were the defeat 98 of the Khanate of Kazan and the annexation of the Middle and Lower Volga lands to the Russian state.
The Khanate of Kazan had been one of Russia's chief enemies. The bandit raids of the Kazan and Crimean feudal lords had done great harm to Russia.
The aggressive policy of the khans of Kazan towards Moscow, however, did not serve to strengthen the khanate itself. The lands of the Middle Volga, held by Kazan feudals, were economically dependent on the Russian state from which they obtained grain and manufactured goods. By disrupting this economic bond the khans of Kazan were injuring Kazan itself. The struggle for power among the various groups of feudals also weakened the khanate, and the perpetual wars, the struggle between the feudals and popular revolts undermined its political and economic power.
It is not surprising that once Russia had begun to recover from the consequences of the rule of the boyars, the "Kazan question" was raised very sharply by the government of the young tsar Ivan IV.
Preparations for a "great war" were begun. The strong Russian fortress of Sviyazhsk was built in 1551 at the point where the River Sviyaga enters the Volga, on the approaches to Kazan. The main Russian forces were concentrated around the fortress. In Kazan itself supporters of a policy of peace with Moscow began to make themselves heard. The Volga peoples, the Chuvashes, Mordovians and Mari, subjects of Kazan, refused to obey the khans of Kazan and went over to the side of the Russians.
In the summer of 1552, Ivan IV, at the head of a huge army (about 150,000 strong), moved on Kazan. Devlet-Girei, Khan of the Crimea, made an attempt to invade Russia from the south (in the region of Tula) on the orders of the Sultan of Turkey, and thus hamper the advance of the Russians on Kazan, but this attempt failed. On August 31, the Moscow troops laid siege to Kazan in which 30,000 Tatar troops were concentrated. After a stubborn siege lasting over a month, Kazan fell (October 2, 1552). The Khanate of Kazan ceased to exist.
The fall of Kazan brought the whole of the Middle Volga with its multinational (Tatars, Chuvashes, Mordovians, Udmurts, Mari) but scanty population into the Russian state. The fall of Kazan also settled the fate of the Khanate of Astrakhan. In 1556, Astrakhan was captured by Russian troops and the Lower Volga was annexed to Russia. The Nogai Horde, which lived a nomad life between the Lower Volga and the River Yaik (now the River Ural), and their neighbours the Bashkirs, who had formerly been divided between the Kazan and Nogai khans, became the vassals of the Moscow tsar.
The abolition of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan cleared the way for the extensive Russian colonisation of the rich, fertile steppes of the Middle Volga. The Volga itself became the main trade artery linking Russia with the East.
Once the "eastern question" had been settled, Ivan's government was able to tackle the second most important problem in foreign policy---the struggle for an outlet into the Baltic. In this sphere Ivan IV had the support of the dvoryanstvo who hungered after new, populated lands 99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/1HU376/20051214/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2005.12.03) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ which they could obtain in feod, and also of the merchants who were interested in trade with the West.
The situation obtaining in the Baltic in the fifties seemed to favour Ivan's plans. Livonia was rent by feudal quarrels and by the sixteenth century had become a very weak state. Her territory was divided among the Livonian Order, the bishops and the towns. The German clergy and the feudal barons were ruthlessly exploiting the Letts and Estonians, the aboriginal inhabitants of Livonia. Social oppression was combined with brutal national suppression. It was only natural that the Letts and Estonians, who had long been in contact with the population of the Russian lands, should see in the Russian state the only power capable of liberating them from the German feudals.
The Livonian Order was itself not capable of checking the Russian advance to the Baltic and entered into an alliance with the PolishLithuanian state; the Order also attempted to get the Pope and the German Emperor on its side.
The casus belli on this occasion was the non-fulfilment of the fifty-year armistice concluded with Ivan III which had expired in 1553 and under which the Livonian Order should have paid tribute for the Yuriev Region. In January 1558, Ivan IV started military operations against Livonia.
The war began with a series of brilliant victories for the Russian army. Within a few months Narva, one of the biggest Livonian ports, was captured. Yuriev fell. One after the other the German towns surrendered to the Russian generals. Under the blows of the Russian forces and the anti-German insurrection of the Estonian peasants in 1560, Livonia disintegrated. The German feudals, striving at all costs to save their landed estates, placed themselves under the patronage of their Western neighbours. Revel (Tallinn) became part of Sweden, the Island of Esel went to the Danes, Livland was handed over to the Polish King by the Grand Master of the Livonian Order. Only Courland remained in the hands of the Livonian Order, but even that country became a dependency of Poland. In 1561, Livonia ceased to exist as a state of the German knights.
The victory over Livonia did much to raise Russia's prestige in Western Europe. The annexation of Narva and the return to Russia of Yuriev provided the Russian state with a window looking towards Europe; this was especially true of Narva, which at that time was one of the biggest commercial ports. The successes achieved by Ivan IV were disturbing to Russia's enemies, who had hoped to isolate her permanently from Western Europe.
Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Sweden/Denmark and even England and Spain were not at all inclined to allow a state as powerful as Russia to gain an outlet into the Baltic Sea, since it was against their economic and political interests. First the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom and later Sweden and Denmark launched open war for the "Livonian succession''. Thus began the second stage in the Livonian War which lasted throughout the period from 1561 to 1570. Ivan IV carried on the war under the new conditions with equal vigour and achieved a number of important successes. In 1563, Moscow troops under the command of the tsar himself entered Lithuanian territory and after a siege of three weeks 100 captured the fortress and ancient Russian town of Polotsk on the Western Dvina. The Russian forces developed their offensive and advanced on Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. It was then that King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland and Lithuania proposed peace to the Moscow government. He was willing to surrender all the towns and lands the Russian troops had captured in Livonia but refused to recognise the Russian right to Polotsk. Ivan IV refused to accept these terms and in 1564 hostilities were renewed. On this occasion the Russians suffered a number of serious defeats---in a battle on the River Ula and in a battle near Orsha. The Polish-Lithuanian forces, however, were unable to launch a serious counter-offensive and the question of peace was again raised.
Russia's military failures were mainly due to her being unprepared for a big war, and to the relatively poor equipment of her army as compared with that of the Polish-Lithuanian forces, who by that time were to a considerable extent equipped in the European manner. Ivan IV, however, encouraged by the earlier successes, regarded the defeat of his army as being entirely due to the treachery of the boyars, which found its expression in the defection to the enemy of Prince Andrei Kurbsky, commander of the Russian army in Livonia, and also to the internal opposition of the boyars that had caused a crucial split in the Moscow government.
Relations between Ivan the Terrible and a certain section of the boyars had been growing more strained since the mid-fifties, but it was Ivan's line of a "big war" for Livonia that brought about the sharpest disagreements among the boyars. The most active in opposing a continuation of the war were the old, titled Moscow boyars who were, to a certain extent, grouped around the princes Shuisky.
A number of members of Ivan the Terrible's government, Alexei Adashev among them, also considered the war for the Baltic to be premature, and insisted that all efforts be devoted to the southern and eastern frontiers. Ivan, however, expected the support of the greater part of the dvoryanstvo and the leading merchants; this support he actually obtained at a Zemsky Sobor specially convened in 1566, and he disregarded both the opposition of the boyars and the advice of Alexei Adashev's supporters.
The dissension between Ivan IV and the majority of the Select Council over the Livonian War encouraged the boyars to.take action against the new political course. The mass repressions and executions of unparalleled ferocity, with which Ivan the Terrible responded to this action of the boyars, only served to aggravate the situation. Boyar conspiracies and executions alternated. Even Alexei Adashev was removed from his post in 1560 and banished from Moscow, Silvester was banished and died in a monastery. In the fifties the government collapsed completely and the flight of the boyars to Lithuania began. And then, in 1563, Metropolitan Makarii died, the man who had been able to use his influence over the tsar to bridge in some degree the gulf between him and the boyars. Metropolitan Afanasy, who succeeded him, openly took the side of the boyars who were discontented with Ivan's politics. In response to this Ivan, in 1563, struck at the ceritre of the princes' and boyars' opposition and disbanded the court of Prince Vladimir 101 Staritsky (the tsar's cousin) and placed Staritsky himself under strict surveillance.
The growing number of acts of treason on the part of the boyars, failures in Livonia and, especially, the need to mobilise all the country's forces for the realisation of extensive plans in the sphere of foreign policy, compelled Ivan to adopt more decisive measures---to do away with the boyars' opposition completely and (most important of all) to establish a governmental punitive apparatus spearheaded against the masses of the people. This "new order" introduced by Ivan the Terrible for the government of the state was known as oprichnina and those who carried it out as oprichniki.
Ivan surrounded the introduction of the oprichnina with the theatrical effects he was so fond of, so that it became a very strange sort of coup d'etat. On December 3, 1564, he suddenly left Moscow with his family and the most trusted boyars and ministers; he took with him his valuables and the state treasury and went to the village of Alexandrovskaya.Sloboda some hundred kilometres from the capital. The tsar was accompanied by a large troop of selected members of dvoryanstvo. On reaching the village Ivan sent two messages back to Moscow, one to Metropolitan Afanasy in which he accused the boyars of treason and the dvoryanstvo and clergy of shielding them, and the other to the merchants and all the people of the Moscow artisans' quarters in which he told them that his ``wrath'' did not fall on them and that they were not ``disgraced''. Panic broke out in Moscow. The merchants and the artisans declared their readiness to deal with the traitors if only the tsar did not "abandon the state'', as the chronicler put it in recording their petition. The princes, boyars and city dvoryanstvo were clearly taken by surprise at such an unexpected turn in events. They requested the Metropolitan to "beg the tsar for mercy'', to ask him "to turn away his wrath ... not to abandon his state but to rule his country as he, the ruler, wished''. Similar petitions were taken to Alexandrovskaya Sloboda by delegations from the Metropolitan and the boyars; the Moscow artisans also sent their petitioners.
Having thus obtained the support of the merchants and artisans of Moscow, and the recognition of their guilt on the part of the boyars, Ivan the Terrible agreed not to abandon the state, but on the condition that he was given unlimited authority in his struggle against treason.
The introduction of the oprichnina, which had such terrible consequences for the entire country and especially for the peasant serfs on whose shoulders, in the final analysis, lay the whole burden of the new "state structure'', began with the reorganisation of the tsar's court. The entire central government apparatus, including the court chancelleries, most of the offices (ministries) and even the treasury, were divided as it were into two parts---the oprichnina and Zemsky courts. At the same time a special oprichnina troop of 1,000 men was instituted as the personal bodyguard of the tsar.
The reorganisation of the central government was followed by the division of the country into oprichnina and zemshchina throughout the whole territory. The former was ruled directly from the oprichnina court and the latter was left in the hands of the bodies under the Zemsky Sobor, headed by the Boyars' Council. The tsar conducted affairs of 102 state throughout the country as before, using in equal measure the offices of the oprichnina and the zemshchina for the purpose.
The division of the lands was carried out in the following way. The oprichnina included mainly the central and part of the southern districts where the land was owned mainly by the princes and boyars. Even Moscow itself was divided into two parts---oprichnina and zemshchina. All the boyars and members of the dvoryanstvo not enlisted in the oprichnina were banished to territory under the Zemsky Sobor where they were given new lands. People in oprichnina service were settled on the lands thus vacated. The boyars and members of the dvoryanstvo who were in disgrace were not only banished but, as a rule, were deprived of their hereditary estates. These measures greatly weakened the economic and political power of the ``great'' boyar families.
The oprichnina, however, was not confined to administrative and land reforms. It was organised mainly to remove those who in any way expressed dissatisfaction with the autocracy. This was the mission that had to be performed by special contingents of oprichniki drawn from the dvoryanstvo---they were called upon to ``gnaw'' traitors to the tsar and ``sweep'' the country clean of treason, i.e., to act as political police and executioners throughout the country. As a symbol of their high office they carried a dog's head and a broom at the saddle bow. The oprichniki were drawn mainly from those members of the dvoryanstvo who owned medium-sized estates, although there were among them members of the leading Moscow dvoryanstvo and even boyars who had displayed their utter devotion to the tsar.
Secret police, torture, mass executions, the destruction of estates and the plunder of the property of boyars in disgrace, and sometimes punitive expeditions against whole towns and even districts followed one after another. The tsar in these years appeared terrible and incomprehensible to his contemporaries. He would personally torture and execute disgraced boyars, submitting them to the most agonising torments, he would organise banquets and unbridled orgies at which women were insulted and raped and then, suddenly, he would don the robes of a monk and on bended knee beg forgiveness for his sins. One can only be amazed that such ``two-faced'' behaviour was combined in Ivan the Terrible with great foresightedness and ability in governing the state. It was a mystery to all who knew him arid it remains a mystery for the many historians who have written and are writing about Ivan the Terrible.
The oprichnina dealt a crushing blow at the oppositional boyars. At first the boyars lost their heads, but later they tried to make their peace with the tsar through their most prominent people such as Metropolitan Afanasy; when this failed they launched an open struggle against Ivan the Terrible. It was rumoured that there was even a plan to hand the tsar over to the King of Poland. The biggest of the "boyar conspiracies" was discovered in 1569, supposedly in connection with the treason of Novgorod and Pskov. According to the official story, the conspirators wanted to kill Ivan the Terrible and place Prince Vladimir Staritsky on, the throne. The suppression of this conspiracy was one of the bloodiest deeds of the oprichnina. Ivan the Terrible, at the head of his oprichnina, 103 moved against Novgorod in 1570. On the way they destroyed towns (Tver, Torzhok), plundered, wrecked and burned villages and robbed and slaughtered the inhabitants. In Novgorod the "judgment and punishment" lasted six weeks. Thousands of Novgorod people were tortured and drowned in the River Volkhov on suspicion of having taken part in the conspiracy. On the way back Ivan looked in on Pskov, but confined his actions to confiscations and individual executions.
In 1572, shortly after the Novgorod events, the oprichnina was abolished. This was not only because the power of the oppositional boyars had by that time been broken and they had themselves been almost all wiped out, but also because of the growing resentment against the oprichnina displayed by all sections of the population. Although Ivan "abandoned the oprichnina'', removed the stigma of disgrace from the boyars and even returned their old estates to many of them, he did not change his general political line which throughout the seventies continued to be a feudal policy favouring the dvoryanstvo. Many of the oprichnina offices, indeed, continued their existence unhindered even after 1572 as the "royal household".
When Ivan IV introduced the oprichnina in 1564, he counted on strengthening the state to struggle for the Baltic; in abolishing that system he had the same end in view. Despite the decision to continue hostilities in Livonia taken by the Zemsky Sobor in 1566, the tsar had been unable to effect any significant change in the course of the war. Operations were conducted with varying success until 1571 when a three-year armistice was concluded between Russia and Poland. Ivan's hope of putting a speedy and victorious end to the war by the establishment of a military dictatorship in the country had obviously not been realised.
The international situation was developing in a way that was far from favourable for Russia. The Polish and Lithuanian feudal lords, who had been badly frightened by the war, effected the final union of their countries at Lublin in 1569 and formed a single state, the Rzecz Pospolita. Turkey and the Crimea, who had obviously been playing a waiting game right up to the end of the sixties in respect of both Russia and Poland, at last decided to join the struggle openly in support of Poland. In 1569, the Crimean Tatars, at the instigation of Turkey, began a series of armed raids into Russian territory; the biggest of these raids was that of Khan Devlet-Girei in 1571, when the Tatars suddenly broke through as far as Moscow and burned the whole town, with the exception of the Kremlin, to the ground. Lastly, the end of the seven-year war between Denmark and Sweden provided the latter with an opportunity for an open attack on Russia.
The new international situation forced Ivan the Terrible to reconsider his attitude to Livonia. He rejected the direct annexation of Livonian lands to Russia and put forward a plan to set up a separate state in Livonia as a Russian protectorate. This marked the third stage in the Livonian War that covered the period 1570--77. This time Russia's chief enemy was Sweden, since the death of King Sigismund II Augustus in 1572 was followed by an interregnum in Poland which kept her out of the war for five years. The Russian forces gained a number of important 104 victories in the war against Sweden. By the end of 1577, the greater part of Livonia (with the exception of Courland) was occupied by Moscow troops; they did not, however, succeed in capturing either Riga or Revel that were protected by the Swedish fleet.
In 1577, Turkey's placeman, Stefan Batory, was elected King of Poland. Poland again joined the war. Batory undertook three campaigns against Russia in three successive years (1579, 1580 and 1581); he captured Polotsk, Velikiye Luki, Velizh and Ostrov and laid siege to Pskov (1581). Sweden then took advantage of the unfavourable position of the Russian troops to launch an attack; the Swedes seized Narva and the entire Russian coast in the Gulf of Finland.
The Russians were defeated in the last stage of the Livonian War because on this occasion they were faced by two of the strongest European states and because the internal situation in Russia herself, on account of the twenty odd years of war and the crisis created by the oprichnina, was an extremely difficult one. Russia did not possess the forces necessary to continue the war and Ivan was forced to raise the question of peace. In 1582, a ten-year armistice was concluded in Moscow between Russia and the Rzecz Pospolita, by which both parties renounced their right to captured territory. In 1583, Batory brought pressure to bear on Ivan and compelled him to sign a three-year armistice with Sweden. Narva and the entire coast of the Gulf of Finland, with the Exception of the mouth of the River Narva, remained in the hands of the Swedes. In this way the Livonian War came to an end; as a result of the war Russia not only failed to obtain an outlet into the Baltic, but lost some of her own ancient territory in the Baltic area. Despite this, however, the Livonian War had great significance for the future history of Russia. First, during the Livonian War, the rule of the Livonian Order, that had for three centuries been the chief instrument of German aggression in the East, was shattered by Russian troops aided by insurgent Estonian and Lettish peasants. Secondly, friendship between the Estonian, Lettish and Russian peoples was strengthened in their struggle against the German, Polish and Swedish feudals. And thirdly, although the Livonian War ended in the defeat of Russia, it made the Baltic Sea the keypoint of all subsequent Russian politics right up to the splendid victories of Peter the Great.
The consequences of the Livonian War and the oprichnina were very grave. The oprichnina exhausted the main economic support of the feudal state---peasant farming. It had been long since the peasants and the urban artisans had suffered as terribly as they did under the oprichnina, when state taxes and corvee service on the estates of the boyars and dvoryanstvo were increased several times over. Taube and Kruse, Germans who served as oprichniki, stated in their description pf the times that "the peasant had to pay as much in one year as he should have paid in ten".
In the early seventies a general economic crisis set in; it affected all the central and western areas of the country. Abandoned villages, depopulated regional centres, half-empty towns, poverty and hunger--- such was the picture painted by foreign travellers who visited Russia in the seventies and eighties of the sixteenth century. In the records kept at the time, the most frequently used term was "uninhabited farm''. The 105 untilled fields were rapidly overgrown by trees and shrubs. The population had dwindled. Some had died, others had fled to the south, and still others, mainly women and children, wandered from house to house seeking alms. There was a shortage of grain and cattle; large sections of the population, especially the serfs and bondsmen, were starving. One after another complaints came to the government that the serfs had fled. Such was the situation in the central part of the country; in the lands of Novgorod and Pskov it was even worse, or, at least, no better. There was a slight improvement in the situation in the northern and, in particular, in the south-eastern and southern parts of Russia (in the Volga and Dnieper basins, for example) that had suffered less from war taxes and ruination, and where nature herself was kinder. Streams of peasant immigrants, of a size never before known, made their way to the virgin lands of the south-east and south of the country. But no sooner had they settled on the new lands than government officials followed them, measured, calculated and recorded the land and distributed it generously among the dvoryanstvo.
Ivan the Terrible died in 1584. His weak-minded son Fyodor, born to him by Anastasia Romanovna, the only remaining heir from the tsar's seven wives with the exception of the boy Dmitry, son of Maria Nagaya, Ivan's last wife, ascended the throne. The degeneration of "Ivan's offspring" made itself felt. The real ruler of the country, "the controller of all affairs of state'', was Fyodor's brother-in-law Boris Godunov, boyar and equerry, a cautious, cunning and clever statesman who enjoyed the full confidence of the young tsar.
The urgent tasks that confronted the government of Tsar Fyodor were the re-establishment of normal economic life in the country and the salvation of the landed nobility and the merchants from the ruin and destruction the Livonian War had brought to the Russian state.
Somewhat earlier, in 1580, when Ivan was still alive, a special Church Conclave had been called to effect a certain strengthening of the country's economy; this Conclave adopted a number of measures to limit the amount of land owned by the church and to increase the taxes paid by the monastery and church estates. At another meeting of the Conclave, called in 1584 by Fyodor's government, the tax privileges of the church and the monasteries were abolished.
The chief measure introduced by Fyodor's government, however, was that known as "years of interdiction''. The mass flight of peasants to the southern regions and their desertion from the estates of the nobility to churches and monasteries, or to other lands that had suffered less from ruin and devastation, constituted a threat to the whole feudal system of economy, since the estates of the landed nobility were deprived of peasants to work them. In the eighties and nineties of the sixteenth century a general census of all lands was taken for the purpose of measuring the area of land actually available, determining the extent of the impoverishment of the urban economy and the farms, and for the introduction of a stricter system of taxation that accorded with the actual situation in each area. The census was accompanied by a redistribution of the landed estates and the presentation of abandoned lands to new owners, and also the registration of peasants as the serfs of the landed nobility. As early as 1581, the government decided to forbid temporarily 106 the transfer of peasants by abolishing the St. George's Day privilege. Throughout the eighties the "years of interdiction" were in force throughout Russia. This was a heavy blow to the peasantry who were deprived of the last legal right to change their master. There still exists today a Russian saying that arose from this situation. "That's a St. George's Day for you, Grandma'', which is used as an ironical expression of disappointment on failing to receive something that was legitimately expected.
These "years of interdiction" were at first introduced as an extraordinary, temporary measure, but the obvious advantage of such a "new order" to the landed nobility inspired the government to issue a special royal ukase to the effect that "from now on there is no way out for peasants and landless men''. In 1597, the government issued a special decree on the search for absconding peasants. This new decree said that peasants who had fled from their owners during the five years prior to its publication were to be returned to their former places of residence together with their wives, children and all their property.
These government decrees promulgated in the eighties and nineties completed the process of binding the peasants to the estates, but, like a number of similar measures reorganising and increasing state taxation, proved incapable of overcoming the general economic crisis, although they did bring about a certain stabilisation of the internal situation. There was some improvement in the estates of the nobility and the boyars during the nineties, but the condition of the peasants and the urban artisans was still very serious. The binding of the peasants to the land made them fully dependent on the landed nobility who did everything in their power to increase feudal exploitation to recover what they had lost. Increased state taxes were also a heavy burden that had to be borne by the peasants and the poorer townsfolk.
The strengthening of the government's policy in favour of the feudal nobility could also be seen in the handling of other domestic questions. During the last days of his life Ivan had appointed a Regency Council for Fyodor. The Council consisted of the tsar's uncle, N. Yuriev-Zakharyin, Boris Godunov, princes I. Shuisky and I. Mstislavsky and also B. Belsky, an active supporter of the oprichnina.
The most consistent of them in conducting the new government policy, obviously pro-nobility but not obviously anti-boyar, was Boris Godunov. He made such clever use of the disagreements between the other members of the Council that by 1586 he had factually removed all his rivals. It is true that in 1587 the Shuiskys and their followers, actively supported by the Metropolitan and the leading merchants, succeeded in raising a revolt of the Moscow townspeople against Boris Godunov. The insurrectionary townsmen laid siege to the Kremlin, but Godunov, applying the "cane and candy" policy, quickly put down the revolt. The Shuisky s were banished in disgrace.
Having taken the reigns of government into his own hands, Boris Godunov began to make preparations to seize the throne on the death of the childless Fyodor. The nine-year-old Tsarevich Dmitry, who at that time was in Uglich with his mother, Maria Nagaya, and her family, died suddenly in an epileptic fit (May 15, 1591). The circumstances of his death are not clear. It is possible that Dmitry's death did not occur 107 without the participation of Boris Godunov, who was clearing the way to the throne.
The period of Godunov's administration was one of the relative pacification of the country, but it was pacification to the advantage of the landed nobility. In this period, too, the Russian government achieved considerable success in its foreign policy, especially in overcoming the consequences of the Livonian War. When Stefan Batory died in 1586, Boris Godunov managed to extend the armistice with Poland (from 1587 to 1602), which enabled him to concentrate all the forces of the Russian state on the conflict with Sweden, now Russia's main opponent in the fight for the Baltic. Boris Godunov's successful war against Sweden (1590--95) ended with the conclusion of "eternal peace'', the Treaty of Tiavsin, and the return to Russia of the Russian towns seized by Sweden during the Livonian War---Ivangorod, Yam, Koporye and Korela. Although Narva remained in the hands of the Swedes, Russia had to a certain extent re-established her lost position in the Baltic.
Under Boris Godunov, Russia's diplomatic relations with England and a number of other West European countries---notably France, Germany, and Denmark---became more active. Russia was gradually re-establishing her international prestige. In this respect the founding of the Moscow Patriarchy in 1589 was an outstanding event; until that time the Russian Church had been subordinated to the Patriarch of Constantinople. The first Russian patriarch, elected at the Conclave of 1589, was Job, Metropolitan of Moscow.
The government of Boris Godunov took very decisive action on the southern and eastern frontiers of the country. Although the Crimean Tatars, on Turkey's instigation, broke through the southern defence lines in 1591 and reached Moscow, Russian troops as a rule beat off the Tatar raiders and advanced a considerable distance to the south. By the eighties the Russians were in full possession of the Don, where strong lines of defences were built, and were advancing into the North Caucasus area. Russian generals built the first Russian fortress (Tersky gorodok) on the River Terek in 1588, and at a ``council'' of all the Kabardinian land in 1589 the Kabardinian people became the subjects of Russia.
The consolidation of Russia in the North Caucasus, and, especially, the threat of fresh Turkish aggression, inspired King Alexander of Kakhetia to accept, in 1587, the proposal of the Russian government to form an alliance and give its protection to Georgia; the country became the vassal of the Russian tsar. Although the alliance with Georgia was rather nominal in character, it greatly increased Russia's influence in the Transcaucasus and facilitated increased economic and cultural relations between the Russian and Caucasian peoples, and their solidarity in the struggle against the enslavement of the Caucasus by Turkey and Persia.
Much was achieved during Boris Godunov's administration in settling the Urals area and advancing into Western Siberia. The settlement of this region, rich in furs but sparsely populated, had begun during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. In 1555, the Siberian Khan Yediger, who was being badly pressed by Bukhara, appealed to Moscow for protection and consented to become the vassal of the Russian tsar. But under Khan 108 Kuchum, who succeeded Yediger, the Tatars broke off these relations and the Russian government responded by increased activity in Western Siberia; they built fortified towns beyond the Ural Mountains and granted Russian merchants the right to enlist in their services armed retainers, the Cossacks. The Stroganov family of Russian merchants and industrialists were particularly energetic. In 1582, a party of Volga Cossacks enlisted by the Stroganovs under the captaincy of their ataman, Yermak, moved down the River Irtysh on boats to Kashlyk, Kuchum's capital. In the battle fought at Kashlyk, the Cossacks, armed with muskets, defeated the Tatars who had only bows and arrows. A party of government troops came to Yermak's assistance in 1583, but a revolt raised against the Russians by the Tatars (in the course of which Yermak was killed) forced the Cossacks to temporarily abandon Kashlyk. Not until after 1586 did Boris Godunov's government equip a series of armed expeditions to Western Siberia; these resulted in the complete collapse of the Siberian Khanate and the inclusion of Western Siberia in Russia early in the seventeenth century.
No matter how significant the successes of the Russian government in its foreign policy, it was the internal situation and not these successes that determined the country's fate. The clearly defined feudal policy of Boris Godunov, that assured him the support of the widest circles of the landed nobility, the dvoryanstvo, did not smooth out class contradictions but, on the contrary, strained the relations between the feudal landowners and the serfs to the limit. A peasant war was maturing in Russia.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The development of Russian culture in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was closely bound up with the process of the unification of Russia in a single state.The development of Russian culture in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was closely bound up with the process of the unification of Russia in a single state. It was a time in which regional cultural peculiarities were being overcome and first place was being taken by all-Russia tendencies, a time when Russian society was eagerly discussing the question of the structure of the state and the need for various reforms. State power had to be consolidated and its authority strengthened in international relations and inside the country. Reforms were necessary everywhere---in the organisation of government, in the army, in legislation, etc.
All Russian society was preoccupied with the idea of reforms. Publicists, one after another, put forward their plans in an effort to convince the Russian Grand Duke, and later the tsar, of the need for some reform or another. The literature of the time was purely publicist in nature. Writers were interested in everything---the equipment and organisation of the army, the ownership of land by the church, the granting of land and peasants to the nobility, the role of the peasantry in the country, the struggle against abuses, the responsibility of the monarch towards his subjects, and so on.
A political theory of the origin of the Russian state was expressed in Tales of the Vladimir Princes, according to which the Moscow sovereigns were the direct descendants of the Roman Emperor Augustus through Vladimir I Svyatoslavich.
109Filofei, an elder of Pskov, produced an interesting theory. He claimed that somewhere in the world there existed the eternal kingdom of Rome, a kingdom that moved from one country to another. Rome began in Italy and was destroyed by Catholicism. It was replaced by the second Rome, Byzantium. Byzantium was conquered by the Turks. Then Byzantium was replaced by Moscow --- Moscow was the Third Rome, and there would be no fourth. The view that Moscow was the Third Rome was not the official theory of the sixteenth-century Moscow state, as is often suggested by historians. It arose in ecclesiastical circles, and not in Moscow anyway. The official theory of the Moscow state is most likely to be found in the Tales of the Vladimir Princes, which contain ideas that are at variance with Filofei's.
The ideology of the working people was expressed in heresies that were savagely persecuted by the church and which we know about mainly from the writings of their opponents, representatives of the established church. Heretical movements were particularly strong at the turn of the sixteenth century in Novgorod and Moscow. Like the humanist trend in the West, heresy in Russia was urban in character and mainly an ``intellectualist'' movement that few could understand. There were, however, some leading figures of the movement who expressed the interests of the people and the popular protest against the inroads of the clericals.
By the mid-sixteenth century the heretical teachings acquired a radical character, and social ideas made their appearance side by side with religious concepts. Feodosy Kosoi, for instance, a man belonging to the urban lower classes, preached the equality of all men before God, irrespective of religion and nationality; he demanded the abolition of slavery, of the monasteries and of the contemporary church organisation.
The ideology of the masses was also expressed in the oral literature of the period, which in the sixteenth century took the form mainly of historical ballads. In their ballads the people approved the struggle of Ivan the Terrible against the conservative boyars, approved the annexation of Siberia and Kazan, and the formation of a strong state capable of withstanding foreign invasion. Ballads about the capture of Kazan and about Yermak were particularly widespread.
Sixteenth-century publicist writings dealt mainly with the struggle between the progressive nobility and the reactionary boyars. The new nobility, the dvoryanstvo, took the side of state power against the reactionary section of aristocratic boyars who. were defending their rights and privileges. One of the most interesting writers of the period was Ivan Peresvetov. He was born in Lithuania, and had been on service in Poland, Hungary, and at the court of the King of Bohemia. From Bohemia he came to Moscow where he wrote a number of pamphlets. The reforms he proposed had the purpose of establishing a strong autocratic power. Peresvetov expressed the views of the nobility who were interested in the abolition of the old privileges of the boyars.
Another interesting sixteenth-century writer was Yermolai-Yerazm, who opposed the excessive oppression of the peasants. One of the most outstanding publicists of the time was Tsar Ivan the Terrible himself . He was the author of two letters to the traitor Prince Andrei Kurbsky, an 110 __GOBLYGOOK_COMMENT__
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__CAPTION__ A page from The Apostk, the first Russian printed book, 1564 [111] extensive missive to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, several diplomatic messages to foreign states, and others. In his writings Ivan defended the honour of the Russian state and showed a desire to strengthen state power against the lawlessness of the boyars and of the princes of the church.In the sixteenth century the church provided an ideological substantiation of the need to strengthen the centralised state. Local Russian saints were canonised. Metropolitan Makarii compiled a huge (ten volumes) symposium of church literature, Chetyi minei, which included the lives of the Russian saints arranged in the order of their festivals according to the church calendar. There were also historical writings; chronicles were compiled; notable among them was a World History from the Creation tc the mid-sixteenth century, illustrated with 10,000 beautifully executed miniatures.
The Book of Rank was a huge-collection of pompous biographies of all Ivan the Terrible's ancestors, beginning with Rurik, and the church hierarchs.
The History of Kazan told the story of Kazan and its annexation to Russia.
Household Management might well be termed a book of morals and rules of living for the affluent sections of society. It gave advice on how to be thrifty, how to establish strict family discipline, how to prepare food, how to store food, how to keep clothes, etc. The book is permeated through and through with the idea of humility, submission to the authorities and, in the family, submission to the master of the house.
In the mid-sixteenth century book printing was introduced into the country, an event of great significance in the history of Russian culture. A printed book, the lavishly produced Apostle, appeared in Moscow in 1564, although several ``anonymous'' publications preceded it.
Its printers, Ivan Fyodoroy and Pyotr Mstislavets, for some reason that has still not been explained, left Moscow for Lithuania, but the printing of books continued in Russia. Some twenty printed books were published in the second half of the sixteenth century.
More than any other art, architecture at the turn of the sixteenth century demonstrated Russia's growing international significance.
The creation of the Russian centralised state was marked by the building of a gigantic new Kremlin in Moscow on the site of the old. Russian builders and artists took part in this work side by side with architects from Italy, one of the foremost countries in Europe at that time.
The Italian architect Fioravanti finished building the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Moscow Kremlin in 1478. Before beginning this work, Fioravanti visited many Russian towns; as a prototype he took the Cathedral of the Assumption in Vladimir. The Kremlin cathedral is outstanding in the strict simplicity of its proportions and the laconism of the art idiom employed; elements of different architectural styles are organically combined so that the overall effect is one of freedom and nobility.
Master craftsmen from Pskov built, between 1484 and 1490, the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Moscow Kremlin; in this building 112 they preserved the features of the old style of Moscow architecture. The construction of the huge palace of Ivan III began in 1487. Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solari built the Faceted Palace in the Kremlin, the walls of which are faced with blocks of faceted white stone, hence its name. The Faceted Palace was designed for ceremonial receptions and various festivities.
In 1505, work on the Cathedral of the Archangel was begun on the foundations of a building erected at the time of Ivan Kalita; this cathedral was completed in four years. Like the Cathedral of the Assumption, it preserved the general type of five-domed church and some other features common to Russian architecture. The Cathedral of the Archangel was built as a burial place, the coffins of all the Grand Dukes, beginning with Ivan Kalita, were transferred to it and all the Russian tsars before Peter I were buried there.
A number of other important construction works were undertaken during the reign of Ivan III, among them new Kremlin walls and turrets, to replace those built by Dmitry Donskoi, which, by the sixteenth century were in a state of ruin. The work was done by Fryazin, Ruffo, Solari and Alevisio, and although Italian Renaissance architects made a big contribution to the work, the reconstruction of the walls and turrets was based on purely Russian architectural principles.
Typical of the Italian Renaissance were a single system of forms, a clearly marked division of the building into its components, and beauty expressed by pure proportion; the merging of dissimilar elements into a single whole was very rare. The Russian architectural ensemble, on the contrary, is noteworthy for the dissimilarity of its elements; it is not a system of pure proportions, but a picturesque combination of architectural masses. The Kremlin was closely connected with the site on which it stood, the hill around which its walls curve, following the contours, and the rivers Neglinnaya and Moskva, along the banks of which the Moscow defences were erected. Towering above the grim walls of the citadel were the glittering golden, typically Russian, onion-shaped domes of the churches and the brightly coloured and elaborately ornamented roofs of the palaces and chambers. This Russian architectural ensemble could easily be made to include and subordinate to itself forms that were in complete contradiction with each other. This accounts for the continued development of the Kremlin long after it was first built---throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Russian and English high, pointed, ornamental roofs were added to the Italian walls and towers (the top of the Spasskaya Clock Tower, for example, was added in the seventeenth century by the English architect Christopher Halloway); eighteenth-and nineteenth-century buildings were gradually added to the old ensemble erected between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Kremlin has remained an integral architectural ensemble, striking one through its ability to assimilate the buildings of various ages and various peoples. Designed by architects of different nationalities, the Kremlin is Russian in its concept; it is the living history of the Russian people.
Kremlins or citadels were then built in other Russian towns, especially in Nizhny Novgorod, Tula and Kolomna. New defensive walls grew up around Moscow's trading quarter, the district known as Kitai-gorod 113 (1534--38), and fortified monasteries appeared on the outskirts of the town (Novodevichi Convent in 1525) and throughout Russia.
Typical of the period was the translation into brick and stone of the national forms of timber buildings.
In 1532, the Church at Kolomenskoye, the suburban estate of the Grand Duke, was completed. It stands on a high hill overlooking the River Moskva and harmonises splendidly with the landscape. It has the form of a column of tremendous height surmounted by a stone roof that appears to be flying up into the sky. The French composer Berlioz, who was in Russia in the mid-nineteenth century, called the Kolomenskoye Church "the miracle of miracles".
The famous Cathedral of St. Basil, on Moscow's Red Square, was completed in 1560 by the Russian masters Posnik and Barma. It consists of eight cylindrical components surrounding a ninth, an original design that is the central feature of a brightly hued, festive building. The cathedral was built to commemorate the capture of Kazan.
__CAPTION__ Cathedral of the Assumption. Moscow Kremlin, 1475--78 [114]Painting at the turn of the sixteenth century is best seen in the work of Dionysius, a Russian artist of great power and inexhaustible fantasy. With the aid of Timofei Yarets and Kon, he painted the icons in the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Moscow Kremlin (1481). He then worked in Rostov and in the Monastery of St. Joseph in Volokolamsk. Between 1500 and 1502, Dionysius and his sons decorated the Church of the Nativity of the Holy Virgin in the Ferapont Monastery. The fragments of the frescoes of this church that have been preserved belong to the treasury of world art. Dionysius's female portraits are particularly noteworthy for their nobility and delicate beauty.
The development of the narrative genre in painting is typical of sixteenth-century art; there was a growing interest shown in actual historical personages and events. A famous icon, "The Church Militant" (now in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), is clearly a picture of the victorious return of Ivan the Terrible to Moscow with his troops after the capture of Kazan.
__CAPTION__ Church of the Ascension at the village of Kolomenskoye, near Moscow, 1532 [115] __CAPTION__ Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, 1555--60. Engraving of the early eighteenth century [116]The late fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries were a period in which theoretical and practical knowledge was being gathered. The huge churches and fortresses that were built at this time required intricate calculations and a good knowledge of mathematics and mechanics. To this period belong the first textbooks of arithmetic and geometry, although they were mainly of an applied nature.
The Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin made his famous journey to India from 1466 to 1472 and compiled his notes under the title of Voyage Beyond Three Seas. Nikitin must have been a very observant man of great intelligence; he was able to appreciate a strange country and strange customs without betraying his own, without forgetting Russia and her people, without forgetting the country he loved.
Cartography developed and the first maps of the Russian state appeared. Geographical articles were included in the chronographies and chronicles. A special article on America was copied into the Russian chronographies shortly after the discovery of that continent.
Sixteenth-century medical books contained practical information on herbal remedies. Articles on Russian grammar made their appearance and short dictionaries of foreign languages were compiled.
Although there had been clear indications of pre-Renaissance ideas and sentiments in Rus at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth, yet at the end of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth they did not develop into a true Renaissance. There were several reasons for this: the fall of the free city-communes of Novgorod and Pskov, the growth of mistrust of the Catholic West following the Florentine Union with the Catholic Church which was rejected by Moscow, the fall of Byzantium and the weakening of cultural links with South-Eastern Europe, and, most important of all, the formation of a centralised state, whose development required intense spiritual effort and the concentration of material resources, the stepping up of all forms of class oppression, the cruel suppression of heresies and a strict control over the writing.
Literature and, to some extent, painting too saw the development of a dry and elevated style, hackneyed means of expression and cliche-ridden eulogies of the official saints and statesmen. There was a break in the development of literary works, and the level of artistic achievement fell once again.
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[117] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Five __ALPHA_LVL1__ FEUDAL RUSSIA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURYThe seventeenth century heralded a new epoch in world history. The revolution in the Netherlands at the end of the sixteenth century and, especially, the English bourgeois revolution in the mid-seventeenth century resulted in the most advanced countries of Europe turning to the bourgeois mode of development. The consolidation of feudalism continued in Central Russia, but the germs of industrial development, the first manufactories, made their appearance. An all-Russia market was being gradually built up. The new was born in the womb of the old, the old that was strong and still growing, a peculiar feature which made its mark on many aspects of the political and cultural life of the Russian people in a century rich in events.
At the beginning of the century the Russian people had to defend their country against foreign intervention. The persistent struggle to regain the lands seized by the interventionists led to the reunion between the Ukraine east of the Dnieper and Russia, and this determined the further line of the Ukrainian people's national and cultural development.
In the seventeenth century the peoples of the Volga area and Siberia were at the stage of transition from clan and tribal relations to feudalism; being at a lower cultural level, they experienced the strong influence of the Russian people in their economic and cultural life.
The Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijan peoples still bore the heavy yoke of the Persian shahs and the Turkish sultans, and the constant internecine struggle of the local feudal lords made worse a situation already unbearable.
In the second half of the seventeenth century, the peoples of Central Asia, torn by feudal strife and suffering the constant attacks of the nomads of the steppes, entered a period of decline.
Slowly but surely, conditions were developing throughout the century in the West (the Baltic area), in Central Asia and in the Transcaucasus that were eventually to bring these peoples into the Russian state (from the eighteenth century onwards).
In Russia proper class contradictions became much more acute at the end of the sixteenth century due to the increased feudal exploitation of the peasantry. In 1591 the British traveller D. Fletcher, who had become thoroughly familiar with life in Russia, wrote that the political situation 118 in the Russian state was one of extreme tension and that large social upheavals were inevitable.
The internal political situation was exacerbated by the famine that raged over a huge area of Russia from 1601 to 1603. It was particularly severe in the central and northern uyezds, making the desperate plight of the peasants there still more hopeless. Passive forms of struggle against the feudal lords became widespread --- the mass flight of peasant serfs from their owners to the south of the country, mainly to the Northern Ukraine. During the years of famine a large number of fugitive peasants and kholopi who were dissatisfied with the existing order gathered there.
At the end of the sixteenth century and during the early years of the seventeenth, the deteriorating political situation among the ruling class developed into a crisis.
The ruling dynasty had come to an end with the death of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich in 1598. The Zemsky Sobor, convened that same year, chose his brother-in-law, Boris Godunov, who had been the real ruler of the country during Fyodor's lifetime, as the new tsar. But many influential boyars, close relatives of Ivan IV or descendants of the petty princes who traced their genealogies back to Rurik, considered that they had far more right to inherit the tsar's throne. The boyars did not approve of Boris Godunov, who found strong support among the nobility, the dvoryanstvo, and awaited a convenient occasion to dethrone Godunov.
In 1601--02 a man appeared in the Polish-ruled part of the Ukraine, claiming to be Tsarevich Dmitry, son of Ivan the Terrible, whom a miracle had saved from the assassins in Uglich. The secret of this man's origin still remains a mystery; it is certain, however, that he was an impostor of Russian birth. It is highly probable that he was inspired by the Moscow boyars --- the enemies of Boris Godunov, that, at least, is what the latter believed. The official story, accepted by Godunov's government, was that he was a runaway monk from the Monastery of the Miracle by the name of Grigory Otrepyev.
This "Tsarevich Dmitry" appealed for aid to the Polish landed aristocracy and later to King Sigismund himself. To ensure for himself the powerful support of the Church of Rome, he secretly adopted Catholicism and promised to subordinate the Russian Church to the papal throne.
Many of the leading landowners in Eastern Poland (the Wis"niewieckis, Mniszechs and others), the Papal Nuncio Rangoni and the Jesuits all decided to use the impostor to organise an invasion of Russia. King Sigismund, however, would not risk supporting such a palpable adventurer, and the invasion of Russia was undertaken as the private enterprise of the Polish aristocracy and the szlachta.
In the autumn of 1604, False Dmitry, as the impostor was called, crossed the Russian frontier at the head of a small body of troops consisting of Cossacks and Polish gentry, and advanced through Northern Ukraine towards Moscow. The government troops sent against the impostor tried to halt his drive against Moscow and inflicted a heavy defeat on him at Dobrynichi. In fact, however, the outcome of the struggle was not decided on the battlefield.
In the minds of the peasants, their state of serfdom and the increasing oppression of the feudal landowners and also the natural calamities that 119 had overtaken the country were all linked up with the activities of th. government and Tsar Boris Godunov. The appearance of a "legitimate tsar" aroused great hopes among them that there would be a change ih their way of life, and this gave impetus to a wide upsurge of the peasant movement. The name of the "good tsar" Dmitry became the watchword of the peasant war that was brewing and embraced Northern Ukraine and then other parts of the country. The townspeople also awaited the arrival of "Tsar Dmitry".
In April 1605, Boris Godunov died suddenly; there were rumours that he had poisoned himself. His sixteen-year-old son Fyodor, who inherited the throne, was incapable of retaining power. The boyar generals raised their heads and soon after the death of Godunov together with the entire army, operating against the impostor at the town of Kromy, went over to his side.
On June 1, 1605, influenced by the fine promises of False Dmitry, the masses of Moscow raised a rebellion and moved to Red Square where they broke into the Kremlin. The boyars took advantage of the popular rebellion to overthrow the power of the Godunovs. Fyodor and his mother were seized and killed. On June 20, 1605, False Dmitry entered Moscow in triumph.
It proved easier to assume power than to maintain it. Once on the throne he was unable to fulfil the promises he had so generously made to all who supported him. Because of the instability of his authority, he could not, for instance, hand over to Poland the Russian border provinces and convert the Russian people to Catholicism. False Dmitry did not justify the hopes of the peasants either; he did not become the "good tsar"---quite the opposite, he began by and large to pursue the same policies as Godunov, trying to gain the backing of the dvoryane, the most powerful and influential section of the ruling class. But the dvoryanstvo only supported the new tsar temporarily, in view of the prevailing circumstances. The boyars, who had used False Dmitry in order to overthrow the Godunovs, now awaited a suitable opportunity to dethrone the usurper and assume power themselves.
False Dmitry's contempt for the Russian national customs and religion, his obvious preference for the foreign, Polish culture, and his connections with the Polish szlachta were the cause of considerable discontent among the Russian nobility, the clergy and the masses of the people, especially in Moscow. This discontent was aggravated in May 1606 when 2,000 Poles arrived in Moscow for the marriage of Dmitry to Marina, the daughter of the Polish landowner Mniszech. The Poles behaved in Moscow as in a conquered city.
The boyars, headed by Vasily Shuisky, a wily intriguer and "sly courtier'', engineered a plot, and on May 17,1606, raised an insurrection against the impostor and the Poles. The city population immediately supported the insurrection and the crowd broke into the Kremlin. False Dmitry was killed and his body exposed to the ridicule of the people on Red Square.
The boyars came to power. They did not convene a Zemsky Sobor of representatives elected by all the country's social estates, but merely gathered the population of the capital on Red Square where people specially prepared beforehand ``shouted'' for Tsar Vasily Shuisky.
120The Moscow boyars, who had struggled against Ivan the Terrible, then plotted against Boris Godunov, helped the impostor to overthrow the government of the Godunovs and finally engineered the downfall of the impostor, now at last saw on the throne a tsar who was to their liking. Vasily Shuisky, a descendant of the old feudal princes, the ``Ruriks'', a man who would stop at nothing to reach the throne, launched a policy that was to the interests of a narrow circle of boyars.
The people could not expect anything good from the boyars' tsar; during his reign several laws were promulgated which served to strengthen serfdom. It goes without saying that the transfer of power into the hands of a government of boyar serf-owners was certain to cause disturbances among the peasantry. These began in Northern Ukraine and rapidly spread to many other parts of the country; there was a new wave of the peasant war on an unprecedented scale.
The movement was headed by Ivan Bolotnikov, a former slave who had been a prisoner in Turkey and had been in several European countries; in the words of the contemporary Dutch writer Isaac Massa, he was distinguished for his recklessness and valour.
In its early stages it was joined by part of the nobility, those of the southern districts of Russia that had formerly supported False Dmitry. At the same time a sharp struggle broke out in many towns between the masses and the upper strata of the posad and town feudal lords.
Bolotnikov gathered a considerable force in Putivl, an important fortified town on the south-western frontier of Russia, and from there marched on Moscow. As he advanced, the fires of peasant revolt flared up in one district after another.
The tsar's troops attempted to halt Bolotnikov's advance and suffered a heavy defeat near Kromy and again near Kaluga, and were completely routed on the approaches to Moscow; the remnants of the tsar's troops took shelter behind the city walls. Bolotnikov reached Moscow in October 1606 and set up his camp at the village of Kolomenskoye, outside the city, whence his forces, several tens of thousands strong, laid siege to the city.
The siege of Moscow was a threat to the very existence of the feudal state. By this time the peasant war had developed on a tremendous scale, covering much of the country from the western frontiers to the Middle and Lower Volga. It was then, at the moment the movement reached its peak, that its weak features became apparent. The insurgents did not have a clearly defined political and social programme; the dissimilar social forces taking part in the movement were united only in the struggle for the "good tsar" Dmitry, who was rumoured to have escaped the assassins in Moscow, although a definite pretender to the role of the new False Dmitry had not as yet been found. The success of the revolt lent strength to the anti-feudal temper of the main masses of the participants, the peasants and bondsmen. This frightened the leaders of the contingents provided by the nobility, for whom it was impossible to remain in the ranks of the insurgents; they began to defect to Shuisky.
The tsar succeeded in obtaining considerable reinforcements from the western and northern parts of the country, and the alignment of forces changed in favour of the boyars' government.
121Vasily Shuisky went over to the offensive and the insurgent forces were defeated on December 2, 1606, in a battle fought near the village of Kolomenskoye.
The power of the peasant movement, however, was not broken. Bolotnikov retreated to Kaluga and for five months successfully repulsed the attacks of the tsarist troops besieging the town. In the spring of 1607, Bolotnikov withdrew from Kaluga to the well-fortified town of Tula.
By this time large sections of the nobility came to realise that Bolotnikov's movement was definitely anti-feudal in character, and to defend their own interests they began to muster around the head of the state. Shuisky gathered a big army and in June 1607 himself led it to besiege Tula: The insurgents fought valorously against the superior troops of the tsar, who soon realised that he could not take Tula by force of arms; he built a dam across the River Upa and flooded a considerable portion of the town. The besieged forces, who had long been suffering from hunger, were forced to relinquish the struggle in early October 1607.
Savage reprisals were taken against the insurgents. When the town capitulated the tsar had sworn solemnly to spare the life of Ivan Bolotnikov, the leader, but he was banished to the north, to Kargopol, where his eyes were put out and he was then drowned in a hole in the ice.
The peasant war at that particular stage ended in defeat. The spontaneity of the peasants' actions and the absence of a single organisation, which were typical of all peasant wars, led to the result that the movement which had gripped such a vast amount of territory took the form mainly of unco-ordinated risings; the separate peasant detachments were unable to unite into a powerful military force that was capable of abolishing serfdom. Yet the significance of the peasant war was very great: for the first time in the country's history the masses had risen against the feudal yoke.
Before Bolotnikov's rebellion had been suppressed, the Polish feudals had succeeded in finding, after great efforts, a man who was prepared to take on the role of "Tsar Dmitry" who was alleged to have twice escaped death, at Uglich and in Moscow. The origin of this second impostor is veiled in mystery greater than that of the first False Dmitry; none of his contemporaries even knew his real name.
Northern Ukraine was again selected as the venue of the new Dmitry's appearance. The hopes placed in the "good tsar" Dmitry once again attracted large numbers of peasants and lower-class townsmen to the impostor's banner. The main body of his army, however, consisted of well-armed contingents of szlachta who continually trickled into the country from Poland.
False Dmitry II was also able to take advantage of the dissatisfaction with Shuisky's policy that was making itself felt among the ruling class. Groups of boyars and of the nobility went over to the impostor's side in order to overthrow Shuisky's government with his aid.
False Dmitry II seized the south-western districts of Russia and defeated the tsar's troops at Bolkhov. In June 1608, he reached Moscow. He was unable to enter the city directly from the line of march and had to 122 pitch camp in the village of Tushino, not far from the capital; the impostor's later nickname---"The Thief of Tushino'', derived from the name of the village.
Then began the siege of Moscow, which lasted eighteen months. False Dmitry II and his Polish generals, unable to capture well-fortified Moscow immediately, sent detachments of troops from Tushino to all parts of the country in order to gain control of the whole territory of the Russian state.
In many towns and uyezds the oppressed masses of peasants and townsfolk, who had retained their faith in the "good Tsar Dmitry'', went over to the side of the impostor as the detachments from Tushino approached. By the autumn of 1608, the whole of the Upper and Middle Volga and many parts of the north and centre of Russia were factually under Dmitry's rule.
However, the szlachta detachments, which predominated in the Tushino forces and which had come to Russia from Poland for the sake of booty, began to plunder the territory they had occupied, used force against the local people and levied an unbearably high tribute from them. Consequently, the mood of the peasant masses and the townsfolk underwent an abrupt change.
The lawlessness and the plundering of the forces from Tushino gave rise to popular indignation. From the end of November 1608 onwards the peasants and townspeople in many parts of the Volga area rose up spontaneously and merged to form a powerful popular movement. During the winter of 1608--09 the insurgents liberated most of the towns on the Volga and in the north that had been seized by the Tushino troops and restored the authority of Shuisky's government there.
Vasily Shuisky, however, fearing the popular movement more than anything else, began to seek aid beyond the frontiers of Russia. In February 1609, a relative of his, M. Skopin-Shuisky, on instructions of the tsar concluded an agreement with Sweden that invited Swedish auxiliary forces to Russia. The ruling circles of Sweden had willingly agreed to this, regarding it as a convenient moment to intervene in Russian affairs and realise their territorial claims.
Skopin-Shuisky, with an army recruited in the Novgorod lands and with the auxiliary forces sent from Sweden, liberated the Upper Volga from the imposter's troops during the summer and autumn of 1609 and by the end of the year breaking through the circle of the besieging forces began to approach Moscow.
The internal political situation had become still more acute. By the summer of 1609, it had become obvious that the Tushino Camp was a failure; it had been unable to capture Moscow and had aroused popular indignation throughout Russia by its acts. Polish ruling circles had hitherto refrained from direct participation in Russian affairs, but in 1609 they decided that the time had come for the open conquest of Russian lands. In September 1609, the troops of King Sigismund III crossed the frontier and laid siege to Smolensk in order to clear the direct road to Moscow. In answer to an appeal by the king, a large part of the szlachta abandoned Tushino and joined the royal army at Smolensk. The camp at Tushino collapsed and the impostor, dressed in peasant clothes, fled at the end of the year from Tushino to Kaluga where he was killed a year 123 __CAPTION__ Prince M. Skopin-Shuisky. Portrait on wood, early seventeenth century later by his own followers. In March 1610, SkopinShuisky, having raised the siege of Moscow, entered the city in triumph.
The victory over "The Thief of Tushino'', however, did not ease the situation for Shuisky's government for long. In June 1610, King Sigismund ordered Hetman Zolkiewski to lead his army on to Moscow from Smolensk. The Moscow army that set out to oppose Zolkiewski suffered a complete defeat at the village of Klushino and the road to Moscow was open to the Polish forces.
Vasily Shuisky's game was completely lost and the Moscow boyars and nobles removed him from the throne and set up a government of seven boyars. When Hetman Zolkiewski's Polish troops approached the capital, the boyars' government, fearing an insurrection of the lower classes in Moscow itself, turned traitor in order to save their power and privileges. On August 17, 1610, they concluded an agreement with Hetman Zolkiewski inviting the Polish Crown Prince Wladyslaw (son of Sigismund III) to ascend the Moscow throne. A month later the boyars secretly opened the gates of Moscow to the Polish troops, who occupied all the city's defences.
Difficult times had come for Russia. Polish troops occupied the capital and many other towns of the central and western parts of the country and were besieging Smolensk. The government of seven boyars had become a plaything in the hands of the officers of the Polish garrison in Moscow and enjoyed no prestige in the country.
At this critical moment the real master of Russia, the Russian people, entered the struggle. Early in 1611, the masses began to take action to liberate their native land.
Preparations to resist the Polish invaders began in Ryazan and were headed by Prokopy Lyapunoy, the energetic leader of the Ryazan nobility. The movement was joined by the remnants of the Russian contingents from Tushino, led by Trubetskoi and Zarutsky. The First People's Army was formed in the southern towns of the country from members of the nobility, artisans and Cossacks, and in March 1611, this army marched on Moscow and laid siege to the city. In the summer of 1611, however, a sharp struggle broke out between the nobility in the First People's Army headed by Lyapunov, and the Cossacks and 124 peasants; it ended in the killing of Lyapunov and the collapse of the army.
The situation in the western parts of the country deteriorated. Smolensk fell in June 1611 after a lengthy and heroic defence; for almost two years Smolensk had withstood the siege and immobilised the main Polish forces, thus preventing Sigismund from continuing his conquest of Russia. At this very time Swedish troops seized Novgorod and occupied all the Novgorod lands.
The victories of the interventionists gave fresh impetus to the struggle for liberation. In September 1611, Kuzma Minin, one of the elders of Nizhny Novgorod, appealed to his fellow-townsmen to fight to save the country. Nizhny Novgorod became the centre at which the Second People's Army was recruited.
Groups of armed men were formed in the Volgaside towns and inarched to Nizhny Novgorod. These detachments consisted of men from all walks of life --- nobles, artisans and peasants. The Second People's Army was formed under the command of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, an experienced general.
The Second People's Army started out from Nizhny Novgorod in the spring of 1612. At first Minin and Pozharsky led the People's Army up the Volga to Yaroslavl, gathering forces as they went for a decisive drive against the enemy.
The Polish government, fearing the approach of the People's Army to Moscow, sent a strong force under Hetman Chodkiewicz to reinforce the Moscow garrison. The commanders of the People's Army learned of this and hurriedly left Yaroslavl to liberate the capital. The Second People's Army reached the city walls in August 1612 and laid siege to Moscow. A few days later Hetman Chodkiewicz came up and attempted to break through the besieging army. Then began the historic battle of Moscow.
The People's Army headed by Minin and Pozharsky in two-day heavy battles prevented Chodkiewicz's troops from reaching the city gates and repulsed them from the city walls; this decided the fate of the Polish garrison in Moscow.
The besieged garrison soon began to experience a severe shortage of food, and when the People's Army captured the central part of the merchants' and artisans' quarter, Kitai^gorod, its position became hopeless; on October 27, 1612, the Polish troops in the Kremlin laid down arms.
The patriotic struggle of the Russian people ended in victory: the capital had been liberated, and the government apparatus in the Kremlin was restored and began to establish contact with the towns and districts of the country. In February 1613, a Zemsky Sobor was convened m Moscow to elect a new head of state, a tsar. Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov, a member of an old Moscow boyar family, was chosen.
The new national government was faced with the immediate task of putting an end to the intervention; the western parts of the country were still in the hands of foreign troops---the Poles held the Smolensk lands, and the Swedes the Novgorod lands. A popular movement against the Swedes grew up on the occupied territory, and the Swedish government, 125 realising that they could not retain their hold on the Novgorod lands, started to negotiate for peace.
Under the Stolbovo Peace Treaty of 1617, Sweden returned to Russia Novgorod and Novgorod Region, but retained her hold on Izhora district, with the Neva River banks and the coast of the Gulf of Finland, which was Russia's only outlet into the Baltic Sea. The loss of this important coastline was one of the worst consequences of the intervention.
After an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Moscow in 1618, the ruling circles of Poland were compelled to agree to an armistice which was signed in the village of Deulino; the Poles retained the Smolensk lands.
All attempts to conquer the Russian state had failed; the Russian people had upheld the independence of their country.
The intervention and the peasant war in the early seventeenth century resulted in serious economic disruption. Contemporaries called it the "great ruin of Moscow''. Huge areas of tilled land had been relinquished and were overgrown with scrub. Many villages had been abandoned. In some districts of Central Russia as much as sixty per cent of the land had been deserted by the twenties.
Feudal relations continued to dominate rural life. The distribution of peasant serfs among the various groups of feudal landowners was extremely unequal. Something like twenty per cent of the peasant farms were owned by the tsar's court and the state,'whole areas, mainly in Northern Russia, being farmed by state serfs. According to the land census of 1678, the nobility and the boyars were in possession of 67 per cent of the peasant farms and over 13 per cent were the property of the bishops, the monasteries and the churches. The greater part of the secular and church feudals were the owners of small and medium landed estates numbering from half a dozen to several dozen peasant households (they rarely ran into hundreds).
The landed nobility derived income mainly from the corv6e service and quitrent of their serfs. In the southern parts of the country, where the excellent black soil made the farming of big estates especially profitable, corvee service on the nobles' estates was two and at times as much as four days a week. In the central non-black-earth regions the income of the nobility was mainly in the form of quitrent in which the part paid in cash gradually increased.
In addition to the corvee service and rent in cash and kind paid to the feudal lord, these privately owned serfs also paid government taxes, but in amounts smaller than the state serfs who were not the property of any landowner. The nobility and the boyars were responsible for the full and timely payment of the serfs' taxes.
After their decline in the early seventeenth century, the urban artisan industries, like the farms, went through a period of recovery lasting three decades. The deserted towns again came to life, some of their own accord, others, by the compulsory return of the artisans and other inhabitants who had fled from them.
By the mid-seventeenth century there were 226 towns in Russia proper (not including the Ukraine and Siberia). The urban population was very uneven. Moscow was outstanding with its some 200,000 inhabitants; about 16 other towns contained over 500 families each.
126As market relations developed, petty commodity production in the towns increased. The smiths of Serpukhov, Tula, Tikhvin and Ustyug, the weavers and tanners of Yaroslavl, Vologda and Nizhny Novgorod, the furriers and fullers of Moscow and other craftsmen began to work more for the market than in fulfilment of individual orders. This transition from production for the individual customer to production for the market was the outstanding feature in the development of both urban and rural industry in the seventeenth century.
The further development of the social division of labour and of the home market led to the appearance of the first manufactories in Russia, which, as a rule, were set up in regions where petty commodity production was already at a high level. The state needed weapons for the army and, as these could not be provided in sufficient quantities by petty producers employing only manual labour, the establishment of manufactories was accelerated. The Moscow Arsenal (or Cannon Yard) began to make use of water power and by the thirties employed over a hundred workers.
In 1632, the Dutch merchant A. Vinius was granted a royal licence to build three iron foundries worked by water power in the Tula area; these foundries produced raw iron, cast iron, cannon, cannon balls and boilers. The output of the foundries was delivered direct to the government at fixed prices. Iron foundries were established in the Olonets region, at Voronezh and outside Moscow. In the seventeenth century, too, the first copper-smelting works appeared in Russia.
In the thirties a Swede by the name of Kott set up a glassworks near Moscow, the output of which went mainly to the tsar's court.
In Moscow, on the territory of the Kadashev Sloboda, the government established a textile manufactory --- the Khamovny Dvor or Cloth Yard.
In the main only manual labour was employed at these manufactories, although a few processes were mechanised by the use of water-mills. As a rule the labour force consisted of serfs, who were either allotted for the work by the government or belonged to the owner of the manufactory; privately owned serfs were employed at the iron foundry belonging to Ivan Miloslavsky, the tsar's father-in-law. A certain amount of hired labour was also employed.
By the end of the seventeenth century there were not more than twenty manufactories in Russia. Manufactured goods for the general public were supplied as before by urban artisans and village cottage industries.
The social and economic development of the huge Russian state which, by the eighties of the seventeenth century, stretched from the River Dnieper in the west to the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk in the east, was very uneven. The central region was the most densely populated and the most highly developed; it was here, especially in the towns of Moscow, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod and Kaluga, that artisan industry and peasant cottage industry reached its highest level of development.
The northern maritime regions were inhabited by Russians, Karelians, Komi and other peoples; their chief industries were salt refining and fishing. The most important trading centres in the north were the towns 127 of Vologda, Veliky Ustyug and Arkhangelsk; foreign trade was conducted through the last named.
In 1654, the Ukraine east of the Dnieper with the town of Kiev became part of Russia, and the war against Poland (1654--67) resulted in the return to Russia of the Smolensk and the adjacent West Russian regions. The trading centres of this area were Smolensk, Novgorod and Pskov; the cultivation of flax and hemp played an important part in their economy.
In the seventeenth century the settlement of the southern frontier regions with the towns of Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, Tambov, Simbirsk and others proceeded at a rapid pace; it was to this area that absconding peasants fled from the central part of the country.
Beginning with the seventies, the nobles and boyars who had been granted lands in the south by the state, or who had seized them of their own accord, began to transfer large parties of serfs from other parts of the country. In this way feudal landownership was instituted in the southern black-earth regions.
Russian peasants lived side by side with the native population of the Volgaside regions --- Tatars, Chuvashes, Mordovians and Man. The Russian colonisation of the Volga area increased in the seventeenth century when the Simbirsk line of fortifications was built. The tsarist government settled members of the Russian nobility in this area and granted them landed estates; the local population became the serfs of the landed nobility. The tsar was also supported by the local feudals, the Tatar princes and nobles, who entered the service of the Russian tsar and were granted landed estates in return. The majority of the Volgaside population were directly dependent on the state and paid tribute (yasak), at first in furs and later in cash.
To maintain its hold on the Volgaside area the government, assisted by the church, undertook the conversion of the local population to Christianity. There was also a positive side to the annexation of the Volga towns to Russia; the Volgaside regions were protected from the raids of the nomads who came out of the Asian steppes, the strife between the Tatar feudals ceased, and the old customs and the survivals of the ancient clan system of society died out. Farming was practised on a broader scale and industry and commerce developed in the towns.
The Kalmyks and Nogai, who had become Russian subjects, lived a nomad life along the lower reaches of the Volga and to the east, along the River Yaik. A small part of the North Caucasus (Kabarda) and the Don and Yaik Cossack areas formed part of seventeenth-century Russia. Most of the Transcaucasus (with the exception of Western Armenia and Western Georgia that remained under the rule of Turkey) was conquered by the Sefevid shahs of Persia early in the seventeenth century.
An extensive area in the Trans-Volga steppes was occupied by the Bashkirs; this territory had been annexed to the Russian state in the mid-sixteenth century. The Russian government granted land to the Bashkir communes on a hereditary basis in return for tribute and military service for the defence of the country's eastern frontiers.
Despite the colonial oppression of Russian tsarism, in the seventeenth century already Bashkiria gained benefits from the union with the Russian people. The bloody internecine struggle between feudal lords 128 __CAPTION__ Village on a landed estate. Drawing from Meyerberg's album, 1661--62 ceased, and farming took the place of nomad cattle herding. By the seventeenth century Ufa, the capital of Bashkiria, had become a trading centre with a settled population of artisans and merchants.
The Russian exploration of Siberia and its incorporation into Russia took place in the seventeenth century. The most numerous of the Siberian peoples, the Yakuts, were at that time living under a patriarchal feudal system; the Buryats, Nenets, Mansi and several other peoples had reached the stage when the old clan system of society was breaking up, while the Yukagyrs, Chukchis and Kamchadals had remained at the Stone Age level and did not know the use of iron. The enmity of the local peoples for each other facilitated the penetration of the early Russian industrialists and troops into the interior of Siberia. In the sixteenth century Western Siberia as far as the River Ob had been incorporated into Russia. In the seventeenth century the Russians advanced from the Ob to the Yenisei and then from the Yenisei to the Lena. As they advanced, the early industrialists and soldiers left behind them fortified townships which served as centres for the administration of the territory and the gathering of tribute from the people---Mangazeya, Yeniseisk, Krasnoyarsk, Nerchinsk, Albazin and Yakutsk. The latter town became the administrative centre of Eastern Siberia. These enterprising people advanced to the north until they reached the Arctic Ocean.
The conquest of Siberia was accompanied by the exaction of tribute from the local population. The tribute was mainly in the form of furs, especially sable pelts. The gathering of the tribute was frequently accompanied by violence and deception. Russian merchants built up huge sums out of their trade in Siberian furs. The bigger merchants, the Stroganovs, for instance, maintained their own forces for Siberian campaigns.
__PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 9--160 129The opening up of Siberia was of great economic significance. The first industrialists and soldiers were followed by Russian peasant settlers; the settlement of Western Siberia made it the main agricultural centre of the whole area. All land in Siberia, with the exception of that belonging to the church, was state property.
The Russian peasants brought farming and animal husbandry to Siberia, and they rapidly replaced the primitive economy of the local tribes. The Yakuts, Tatars and nomad Buryats began to grow grain and use it for food. By the end of the seventeenth century Siberia was growing sufficient amounts of grain for its own use. The extraction of Siberian mineral wealth---iron ore, gold and salt---began in the same century. These new branches of the economy facilitated a growth in the productive forces and cultural development in Siberia.
Thus, as early as the seventeenth century Russia had become the world's largest multinational state in terms of both the size of its territory and the composition of its population. The social and territorial division of labour determined the economic specialisation of the various parts of the country. It was on this basis that regional markets had begun to make their appearance at the end of the sixteenth century, and in the seventeenth century these markets were developed and more intensive ties were established between them. Annual trade fairs were held in the bigger towns of Russia and Siberia; Moscow was a major trading centre.
As the market expanded, merchant capital began to play an ever more important part in economic life. The leading merchants were granted the title of ``gost'' together with its privileges. These highly placed merchants became the tsar's financial advisers and government commercial agents.
The development of commodity-money relations and the growth of foreign and home trade provided the impetus necessary for the bigger feudal landowners to turn their estates into big business enterprises. Boyar B. Morozov, for example, had an annual income amounting to tens of thousands of rubles of that day from trading in grain, wine and potash. The estates of some other big feudals --- Boyar Miloslavsky, Prince Cherkassky, Prince Romodanovsky and others---became business enterprises. The same was true of the estate under the Privy Council which Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich himself directed. The produce of the big feudal estates accounted for a big share in the export trade. Arkhangelsk was the port through which most goods to and from abroad passed; according to the Swedish Resident I. de Rodes, 75 per cent of all Russia's foreign trade passed through that port in the mid-17th century. Trade with the West also took place through Pskov, Novgorod, Tikhvin and Smolensk, with Russia exporting leather, grain, linen, potash, furs, wax and other articles and importing silk and other cloths, arms, sugar, wine, tea and luxury articles. Trade with the East was of a somewhat different nature. In addition to raw materials sold in Khiva, Bukhara and Persia, Russia sent there handicraft wares and some West European commodities. Silks, carpets and other luxury goods were imported from Central Asia.
On account of her economic weakness Russia was a raw material market for the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe, and fierce competition for that market existed between the Dutch and British 130 merchants. Its invasion by foreign merchants worsened the position of Russian traders and was a threat to the independent economic development of the country. Under pressure from the traders and with the aid of the most far-sighted people (such as A. Ordin-Nashchokin), the Russian government began to protect Russian commerce and industry. The New Commercial Regulations of 1667 prohibited foreign merchants from engaging in retail trade in Russian towns and allowed them to conduct their wholesale trade only in the frontier towns. The Regulations placed high tariffs on foreign goods.
The extension of trade relations and the growing importance of merchant capital marked the beginning of the long process of building up the all-Russia market. New bourgeois relations emerged, although so far only in the sphere of commerce; these new relations scarcely affected urban industries, to say nothing of agriculture, the main branch of the economy, where feudal relations continued to prevail. It was this that caused Russia to lag behind the leading countries of Western Europe, which had already entered upon the capitalist path of development.
These peculiarities of the social and economic development of seventeenth-century Russia also had their effect on the evolution of her state system. After the stormy events of the early seventeenth century, state power in Russia was re-established in the form of a monarchy with representation of the social estates supported by the Boyars' Council and Zemskiye Sobory.
Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, first representative of the Romanov dynasty (reg. 1613--45), who ascended the throne at the age of 16, for a long period did not play any independent role, not so much on account of his youth as on account of his poor health and weak character. At first state affairs were in the hands of his relatives, the Saltykovs and Cherkassky s.
When Patriarch Filaret, the tsar's father, returned from captivity in Poland in 1619, he, being a man of strong will and great energy, took over the reins of church and secular government and held them for more than ten years. Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich meekly obeyed him. The second Romanov, Alexei Mikhailovich (reg. 1645--76), also ascended the throne in his youth. In the early years of his reign the administration of the state was in the hands of the boyar B. Morozov, the tsar's tutor and a man who was close to the court (he was married to Alexei Mikhailovich's sister-in-law). According to a foreign visitor, Morozov, the owner of vast patrimonial estates, thirsted for riches as ordinary people thirst for drink. Later, for some time, the tsar shared power with Patriarch Nikon. The power of the tsar was to a certain extent limited by the privileged position of the boyar aristocracy, the more powerful of whom sat in the Boyars' Council, the highest government body under the monarchy, in which only the higher social estates had representation. The character of the Boyars' Council was portrayed in the well-known essay, Russia in the Reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, written by Grigory Kotoshikhin, a clerk in the Foreign Office of the day; Kotoshikhin wrote his essay in Sweden, having fled to that country in 1663. Ridiculing the Boyars' council, he wrote: "Some of the boyars merely parade their beards, but give no advice, and the tsar favours many of them because of their ancient lineage and not because of their intellect."
__PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 9* 131Gradually members of non-aristocratic families, the new nobility and government officers, entered the Boyars' Council and obtained high government posts on account of their personal services. The aristocratic nature of the Council began to fade in the course of time and its significance as a government body waned.
Under the first Romanovs a Privy Council began to function alongside the Boyars' Council; it consisted of a small number of trusted persons appointed by the tsar. Towards the end of the century the importance of the Privy Council increased. The fate of the other government body, the Zemskiye Sobory in which the nobility, the boyars, the clergy and the leading merchants were represented, demonstrates the path of development taken by the social-estate representative monarchy in the seventeenth century. In the first decade of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich's reign, the Zemskiye Sobory were in constant session. They sought ways and means of keeping the treasury filled and recruited men for the army. Later, as the autocracy grew stronger, the tsar resorted to the assistance of the Zemskiye Sobory on fewer and fewer occasions. The gradual fading away of the Zemskiye Sobory as an organ representing the social estates was a big step towards the evolution of the social-estate representative monarchy in the direction of absolutism. In the seventeenth century, however, only the germs of absolutism appeared, and it did not take final shape as a state system until the eighteenth century. The specific feature of the Russian representative monarchy was the weakness of the representation, especially the representation of the urban estates: the leading industrialist-traders and the growing merchant class. The ideological and political significance of the power of the tsar increased as the importance of the Zemsky Sobor faded. A new state seal was introduced, and the word samoderzhets (autocrat) was added to the tsar's title. The ideology of autocracy was based on two concepts---the divine origin of royal power and the descent of the new royal house from the dynasty founded by Rurik. In conformity with this the person of the tsar was glorified, he was given grandiose titles and all court ceremonies were performed solemnly and with great magnificence.
Some remnants of feudal disunity stood in the way of the development of the absolute monarchy. One of them was the claim of the Russian Orthodox Church to the priority of the spiritual over the temporal authorities. Despite its efforts to play an independent role, the Russian Orthodox Church was nevertheless dependent on state power. In this respect it differed greatly from the Roman Catholic Church that was completely independent and played a leading part in the life of mediaeval Europe. None the less, the establishment of absolutism in Russia required the further subordination of the church to the state. The church reform, carried out in the fifties and sixties of the seventeenth century, arose out of the need to strengthen the state apparatus, including the church. This reform, however, was due in no lesser degree to the international situation. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich's government planned to unite the Orthodox churches of the Ukraine and the Balkans with the Russian Orthodox Church. The Ukrainian church was closely linked with the Greek church and Russian church ritual differed from it considerably. The Russian church books contained many errors introduced by the copyists. The unification of church services, ritual and 132 religious books was a necessary condition for the unification of the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches.
Two different opinions were current in Moscow on the question of correcting the church books. The supporters of one view, which was also adhered to by the government, believed that the books should be corrected according to the Greek originals. This view was opposed by the "zealots of piety" who demanded the correction of the books according to the ancient Russian manuscripts.
The church reform was carried out ruthlessly by Patriarch Nikon. Nikon was in origin a Mordovian peasant from the Volgaside; he had been a monk in the Solovetsky Monastery and then rapidly ascended the upper ranks of the church hierarchy by using his influence over the tsar. When he was Metropolitan of Novgorod he helped the government put down the insurrection of 1650. Two years later he was elected Patriarch. On his knees and with tears in his eyes, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich begged him to accept the post. Nikon made a speech in which he demanded that he be "obeyed in everything as commander, pastor and dearest father''. Imperious, strong-willed and energetic, the new Patriarch soon struck his first blow at the "ancient piety''. On his orders the church books were corrected according to the Greek originals; some church rites were unified --- three fingers instead of two were to be used in making the sign of the cross and the order of divine service was changed. At first Nikon was opposed by the clergy of the capital and the provinces, mainly by the "zealots of piety''. The priests Avvakum and Daniil, the future spiritual fathers of the schism, sent the tsar their objections in writing. Since this did not serve their purpose they began to spread hostility to Nikon's reform among the people. Avvakum, the son of a priest and an intelligent, ambitious man who was ready to sacrifice his life for the sake of an idea, did not mince his words and called Nikon "a wolf in sheep's clothing'', "an evil leader" and "a mocker of God and a heretic''; he invoked thunder and lightning upon the Patriarch. Nikon responded with repressions, banished those hostile to the reform and, at the Conclave of 1655, took advantage of the presence of Patriarch Makarios of Antioch and the Greek bishops to anathemise the supporters of the old order.
Nikon's purpose in conducting the reform was purely theocratic---the establishment of the strong power of the church independent of secular power. He compared the power of the Patriarch to the sun and that of the tsar to the moon. (As the moon shines with reflected light, so the tsar receives his power from the Patriarch.) Nikon avidly clung to the right of "riding on a young ass''. On Palm Sunday the tsar would walk from the Kremlin leading by a bridle a horse on which the Patriarch would be solemnly seated. This was to make the point that church power was higher than secular power. The imperious Patriarch received the title of 'great ruler" and began to interfere actively in affairs of state administration. When Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was away at the war in Poland in 1654, Nikon took charge of all affairs in Moscow and spoke disparagingly, according to a contemporary, of the tsar. He said: "The tsar s help is no good and is of no use to me. I spit and blow my nose on «. In 1658, there was a conflict between.the tsar and the Patriarch on account of Nikon's imperious ways. Although the reform carried out by 133 the Patriarch was in the interests of growing Russian absolutism, his theocracy was obviously contrary to those interests. When the tsar's wrath was reported to Nikon, he resigned his office in the Cathedral of the Assumption and retired to the Monastery of the Resurrection. Nikon assumed that the tsar would beg him to return. The tsar, however, did not, since he could not accept Nikon's conception of the relations between spiritual and secular power.
At the Conclave of 1665--67, at which the Eastern patriarchs were present, Nikon was accused of deserting the patriarchal throne. He was defrocked and sent under escort to the Ferapont Monastery at Beloozero. The Conclave approved Nikon's reform, but on the question of the relation between the spiritual and secular authorities could not come to a firm decision because there were those among the princes of the church who favoured the priority of the church over the secular authorities. These latter were opposed by the Eastern patriarchs. The Conclave preferred to adopt an attitude of compromise --- "The tsar has priority in civil affairs and the Patriarch in church affairs''. Nikon's reform split the Russian church into two, the official Orthodox Church and the Old Believers' Church; this schism led to a crisis in the church and obviously weakened it.
The growing autocratic state was supported by a developed administrative apparatus; the prikazy (offices) constituted the core of the state apparatus. As in the sixteenth century the most important were still the Pomestye (Landed Estate) Affairs and Foreign offices and the Treasury, although at times the number of ``offices'' grew to as many as fifty. Whenever new objects of administration appeared, or new territories were added to the state, offices to control them were set up, such as the Streltsi, Official Secrets, Siberian and other offices.
In the seventeenth century, purely bureaucratic elements, the dyaki and podyachi (secretaries and undersecretaries), began to play an important role in the ``office'' management. Local administration within the uyezds was in the hands of governors appointed by the government from among the landed nobility. All military, judicial and financial affairs were concentrated in the hands of the governor. In some cases the governor's administration swallowed up all the old local government bodies and in others merely subordinated them to itself. The Zemsky administration preserved its importance only in the northern maritime areas.
Earlier, in the sixteenth century and especially during the events at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the prominent position of the landed nobility as the main section of the ruling feudal class, had made itself felt. In the economic sphere, the landed nobility gained more and more monopoly in the private feudal ownership of land, gradually displacing the boyars and the aristocratic, princely families. This was facilitated by the granting of lands to the nobility mainly in the form of hereditary entailed estates in place of those held in fee for the period in which the tenant rendered services to the sovereign. The extension of the land tenure rights of the nobility brought with it an extension of their rights to the ownership of peasant serfs. The nobility demanded that the government abolish the time limit within which runaway serfs could be returned to their owners.
134The political role of the nobility also became greater in this century, and they succeeded in taking the place of the old aristocratic boyars in the state apparatus and the army. In 1682, the system of precedence was abolished; this had been a system of appointing men to leading posts in the state apparatus and in the army in accordance with their aristocratic descent and not according to their services, and its abolition marked an advance in the conquest of political prestige by the nobility.
Social contradictions were also acute in the towns. Apart from the artisans and tradesmen registered as members of the town commune and paying state taxes, there were also the members of the merchant guilds and boyars and members of the clergy who owned urban establishments and also possessed large tracts of land. The artisans and tradespeople living on these estates competed with the townspeople in trade and industry, but, unlike the townspeople, did not pay taxes to the tsar. The artisans and tradesmen of the towns opposed them, and asserted their rights to the urban trading quarters as the property of their social estate. There was also a constant struggle going on in the towns between the urban poor, who constituted the majority, and the small group of rich townsmen.
These social contradictions and the class struggle were aggravated in the mid-seventeenth century by the ruthless financial policy of the government of B. Morozov and his friends L. Pleshcheyev and P. Trakhaniotov. In 1646, to replenish the tsar's treasury, the government replaced direct taxation by a tax on salt with the result that the price of salt was almost trebled. So great was the hostility of the townspeople and peasants to this tax, that the government was forced to abolish it, but it then decided to collect the direct taxes for 1646 and 1647 and impose new direct taxes.
The strain on the people was so great that a political crisis developed; an insurrection broke out in Moscow in 1648. When Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was on his way back to Moscow from a religious pilgrimage, a crowd of townspeople tried to hand him a petition. The guard drove away the petitioners but on the next day excited crowds, among whom were some of the streltsi (tsar's musketeers) whose pay had been reduced, began to sack the boyars' palaces. Morozov's palace was plundered, and Chistoi, the state secretary whom the people regarded as the initiator of the salt tax, was killed in his own house. The insurrectionists broke into the Kremlin and demanded that the tsar deliver up to them Morozov and his henchmen Pleshcheyev and Trakhaniotov. The tsar swore to accede to this demand, but Morozov was secretly despatched to one of the northern monasteries and Trakhaniotov (who headed the Artillery Office) was given an opportunity to escape from Moscow. Only Pleshcheyev (who headed the Zemstvo Office and was especially hated by the townspeople) was handed over to the mob, who immediately tore him to pieces. Nor did Trakhaniotov escape the wrath of the people---he was seized on his way out of Moscow and killed on the spot. The government was able to put an end to the Moscow insurrection only by bribing the streltsi and promising to reduce the price of salt.
In that same year of 1648 there were revolts in other towns---in Veliky Ustyug, Sol-Vychegodsk, Cherdyn, Kozlov, Voronezh and Kursk. The 135 insurrectionists were mostly townspeople, but in a number of places they were joined by peasants.
It was under all these conditions that the Zemsky Sobor of 1648--49 drew up a new code of laws known as the Ordinance of 1649. The Ordinance made the peasants the absolute property of the landowning nobility. The time limit for the return of absconding serfs was abolished and they could be brought back to their owners no matter how many years had elapsed.
The Ordinance of 1649, therefore, was an important landmark on the way to the complete triumph of the serf-owning system. In the towns, the former trading and industrial establishments of the boyars and the monasteries were registered as belonging to the urban commune and began to pay taxes. Townspeople who fled from the towns were to be returned by the use of force. The Ordinance of 1649 also contained articles on the defence of the honour and protection of the health of the tsar, and on the courts, banditry, military service, the estates of the nobles and boyars and the church. Acts directed against the established order and against the life and property of the feudals were made punishable by death. In many cases impaling on a stake, breaking on the wheel, quartering, etc., were defined as penalties.
By means of such intimidation the Ordinance of 1649 protected the feudal social order and strengthened the power of the ruling class. This increased oppression of the serfs had made class contradictions still more acute; the highest point was reached at the time of the revolts in Pskov and Novgorod, in 1650.
The revolt in Pskov began in February 1650, when the insurgents seized power for a brief period. The governor was removed and power was taken over by the townsmen, represented by the local Zemstvo Office. In March, a revolt broke out in Novgorod; the Novgorod revolt was of brief duration and the insurgents soon surrendered to the tsar's governor I. Khovansky, but in Pskov matters took a different turn. The Pskov Zemstvo Office executed nobles found to have contact with the tsar's troops, arrested the archbishop, put townsmen and streltsi in command of the town's armed forces, and made a record of the food supplies possessed by the nobles and the merchants. The decisive actions and the courage of the people of Pskov brought them the support of the peasants in the neighbouring villages. I. Khovansky did not succeed in capturing Pskov and the government was forced to make overtures of peace. The Zemsky Sobor of 1650 sent an elected delegation to Pskov; helped by the more wealthy townsmen and promising to pardon the rebels, the delegation managed to put an end to the revolt. Despite the tsar's promises, however, the leaders of the revolt were brought to trial. The government was in a hurry to restore order because events required the mobilisation of the country's forces to intervene in the struggle against the Rzecz Pospolita for the Ukraine.
The effort to reunite the West Russian, Byelorussian and Ukrainian lands with the united Russian state was an important feature of Russian seventeenth-century foreign policy.
The first attempt of the new Romanov dynasty to settle this problem was the war for Smolensk (1632--34). Despite the auspicious start of this campaign, it ended in failure. The Russian generals, M. Shein and A. 136 Izmailov, were surrounded by superior Polish forces and capitulated to King Wladyslaw IV. Under the Polyanovskoye Treaty of 1634, of all the occupied Russian towns, the Poles returned only Serpeisk and its environs but were compelled to agree to a condition of political importance to Russia---Wladyslaw renounced his claim to the Russian throne.
In Moscow the defeat in the war was attributed to the ``treason'' of generals Shein and Izmailov and they were publicly beheaded following their condemnation by the Boyars' Council. The real reasons for Russia's defeat were her weakness in the economic and military fields and the inadequacy of her regular army.
The Russp-Polish War of 1654--67, however, succeeded where the war of the thirties had failed; it ended in the reunion of the West Russian regions headed by Smolensk and of the Ukraine east of the Dnieper, including Kiev, with Russia. These important successes in the sphere of foreign policy were due not only to the improvement in the country's economy and the armed forces (by this time a regular army had been established and the soldiers were armed with lighter weapons such as muskets and flintlock carbines), but also to the struggle waged by the peoples of the Ukraine and Byelorussia for reunion with Russia.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, Lithuania and Poland united in a single state, the Rzecz Pospolita, and a considerable part of the Ukraine and all of Byelorussia came under its rule. The Polish aristocrats and nobility established huge latifundias in the fertile Ukraine; local Ukrainian aristocrats also carved out large estates for themselves and tried their best to imitate the Polish aristocracy; they spoke and wrote Polish, adopted the Catholic religion and called themselves Poles. The Ukrainian peasants were doubly oppressed --- by their own and by the Polish feudals.
The feudal exploitation of the Ukrainian peasants was aggravated by national and religious oppression. The Polish landowners and the Catholic clergy forcibly converted the Orthodox peasants to Catholicism.
The Ukrainian people began their stubborn struggle against national and religious oppression; many of peasants fled to the south, to the Dnieper Rapids, where the Cossack settlement of Zaporozhskaya Sech (the fort beyond the rapids) was established on the island of Khortitsa. The Cossack forces were headed by an elected hetman. In peacetime the supreme authority was the Rada (Council), in which -all Cossacks participated.
There were a number of Cossack revolts against the Poles from the end of the sixteenth century onwards. A new upsurge of the liberation movement took place in the late forties of the seventeenth century. It was headed by Bogdan Khmelnitsky, a great son of the Ukrainian people, a courageous soldier and talented diplomat. He came from the petty Ukrainian nobility, was well educated and knew the Latin, Polish and Turkish languages. Seeing that the people could no longer tolerate the lawlessness of the Polish szlachta and the Jesuits, Bogdan Khmelnitsky set himself the task of reuniting the Ukrainian people with the fraternal Russian people in a single Russian state. This was the only 137 __CAPTION__ Bog dan Khmelnitsky. Engraving by V. Gondius, 1651 way to prevent the Ukraine from being completely absorbed by Poland or Turkey.
Khmelnitsky gathered a small force on the Lower Dnieper, drove the Polish garrison from the Seek and appealed to. the people to revolt; immediately the entire Ukraine was seething. To safeguard himself from the rear and to gain some support Khmelnitsky concluded an agreement with the Khan of the Crimea. In the spring of 1648, the war of liberation of the Ukrainian people opened with two brilliant victories gained by Khmelnitsky at Zholtiye Vody and Korsun. The insurrection spread throughout the Ukraine and part of Byelorussia.
In the course of action Khmelnitsky conducted negotiations with Moscow, asking for the Ukraine to be accepted as the subject of Russia. The Russian government was busy dealing with the urban insurrections of 1648--50 and was slow in answering; the government, however, expressed sympathy with Khmelnitsky's struggle against Poland and afforded him diplomatic support.
Khmelnitsky's name and his cause became known throughout Europe. From far-off England Cromwell sent Khmelnitsky a message 138 of congratulation in which he was called "By the Grace of God Generalissimus, Head of the Greek Eastern Church, Head of the Zaporozhye Cossacks, the menace and destroyer of the Polish nobility, the conqueror of fortresses, the destroyer of the Roman clergy...".
In the course of further developments, Khmelnitsky twice concluded agreements with the King of Poland --- the first time at Zborow in 1649 and the second time at Belaya Tserkov in 1651. The belligerents were both in need of a respite to muster new forces.
The power of the Polish nobility was re-established in the Ukraine after the conclusion of the Treaty of Belaya Tserkov, but it was obvious to all that the war was not over. In February 1651, the Zemsky Soborin Moscow declared its readiness to accept the Ukraine as the subject of Russia. In the autumn of 1653, the King of Poland again sent troops to the Ukraine; Khmelnitsky's forces surrounded the royal army in Podolia and only the treachery of the Khan of the Crimea saved the Poles from complete destruction. On October 1, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor decided to incorporate the Ukraine into Russia and declare war on Poland. The Russian government despatched to Khmelnitsky an embassy headed by V. V. Buturlin. On January 8, 1654, a huge Rada gathered in Pereyaslavl in which the Cossacks and the people of the Ukrainian towns and villages participated. The people at the Rada decided to become the subjects of Russia. The Rada was followed by solemn divine service at which the oath of allegiance was taken.
Thus ended the Ukrainian people's national struggle for reunion with Russia. The Russian government allowed the Cossacks to retain their right to elect their own hetman and elders, to have their own court and possess landed estates. The union with the Ukraine greatly strengthened the Russian state.
The union, however, made war with Poland inevitable. The war of 1654--67 soon took on an all-European character---Sweden, the Ottoman Empire and its vassal states, the Crimea and Moldavia--- became involved.
At first the Russian forces were very successful; they occupied Smolensk, Mogilyov, Vitebsk, Minsk and Kovno, and in the Ukraine, jointly with Khmelnitsky's troops, liberated the West Ukrainian lands as far as Lvov.
At this moment Sweden, taking advantage of the weakening of her enemy Poland, entered the war. King Charles X of Sweden rapidly occupied a large part of Poland. In these circumstances Russia concluded an armistice with Poland and launched a war against Sweden (1656--58). Russia's aim in this war was not only to protect the newly incorporated territories of the Ukraine and Byelorussia, but also to fight for an outlet into the Baltic. Russian troops reached Riga and laid siege to the town.
The Russo-Swedish war enabled Poland to recover from her defeat, and a people's war against the Swedish occupants began in the Rzecz Pospolita. The Swedes were forced to withdraw from Poland.
Very soon King Jan Kazimierz of Poland again made war on Russia. Both Poland and Russia concluded peace with Sweden and began to fight each other for mastery of the Ukraine. This was a long drawn-out war 139 that exhausted both belligerents. In 1667, they concluded an armistice at Andrussovo that was to last thirteen and a half years and according to which Russia retained Smolensk and the Ukraine east of the Dnieper. Kiev went over to Russia for two years. The Ukraine west of the Dnieper and Byelorussia remained in the hands of the Rzecz Pospolita. Under the Kardis Treaty of 1661 with Sweden, the Swedes retained the Russian coastline of the Gulf of Finland. In 1686, "eternal peace" was concluded between Russia and Poland, confirming the terms of the Andrussovo armistice. Kiev remained part of Russia.
One of the chief reasons of Russia's aim to conclude a peace treaty with Poland in the sixties was her worsening economic situation. In order to obtain funds for the conduct of the war, the government had started minting copper coins with values equal to those of the silver coinage. So much copper coinage was issued that its value fell rapidly. The discontent among the people was exacerbated by the collection of taxes in silver coinage and the payment of government servants and workers in copper coinage. The cost of living increased beyond all bounds. All this, added to the increased taxation, so exasperated the people that a revolt broke out in 1662.
The revolt began in Moscow on July 25, 1662. One part of the insurrectionists began plundering the palaces of the boyars, while another group set off to the village of Kolomenskoye where Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was attending church service. The people demanded that the tsar reduce the taxes and hand over to them the Miloslavskys and Rtishchev and the merchant Shorin who were accused of manipulating the copper currency. The tsar talked with the crowd and promised to issue a just ukase; in the meantime large government forces were despatched to Kolomenskoye. By midday on July 25, the revolt, which lasted only a few hours, was ruthlessly suppressed.
The revolt of the urban lower classes was accompanied by resistance on the part of the peasantry who, on account of the growing oppression, had begun to abscond in large numbers.
The government organised the mass search for runaway peasants which had been demanded by the nobility. Between 1663 and 1667, in Ryazan district alone, about 8,000 runaway serfs and bondsmen were found and returned to their former owners. The tsar issued ukases introducing penalties for peasants who absconded. The development of serfdom gave the feudal landowners greater rights of ownership over the serfs; the nobility began to make payments in serfs and their property, in settlement of accounts; they sold serfs with and without the land, compelled them to marry whoever the master chose, and flogged them. These measures only served to increase the number of absconding serfs. The runaways streamed across the state ``frontier'' to the Don and its tributaries where the Cossacks had long held sway. In the first half of the seventeenth century a Cossack military organisation was formed there, the Don Cossack Army, and the territory, although part of the Russian state, retained its autonomy.
In order to maintain its hold on the affluent section of the Cossacks and use them to protect the frontiers from raids by the Crimean Tatars, the Russian government paid them in cash, grain and weapons. This sharply aggravated the already existing antagonism between the affluent 140 Cossacks and the golytba or propertyless who constituted the majority of the population of the towns on the upper Don and its tributaries. Food shortages, added to the exploitation of the poor by the affluent Cossacks, served as an impetus for the poorer sections of the Cossacks to organise bandit raids on the Volga and the shores of the Caspian Sea.
Stepan Razin, leader of the peasant war of 1667--71, was a Cossack in origin. He was a member of an affluent Cossack family and had on several occasions been a member of embassies sent by the Don Cossack Army to the Kalmyks and to Moscow. Stepan Razin was a clever, energetic and experienced man, a worthy leader of the peasants and poor Cossacks in their struggle against their exploiters. A Dutch traveller by the name of Strijs, who saw him, described him as "a tall and dignified man, strongly built and possessing a haughty face. He maintained himself modestly and with great severity".
Razin's movement began with the raid of the Cossack golytba on the Caspian coast in 1667. They seized a town on the Yaik. In the spring of 1668, Razin left the Yaik and sailed for the Persian coast. Razin's men were joined on the Caspian Sea by more Cossacks coming from the Don and together they laid waste to the Persian coast from Derbent to Baku; in an unequal battle they defeated the flotilla sent against them by the Shah of Persia and seized a large amount of booty and prisoners, among the latter the daughter of Mendy-Khan. The governor of Astrakhan, fearing Razin's forces, allowed him to enter Astrakhan on payment of part of his booty and weapons. The appearance of the Cossacks with their rich booty created a profound impression on the urban lower classes. In September 1669, Razin's forces sailed up the Volga and occupied Tsaritsyn. Razin released the inmates of the prison and returned to his native Don, taking with him hundreds of working people from Astrakhan and Tsaritsyn. Thus ended the first period of Razin's movement, the dominant feature of which were raids in search of booty by the free Cossacks, although the class hatred of the people for their exploiters was even then apparent.
Razin's second campaign from the Don to the Volga marked a turning-point in the movement. In April 1670, when Razin's army, strongly reinforced with Cossacks from among the golytba and with runaway serfs, had reached a total strength of 7,000, he again occupied Tsaritsyn. The Cossack movement took on an open anti-feudal character. The rebels said that they were going against the boyars and government officials, but not against the tsar. A rumour was spread that Tsarevich Alexei Alexeyevich, who had died some time before these events occurred, was among Razin's forces; it was also rumoured that Patriarch Nikon, then in disgrace, was with Razin. And both the Tsarevich and the Patriarch were pictured as victims of the lawlessness of the boyars.
Razin left Tsaritsyn for Astrakhan and, after a brief attack, took the city with the aid of the local inhabitants. Razin with a large body of followers then sailed up the Volga. Saratov and Samara surrendered without a struggle. At the beginning of September Razin approached Simbirsk. The military governor, Miloslavsky, with a strong army kept behind the sound city walls. Before he left Tsaritsyn, Razin had sent out 141 __CAPTION__ Stepan Razin. Seventeenth-century engraving appeals to the people to fight. The peoples of the Volgaside--- Chuvashes, Mari, Mordovians and Tatars---joined the revolt. The movement spread over the entire Volga Basin and Slobodskaya Ukraine; the rebels besieged monasteries and plundered the estates of the nobility. The peasant war against feudal oppression reached its peak.
Razin did not succeed in capturing Simbirsk. The government sent reinforcements from the Kazan area under the command of Prince Baryatinsky and in a two-day battle Razin's Cossack and peasant contingents were defeated by the regular troops. Razin himself was wounded and retired to the Don with a small part of his forces. There he was seized by the affluent Cossacks and sent to Moscow. On June 6, 1671, Stepan Razin was executed in Red Square.
The rebellion led by Stepan Razin displayed all the features typical of mediaeval peasant wars --- their spontaneity and local character and the absence of a mature political programme. Razin called upon the people to fight against the serf-owners but was in favour of a "good tsar''. Although the peasants were defeated, the peasant war was of tremendous significance. It was the greatest historical act of the Russian people in their struggle for freedom and an important step forward in the formation of their revolutionary traditions. Stepan Razin became the legendary hero of the Russian people.
142The suppression of the peasant revolt and the ruthless repressions that followed led a large part of the population to withdraw into schismatic mysticism and fanaticism. The people expressed their protest against the feudal yoke sanctified by the official Orthodox Church in the reactionary religious form of schismatism. Contrary to the writings of some historians, the schism must not be regarded as a purely religious movement, but also as a social movement reflecting definite class interests.
The preaching and writings of the priest Avvakum played an important part in developing the schism.
The Solovetsky Revolt (1668--76) was closely connected with both the schism and with Razin's peasant movement. The government suppressed the revolt with great brutality, but repressions and executions only served to strengthen the schism and led to the appearance of a number of new centres of the movement.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Russian seventeenth-century culture is marked by the clash of contradictory elements---the remnants of the old and elements of the new.Russian seventeenth-century culture is marked by the clash of contradictory elements---the remnants of the old and elements of the new.
The new elements were particularly strong in literature. Early in the ce.ntury the publicists were prominent; their writings were connected with the peasant war and the Polish-Swedish intervention. In the many writings on the "Time of Troubles'', for instance, in the Tales by Avraamy Palitsyn, in the Novelleby Katyrev-Rostovsky, in the Calendar by State Secretary Ivan Timofeyev, and in the New Tale of the Glorious Russian State there was a discussion of the causes of the "great devastation" and "endless ruin" x>f the Russian lands. The authors of these works assessed events from different class positions, but they agreed in one thing---in their lofty patriotism and ardent love for their tormented land. Political passion, civic conscience, a realisation of the place of the people in the history of the country distinguish every tale 'and novella about the "Time of Troubles".
In the publicist works of the period we see a new attitude to the individual, a recognition of the value of the human being irrespective of his official position in society; we also see an interest in the inner world of man.
These features are especially typical of literature in the second half of the century. In the Novella about Savva Grudtsyn the hero is an ordinary merchant. In this book all attention is focussed on the hero's inner world, the personal drama of the man in the street. This book has very properly been called "the first Russian novel".
As in previous centuries, tales, chronicles, lives of saints and didactic works remain the basic literary genres. The old forms, however, are in sharp contradiction to the new plots, subjects and ideas. This peculiar struggle between the new content and the old form is best seen in the Life and Acts of the Priest Avvakum. Avvakum was an extreme conservative, a fanatical preacher of the "old faith'', but as an individual he belonged to the new times. His fights, his wrath and his sermons were those of the leader rather than of the saint, the ascetic of former centuries. Avvakum 143 wrote his autobiography in the mediaeval "lives of saints" genre, but it was a genre he considerably violated. He described his own life, glorified his own person, something that would have been considered a mortal sin in earlier centuries. The language of his Life was a combination of the old Church-Slavonic and a lively, colloquial style.
The consciousness of the significance of man's personality developed parallel to the consciousness of the significance of the people in historical events. In the tales of Ataman Yermak's conquest of Siberia, the Cossacks' "long sitting" at the siege of Azov and other stories, the masses on their own initiative annexed towns and regions to the Russian state, defended them and displayed untold courage and valour.
A truly popular literature developed, created by simple peasants, artisans and the lower clergy. Among the best works in this genre was The Tale of Ruff, the Son of Ruff, an allegory describing seventeenthcentury lawsuits over land in the form of a lawsuit between a ruff and a bream living in Rostov Lake. The Tale of Shemyaka's Judgement exposed the corruption of judges, The ABC of the Naked and Poor Man described the misadventures of a poor Moscow artisan, and The Petition of Kalyazin told of drunkenness in the monasteries.
Syllabic versification also developed widely in the second half of the seventeenth century. The greatest Russian poet of the time was Simeon Polotsky. He moved from Polotsk to Moscow and spent the rest of his life there, writing an enormous quantity of poems in which he tried to diffuse knowledge and praise enlightenment. He introduced new forms into Russian poetry and perfected syllabic versification. He managed to combine the writing of poetry with instructing the tsar's children. He regarded the monarch as the force that was capable of transforming the country and aiming it in the direction of science and learning.
The direction imparted to poetry by the works of Simeon Polotsky was continued in the writings of Silvester Medvedev right at the end of the seventeenth century and of Karion Istomin at the end of the seventeenth century and the first quarter of the eighteenth.
The Russian theatre originated in the second half of the seventeenth century, although there had been elements of the theatrical art earlier in the performances of troupes of wandering buffoons and in church services. The theatre in the modern sense of the word, with written plays, a special building for performances and a stage with scenery and properties appeared in Russia only in 1672 at the court of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The first play, The Deeds ofArtaxerxes, was produced by Pastor Gregory of the Nemetskaya Sloboda in Moscow. The first actors and scenic artists were also foreigners. Soon, however, Russian actors appeared on the stage; the plays were on biblical themes, occasionally on historical and mythological subjects.
Some original plays, not translated from other languages, were written for the Russian theatre in the seventeenth century by Simeon Polotsky. He wrote two plays in verse. The Comedy of the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the tragedy Xing Nebuchadnezzar. Particularly well known is the outstanding Prodigal Son, which consists of a prologue, six acts and an epilogue. It satirises young people's superficial enthusiasm for foreign culture, and was a great success: in 1685 it was published in Moscow as a separate book.
144 __CAPTION__ Krutitsky Chambers in Moscow. Built by O. Startsev, 1694The theatre was closed after the death of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, and new theatrical performances were not given until the reign of Peter the Great.
Architecture in the seventeenth century developed into a single, all-Russia art that replaced the former local styles---the Moscow, Novgorod, Yaroslavl and other architectural schools. There was greater intricacy in the forms used; styles became pronouncedly decorative with a rich ornament that made use of coloured majolica tiles (the New Jerusalem Cathedral, the Krutitsky Chambers in Moscow, etc.).
Many fine buildings were erected in the seventeenth century, among them excellent examples of the wooden architecture of the Russian __PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 10--160 145 people, especially in the northern parts of the country --- the Church of St. Vladimir in the village of Belaya Sluda (Arkhangelsk Region --- 1642), the Church of Elijah in the village of Chukhcherma near Kholmogory (1657), the Church of the Assumption in the village of Varguza (Murmansk Region --- 1674) and others. The famous wooden palace of Tsar Alexei at Kolomenskoye (1667--68) was built in the same traditional Russian style. The palace was pulled down in the eighteenth century, but a model of it, some drawings and the plans have been preserved. Simeon Polotsky called the Kolomenskoye palace the eighth wonder of the world.
Civilian building in stone was varied in character in this century; it included the very simple buildings of the merchants in which no ornament was used (such as the Ppgankins' Mansion in Pskov --- 1670s) and the richly ornamented buildings of the Zemstvo Office and the Sukharev Tower in Moscow.
The formation of an all-Russia style in architecture was accompanied by the emergence of new local schools. The Yaroslavl school of architects was particularly prominent in the mid-century. A number of Yaroslavl churches built in the seventeenth century are among the best works of Russian architecture and enjoy world renown --- the Church of Elijah the Prophet (1647--50), the Church of John the Preacher at __CAPTION__ Group of buildings in the Rostov Kremlin, second half of seventeenth century [146] __CAPTION__ Church of the Intercession at Fili, near Moscow, 1693 Korovniki (1649--54), the Church of John the Baptist at Tolchkovo (1671--87). Like other churches on the Volga, those of Yaroslavl are remarkable for their combination of a monumental style and buoyant and varied ornament.
Some big architectural ensembles were built at this time. Of particular interest was that of Great Rostov. The high walls and turrets of the buildings, and the richly ornamented church roofs, all of which are reflected in Rostov Lake, are reminiscent of theatre d6cor.
An unusual architectural style was evolved on the estates of the boyars Golitsyn and Naryshkin, and was given the name of "the Naryshkin baroque''. Among the buildings in this style, the best known are the Church of the Intercession at Fili (1693) and the Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka Street in Moscow (1696--99).
In the painting of this century there is a considerable departure from the conventionality of mediaeval art and from the ancient canons of iconography. Perspective, discovered during the Renaissance, made its appearance. Icon painters aimed at a realistic depiction of the world around them and at a precise and truthful picture of real life. The work of the greatest Russian painter of the century, Simon Ushakov, displays this new tendency at its best. The ephemeral, ``unearthly'' faces of the __PRINTERS_P_147_COMMENT__ 10* 147 earlier icons were replaced by real live human faces; his pictures of the saints are earthly men and women, far removed from the unchanging types of the older icons.
In the second half of the century the Armoury of the Moscow Kremlin became a sort of Russian Academy of Arts where many Russian and foreign artists worked. The very fact that foreign artists were invited to work in Russia showed that the old style of icon painting had failed to satisfy a greater part of Russian society. Gravitation towards European painting became stronger, painters became bolder in their application of the better principles and realism of European painting.
The accumulation of practical knowledge continued throughout the century. Russians in this period made many important contributions to geographical knowledge by their numerous discoveries in the north and north-east of Asia. In 1633, I. Rebrov and I. Perfilyev sailed down the River Lena to its mouth. In 1641, M. Stadukhin made a voyage down the River Indigirka and then along the seacoast to Kolyma. Between 1643 and 1646, V. Poyarkov explored the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk and in 1648, F. Popov and S. Dezhnev sailed from the Arctic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean, thus establishing the fact that America and Asia were divided by a sleeve of the Sea. Between 1647 and 1651, Y. Khabarov journeyed down the River Amur. Russian explorers made many interesting notes on their journeys to China and Mongolia (I. Petlin, F. Baikov,N. Spafary). These geographical reports were all summarised by the Siberia Office, which received verbal reports, written descriptions and drawings.
The first geographers in Russia worked towards the end of the century. Prominent among them was S. Remezov, an outstanding cartographer, historian of Siberia, an ethnographer and archaeologist of great originality. In 1696, Remezov compiled a sketch map of all Siberia for the Siberia Office, and in 1701, he completed his huge atlas of Siberia. He was also the author of an ethnographical map and a history of Siberia.
Many foreign books on history, geography, medicine, philosophy, etc., were translated during the seventeenth century. Noteworthy among them were Mercator's Cosmography, Blau's four-volume Atlas and Lucas de Linda's Geography in which the system of Copernicus was dealt with. The work of Copernicus was also reflected in the Selenography of the Danzig astronomer Hevelius. Books on military matters were also translated, such as The Training and Tactics of Foot Soldiers by Waldhausen and the Dutch Army Penal Code.
An attempt was also made to compile a number of original practical textbooks. A.Mikhailov's Rules for Infantry, Artillery and Other Matters Military contained information on mathematics, physics and chemistry.
The number of libraries greatly increased and the books available covered a much more extensive range of subjects. Apart from the libraries of the monasteries, a number of others of that time were well known---the Foreign Office library, the library of the Moscow printing works, the tsar's library and the libraries of individual aristocrats and churchmen, such as A. L. Ordin-Nashchokin, A. S. Matveyev and Patriarch Nikon. The libraries of that time contained books in Latin, Greek, Polish, German and other languages besides Russian.
148The need for education began to make itself felt in the seventeenth century more than ever before; in the second half of the century government and private schools were set up. Schools were also opened in some monasteries and convents. Education consisted mainly of the mastery of the Latin and Greek languages, although grammar, rhetoric and philosophy were also taught. In 1668, in the Kitai-gorod quarter of Moscow, a school was opened for the teaching of the grammar of the Slavonic, Latin and Greek languages. In 1680, a school was opened at the Moscow printing works at which languages were also the chief subjects taught. In 1685, instruction began in the Slavono-Graeco-Latin Academy in Moscow; two Greek scholars, the brothers I. and S. Likhuda, taught at the Academy. The Slavpno-Graeco-Latin Academy was the first institution of higher learning in Russia.
If one should look for a style that is the hallmark of the age, then the style of the second half of the seventeenth century is certainly baroque, which reached Russia from Poland, mainly by way of the Ukraine and Byelorussia. The baroque permeated poetry and the official court literature. It can be seen in the poetry of Simeon Polotsky, who was of Byelorussian origin but had a Ukrainian upbringing, and also in the poetry of Karion Istomin, Silvester Medvedev and Andrei Belobotsky. In architecture the baroque is represented by the so-called Naryshkin baroque, while in painting the baroque style penetrated mainly those works which emerged from the Armoury of the Moscow Kremlin, as well as wall painting. The baroque also made its mark on applied art and music.
The baroque of Russia differs substantially from that of Central and Western Europe. It is linked neither with the Counter-Reformation nor with the return to the Middle Ages. Russian baroque assumed the functions of the missing Russian Renaissance. It helped to emancipate the individual and to secularise culture, and was associated with enlightenment and with the departure from mediaeval forms of culture. It paved the way for the transition to European cultural forms that occurred during the age of Peter I.
[149] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Six __ALPHA_LVL1__ EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.Most of the European countries, Russia among them, had become consolidated as absolute feudal monarchies by the beginning of the eighteenth century. National markets had grown up, in a number of countries capitalist production had been developed, international economic relations had been strengthened and the seizure of colonies had begun; this led to strained relations between states and to a deepening of contradictions within each of them. A strong military and bureaucratic authority became necessary to enable the ruling class, the nobility, to overcome internal difficulties and achieve success in foreign relations. At the same time the feudal nobility had to make a number of more or less important concessions to the nascent bourgeoisie.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were only the germs of capitalist development in Russia, but the formation of an absolute monarchy was accelerated by the need to solve a number of vital problems that the Russian state had failed to settle in the seventeenth century. First among them was that of an outlet to the sea, without which the country's trade could not develop. The struggle for the Ukraine in the seventeenth century had not united the entire Ukrainian people with Russia---the Ukraine west of the Dnieper remained in the hands of Poland. The southern frontiers of the state were not protected from the raids of the Crimean Tatars. Stepan Razin's peasant revolt had been defeated, but the peasants remained in a state of ferment and large numbers went over to the schismatists, the enemies of the established Russian Church and of the state. The chief military force of Russia was the Militia of the Nobility, whereas the Western powers by this time possessed regular armies. The country had no big industry, only some twenty manufactories were founded in the seventeenth century. Arms were in short supply and had to be imported from other countries. Skilled workmen were few and the education provided by the church schools was insufficient for the training of specialists.
Peter the Great not only realised the need for reforms to strengthen the external and domestic situation of the state in which the nobility were the dominant class, but he began a practical struggle for the establishment of a military-bureaucratic monarchy, undaunted by all the difficulties that confronted him; he regarded the reforms as a condition necessary to 150 __CAPTION__ Peter the Great. Portrait by M. Lomonosov, 1754. Mosaic overcome Russia's backwardness; such was the tremendous service he rendered his country.
Peter's reign began with a fierce struggle between two factions at court---the Miloslavkys, relatives of the first wife of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, and the Naryshkins, relatives of his second wife, Peter's mother.
In 1682, the Miloslavskys, assisted by Prince Ivan Khovansky, head of the Streltsi Office, succeeded in raising a revolt of the streltsi. Peter and Tsarevich Ivan, the son of Alexei and Miloslavskaya, were both crowned as tsars; Peter and his mother were sent into honourable exile to the village of Preobrazhenskoye. The two tsars were both youths, and the government was headed by their elder sister Sophia and her favourite, Prince V. Golitsyn. There was, however, discord among Sophia's supporters. Prince Khovansky, who enjoyed the support of the streltsi, seemed dangerous to Sophia and was treacherously assassinated. Prince Golitsyn's two campaigns against the Crimean Tatars (1687 151 and 1689) were unsuccessful and tens of thousands of Russian soldiers perished in the waterless steppes. A dangerous vacuum began to form around Sophia.
In the meantime the energetic members of the Naryshkin faction at Preobrazhenskoye (B. Golitsyn, M. Cherkassky, T. Streshnev and others) were getting ready for the inevitable clash with Sophia's government. Peter shared their hatred of Sophia and her entourage. To the young tsar, Sophia was the embodiment of the old world with its ignorance, outworn manners, political intrigues, and the lawlessness of the streltsi. During his stay at Preobrazhenskoye, Peter made the acquaintance of the inhabitants of Nemetskaya Sloboda (one of the Moscow suburbs), and of Lefort and Gordon in particular. He tried to complement his church-school education with practical knowledge and busied himself with "warlike amusements" and organised a "play army''. Among his play soldiers was Aleksashka, a boy of humble origin, who was to become the semi-autocrat, His Highness Prince Alexander Menshikov. Although Peter was still playing at soldiers, his supporters, especially Cherkassky, were trying to turn his play battalions into regular regiments equipped with weapons that were anything but toys. By the time of Golitsyn's Crimean campaigns the play army had been organised into two regiments, named the Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky, from the names of the villages in which they were quartered.
At the beginning of August 1689, Sophia made another attempt to incite the streltsi against Peter. Peter was given warning and on the night of August 7 fled from Preobrazhenskoye to the Troitse-Sergiyev Monastery. On August 8, the two regiments also arrived there together with the Sukharev Regiment of streltsi. The Militia of the Nobility began to gather quickly; faced with such a menace Sophia was compelled to capitulate (September 7, 1689).
The new government was headed by the Naryshkins who governed in the name of the two tsars; they worked for the centralisation of the state apparatus and the formation of a bureaucracy. This new tendency was best seen in the establishment of the Preobrazhensky Office, a political police body. Other new offices founded at the turn of the eighteenth century were purely bureaucratic institutions. The Mayor's Palace, or City Hall, founded in January 1699, was based on somewhat different principles. It was expected to consolidate the town population that was divided by an internal struggle between the urban poor, the small taxpayers, and the affluent part of the population, the big taxpayers. The City Hall was in Moscow, and in other towns the population were invited to elect their representatives to the Zemstvo House. The provincial governors no longer had any authority over the urban population, and this was completely in accord with the interests of the affluent top stratum of the towns.
The reform of 1699 was mainly an attempt on the part of the government to apply social-estate forms of organisation to the merchants in the service of the absolute monarchy. The new institutions were mostly in charge of the collection of direct and indirect taxes.
The foreign policy of the Naryshkin government in the nineties of the seventeenth century was a continuation of that of the seventies and eighties --- the protection of the southern frontiers against the inroads of 152 the Crimean Tatars. Peter, however, also had in mind the possibility of reaching the open sea, and for this purpose a fleet was built near Voronezh. The Azov campaigns of 1695 and 1696, in which this fleet took part, ended in the capture of Azov. Nevertheless a continuation of the war against mighty Turkey was not to be contemplated without allies. The main task of the government after the fall of Azov was the resurrection and even extension of the Holy Alliance, the anti-Turkish coalition that had been formed in the early eighties by the Rzecz Pospolita, Austria and Venice. This was the chief object of the "Grand Embassy" despatched to the Western powers in 1697, with which Peter travelled under the name of Mikhailov. The despatch of the Embassy was held up by the discovery of a new conspiracy against Peter in Moscow; it was headed .by Tsykler, colonel of streltsi. Tsarevna Sophia, who was imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent, continued plotting against Peter.
The time was unfavourable for the strengthening of the anti-Turkish coalition. The War of the Spanish Succession was shortly to break out between France on the one side, and Austria, England and Holland on the other. Leopold II of Austria was preparing for the war and wanted to conclude a separate peace with Turkey. After visiting Holland, England and Austria, Peter realised that it would be impossible to strengthen the anti-Turkish coalition. During negotiations with the Court in Vienna, he received information of a new revolt of the streltsi and hurried his departure accordingly. At Rava Russkaya, on the way to Moscow, Peter had an important meeting with Russia's candidate for the Polish throne, the Saxon Elector Augustus II. It was at this meeting that the question of a joint war against Sweden was first raised.
The insurrection of the streltsi was suppressed before Peter returned from abroad. The brutal hunting down of the streltsi, that was carried out on Peter's return, served to remove the danger of further action on the part of the government's enemies for a long time. Apart from the cruel executions of the streltsi, Peter set about Europeanising the Russian way of life, regarding that as a means of eradicating the remnants of the hated past. It was forbidden to wear beards and the old Russian style of dress had to be replaced by clothes of a European cut. This ``Europeanisation'' affected only the top layer of society and was purely symbolical. More important were other measures that served to strengthen the autocratic state and, primarily, the creation of a regular army and navy. To weaken the opposition of the church, Peter established the Monastery Office in 1701, following the death of Patriarch Adrian. This was an important step towards abolishing the Patriarchy.
The basic line in the foreign policy of Peter's government from 1699 was the struggle for the Baltic coast. The talks that had begun in Rava Russkaya on the conclusion of a military alliance against Sweden were brought to a conclusion in Moscow in that year. The alliance of Russia and Poland was joined by Denmark. The war against Sweden was justified historically; the Baltic lands had belonged to the Russian state from ancient days. At the same time the government realised that without an outlet to the sea, the direct road to the West, the Russian state would be doomed to economic and political backwardness. In starting the war, Peter was fulfilling the national task of the Russian state, but 153 this does not mean that his foreign policy was not of a class nature --- it was conducted directly in the interests of the nobility and the nascent merchant class; the aims of those social groups in foreign politics in the conditions obtaining in the early eighteenth century were in accordance with the interests of the state as a whole.
After lengthy and difficult negotiations a peace treaty with Turkey was signed in Istanbul on July 3, 1700, under which the Russians retained Azov. On August 8, 1700, Peter despatched an army of 35,000 men under the command of the Due de Croy against the Swedish fortress of Narva. This was the beginning of the Northern War. The war began badly for the allies. King Charles XII laid siege to Copenhagen and forced Denmark to capitulate. The Russian army was poorly armed and supplies did not arrive in time owing to the impassable state of the roads in autumn, and the siege of Narva was a failure. In November 1700, King Charles made a sudden attack on the Russian camp. The foreign officers in the tsar's service, headed by de Croy, hurriedly laid down arms, but the regular troops, the Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky regiments, put up a gallant resistance to the Swedes and surrendered on honourable terms.
After the battle of Narva, Charles diverted his main forces to Poland to fight Augustus II. In the meantime Peter, having learned his lesson from the defeat at Narva, set about the formation of a new regular army, not by the enlistment of mercenaries in the way most European armies were formed, but by conscription. The conscription of an army was a heavy burden on the shoulders of the peasants and townspeople.
Peter was equally concerned to provide Russian officers for his army, the foreign mercenaries having proved unreliable. Nor was it enough to conscript soldiers --- they also had to be armed and clothed. For this purpose cloth and linen manufactories and iron foundries were needed and these were established in the Urals.
In this way Peter provided himself with a material basis for the conduct of the Northern War. The difficulties were enormous. A new army, a navy and a war industry all had to be created in the shortest possible time. Superhuman efforts produced results in the next few years --- in 1702, Peter took the initiative in the war and launched operations in Ingria.
In the autumn of 1702, Russian troops captured Noteburg, which was the name of the old Russian town of Oreshek; Peter renamed it Schliisselburg because it was the key town to the Neva. Hostilities were renewed in the spring of 1703. On May 1, the small Swedish fortress of Nienschantz surrendered to the Russians, and on May 16, the foundations of the fortress of St. Petersburg, the future capital of Russia, were laid on Zayachy Island in the delta of the River Neva.
Thousands of peasants were herded to the north for compulsory labour on the building of St. Petersburg. They were half starved and without proper living quarters. Under the circumstances many of them perished. The developing Urals iron industry also consumed much of the people's strength; the conscription laws were a still heavier burden. Service in the army was for life. The working people of the south and south-east of Russia, crushed by taxes, compulsory labour and conscription, began to rebel. The revolts, however, were spontaneous 154 and took place at different times. The biggest popular movements during the first decade of the eighteenth century were the uprisings in Astrakhan, Bashkiria and the Don region.
The Astrakhan revolt started in the summer of 1705 and rapidly spread over a large area in the south-eastern part of the country. The burdens of taxation and conscription were made worse in Astrakhan by the lawlessness of the local governor. The streltsi, the soldiers of the new army and the artisans of the towns joined the insurrection; they captured Astrakhan and a number of other towns. With the help of the rich merchants, whose business had been interrupted, the government suppressed the movement in 1706.
The revolt in the Don region took on a vast scale; the motive force here was the poor peasantry who rebelled in 1707 under the leadership of Kondraty Bulavin.
In the spring of 1708, the revolt spread almost throughput the entire south-eastern part of the country. The insurrectionists tried to get the non-Russian peoples, Tatars and Mordovians, on to their side; they were joined by the urban poor of Cherkassk and the town surrendered to Bulavin without a struggle. Bulavin directed his main forces against Azov, but was defeated. The rich Cossacks of the Don plotted against Bulavin and on July 7, he was killed.
Although the leader had been killed the fight continued to spread to the central parts of the country. Its strength lay in the support of the peasant masses. The revolt on the Don was put down in October 1708 but its effect lasted throughout 1709 and 1710 when there were many local peasant outbreaks.
There was a serious revolt in Bashkiria in 1705, where the local aristocracy took the leadership into their own hands, hoping to effect the secession of Bashkiria from Russia and place the country under the protection of Turkey. The revolt was suppressed in 1711; it could not have brought any relief to the masses.
Such was the situation in the country in the early eighteenth century. The government foresaw the possibility of a Swedish invasion at a time when the country was rent by popular revolts and used its main forces to strengthen positions in the Baltic area. Narva was captured in 1704. Between 1703 and 1705, the Swedes were pushed out of about two-thirds of the Baltic territories, but Charles XII did not regard these losses as being of great importance. His strategic plan was to crush the army of Augustus II and then turn his forces to the east, capture Moscow and bring the war to a victorious conclusion in the ancient Russian capital. In his opinion this would have settled the Baltic question.
In the autumn of 1706, Swedish troops invaded Saxony. Augustus II, the Elector of Saxony, who, in 1704, had been deprived of his Polish throne in favour of the Swedish candidate Stanislaw Leszczynski, capitulated.
This greatly worsened Russia's position. An invasion by Charles XII was now inevitable and in an attempt to prevent it Peter tried to conclude an alliance with England and to get that country to mediate in peace negotiations with Sweden. The attempt failed. At a Council of War, held at the end of December 1706, a general plan of further hostilities against the Swedes was drawn up. The plan was based on the belief that the 155 people would support the Russian army, engage in guerilla warfare and, by destroying the food and forage supplies of the Swedish army, wear it down. Peter was not mistaken in his hopes --- the people fought against the foreign enemy.
In June 1708, Charles XII invaded Russia from the west at the head of an army of 35,000. Simultaneously the Swedish fleet and an army of 12,000 under the command of Lubecker opened hostilities in the Baltic area as an act of diversion in which the Swedes failed to achieve anything.
The army of Charles XII crossed the Russian frontier and was immediately met by ruthless guerilla warfare; the people burned food supplies and fled to the forest; the Swedes could obtain neither food nor forage at any price. Small groups of guerillas attacked Swedish requisitioning parties and destroyed them. King Charles decided to turn to the Ukraine where he expected to be joined by the traitor, Hetman Mazeppa, with an army of 20,000. The King hurried, he did not even wait for Lowenhaupt's contingent with its huge baggage train and artillery to arrive from Riga. A Russian force commanded by Peter himself routed Lowenhaupt's army of 16,000 at the village of Lesnaya. Nor did Mazeppa afford Charles any help --- the Cossacks did not follow his lead, only a small group from Zaporozhye turning traitor to Peter.
The Swedes suffered terribly in the harsh winter of 1708--09, and their army began to dwindle. They moved from place to place in the Ukraine among a population that hated them. The Swedes instituted a brutal terror by way of vengeance, slaughtered the inhabitants and burned down villages and hamlets. This, however, only made the guerilla actions more fierce. The spring of 1709 came, and Charles still dreamed of an advance on Moscow. In April, his army approached Poltava. The small garrison of the town commanded by A. Kelin, aided by the townspeople and supported by the peasants of the neighbouring villages, held out during a siege by the Swedish army of 30,000 for more than two months. In the meantime Russian forces were approaching Poltava from all sides. Charles, who had laid siege to the town, found himself surrounded. On June 24, the Russian army approached the Swedish camp.
Early in the morning on June 27, the Swedish cavalry, supported by the infantry, charged the Russian positions but were met by a fierce cannonade from the redoubts. By 5 a.m., the Russian cavalry had succeeded in cutting off part of the Swedish army. Prince Menshikov attacked the isolated part of the army and forced it to surrender. This was the first great success of the Russian army in the Battle of Poltava; then came a brief respite.
At 9 a.m., the two armies approached each other. The Swedes launched a fierce attack on the Novgorod Regiment, their superior numbers crushing the first battalion completely. A breakthrough seemed imminent. Then Peter, at the head of the Second Novgorod Battalion, hurled himself into the battle and the Swedes were halted. All this happened during the first half hour of the engagement, after which the Russian infantry began to force back the Swedes while the cavalry attacked the flanks. By 11 a. m., the outcome of the battle had been decided: the Swedes fled, pursued by the Russian cavalry. Charles and Mazeppa with a small following crossed the Dnieper and fled to Bendery 156 __GOBLYGOOK_COMMENT__
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__CAPTION__ Battle of Poltava, June 27, 1709. Engraving by Larmessen from the picture by Marten Junior, first quarter of 18th centry [157] under the protection of the Turks. The remnants of the Swedish army, about 16,000 men, capitulated.It was a complete victory, the first result of which was the end of Russia's isolation in international affairs. The alliance with Augustus II, who had returned to the throne of Poland, was renewed, an offensive and defensive alliance was concluded with Denmark, despite the opposition of Holland and England. Russia, however, succeeded in concluding only a defensive alliance with Prussia. George I, Elector of Hanover and future King of England, concluded an alliance with Peter. Thus, the Northern Alliance, which had been concluded against Sweden and which broke up in 1700, was not only renewed but was extended. Peace, however, was still far away. The government council in Stockholm decided not to sign a treaty but to await help from England and France, Austria and Holland, that is, from all who feared the strengthening of Russia.
Hostilities in the Baltic area were renewed at the end of 1709. In 1710, Russian troops occupied Riga, Dinaburg and Revel, and the joining of Livonia, Estland and Ingria to Russia was completed. In that same year the towns of Vyborg and Keksholm in Russian Karelia were captured. Peter's successes greatly disturbed the maritime powers, especially England. At that time, however, England was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and could not attempt direct aggression against Russia. English diplomacy, however, was actively engaged in Turkey in an attempt to draw that country into a war with Russia. French diplomacy followed the same lines. The efforts of the Western powers met with success and in November 1710, Turkey declared war on Russia. Hostilities opened in 1711. The Russian army was supported by Kantemir, Hospodar of Moldavia, and also by a Serbian insurrectionist army of some 30,000. They could not, however, prevent the Turks from crossing the Danube; the Russian army, moreover, was surrounded on the River Prut by Turkish forces three times its strength. In the fierce battles that ensued the Turks were beaten off with tremendous losses, in view of which the Turkish Vizier decided to start negotiations for peace. A treaty was concluded on July 12 under which Azov was returned to Turkey. King Charles XII was guaranteed a safe passage to Sweden.
The failure of the Prut campaign did not discourage Peter. It had been successful in the main things---the army had been brought out of encirclement, the southern frontier had been made secure and his hands had been freed to achieve his chief aim: to consolidate Russian possession of the Baltic area.
In 1712, Peter, with the help of his allies, intended to strike at Sweden on two fronts, in Pomerania and Finland. Constant disagreements with the allies prevented joint action. A year later, in 1713, Peter decided to act independently. In the summer of that year, the Russian army occupied a number of Finnish towns, Helsingfors among them. A big victory over the Swedes was achieved in 1714---on July 27, the Russian fleet defeated the Swedish squadron at Gangut. Panic broke out in Stockholm, and the Swedes began to fortify the city. In August, the Aland Islands were occupied without resistance.
The campaign of 1714 and the subsequent struggle developed in a new international situation. In 1713, peace had been concluded between the 158 __GOBLYGOOK_COMMENT__
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__CAPTION__ Battle of Gangut, July 27, 1714. Engraving by A. Zubov, 1715 [159] Western powers by the Treaty of Utrecht which put an end to the War of the Spanish Succession. The Western states were given an opportunity to intervene more actively in the war between Sweden and Russia, intervention that had never favoured Russia. Nevertheless Sweden had been weakened and was compelled to enter into negotiations with Russia. In 1718, a congress was held on the Aland Islands, but the negotiations were broken off when supporters of the policy of continuing the war with the aid of England came to power in Stockholm. In 1719, a treaty was signed between Sweden and England, under which England granted Sweden a subsidy in cash and undertook to help her in her struggle against Russia. The English government, however, was unable to form an all-European coalition against Russia. In the summer of 1719, an English fleet under the command of Admiral Norris appeared in the Baltic with orders to make a sudden attack on the Russian fleet and destroy it. The vigilance of the Russian Command prevented the fulfilment of this plan. In 1720, the English fleet again appeared in the Baltic for the same purpose, but with as little success. That same year the Russian fleet achieved a brilliant victory over the Swedes at Grengam. The campaign of 1719--20 showed the Swedish government the futility of expecting aid from England, and a peace treaty was concluded at Nystadt in 1721, under which Russia received Livland and Estland, Irigermannland and part of Karelia with the town of Vyborg. Finland was returned to Sweden. Russia undertook to pay Sweden two million crowns for the ceded territories.Thus ended the Northern War that had lasted 21 years. Russia had regained her ancient territories, annexed a considerable part of Latvia and Estonia, and become firmly established on the Baltic. The Senate granted Peter the title of Emperor. The Treaty of Nystadt settled the Baltic question in Russia's favour, and a direct sea route to the West was opened. However, Peter realised full well that the wealth of the state depended not only on the development of trade with the West, but also with the countries of the East---England served him as an example.
While the Northern War was still being waged, Peter made attempts to explore a road to India and for this purpose equipped the Buchholtz expedition in 1714. Peter also sent an armed force under BekovichCherkassky to Khiva (1716--17). Neither expedition achieved its purpose --- the road to the Eastern markets through Central Asia remained closed. Nor did the negotiations between the Russian authorities and Khan Tauke of the Kazakhs on his recognition of Russian suzerainty have any success.
Commercial interests and the need to strengthen the south-eastern frontiers underlay the war between Russia and Persia (1722--24).
The peoples of the Transcaucasus, oppressed by the Persian and Turkish feudals, awaited the coming of Russian troops. Isaiah, Patriarch of Ganjasar, promised Peter the support of the Armenians, and King Vakhtang VI of Kart'hly requested Peter to bring his troops into Georgia. As early as 1721, almost all the princes of Daghestan had taken an oath of allegiance to the Russian government. In the advance into the Caucasus and the Transcaucasus, the Russian government had the support of the national liberation movement of the local peoples.
160In 1723, Persia capitulated and Derbent, Baku, the provinces of Gilyan, Mazandaran, and Astrabad, i.e., all territories along the western and southern coastline of the Caspian Sea, were ceded to Russia under the treaty concluded in St. Petersburg. A struggle with Turkey, however, still lay ahead, but Russia, exhausted by the Northern War, could not risk a fresh war. The Treaty of Constantinople was concluded with Turkey in 1724; the Turkish government recognised Russia's right to the territory ceded to her under the Treaty of St. Petersburg and Peter was compelled to recognise Turkey's right to part of Azerbaijan, to Armenia and Eastern Georgia.
The wars fought in the first quarter of the eighteenth century were an integral part of the reforms undertaken to overcome Russia's economic backwardness and strengthen the position of the absolute monarchy both at home and abroad. Once the victory at Poltava had put an end to the more serious struggle, Peter set about the implementation of internal reforms.
Peter's social reforms served to strengthen the economic and political position of the Russian nobility and the merchants. During his reign hundreds of thousands of peasants were allotted as serfs to individual owners; many of them had formerly been state-owned or royal serfs. Feudal land tenure spread to the south-east, towards Penza, Tsaritsyn and Bashkiria through the seizure and grants of land on which local nationalities and runaway peasants were living.
The Russian nobility also obtained lands in the Ukraine east of the Dnieper, side by side with the Cossack elders. The serfdom that had existed during Swedish rule in the Baltic area was retained in full after the annexation of the territory to Russia.
An ukase of 1714 made the estates of the nobility hereditary, like those of the boyars. The ukase on the poll tax, promulgated in 1718, in addition to being an important stage in Peter's financial policy, made the peasants and the bondsmen equal before the law.
Later ukases on the search for and return of absconding serfs and on the responsibility of the landowner for the timely payment of poll taxes by the serfs, prepared the way for the flourishing of serfdom in the mid-eighteenth century. The "Table of Ranks" of 1722 replaced the old system of promotion in the government service according to genealogical precedence by the bureaucratic system of promotion according to services rendered, thus helping to supplement the ranks of the dvoryanstvo with the most able people to emerge from the lower classes.
Peter did not interfere greatly with agriculture, but paid particular attention to the manufactories. In the first quarter of the century, 178 manufactories were founded, 89 of them from funds provided by the treasury. In 1725, there were altogether 191 manufactories in Russia; they included shipyards, iron foundries and arsenals and also enterprises producing gold braid, ribbons and silks.
The policy of protection of the merchants was expressed also in the customs policy and other measures to support commerce. The Tariff Act of 1724 was calculated to create an active balance of trade by placing high tariffs on imported goods and promoted the development of the Russian manufactories.
__PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 11--160 161Peter tried to concentrate commerce with the West in the Baltic ports, and in the mid-twenties St. Petersburg held first place in foreign trade.
Peter's absolute monarchy not only created a strong army and navy, it also reorganised the system of state administration. The Boyars' Council, the highest organ of state power under the monarchy with representation of the social estates in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, met on rare occasions during Peter's reign and finally passed quietly into oblivion. When Peter left for the Prut campaign in 1711, he signed an ukase that founded a new supreme organ of power, the Senate. The Senate took the place of the sovereign during his frequent absences. In 1722, the office of Procurator-General was instituted; the Procurator's Office openly supervised the entire state apparatus, and a secret service of spies, known as fiscals, reported all abuses. The old offices were soon abolished after having been partially reorganised at the beginning of the century. The offices were replaced by eleven colleges among which the main branches of state administration were distributed. The final structure of the colleges was laid down in the General Reglament of 1720. In 1718, the Secret Chancellory was set up in St. Petersburg in addition to the colleges and was complementary to the Preobrazhensky Office in investigating the more serious state crimes.
The central government of the church was also reorganised. The Church Reglament of 1721 abolished the title of Patriarch. The tsar became the "Supreme Pastor" of the Orthodox Church. From 1721 administration of the church was vested in the Holy Synod, and in 1722, the office of Ober-Procurator of the Synod was instituted; the Ober-Procurator was a layman who was placed in charge of church affairs. This put an end to the struggle between the secular and church authorities that had been so acute at the time of Patriarch Nikon.
The regional administration was also greatly changed. At the end of 1708, the entire country was divided into eight huge gubernias (the number was later increased to eleven), each with a governor at its head; the governor possessed both civil and military power. Peter instituted councils of rural magistrates to exercise control over the governors. The rural magistrates were elected from the local nobility but did nothing to control the actions of the governors and engaged solely in the collection of taxes and recruiting for the army.
Other changes in local administration were connected with the financial reform---the substitution of the poll tax for the farm tax. Up to 1724, there was an annual budget deficit notwithstanding the ruthless way in which funds were extorted from the population. The numerous additional indirect taxes and tariffs did not cover the deficit, although in Peter's time there was a tax on almost everything---the price of salt was doubled, there was a tax on beards, on oak coffins, on tobacco, on baths and on many other things. The treasury obtained quite a large income by reducing the amount of silver in coins. None of these measures, however, could save the situation. On November 26,1718, an ukase was issued on a census of the entire male population, with the exception of the nobility and the clergy who, as non-taxpaying social estates, were not included. The tax was fixed at 74 kopeks a ``poll''. State serfs had to pay an additional quitrent of 40 kopeks to the government. The tax was also a 162 __CAPTION__ Peasant leaving home to earn money to pay quitrent. Engraving. Late eighteenth century
great burden on the poorer sectiSns of the urban population. In the very first year 26.7 per cent of the taxes remained unpaid, and the number of peasants absconding was greater than ever.Under these conditions the second gubernia reform began; the 11 gubernias were divided into 45 and then, soon after, into 50 provinces. Side by side with the provinces Peter set up new administrative and financial areas known as regimental districts. The local civil authorities were strengthened by a military authority.
The gubernia reforms made necessary changes in the urban administration. In 1720, the City Hall in Moscow and the Zemstvo Houses in other towns were abolished and replaced by urban magistracies. A police force was introduced to complete the new system.
This system of administration was extended to the Ukraine, but in Livland and Estland, Peter left the privileges of the nobility and the local government institutions of the nobility as they had been under the Swedes.
These radical reforms were a complete break-up of the old, customary way of life and were the cause of grievances, mainly among the aristocratic boyars and the higher church hierarchy.
During the last years of his life Peter experienced a serious personal drama---the "affair of Tsarevich Alexei''. Peter's son Alexei was hostile to his father's reforms and found supporters among the aristocracy. His circle had no wide support and was completely isolated from the people. In 1716, Alexei fled to Austria. With the greatest difficulty Peter had him returned to Russia. He ordered the court to judge Alexei as an ordinary subject of the tsar; the court condemned him to death.
The administrative reforms were a heavy burden on the working people. There were constant outbursts of indignation from the peasantry in various parts of the empire. The royal and state-owned peasants were in a somewhat better situation since they did not suffer the oppression of landowners; they were not> however, free men, but were the serfs of the state.
The working people employed in the manufactories were also serfs, bound directly or indirectly to the soil.
Earlier, at the beginning of the century, Peter had hoped to provide the manufactories with wage-workers, but Russia had as yet to go through what Marx called "the period of the primitive accumulation of capital'', the period in which masses of small producers are isolated from the 163 means of production, and so serfs had to be taken off the land and allotted to manufactories in the early years of the century. In 1721, persons of non-noble descent were permitted to purchase serfs for work in the factories, but only on the condition that they were not bound to the owner but to the factory. In this way a new category appeared--- purchased workers who were later given the name of "possessional serfs'', or "possessional workers''. Beggars, tramps and soldiers' wives were also sent to the manufactories by compulsion. Once workers had been bound to the manufactories in this way they could not leave at will, and absence was regarded as flight. For this reason the ``hiring'' of workers in the manufactories of Peter's time must not be confused with the capitalist hiring of workers.
Conditions were extremely hard; work went on from dawn to dusk in overcrowded, grossly insanitary conditions. In the Ural pits the miners were frequently chained to wheelbarrows and literally buried alive. Wages were very low and a worker could seldom feed a family. The workers' wives and children also toiled in the manufactories and received even lower wages than their husbands and fathers.
On account of the brutal exploitation of the peasants and working people, the population declined, at a very conservative estimate, by 6.6 per cent between 1678 and 1710. Such was the price the masses paid for the reforms of the early eighteenth century.
All Peter's activities were of a practical nature, including his policies for education and science. Peter willingly sent young people abroad for their education. Specialists were also trained in the schools. Mining schools were opened at the Olonets and Ural mines and there were schools of mathematics and garrison schools. Army specialists were trained in special institutions---the Navigation, Artillery, Engineering, Naval and Medical schools. Future diplomats were trained in the Gliick School where mainly foreign languages were taught.
Russian textbooks were compiled, the best-known among them being a grammar by M. Smotritsky and L. Magnitsky's Arithmetic, or the Science of Counting; there were also textbooks on mechanics, on astronomy and other subjects.
A. Mankiyev, secretary of the Russian Ambassador to Sweden, wrote a book on the history of his native land called The Nucleus of the History of Russia. A history of the Northern War was compiled with Peter himself participating. Translated works on world history were in use. Current events were dealt with by Vedomosti (Records), the first Russian printed newspaper which began publication in January 1703 but appeared irregularly.
During Peter's reign considerable progress was made in all the sciences. Geographical knowledge was greatly increased. In 1697, the Siberian Cossack A. Atlasov undertook an expedition to Kamchatka. In 1711, D. Antsiferov and I. Kozyrevsky reached the Kuril Islands, and in January 1725, Peter drew up instructions for an expedition under Virus Bering to explore the Northern Sea Route. Bering confirmed the existence of a strait between Asia and America after Peter's death; the strait was later named after him. Information was gathered on China, Jungaria and Central Asia, and new maps were prepared. The exploration of the Northern Sea Route and the land routes to Central 164 Asia was undertaken mainly for purposes of trade. Geological prospecting the search for iron and copper, was dictated by the needs of industry. M. Serdyukov, a shop assistant, became famous for his work in hydraulic engineering; his plan was used to correct the Vishny Volochok Canal, wrongly designed by Dutch engineers. A. Nartov, a simple mechanic, designed a lathe with a moving tool rest.
In January 1724, Peter signed the ukase instituting the Russian Academy of Sciences. Unlike the academies of the West, the Russian Academy did not study theology. It originally contained three departments (called ``classes'')---mathematics, physics and social sciences. Another feature distinguished the Russian Academy---it was an educational as well as a scientific body; Russian scientists were trained in the Academy's school and university.
Literature, art and architecture in the first twenty-five years of the eighteenth century served to strengthen the absolute monarchy.
The struggle around Peter's reforms that went on between opposing social forces was clearly reflected in literature, especially in the writings of publicists. The reforms aroused the intense hatred of all champions of the old way of life but were strongly supported by the progressive section of the nobility and the merchants. One of the Church reformers, Feofan Prokopovich, was a tireless propagandist for Peter's innovations. He defended the reforms of the early eighteenth century, glorified Russian victories and ridiculed the opponents of the reforms. His The Truth of the Monarch's Will was an anthem in praise of the absolute power of the monarch.
The ideologist of the merchant class during Peter's reign was Ivan Pososhkov, a brilliant self-taught economist. He wrote a number of books, the most important of which was The Book of Scarcity and Plenty that appeared in 1724. The main idea expressed is the importance of the merchant class to the state; the author favours the founding of manufactories, support for home and foreign trade and progress in education.
Peter's attempts to introduce the theatre art into Russia did not have any great results.
Neither the theatre nor literature could reflect the needs and aspirations of the biggest class in the country, the peasantry. The peasants expressed their ideas and feelings in oral compositions--- songs, proverbs and folk tales.
Realistic tendencies in the fine arts became more pronounced, and special prominence was given to portraiture. First place among the masters of the early eighteenth century belongs to Ivan Nikitin who produced very realistic portraits of Peter the Great and Chancellor Golovkin. Another portraitist of the period was Andrei Matveyey, whose "Self-Portrait with Wife" earned him wide renown.
Architecture in the first twenty-five years of the eighteenth century was marked by a mingling of baroque and the traditions of seventeenthcentury Russian architecture. Columns, porticos and entablatures began to enter into the composition of buildings. The old Russian decorative forms were widely employed together with these borrowed styles. In this way "Moscow baroque" was born, a highly decorative style to be seen in the Troitse-Sergiyev Monastery, Lefort's Palace, the church at Fili, 165 Menshikov's Tower in Moscow and others. "Moscow baroque" was employed only in brick and stone buildings; structures of wood continued to follow the traditions of the seventeenth century.
From 1714, work in brick and stone was concentrated in St. Petersburg. Peter dreamed of building a "Northern Palmyra'', a planned city following the lines laid down by the architect Domenico Trezzini. Traces of the attempt to build the city according to this project are to be found in the planning of Vasilyevsky Ostrov with its wide avenues intersected by straight streets called ``lines''. The Russian architect Mikhail Zemtsov worked with Trezzini on the planning and building of the city. In Peter's time, however, St. Petersburg was quite a modest city.
Peter's famous assemblies---gatherings of dvoryane, wealthy merchants and the "chief craftsmen" and their families---formed an important part of the life of the capital's nobility. These assemblies inculcated the rules of decorum and social intercourse. Women gathered together with the men for the first time in the history of Russian society. A book called The Faithful Mirror of Youth was published to instruct young nobles in the canons of good behaviour. The book taught that a young mah should possess the three virtues of affability, humility and consideration for others. Worldly ways were also taught: a person should know foreign languages and should be able to dance and behave well in society and at the table: "do not champ your food like a pig, and do not pick your nose'', and so on. When their servants were present, gentlemen were recommended to speak in some foreign language, and in general to make their ``slaves'' feel "humble and low".
The reforms carried out in the first twenty-five years of the eighteenth century were of great historical importance. Sweden had to cede her place among the European Great Powers to Russia. No important European problem could now be settled without the participation of the Russian Empire, whose diplomacy was supported by a powerful regular army and a first-class navy. An industry consisting of big manufactories had been founded. The home market that had begun to take shape on a nation-wide scale in the seventeenth century had new regions added to it---the Baltic provinces, Siberia and the south-eastern parts of the country. All fields of culture---education, literature and the fine arts---acquired a new content that was closer to real life. All this facilitated the formation of the Russian nation.
The reforms, however, did not change social relations. Russia remained a land of serfdom. Nevertheless, the creation of a big industry, the consolidation of the national market and the extension of international trade relations that followed Russia's acquisition of an outlet to the sea provided the necessary conditions for the future development of capitalist relations.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Peter the Great died in January 1725 as the result of a chill caught when helping to save some drowning sailors at Lahta, near St. Petersburg.Peter the Great died in January 1725 as the result of a chill caught when helping to save some drowning sailors at Lahta, near St. Petersburg. On February 5, 1722, fearing the transition of state power to people hostile to his cause, he had issued an ukase introducing a new 166 system of succession; the successor to the throne was appointed by the tsar himself. When he died, however, he had not nominated his successor and as he lay on his death-bed the aristocrats assembled to settle the question of a successor.
Prince D. Golitsyn and the Princes Dolgoruky, representatives of the old aristocracy, considered the only legitimate successor to the throne to be the son of Tsareyich Alexei, the young Peter. The question, however, was settled by the Guards, who sided with the new nobility that had come to the fore during Peter's reign. Peter's second wife Catherine, a simple woman, formerly the servant of a Lutheran pastor, was declared Empress and the factual ruler of the country became Prince Alexander Menshikov.
Thus began a series of "palace revolutions'', the struggle for power between different strata of the same class, the nobility; the opposing factions relied on the one and the same strength, that of the Guards regiments.
The victory of the new nobility, however, was short-lived. After the death of Catherine I, the son of Tsarevich Alexei was crowned as Emperor Peter II (reg. 1727--30). Power passed into the hands of the old Moscow aristocracy headed by the Princes Dolgoruky. The chief government body was the Supreme Privy Council, founded in 1726. Menshikov was exiled.
The old aristocracy, however, could not retain power, and when Peter II died in 1730, the Privy Council succeeded in having Anna loannovna, Duchess of Courland and niece of Peter the Great invited to occupy the throne, limiting her authority in favour of the Supreme Privy Council by a number of conditions. The Privy Council's plan met with a decisive protest from the nobility who were supported by the Guards regiments. The new Empress abolished the ``conditions'', the Supreme Privy Council was dissolved; the Russian nobility, however, did not obtain the power they sought, for real power in the country was in the hands of the "German Party" of Baltic nobles who streamed into Moscow on the heels of Empress Anna. They were led by Biron, a favourite of Anna's. Supreme power was vested in the Cabinet of Her Imperial Majesty, formed in 1731, in which the leading role was played by A. Osterman, a hireling who was willing to serve whoever paid him.
The government pursued an anti-national policy. In 1731, on Osterman's insistence, the protectionist tariffs of 1724 were abolished. In 1734, under pressure brought to bear by Biron, a commercial agreement was concluded with England which gave English merchants the right to engage in a transit silk trade with Persia through Russia. The revenues formerly accruing to the treasury from this trade now went to the English silk merchants. The Caspian territories were returned to Persia.
The Treaty of Belgrade concluded with Turkey after the war of 1735--39 gave Azov back to Russia but on the condition that its fortifications were levelled with the ground; trade with Turkey was to be carried on exclusively on Turkish vessels; all territories conquered in Moldavia were returned to Turkey.
The war with Sweden (1741--43) was equally unsuccessful and ended without either side achieving anything.
167An important foreign policy act was the recognition of Russia's suzerainty by the Kazakh khan Abulkhair. This act was historically inevitable since economic relations between Russia and Kazakhstan were growing stronger constantly. In the first half of the century, Kazakhstan, furthermore, was threatened by Jungaria and later by China. From the end of the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, Kazakhstan was the object of increased aggression on the part of the Central Asian khanates, especially the Khanate of Kokand that was formed at the turn of the century. Under these circumstances it was natural for Kazakhstan to strengthen economic bonds with Russia, and that the Kazakhs, at first only nominally the subjects of Russia, should eventually come completely under Russian rule. That, however, did not occur until the nineteenth century.
The senseless expenditure of the court, the embezzlements of the ruling clique and the burdensome and hopeless wars undermined Russia's economy. Although taxes were collected ruthlessly and persistently, the number of debtors increased. The population was actually dying out. Many peasants were listed as runaways and many were sent to penal servitude.
By the Ukase of January 7, 1736, the skilled workers at the textile factories were bound to them in perpetuity. The same ukase permitted factory-owners to purchase peasants for the factories and, unlike the law of 1721, allowed peasants to be bought individually, without their land, and not in whole villages. Shortly after this skilled workers were bound to the Demidov Iron Works in the Urals and to a number of other iron foundries. Peasants were also bound to privately owned factories. An attempt was also made to turn government factories into a source of personal gain.
The brutal rule of the Germans, known among the people as ``Bironovshchina'' or "reign of Biron'', aroused universal hatred. The number of soldiers listed as deserters amounted to about twelve per cent of the army. There were several peasant revolts in the south and south-east of the country. "Wild people'', as the administration called those who opposed the existing regime, appeared in the forests near St. Petersburg. The Secret Chancellory made frantic efforts to capture the ``criminals''. There was also increased dissatisfaction among the nobility who had been ousted from their leading role in the government. A. Volynsky, who had been a prominent statesman at the time of Peter the Great, openly opposed the policy of the government. Biron had Volynsky and his supporters executed.
Empress Anna died in October 1740. Shortly before her death she nominated Ivan Antonovich, the three-month-old son of her niece Anna Leopoldovna, successor to the throne; she also nominated Biron regent. In this way supreme power was in the hands of the "canaille from Courland''. Universal hatred of the regent reached a critical point and the members of the German Party realised full well that the inevitable revolt against Biron would also be directed against them. Minich, who had command of the army, decided to sacrifice Biron and had him arrested on the night of November 8,1740. Anna Leopoldovna was declared ruler of the country, although real power was now in the hands of Minich and Osterman. Biron was banished.
168This change of individuals, however, did not meet with anyone s approval and on the night of November 24, 1741, the Guards regiments effected the next palace revolution. Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, was declared Empress.
On many occasions Elizabeth stated that she would continue the policy of Peter the Great, and during her reign a number of Peter's institutions were revived. The Senate regained its former authority, the army returned to the regulations promulgated by Peter in 1716, and measures were taken to restore the navy that had seriously deteriorated. The big manufactories were protected by the government, government loans were granted industrial and commercial companies that at times became monopolies in the sphere of commerce. The granting of inhabited villages to the nobility was widely practised. The serfs of the landed nobility were no longer regarded as the subjects of the state but as the subjects of their feudal lords. In 1747, landowners were permitted to sell serfs as recruits for the army and from 1760, landowners were permitted to banish their serfs to Siberia, every exiled serf counting as a recruit. This opened up the way for countless abuses: old men and invalids were exiled and healthy people were retained on the estates in place of those banished as ``recruits''. Serfdom became more firmly established than ever.
In the country's economy, however, many changes were taking place; the all-Russia market was consolidated and greatly expanded on the basis of new production principles. The economic specialisation of the various parts of the country became more clear-cut---in agriculture there were grain-growing, stock-breeding and industrial crop regions. In the central areas of the country the three-field system of crop rotation became universal. Peasant industries developed, especially in those parts of the country where corvee service had been replaced by quitrent---Nizhny Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Moscow and Novgorod gubernias. Side by side with this petty production, the manufactories developed. The South Urals region was developed by the use of lands plundered from the Bashkirs. A number of new factories were built in the old Tula-Kaluga industrial area. Merchant capital began to be invested in industry on a growing scale. By the fifties of the century, the output of the privately owned factories was two and a half times that of the state factories. The problem of providing labour for the manufactories was still a serious one, and in 1744, the government again changed the law on purchases of peasants and permitted their purchase both as individuals and also wholesale, by entire villages, so that the number of peasants purchased as factory workers greatly increased in the forties and fifties. In the east the bounding of state serfs to the mines and factories continued. There were also many ``outsiders'' working in the Ural factories, people who had come there in search of a livelihood or who simply fled from the oppression of the landowners. The census of 1744 bound all ``outsiders'' to the manufactories in which they were working at the time the census was taken. In the forties and fifties, however, a sign of new capitalist relations, wage-labour, could be seen, although the manufactories, on the whole, were worked by serf labour.
The government was forced to take these new phenomena into consideration in its economic policy. In 1745, peasants, including those 169 on landed estates, were permitted to trade in various articles, not only their own produce, but goods they had bought. In 1758, peasants were granted the right to enter the merchants' social estate.
Of great importance to home trade was the abolition of internal tariffs in 1753, almost 40 years earlier than in France and 100 years earlier than in Germany. Internal tariffs were retained only on trade with Siberia. In 1757, new protectionist tariff regulations were introduced that placed import duties on some goods that were even higher than those of 1724.
Typical of the new government policy was the institution in 1754 of the State Credit Bank which granted loans to landowners on the security of valuables and populated est'ates and to merchants on the security of their stocks, but only those in bonded warehouses.
The peasants, of course, could not obtain loans. The poverty of the people was so great that several times during the forties the government was forced to reduce the poll tax, temporarily refrain from gathering it, or annul tax debts that had not been paid and which increased year by year.
The people produced material values, but were almost completely excluded from all culture.
Of the schools founded under Peter the Great, only the vocational schools, mainly those training specialists for the army and navy, were developed during the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Pupils in them were strictly confined to the higher social estates. In 1731, the Army Cadet Corps was organised; in 1752 the Naval Academy was reformed as the Naval Cadet Corps and the Artillery and Engineering schools were combined as the Artillery and Engineering Cadet Corps.
The only elementary schools that remained in the second quarter of the century were the garrison schools for soldiers' children, the schools at the ore-processing works and the school attached to the Moscow Hospital. The Academy's schools and university dragged out a pitiful existence until the forties.
The life of the students of the academic institutions was livened up in the forties by the efforts of Lomonosov, Tredyakovsky and other Russian scientists. Of great historic importance was the founding of Moscow University in 1755. Mikhail Lomonosov, a Russian scientist of genius, thinker, poet and champion of Russian education, elaborated the project for the university. Lomonosov conceived of a university that was open to everyone, irrespective of which social estate he belonged to, and despite the efforts of the government to confine entrance to the sons of the nobility, a considerable section of the students came from other classes. Serfs were not allowed to enter the university.
The University of Moscow contained three departments---a department of philosophy, of law and a medical department, and had a secondary school, attached to it. Beginning with 1767, all courses in Moscow University were conducted in the Russian language; in this it differed from many universities in the West where mediaeval Latin was still in use.
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From the late twenties of the eighteenth century, the Academy of Sciences had been the centre of the country's scientific life. In the early 170 __CAPTION__ Mikhail Lomonosov. Painted by an unknown eighteenth-century artist days the members of the Academy had been foreign scientists, many of whom did a great deal to develop scientific thought in Russia; such academicians were Leonhard Euler, Jacob Bernoulli and Georg Richmann. There were, however, other members of the Academy who did more harm than good, among them Bayer, the author of the unscholarly Normanic theory of the origin of the Russian state.
The undivided rule of foreign scientists in the Academy was short-lived; by the forties a number of Russian scholars had become prominent---V. Tredyakovsky, the founder of Russian tonic prosody; S. Krasheninnikov, author of the Description of the Land of Kamchatka, a book that laid the foundations of Russian ethnography; and the mathematician V. Adadurov. The most famous of all was Mikhail Lomonosov, the encyclopaedist who was ahead of his time in science; Lomonosov was a peasant's son, born in the north of Russia, whose activities in many different fields earned him world-wide fame. He elaborated an atomic theory, was the first scientist to formulate the 171 conception of the chemical molecule (corpuscle, in his terminology) and the theory of heat as a form of motion of molecules. He founded the science of physical chemistry which was not developed until more than a hundred years after his death. He also suggested the idea of the evolution of all living things. His writings on mineralogy and geology were far above the level of eighteenth-century science.
Lomonosov never confined his work to "pure science" and always strove to link his theoretical studies with the practical needs of his country---metallurgy, technology and mining.
Lomonosov's discoveries in the natural sciences were based on a materialist view of the world.
Lomonosov was the author of a number of historical studies, including a severe criticism of the Normanic theory of the origin of the Russian state. In his Ancient Russian History, which covered the period up to 1054, he provided a scientitic basis for the conception that Russian statehood and culture evolved independently and developed the idea of the ethnic unity of the Slavs. Lomonosov devoted considerable energy to the theory of the Russian language.
Russian science was not confined to the walls of the Academy. In the early thirties the Senate equipped the Second Kamchatka Expedition (the first was organised by Peter the Great --- 1725--30). The leaders of the parties of the expedition, Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov, and the members of the expedition, Semyon Chelyuskin and the Laptev brothers explored the north of Siberia and the coast of America; they also began the exploration of the Northern Sea Route. Vasily Tatishchev, who worked outside the Academy, submitted his giant History of Russia to it in 1739.
The work of the satirical poet Antiokh Kantemir was an outstanding feature of Russian literature in the second quarter of the century. He was an admirer of Peter the Great and ridiculed the champions of the past and the ignorance and parasitism of the nobility. A great part in developing Russian literature was also played by Lomonosov; his poetry ushered in the epoch of classicism which was most highly developed in the tragedies of Sumarokov, who was also the author of a number of comedies. He condemned the tyranny and lawlessness of the landed nobility but did not go so far in his writings as criticism of the autocracy and serfdom. He merely advocated the elimination of some of the vices of both the one and the other.
The court theatre, in which mostly foreign plays were performed, was nof widely known in Russian society. In 1750, however, a theatre for the general public, founded by Fyodor Volkov, the stepson of a Yaroslavl merchant, began to stage plays. In 1756, Volkov's troupe of actors gave their first performances in the capital; the "Russian Theatre for the Demonstration of Comedies and Tragedies" was thus opened to the public in St. Petersburg.
At a time when the absolute monarchy had reached its zenith, it was difficult for Russian social thought to rise to the height of criticising the autocracy and serfdom. The autocracy was praised by publicists, poets and historians. The same tendencies are apparent in the fine arts and architecture, for instance in Rastrelli's statue of Anna loannovna with an Arab boy, a group that is the very embodiment of majesty, and his 172 __CAPTION__ F. Volkov. Portrait by A. Losenko, 1763 equestrian statue of Peter the Great that was erected in front of the Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg towards the end of the eighteenth century.
Stylised, showy, courtly portraits were painted by Ivan Argunov (a serf belonging to Count Sheremetev) and by Ivan Vishnyakov, both of whom were famous in their day. In the mid-- eighteenth century, however, the court tradition in painting was gradually abandoned and realistic features began to dominate, as, for example, in the portraits by Alexei Antropov.
In the forties architecture began to lose the relatively simple forms common in the first three decades. Showy ornament and magnificence began to play a greater part in the treatment of buildings. The churches and palaces of St. Petersburg are typical examples of mid-eighteenth-century architecture. The leading architect of the time was Bartolomeo Rastrelli; he reconstructed the Peterhof Palace and completed the Palace of Catherine in Tsarskoye Selo (now the town of Pushkin); he also built the Church of St. Andrew in Kiev, a building of wonderfully light proportions, and the group of buildings comprising the Smolny Convent. In the fifties he began the building of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Rastrelli's style combined monumental forms with great showiness and magnificent ornamental detail. The mid-eighteenth-century buildings are a splendid contribution to the treasury of world architecture.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The closing years of the reign of Empress Elizabeth were years of great difficulty. The peasant disturbances that had never ceased since the twenties grew more serious in the fifties.The closing years of the reign of Empress Elizabeth were years of great difficulty. The peasant disturbances that had never ceased since the twenties grew more serious in the fifties. There were large-scale outbreaks among the peasants of the Romodanovsky district near Kaluga and among the serfs employed in the Ural works of Shuvalov, Demidov and others.
A government crisis was developing around the question of the heir to the throne. Empress Elizabeth nominated her nephew, Duke Peter of Holstein, her successor. Peter was a man of limited intellect, self-willed and completely alien to the national interests of Russia---he despised all Russians, and was an ardent and blind worshipper of king Frederick II of 173 __CAPTION__ Church of the Transfiguration, Kizhi. 1714 Prussia. In 1756, when the Empress Elizabeth was ill, Russia joined the Seven Years' War, a struggle involving all Europe.
The European situation in the mid-eighteenth century was marked by two contradictions---the struggle between England and France for colonies and the rule of the seas, and the struggle between Austria and Prussia for hegemony in Germany. Frederick had greatly weakened Austria in two wars over the "Austrian Succession" and had deprived Austria of Silesia. The Russian government had good reason to fear the excessive strengthening of Prussia since Frederick expected to make Poland his vassal. France, too, feared a stronger Prussia.
By 1756, two alliances had been formed in Europe---Austria, France and Russia, who were later joined by Sweden and Saxony on the one hand, and Prussia supported by England on the other. In 1756, Frederick suddenly attacked Saxony and the Seven Years' War began. In 1757 and 1758, the Russian army twice inflicted serious defeats on Prussia. However, the Russian army commanders, at first Apraksin and later Fermor, nastily withdrew to Winter quarters, fearing that Peter would ascend the throne, since the Empress Elizabeth would not live much longer. A new army commander, Saltykov, was appointed. On August 1, 1759, Frederick attacked the Russian and Austrian combined army near 174 the village of Kunersdorf and after a bloody battle was completely routed. In September 1760, Russian troops occupied Berlin for a short time. Frederick was in a desperate position, he even contemplated suicide. At this moment the "Brandenburg miracle" occurred. Empress Elizabeth died on December 25,1761, and Peter HI became Emperor. He immediately became Frederick's most ardent ally. A peace treaty was signed with Prussia and all the territory conquered by Russian troops was returned to Frederick; more than that---a Russian corps of 20,000 men was sent to help Frederick against Russia's allies of yesterday.
To make the throne more secure for Peter III and thus strengthen their own position, the Shuvalovs and Vorontsovs, the makers of government policy, published the Manifesto on the Freedom of the Nobility in 1762 according to which preparations were made to secularise the church lands. Ukases abolished the Secret Chancellory and prohibited persecution for schismatism. For a short time the Manifesto on the Freedom of the Nobility made Peter III popular among the nobility, but the persecution of the Russian Guards' regiments and the anti-national foreign policy of the government gave rise to fears that a fresh ``Bironovshchina'' was near at hand.
A conspiracy against the emperor, headed by the Orlov brothers, developed rapidly among the officers of the Guards. On June 28, 1762, the Guards carried out a coup d'etat in favour of the wife of Peter III, a German princess who ascended the throne under the name of Catherine II. Peter was imprisoned in Ropshin Castle and shortly after assassinated.
[175] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Seven __ALPHA_LVL1__ FEUDAL RUSSIA IN THE SECOND HALF OFThe leading European countries completed their transition from the feudal to the capitalist mode of production in the last few decades of the eighteenth century. This was to be seen best of all in England where the industrial revolution had produced the first capitalist factories. In France, Austria, Germany and a number of other countries the capitalist mode of production became dominant in the big manufactories, mostly in the textile industry. There were numerous signs of the onset of a crisis of the feudal system.
The French encyclopaedists, Voltaire and Rousseau, published biting criticisms of the feudal way of life and the Catholic Church. In the Germanic states the democratic wing of the Sturm und Drang literary trend attacked the lawlessness of the princes and the dominance of the militarists.
These conditions helped popularise in France, Prussia, Austria and other European contries the idea of "a union of rulers and philosophers" propounded by the French enBghteners. The sixties, seventies and eighties of the eighteenth century constituted the age of "enlightened absolutism'', a period of timid reforms that did not affect the real foundations of feudal absolutism, a period in which governments engaged in liberal flirtations with philosophers and men of letters. But the French bourgeois revolution put an end to this; monarchs immediately abandoned the idea of "enlightened absolutism" and became openly reactionary.
Such was the situation in Europe at the time the government of Catherine II (reg. 1762--96) was in power.
In the country's economy commodity relations were gradually becoming capitalist relations and were, furthermore, "beginning to supersede the old feudal relations.
Russia was still an agrarian country, but many peasants and even whole villages were no longer engaged in farming; they were occupied in various industrial pursuits and in trade, although they still remained members of the peasant social estate. Ivanovo, Pavlovo and several others were purely industrial villages, where big industrialists such as the Morozovs, Grachevs and Bugrimovs had emerged from among the wealthier peasants. The urban population grew steadily. Industrial occupations became more and more separated from agricultural 176 pursuits. The continuing specialisation of agricultural districts promoted the development of commercial relations.
New regions entered the sphere of trade---the Middle and Lower Volga, the North Caucasus and the southern steppes. The southern regions of the country were handed out in large parcels to members of the nobility, and peasant serfs were forcibly settled on their estates. Peasants who had fled from the central gubernias, where they paid quitrent to the landowners, were employed, in part, as wage-labourers on the big landed estates and on the estates of foreign colonists. Wage-labour was also employed on the landed estates in the central black-earth region, but to a lesser degree; in this area about 74 per cent of the serfs belonging to landowners performed corvee service. In the non-black-earth regions, however, the proportion was different --- 55 per cent of the serfs paid quitrent and only 45 per cent did corv6e service.
In the northern parts of the country the land was held by monasteries and not by private landowners. The huge stretches of Siberia were very scantily populated, the Russians in that area being almost exclusively state-owned peasants.
In the Russian gubernias corv6e service for three days a week was the most widespread form, although four-day and even five-day corvde service was sometimes imposed on serfs, mostly in the south.
Quitrent in cash continued to rise, and to pay it peasants hired themselves out for seasonal work on the big landed estates, worked in the manufactories, or engaged in petty industries and in carting. A smaller number of peasants managed to establish their own enterprises. The situation was similar in the non-Russian gubernias, in the Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Baltic provinces.
The new capitalist relations were most clearly defined in industry. As petty commodity production declined, the big capitalist manufactories that grew up developed in a fierce struggle against the privileged manufactories employing serf labour. The capitalist mode of production was most widespread in the cotton industry which, in Russia, began to develop later than in other countries---in the seventies of the eighteenth century; by the nineties the cotton mills employed wage-labour to the extent of some 90 per cent.
Capitalist linen mills developed in Moscow, Kostroma, Yaroslavl and a number of other gubernias, i.e., those gubernias in which peasant linen industries had existed for centuries. By the end of the century, 65 per cent of the employees were wage-labourers; the silk industry also employed a similar percentage of wage-labourers. Wage-labour also predominated in the metal goods industries of the central gubernias and the Middle Volga. In metallurgy, however, serf labour was still dominant; the Ural Mountains area was the centre of this industry which, at the end of the century, smelted more iron than any other country in the world.
The overall development of industry in the second half of the eighteenth century was considerable; at the beginning of the nineteenth century (1804) there were 1,200 big manufactories in Russia as compared with 663 in 1767. Government policy was forced to recognise these big changes in production; although the policy of strengthening the feudal __PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12--160 177 landed estates continued, the interests of the merchant and manufacturing classes had to be considered.
The feudal landed estates were given support mainly by the transfer of state and royal serfs to the landowners; under Catherine II about 850,000 serfs of both sexes were transferred to landowners. The ukase of May 3, 1783 completed the establishment of serfdom in the Ukraine. In 1764, the government abolished the landed estates of the monasteries to strengthen the land-owning class. Serfs who formerly belonged to the monasteries became a special group known as "economy peasants" and made part of the body of state-owned peasants. The peasants belonging to the royal family by their status also approximated the state-owned peasants. The latter constituted 40 per cent of the peasantry of Russia and usually paid quitrent in cash.
The bonds of serfdom were not only extended but made more harsh as the power of the landowner to deal with the ``souls'' he owned was increased. The ukase of 1765 granted landowners the right to sentence their serfs to penal servitude. In 1767, serfs were forbidden to make complaints against their owners under penalty of severe punishment. The legal position of the serfs was similar to that of slaves.
Lastly, the government lent its support to the landed estates of the nobility by the granting of loans; in 1786, the new Loan Bank was established, which granted loans to landowners for twenty years at an annual interest of eight per cent; money-lenders in those days took 20 per cent or more for loans. The bank was founded on capital allocated from the state budget. In 1765, the government undertook a general land survey in the course of which the landed estates were rounded off by including within their bounds parts of peasant and state lands.
None of these measures, however, prevented a growth in the indebtedness of the nobility, especially those owning big estates. Government policy of supporting the nobility was inimical to the economic development of the country.
The government also gave support to the merchant class, which was also the manufacturing class, by extending credits to them. The Manifesto of 1775 gave the right "to each and every person to set up machines and produce all kinds of goods on them''. This was a step towards a declaration of the freedom of industrial and commercial activity.
No great changes were made in the state apparatus in the sixties. The nobility was firmly entrenched in all the leading posts in the civil apparatus and in the army. A commission to compile a new Ordinance was convened in 1767; although the elections to it were extended to include the free peasants as well as the nobility and the merchant classes, its convening did not aim at widening the political rights of the free strata of the population. It was merely an "enlightened absolutism" manoeuvre by which Catherine II hoped to find out how popular her government was among the nobility and the nascent bourgeoisie. Catherine drew up instructions for the commission which, in their original form, contained some ideas drawn from the philosophy of the eighteenth-century enlighteners; Catherine did her best to demonstrate to her subjects that their Empress was a follower of the enlighteners; she even corresponded 178 with Voltaire, Diderot and other French enlighteners. However, none of these ideas remained in the instructions in their final form.
The deputies to the commission also brought their mandates with them. The mandates given by the nobility and the merchants were marked by their class limitations. Those of the state peasants reflected the difficult position of that category of the population. The condition of the landowners' serfs, about half the total population of the country, found practically no place in the work of the commission. Using the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war as an excuse, Catherine called off the commission, never to start it again.
Class interests also determined the foreign policy of the government. With the farms growing greater quantities of produce for the market, it became essential to obtain mastery over the mouth of the River Dnieper as an outlet to the sea through which farm produce could be exported. The annexation of the southern steppe lands was also necessary to make secure the southern frontier of Russia. A victorious war against Turkey, however, required sound relations with the Western powers. Of these powers, France was conducting a policy obviously hostile to Russia; the French government tried to find support in an alliance with Austria who also saw danger in the advance of Russia towards the mouth of the Danube and, thus, towards the Slav peoples of the Balkan Peninsula who showed an obvious sympathy for Russia. Austria feared increased Russian influence in Poland even more. N. Panin, who determined the line of Russian diplomacy in the sixties, counterposed to French diplomacy the idea of a Northern Alliance, the nucleus of which was to be an alliance between Russia and Prussia. Panin hoped to be able to draw England, Denmark, Sweden and Poland into the Northern Alliance.
The attempt to organise the Alliance failed. England merely signed a trade agreement (1766) and Sweden adopted a wait-and-see position. Panin did, however, succeed in concluding an eight-year treaty of alliance with Prussia in 1764. In addition to this a treaty of alliance was concluded with Denmark. Such was the alignment of forces when Turkey, at the instigation of Austria and France, declared war on Russia in September 1768. The peoples of Daghestan, Kabarda, Georgia and the Balkan Peninsula, all under the heel of Turkey, placed their hopes for liberation on the war. The sympathy of these peoples was on the side of the Russian army, and they did whatever they could to help it. This sympathy, the talent of the Russian generals P. Rumyantsev and A. Suvorov and, more than anything else, the heroism of the Russian soldiers, ensured the success of Russian arms in the very first year of the war. The successes of 1770 were still greater; at Larga and Kagul Russian troops routed a numerically superior Turkish army, established weir positions in Walachia and Moldavia and captured a number of Danube forts. That same year the Russian fleet dealt the Turks crushing defeats in Chesmen Bay and the Strait of Chios. The Russian army occupied the Crimea.
Austria, alarmed by the successes of Russian arms, concluded a defensive alliance with Turkey (1771) and tried to attract Prussia to her side.
It was in this situation that the Russian government, to prevent an __PRINTERS_P_179_COMMENT__ 12* 179 Austro-Prussian rapprochement, agreed to the proposal made by Frederick II of Prussia to a partial partition of Poland. The first partition of Poland (1772) gave the coastal province and part of Great Poland to Prussia, Galicia to Austria and part of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian lands to Russia. One important result of the partition of Poland was Austria's refusal to ratify the 1771 treaty. Lacking Austria's support, Turkey was forced to sign an armistice with Russia, although the subsequent negotiations did not lead to the conclusion of a peace treaty. Russian diplomacy did not succeed in getting Turkey to agree to cede the Crimea.
The situation again became serious. There was a growing danger of Sweden again attacking Russia. France threatened to send a strong fleet to the Russian seaboard, and English intrigues supported France's anti-Russia policy. In the autumn of 1773, the peasant war under the leadership of Yemelyan Pugachov broke out.
The government was now in a hurry to end the war with Turkey. Rumyantsev crossed the Danube; Suvorov routed the Turkish army at Kozluja and Russian troops advanced into the Balkans. Turkey capitulated and a peace treaty was signed at Kutchuk-Kainarji in 1774, under which Russia received Kerch, Yenikale and Kinburn. The Khanate of the Crimea was declared independent. The Russian merchant fleet was granted free passage through the straits. Kabarda was annexed to Russia.
The victories of the Russian army and navy concealed the shady side of foreign politics from contemporaries, but Catherine's home policy was sharply criticised. Prince M. Shcherbatov attacked the government for its neglect of the higher aristocracy. Y. Kozelsky criticised the situation in Russia from a different angle; in his Philosophical Propositions he condemned the arbitrary acts and indolence of the aristocrats, the laws that were inimical to the people and the ruin of the downtrodden working peasantry. Professor S. Desnitsky of Moscow University appealed for a curtailment of the lawlessness of the landowners and the autocrats by the institution of a representative assembly.
The autocratic feudal system of government was sharply criticised by the eighteenth-century Russian enlighteners; Lenin's description of the nineteenth-century Russian enlighteners, who possessed, as Lenin said, three outstanding qualities---hatred of serfdom, hearty defence of education and protection of the interests of the masses, is equally true for the former too.
One of the leading enlighteners was Nikolai Novikov; in the magazine Truten (The Drone)--- 1769--70---he castigated the usury and trickery of titled officials and made sharp attacks on serfdom. The Empress had no intention of permitting criticism "aimed at individuals'', and Truten was suppressed. In the spring of 1772, Novikov launched a new magazine Zhivopisets (The Painter) which not only exposed individual cases of arbitrary rule and the barbarity of serfdom, but attacked the system as a whole. In 1773, Zhivopisets was also suppressed. Although Novikov's ideas were far from revolutionary, although he put his faith entirely in the all-conquering power of enlightenment, the government regarded those ideas as dangerous.
180 __*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Increased feudal oppression in the second half of the eighteenth century led to a further sharpening of the class struggle, which reached its peak in the peasant war led by Pugachov.Increased feudal oppression in the second half of the eighteenth century led to a further sharpening of the class struggle, which reached its peak in the peasant war led by Pugachov. It began in the eastern parts of the Empire, where class contradictions were greatest; here, to the peasants' hatred of the landowners was added the discontent of the serf workers at the mines and iron works and of the local non-Russian peoples, the Tatars, Mordovians, Chuvashes and, especially, the Bashkirs who had been robbed of their land. There was also growing unrest among the Cossack poor.
Yemelyan Pugachov, a Don Cossack, lived a hard and stormy life; several times he was arrested but escaped from prison and hid among the Old Believers. After his last escape from the prison in Kazan in May 1773, Pugachov appeared in the vicinity of Yaik Fort, where he declared himself Emperor Peter III. He was joined by Cossacks and absconding serfs.
From the very outset Pugachov relied on the peasantry for support. All his manifestos were filled with appeals to the peasants to fight against the ``boyars'' and the tsarist authorities.
On September 27, 1773, Pugachov seized the fortress of Tatishchevo which opened the way for him to Orenburg, the administrative centre of the region. He did not succeed in taking the town by storm, but cut off all its communications. Villages in the vicinity of Orenburg joined the revolt. Ural workers also joined the ranks of the insurrectionists, handed over to Pugachov the guns in the workshops and manufactured new weapons for his forces. The insurrection took on a certain organised form. Regiments were made up and Pugachov's most trusted followers were placed in command of them. At the beginning of October Pugachov established an Army Collegiate which took charge of the organisation and supplies of the army.
During November and December the insurrection affected all Orenburg Gubernia and spread to the Perm and Simbirsk gubernias. The non-Russian peoples of the Volgaside began to move; all Bashkiria seethed with revolt. In the steppes of Kazakhstan, against the will of the Khan, parties of horsemen were formed which attacked frontier fortifications.
The merging of the national movement and . the Russian peasant movement constituted a serious danger to the autocratic government. Pugachov, however, was unable to overcome national discord completely; this was one of the weak features of the rebellion. Another weakness was the fragmentation of the insurrectionist forces. In addition to Orenburg there were centres of revolt around Ufa, Yekaterinburg, Kurgan, Krasnoufimsk, Samara and Stavropol (at Ufa the insurgents were led by Chika-Zarubin, a Cossack in whom Pugachov placed great trust); the revolt threatened to spread to Siberia. At the beginning of 1774, however, despite all these successes, the tide of war changed in favour of the government.
On March 22, government forces began their storm of Tatishchevo Fortress where the main body of Pugachov's troops was concentrated. After a battle lasting many hours, during which the flower of Pugachov's 181 army was destroyed, the fortress fell. Almost at the same time (March 24), the insurgent army was defeated at Ufa.
Pugachov retreated to the mining district of the Ural Mountains where he began to form a new army. Bashkirian forces, led by Salavat Yulayev, also fought against government troops. On May 6, 1774, Pugachov captured the fortress of Magnitnaya; on May 19, he captured Troitsk but two days later was again defeated. Pugachov was driven out of the Urals by government troops, and turned westward to the Volgaside gubernias where he could count on the support of the peasantry and the non-Russian peoples who were brutally suppressed by the tsarist regime. He occupied Osa and the Izhevsk Works and moved on Kazan. On June 12, the insurrectionists occupied the town of Kazan with the exception of the Kremlin, but in a battle with government forces approaching the town they were defeated once again. Pugachov crossed to the west bank of the Volga and turned south in an effort to reach the Don, where, among his fellow countrymen, the Don Cossacks, he expected to create a new base for the struggle.
Never before had the peasant war threatened the nobility as it did in the summer of 1774. By August of that year, there were some 60 peasant guerilla detachments active between Nizhny Novgorod and the Don. In July, Pugachov occupied Kurmysh, Alatyr and Saransk, and at the beginning of August, he seized Penza, Saratov and Kamyshin. The Pugachov movement was becoming a real people's war, and the only real opponent of the movement was the nobility.
Pugachov did not halt anywhere, but continued his advance to the south. However, government troops overtook him at Tsaritsyn and defeated his army. He fled into the steppes where he was captured by a group of Cossack elders and handed over to the authorities. Pugachov and a number of his supporters were executed in Moscow on January 10, 1775.
The peasant disturbances continued for some time after the execution of Pugachov, but they were easily suppressed by government troops. Pugachov's rebellion failed for the same reasons as all the previous spontaneous peasant rebellions had failed: the fragmentation of the forces and the absence of sound organisation and a clear-cut programme doomed it to failure.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Catherine II, in response to the popular rebellion, took immediate measures to give greater power to the autocratic government, especially to local authorities.Catherine II, in response to the popular rebellion, took immediate measures to give greater power to the autocratic government, especially to local authorities. In 1775, a new "Ordinance on the Government of the Gubernias of the Russian Empire" was published under which the Empire was divided into 50 gubernias and all civil institutions and all troops were placed under the authority of the governor-general, the direct representative of the Empress. The new system of government was centralised and bureaucratic in character; the few elective posts it permitted did nothing to change the general nature of the gubernia reform, according to which the police and the bureaucracy dominated all life, since those elected were under the supervision of the local administration.
182 __CAPTION__ Yemelyan Pugachov. Painted by an unknown eighteenth-century artistThe government did away with the Zaporozhskaya Sech of the Cossacks (1775) in an effort to ``Russify'' the borderlands of the Empire. In 1780, the remnants of autonomy in the Ukraine east of the Dnieper were also abolished (the division of the territory by Cossack regiments and hundreds) and it was divided into three gubernias with the administrative apparatus common to all Russia. The Cossack elders were granted the same legal rights as the nobility.
The reform of 1775 was also extended to include Byelorussia. The reform divided the Baltic area (1783) into two gubernias, Riga and ReVel, the administration and the judiciary of which were appointed by the Russian government; former elective posts were abolished. Among the peoples of the north and north-east of Russia the local administration remained in the hands of the tribal aristocracy.
A charter (zhalovannaya gramotd) granted to the nobility in 1785 legalised all the rights and privileges enjoyed by them at this time; they were, furthermore, permitted to set up uyezd and gubernia associations 183 (assemblies) of the nobility, but these were under the supervision of the governors-general and governors.
Local self-government was introduced in the towns in that same year by the publication of a charter entitled "The Assembly of Urban Society'', the right to elect and be elected to which was confined to persons possessing considerable property, although it included all sections of the urban population. All urban self-government bodies were placed under the supervision of the local administration. This new measure, however, was evidence of the growing influence of the urban population in social life.
The charters granted to the nobility and the towns completed the edifice of the eighteenth-century absolute monarchy. This new structure seemed to be more soundly built than any previous monarchy, the more so as Russia began to play a greater role in world affairs. In 1779, Russia became the guarantor of the constitution of the German Empire. On February 28, 1780, at the time of the American War of Independence, the Russian government published a "Declaration of Armed Neutrality'', which sounded like direct support for the colonies in revolt. '
The chief problem in the foreign policy of the eighties was still that of the Crimea. Turkey refused to accept the loss of the Crimea and made a number of attempts in the seventies to regain that province. In 1783, in response to this, Russian troops occupied the Crimea and legalised their position by a treaty with Khan Shagin-Girei.
The friction between Russia and Turkey over the Transcaucasus was no less serious. Georgia was split into three kingdoms --- Kakhetia, Kart'hly and Imeretia---and was in the throes of feudal struggles between the princes; under these conditions Georgia was often the object of plunder by her neighbours, Persia and Turkey. The more progressive members of the ruling feudal class, headed by King Irakly II of Kart'hly-Kakhetia, realised that the Georgian people could liberate themselves from the yoke of the Persian and Turkish feudals only with the support of their powerful northern neighbour, Russia. Armenia, like Georgia, split into a number of small principalities, also looked towards Russia; in this period Armenia was still divided between Persia and Turkey.
Close political relations between Armenia and Russia were not established in the eighteenth century. Georgia acted differently; in 1783, the ambassadors of King Irakly II came to the fort of St. George (Northern Caucasus) and announced that Georgia was placing herself under the protection of Russia. Russian troops entered Georgia. The Turkish government refused to recognise the Russo-Georgian Treaty, and in August 1787, a strong Turkish fleet attacked Kinburn. Although the Turkish landing force was numerically superior to the garrison of the town under General Suvorov, the Turks were severely defeated.
Thus began the second Turko-Russian war, which continued in a complicated, for Russia, international situation. The Triple Alliance of England, Prussia and Holland, formed for the purpose of weakening the Russian position in the Baltic, took final shape in August 1788. With the same aim in view, England and Prussia instigated the Swedish attack on the forts of Neuschlott and Friedrichsham, which marked the outbreak of another war with Sweden. The alliance formed between Russia and 184 __CAPTION__ General Suvorov, nineteenth-century lithograph Austria did not live up to expectations, since Austria despatched an insignificant force to help the Russian army.
Despite all the difficulties the Russian army and navy made themselves famous. In July 1788, a Russian fleet under the command of Admiral Greig dispersed the Swedish squadron at Gogland, and Admiral Ushakoy dealt the Turkish fleet a crushing defeat off the island of Fidonisi. On December 6, the Russian troops took Ochakov by storm. On land General Suvorov's outstanding ability as a leader brought further successes to Russian arms. Suvorov was an opponent of the Prussian methods then in vogue; he placed great confidence on the initiative of his officers and men, and taught them to gain victories "by ability and not by numbers''. Suvorov's theory of war brought excellent results. In 1789 Suvorov was victorious at Focsani and Rimnic, and the Russian army advanced to the lower reaches of the Danube. That same year Russian forces launched an offensive in Finland.
The victories of 1789 brought about a considerable deterioration in the relations between Russia on the one hand, and England and Prussia on the other. Under the pressure of these two countries Austria withdrew 185 from the war in July 1790. The English government under William Pitt began preparations for an attack on Russia but was soon forced to abandon the idea.
The operations of 1790 developed under the above ; international conditions. In June, a Swedish fleet was routed in Vyborg Bay; in August, despite the opposition of English and Prussian diplomacy, a treaty was concluded in the village of Verele (Finland) that envisaged a return to the status quo ante helium, and Sweden withdrew from the war. This was an important achievement for Russian diplomacy. The Russian army and navy also gained further victories in the war against Turkey. In July and August Ushakov twice defeated the Turks at sea. After a series of partial successes Suvorov stormed and captured the strong fortress of Ismail. The Turks suffered further defeats on land and sea in the summer of 1791, but a peace treaty, demarcating the frontier between Russia and Turkey on the River Dniester, was signed in Jassy (Rumania) only in December of that year. Russia obtained Ochakov under the treaty, but was forced to give up Moldavia and Walachia. The question of Georgia was by-passed, and Russian troops were withdrawn from that country. In 1793, the Georgian kings again requested the Russian government to accept Georgia as a Russian protectorate, Russia, however, was unable to legalise Georgia as a subject country in the eighteenth century.
The brilliant achievements in foreign policy in the late eighties and early nineties and the consolidation of the absolute monarchy supported by the propertied classes served to conceal the growing internal contradictions. The government's debts abroad were increasing, and the treasury was empty; this placed a heavy burden on the taxpayers. The disturbances among the peasantry and the manufactory workers continued even after the suppression of the peasant uprisings---there was a major uprising between 1783 and 1797 in Kazakhstan.
There was growing opposition to the system of serfdom among progressive intellectuals drawn from the nobility and, in part, among those drawn from the middle classes. In the eighties, Nikolai Novikov renewed his publishing activities, founding one magazine after another to defend the freedom of the press and expose the brutality of the landowners and the cupidity of the civil servants. Novikov's newspaper Moskovskiye Vedomosti (Moscow Recorder) and the Pribavleniye k Moskoyskim Vedomostiam (Supplement to Moscow Recorder) in magazine form in 1783 and 1784 expressed sympathy for the American colonies in their struggle for independence. Novikov also published translations; one translated article on free trade said that free labour must be regarded as the source of progress in industry, agriculture and commerce. These ideas appeared particularly dangerous to the government after the outbreak of the French bourgeois revolution in 1789. In 1792, Novikov was arrested and confined to Schliisselburg Fortress and was not released until after Catherine's death; he died in 1818.
From the very outset the Russian government adopted a hostile attitude towards the French revolution and gave generous support to French emigres. Catherine subsidised the war preparations of Prussia and Austria against revolutionary France, and in 1791, concluded an alliance with Sweden for the purpose of joint intervention in France. 186 __CAPTION__ Nikolai Novikov. Painted in Levitsky's studio in the eighties of the eighteenth century The allies were joined by England who subsequently became the leader and chief moving spirit of the struggle against the French revolution.
Catherine II, enraged and frightened by the events in France, had to solve the old problem of relations with Poland. In 1788, a four-year Diet had been elected in Poland in which the landed proprietors and bourgeoisie formed a bloc known as the Patriotic Party; it was, however, dominated by the landed proprietors. The Patriotic Party made a big and irrevocable mistake in placing its reliance on Prussia; the latter incited the Diet against Russia, promised Poland support in the struggle for independence but behind the back of the Diet intrigued for a new partition of the country. The greatest mistake made by the party was that of ignoring the interests of the peasantry. The peasantry and the urban poor, especially the Ukrainians and Byelorussians, found themselves in an excessively difficult position. Alongside the feudal oppression of these nationalities there grew the national and religious oppression; the peasants responded by revolts.
After passing a series of minor reforms, on May 3, 1791, the Diet adopted the new Polish Constitution. Although the constitution benefited mainly the upper classes, it nevertheless marked a certain progress since it consolidated the supreme authority in the country, curtailed the privileges of the big landed proprietors and extended the rights of the townspeople. The Polish landed proprietors, jointly with the Russian imperial government, opposed the new Polish government. The Patriotic Party's hope for support from Prussia did not materialise. Motivated by hatred for the French revolution and the Polish government's liberation movement, Catherine II's government consented to a new partition of Poland, which was effected in 1793; this new dismemberment of Poland was Russia's payment to Prussia for her participation in the anti-French coalition. The May 3, 1791, constitution was annulled, and after the partition Russia obtained Byelorussia and the Ukraine west of the Dnieper and Prussia obtained Gdansk, Torun and a considerable part of Great Poland.
The people responded to the second partition by an insurrection-, the motive forces behind which were the urban poor, the artisans, the petty bourgeoisie and intellectuals. The progressive section of the landed 187 nobility also joined the movement. General Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who had taken part in the American war of Independence, took command of the insurrection. On May 7, he issued the Universal Charter which made some improvement in the condition of the peasantry but left the landed estates in the hands of the nobility; the obligations of the peasants to their masters were retained. Even this limited improvement in the condition of the peasantry was resisted by the nobility. In 1794, the revolt was suppressed and Kosciuszko taken prisoner. The defeat of the revolt led to the third partition of Poland, and the Rzecz Pospolita ceased to exist. Russia obtained Courland, Lithuania, Western Byelorussia and the western part of Volhynia but none of the territory of Poland proper, which was divided between Austria and Prussia.
It had always been the traditional policy of the Russian government, inherited from the fifteenth-century Moscow Grand Dukes, to achieve the reunion of the old Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian lands; the policy did not aim at the destruction of Polish statehood. Consent to the partitions of Poland was in direct contradiction to this traditional policy and was contrary to the national interests of Russia. The fact that Prussia was the initiator in partitioning Poland does not make the Russian autocracy any the less responsible; the Russian government's diplomatic intrigues at the time of the first partition, and its hatred of the revolutionary and national liberation movement at the time of the second and third partitions, led it to make concessions to Prussian and Austrian diplomacy, and as a consequence this anti-national policy promoted discord between the two related peoples.
The events of the French revolution, the sharp struggle of the peasantry and the national movement in Poland gave further impetus to Russian social thought.
The famous book A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow by Alexander Radishchev, published in 1790, was an impassioned appeal to struggle against the autocracy and serfdom. Radishchev's sympathies were on the side of the peasants and he developed the idea of the legitimacy of, and necessity for, a peasant revolution. Catherine's indignation knew no bounds. The criminal court sentenced Radishchev to death by quartering and the Senate confirmed the sentence, but Catherine, loyal to her "enlightened monarchy" policy, had him banished to Ilimsk; Radishchev returned from exile only after Catherine's death in 1796.
Progressive social thought in Russia was accompanied by an emancipation trend in Ukrainian writing; one of the leading writers who gave expression to Ukrainian social thought was Grigory Skovoroda (1722--94). Skovoroda was not a revolutionary, but he appealed ardently against the exploitation of the people and exposed the brutality of the authorities and social injustice.
Criticism of serfdom also entered into poetry and fiction during the
last decades of the eighteenth century. The greatest poet of the period
was Gavrila Derzhavin. His odes contained many verses in praise of
Catherine II, but he also openly criticised the parasitism and harshness
of the Russian aristocracy. Derzhavin was one of the founders of realism
in Russian poetry, but classicism remained the dominant trend until the
end of the century (A. Sumarokov, M. Lomonosov, V. Tredyakovsky).
188
__CAPTION__
Alexander Radishchev. K. Gun's copy (nineteenth century) of the
work of an unknown artist of the late eighteenth century
The germs of the new literary trends were, however, making their
appearance in the form of sentimentalism, early romanticism and
realism. There were marked realistic tendencies in the poetry of M.
Kheraskov and V. Kapnist, to be seen in their bold exposure of the vices
of the aristocracy and their protest against increased oppression of the
serfs (Ode to Slavery by Kapnist). This protest was also very strong in
the works of Denis Fonvizin; his early comedy Brigadier (1766--69) and
especially his Hobbledehoy (1782) were realistic pictures of life on the
landed estates of the nobility at the end of the eighteenth century,
although Fonvizin himself was far from realising the need for an active
struggle against serfdom. The theme of revolutionary struggle against
serfdom was disclosed in Radishchev's works (especially his famous
Ode to Freedom, 1783), as well as in his famous Journey, which belongs
equally to fictional and publicistic literature. The folklore of the period
was permeated with the appeal for an active struggle against feudal
oppression. The aspirations of the people inspired Pugachov's
manifestos.
In the field of science the study of the country's productive forces, which had been the general trend in the first half of the century, continued. Between 1768 and 1774, five academic expeditions were equipped. The maritime expeditions that studied the northern part of the Pacific and North-Eastern Siberia made a fine contribution to the geography of Russia. The Economic Society, a non-government body, was founded in 1765; the Transactions of the Society carried very many articles on the conduct of farming. In addition to the leading foreign scientists of the Academy of Sciences (Leonhard Euler, Peter Simon Pallas and others) the number of talented Russian scholars was considerably greater towards the end of the century than it had been in the fifties. Among the most outstanding were the naturalists I. Lepyokhin and N. Ozeretskovsky, the astronomer S. Rumovsky, the mineralogist V. Severgin and the mathematician S. Kotelnikov. Another famous name connected with the Academy was that of the Russian designer and inventor I. Kulibin. Far from the Academy, in the distant Urals and the Altai, talented Russian inventors were working---I. Polzunov who designed a steam-engine (1764--65, years before the appearance of J. Watt's engine), and the hydraulic engineer K. Frolov.
Scholarship progressed simultaneously with the natural sciences and engineering. The growing national consciousness of the Russian people engendered a fresh interest in the past history of the country. N. Novikov published a number of important historical documents. The __CAPTION__ The Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, 1754--64. Architect V. Rastrelli. Modern view [190] __CAPTION__ Monument to Peter the Great (The Bronze Horseman) in St. Petersburg, by Falconet and Collot, 1782 prominent historians M. Shcherbatov and I. Boltin, both members of the nobility, worked in this period. An important feature of Russian historiography was the appearance of the new, aristocratic-revolutionary trend founded by A. Radishchev.
Science, journalism and all literary genres, however, developed on a very narrow social basis. The vast majority of the population were illiterate. The Commission on the Foundation of Schools, set up in 1782, planned a new school system which gave children from the underprivileged classes certain opportunities in the field of education. The results of the reform, however, were insignificant---in 1786, only 11,000 children attended school, of whom 858 were girls. The children of the nobility were taught at home; Fonvizin's Hobbledehoy is a biting criticism of that type of education. Some of the children of the nobility attended privileged private schools. In 1764, the Smolny Institute for the daughters of gentlefolk was founded in St. Petersburg, and similar institutions were,opened in other towns.
In 1774, the Department of Mines opened the Mining School which was later expanded into the Mining Institute. The Surgical School at the Army and Navy hospitals trained doctors. In 1757, the Academy of Arts was opened in St. Petersburg. These various institutions made a great contribution to the development of vocational education in Russia.
In the field of the arts, the most noticeable progress was in portrait 191 __CAPTION__ Moscow. From a late eighteenth-century engraving [192] painting. Courtly portraits were still being produced, but certain realistic qualities had begun to enter into their composition. A. Antropov's portrait of Peter III (1762) is the picture of an ugly, weak-minded tsar, brilliantly dressed and in gaudy court surroundings. I. Argunov's portraits show a thoughtful approach to the depiction of the inner world of the individuals painted. The leading portraitist of the period was F. Rokotov. p. Levitsky and his pupil V. Borovikovsky were also popular painters of their day.
Some important sculptures were made in Russia in this period; among them are the equestrian statue of Peter the Great by the French sculptor Falconet and the statue of Polycrates by M. Kozlovsky, a chef d'oeuvre of world significance, F. Shubin's sculptured portraits---busts of M. Lomonosov, A. Golitsyn and Paul I --- are noteworthy for their realistic tendency and their excellent technique; his sculpture for the tomb of Martos is the epitome of grief expressed in stone.
Architecture also displayed a certain rejection of convention and excessive ornament as the baroque forms were gradually replaced by the severe and simple forms of classicism; the greatest of the classicists of that period of Russian architecture was Vasily Bazhenov (1738--99), whose magnificent plans for the Kremlin Palace still amaze one today by the severity of the lines and the harmony of the treatment. The palace was never built although an excellent model of it has been preserved. Bazhenov met with misfortune in another of his undertakings, the huge palace in Tsaritsyno, near Moscow. The building was almost finished when it was suddenly pulled down by order of Catherine II. One famous building by Bazhenov that still stands today is Pashkov's House, now part of the complex of buildings housing the Lenin Library.
The Moscow architect, Matvei Kazakov, made a profound mark on Russian architecture; many of his buildings have become famous --- the Senate in the Moscow Kremlin, Moscow University, the Golitsyn Hospital and the Hall of Columns in the Moscow Nobility Assembly House (now Trade Union House). Kazakov's treatment was mainly in the horizontal and his buildings were designed to embrace large, open courtyards; they possess soft lines and an air of calmness that is typical of eighteenth-century Moscow architecture. In St. Petersburg classicism was represented by I. Starov, builder of the Taurida Palace. Foreign architects also played their part in the design of St. Petersburg's architectural ensembles. Giacomo Quarenghi designed the Smolny Institute, the Academy of Sciences main building, the Hermitage Theatre, the English Palace and others. Vallin de la Mothe designed the Old Hermitage, the Little Winter Palace and the New Holland building. A number of buildings in the St. Petersburg suburbs are connected with the name of Charles Cameron and the decorator Gonzago. The splendid parks at Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo, Gatchina, Peterhof, Oranienbaum and Ropsha were created within easy reach of the capital.
[193] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Eight __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE COLLAPSE OF SERFDOM---THE FIRSTThe French bourgeois revolution at the end of the eighteenth century ushered in a new period in world history, the age of the triumph of capitalism and the appearance of the proletariat as the driving force behind historical development. The victory of the French bourgeoisie gave rise to a widespread wave of national liberation revolts and wars, which gripped Europe and Latin America and were also echoed in Russia.
The anti-feudal and national liberation movements made drastic changes in the political map of the world and in the life of the peoples. The bourgeoisie were victorious in the leading countries of Western Europe and their ascent to power meant the rapid development of industry and transport and the introduction of constitutional systems and bourgeois parliamentarism. At the same time the victory of capitalism laid bare its incurable vices, its anti-humanitarian nature. Saint-Simon, Owen and Fourier wrote their remarkable Utopian studies in the early nineteenth century. They provided a biting criticism of bourgeois civilisation and prophesied that man's future would be socialist, yet they gave no concrete indication of how this future was to be attained.
In the meantime, from the second quarter of the nineteenth century onwards the working class was acting in a more and more organised fashion. The eve of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1848 saw the appearance of the scientific ideology of the working class --- Marxism. The founders of scientific socialism, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, proclaimed the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which became the theoretical programme for the world proletariat's revolutionary struggle.
At a time when in the West triumphant capitalism had already made clear to everyone its anti-popular essence, the feudal-landowner empire of the Russian tsars still held firm in Eastern Europe and in vast expanses of Asia. Tsarism spared no effort in order to keep the autocracy and serfdom intact, and to insulate the country against the winds of change.
Despite the fact that the people of Russia had no rights and that any original thought was ruthlessly suppressed, a firm tradition arose and developed, the tradition of struggle to emancipate the people from the despotism of the tsar and the landowners, the tradition represented by Radishchev and the Decembrists, by Pushkin and Lermontov, and by 194 Belinsky and Herzen. Nevertheless, serfdom considerably retarded the country's economic and cultural development.
By the mid-nineteenth century Russia lagged behind the advanced countries of the West technically and economically, as well as socially. By 1861 only 10 per cent of the population was living in towns, while 90 per cent was engaged in agriculture that was founded almost wholly on forced serf labour.
Oppression was so great that it forced the idea of emancipation to grow to maturity. Peasants refused to do corvee service and pay quitrent, they cut wood in the masters' forests, burned down the houses of the landowners and sometimes killed the landowners themselves. There were over 2,000 peasant disturbances between 1801 and 1861, many of which were suppressed by troops. Even the higher tsarist civil servants realised that the system of serfdom was a powder barrel under the autocratic state.
The growth of industrial enterprises was further evidence of the break-up of feudalism. In 1804, there were 1,200 industrial establishments, each employing more than 16 workers, making a total of 225,000 workers; at the time of the Peasant Reform in 1861 there were 2,800 such establishments employing a total of 860,000 workers.
The industrial revolution in Russia began at the end of the 1830s. Hand-operated tools gave way to steam-driven machinery. The old manufactories gradually developed into factories in the modern sense. Those branches of production in which forced serf labour and outdated techniques still prevailed (especially the cloth and wool industry and the Urals iron industry) went into decline.
In the eighteenth century Russia had held first place in the world for iron smelting (one-third of the total world output) and for the export of iron, but by the first years of the nineteenth century England had caught up with Russia and by 1860 was producing twelve times as much. The USA, Germany and other countries also surpassed Russia, until the latter occupied eighth place in the world. Russia lagged still farther behind in the engineering and, especially, the fuel industries.
Despite the abundance of raw material available, Russian industry developed slowly. The demand for goods was low --- the poor people in the villages wore homespun clothing and managed without other manufactured goods. There was a shortage of labour for the factories since many peasants were kept in the villages by corvee service and their obligation to render certain duties to the state. Even wage-workers were in most cases peasants, paying quitrent, who had been temporarily released from the land by their owners.
Russia lagged behind to an even greater extent in transport. Railway communication between Moscow and St. Petersburg was not opened until 1851 and by 1861 the huge country possessed only 1,500 kilometres of railway, while England had 15,000 and Germany 10,000 kilometres. Steamships were few and the roads were in a pitiful state. The poor development of the credit system and the lack of communications hindered but could not halt the development of trade. The number of annual fairs increased, and trade and economic relations between the industrial centre and the more distant parts of the country (the Ukraine, the Baltic area, the Transcaucasus and Kazakhstan) were developing.
195The Russian Empire considerably extended its frontiers in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Russo-Swedish War ended with the incorporation of Finland in 1809; Finland was granted a certain measure of autonomy.
Georgia, laid waste by the constant raids of the Turkish and Persian rulers, who were trying to subordinate all the Transcaucasus to their rule, entered the Russian Empire province by province between 1801 and 1810. Wars between Russia and Turkey and Persia led to the incorporation into Russia of Northern Azerbaijan, Bessarabia and Eastern Armenia in the twenties. The Armenians were eagerly awaiting the Russian army as their liberators, and the inhabitants of Yerevan themselves opened the gates to the troops.
The rule of the khan was abolished in Kazakhstan in 1822, and a large part of the Kazakh lands was annexed to Russia in 1846. By the mid-nineteenth century, only Bukhara, Khiva and Kokand remained independent states.
Incessant warfare continued between the militant and despotic khans of Central Asia which was to the advantage of the intriguing Kajars, the rulers of the Persian Empire who claimed the right to rule all Central Asia. From the thirties and forties onwards, British agents also began to appear irr Central Asia.
Union with the economically and culturally more highly developed Russia was of benefit to the peoples of the Transcaucasus and Central Asia since it saved them from complete enslavement and destruction by the predatory feudal rulers of Turkey and Persia; feudal disunity came to an end and with it the internecine wars of the feudal lords. Progressive Russian culture had a tremendous effect on the development of the culture of those peoples, and gradually they were integrated into the Russian economy.
The beneficial influence of Russian economy and culture, however, was hampered by the military and colonial regime established in the annexed territories; all power passed into the hands of the Russian generals and higher civil servants, who usually ruled with the support of the local aristocracy. In addition to the old feudal obligations the population had to pay numerous rates and taxes to the tsarist authorities.
The advance of the Russians in the Far East led to the incorporation of the Maritime Territory in the fifties; the Russian-American Company had been engaged in trapping and fur trading in Alaska since the end of the eighteenth century. In 1867, the tsarist government, not knowing what to do with Alaska, sold the mineral-rich territory to the USA for seven million dollars.
The government adopted a protectionist policy in foreign trade, mainly for financial reasons, and this made it difficult to import industrial goods into Russia. Agricultural produce, mostly grain, was exported. The structure of foreign trade demonstrated Russia's backwardness; she gradually became a purveyor of raw materials on the world market, the products of her own industry being a major export item only in trade with Asian countries, and this was small in volume.
The basic line in Russian politics in this period was the struggle against the revolutionary movement and advanced social thought at home and abroad. Tsarist Russia became the gendarme of Europe.
196The reign of Paul I (1796--1801) began in a period of peasant disturbances involving 32 gubernias; troops were used to put down the revolts. Paul himself said that he regarded the landowners as 100,000 unpaid police chiefs; he extended the serf-owning system to the Black Sea and Ciscaucasian areas. In the course of the four years of his short reign he made gifts of over 500,000 state peasants to the nobility (in the 34 years of her reign Catherine II had distributed 850,000 state-owned peasants among the nobility).
Paul zealously opposed the spread of the French ``infection''. He was afraid of any sort of opposition and even curtailed the self-government of the nobles. In his persecution of "the germs of revolution" he forbade the use of such words as ``citizen'' and ``fatherland''. The import of foreign books and musical scores was stopped altogether in 1800.
The Emperor followed in his mother's footsteps by the conduct of a determined struggle against French expansion in Europe. After Napoleon had seized the Island of Malta, Paul took the Order of the Knights of Malta under his protection and, in the hope of extending Russia's influence to the south of Europe, even declared himself its Grand Master.
The war of 1789--99 against France, in which Russia was allied to Austria, England and Turkey, brought fresh triumphs to the Russian army and navy. Admiral Ushakov's ships stormed the bastions of the French-occupied Island of Corfu, liberated the Ionian Isles and set up the "Republic of Seven Isles'', which aroused serious suspicion on the part of Paul I. In the summer of 1799, Russian sailors liberated Naples after a stiff battle and then entered Rome in triumph. Simultaneously Field Marshal Suvorov achieved a series of lightning victories over Napoleon's generals and liberated Northern Italy. Suvorov was prepared to march on Paris, but the intrigues of the Austrian court, which feared that Italy would regain her independence with the aid of Russia, resulted in Suvorov receiving an order to march into Switzerland. The great feat performed by the Russian army in crossing the Alps over mountain paths, through valleys and gorges held by the French, will remain for ever glorious in the annals of military history.
The anti-Napoleonic coalition soon collapsed. England seized Malta and was in no hurry to return the island to the Knights of Malta, and Napoleon, who had become Consul of France, made peace with Paul and announced his readiness to return Malta to the Order. Negotiations on an alliance with France against England ended in the devising of a plan of joint action which included, in particular, a campaign against India. By a sudden order issued by the Emperor in January 1801, forty regiments of Don Cossacks were despatched without forage across steppes that are impassable in winter to start the Indian campaign. The break with England aroused discontent among the office-holding nobility who had commercial relations with British merchants. There were also some other reasons for discontent on the part of the more important people of the capital.
Paul I, like his father Peter III, had been brought up in the spirit of Prussian militarism, and immediately on ascending the throne dressed his army and the entire bureaucracy in uniforms of the time of Frederick a. The carefree and idle life of the Guards came to an end, the regiments __GOBLYGOOK_COMMENT__
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197 were busy from morning to night drilling and parading. St. Petersburg was turned into an army barracks. At eight o'clock in the evening, when the Emperor went to bed, all lights in the city had to be extinguished. The plaints of contemporaries said that the foolish, unbalanced Emperor Paul "punished the innocent and awarded the undeserving''. Officers often came to parade grounds with money in their pockets and a change of underclothing---they might well find themselves sent to Siberia straight from a review.In 1797, Paul laid the foundations of the Mikhailovsky Castle in the centre of the city. Building went on day and night. The palace had canals on all four sides crossed by drawbridges, beside each of which were emplacements for cannon. What the high-strung Emperor built as an impregnable citadel proved to be his tomb. On March 12, 1801, conspirators, members of the St. Petersburg aristocracy, crossed the ice of the canals, entered the palace, disarmed the guard and smothered the hated tsar.
Paul's eldest son, Alexander, who had given his consent to the conspiracy, was crowned tsar.
Alexander I (reg. 1801--25) had from childhood been accustomed to manoeuvring between his grandmother and his father, who hated each other, and was accordingly double-faced and hypocritical. His tutor was a Swiss writer named Laharpe; from him Alexander learned nothing but an ability to make a display of liberal phrases. His father had taught him love of the parade ground, and he was fond of iron discipline and drilling. When he ascended the throne he promised to rule "according to the law and heart" of Catherine II, meaning by that that he would not encroach on the privileges of the nobility.
One of the first orders issued by the new tsar was the return of the Cossacks from the Indian campaign. Relations with England were re-established. It is worthy of note incidentally, that Charles Whitworth, the British Ambassador to St. Petersburg, was privy to the conspiracy.
Alexander's liberal enterprise, expressed in a few reforms, did nothing to affect the mainstay of the Russian state --- the autocracy and serfdom. The ukase of 1803, entitled "On Free Tillers of the Soil'', permitted serf-owners to manumit their serfs together with their land on payment of compensation. There was some discontent among the nobility on account of this ukase but actually it had very limited application.
Plans for political reforms were discussed by the Privy (or Intimate) Committee, a group of the tsar's rather liberal friends whom the reactionaries dubbed "the Jacobin gang" because among them was Count Stroganov, pupil of the well-known Jacobin Gilbert Rome. The Privy Committee spent a year examining the plan for the proposed reforms, but almost the only fruit of its deliberations was the institution of ministries; the other reforms were found to be premature.
The Council of State, founded in 1810, consisted of civil servants nominated by the tsar and was a purely advisory body. The author of the plans for reforms was Mikhail Speransky, the son of a village priest, who without any protection rose to the rank of State Secretary which, at that time, was the equivalent of Prime Minister. He was a talented reformer, well acquainted with European political literature and for a short time 198 the tsar's closest advisor; when the higher dignitaries of the state, who were suspicious of all reforms, rebelled against the "priest's son'', he fell into disfavour. Nikolai Karamzin, the historian, became the mouthniece of the conservatively minded nobility; in his Ancient and New Russia (1811) he condemned all innovations. Public opinion at that time, however, was more concerned with foreign than with home affairs.
As Alexander Bestuzhev, the Decembrist writer, put it at a later date, the nineteenth century in Russia was "not ushered in by the pink glow of dawn but by the glow of war conflagrations''. The coalition wars of 1805 and 1806--07, waged against Napoleon, who strove to subordinate all Europe, ended unsuccessfully for Russia, partly owing to Alexander's incompetency in military matters; Alexander forced Kutuzov and other Russian generals to obey the rules of the armchair strategists in Vienna. Russia was forced to conclude peace with France. The first meeting between Alexander I and Napoleon took place on a festively decorated raft near Tilsit on the Niemen, a frontier river in the summer of 1807. The army and nobility were indignant at the treaty concluded at Tilsit. Russia joined the continental blpkade which brought considerable losses to Russian trade and finances. A French military base in the Duchy of Warsaw was set up directly on the Russian frontier.
Relations between France and Russia again began to deteriorate in 1810. Napoleon was master of almost all Western Europe. A short time before he had seized Holland and some German territories. He thirsted for world power, and Russia stood in the way of his domination even of Europe. "In five years I shall be master of the world,'' he said in 1811, "only Russia is left, and I shall crush her.'' He promised the Baltic area to the King of Prussia, the South-Western Ukraine to the Emperor of Austria, the Crimea and Georgia to the Turkish Sultan, and East Transcaucasia to the Shah of Persia. During the night of June 12, 1812, the French crossed the River Niemen without a declaration of war. Napoleon's Grande Armee numbered 640,000; among them less than half wore the blue uniforms of France and the remainder wore colours that represented most of the European countries. Contemporaries said that "the twelve tongues had descended upon Russia".
On Napoleon's part this was an unjust war of annexation which all the wiles of propagandists could not conceal. The purpose of the campaign was not clear to the French soldiers, but the Grande Armee, splendidly equipped and led by a general regarded as invincible, constituted a menacing force. It outnumbered the Russian armies under Barclay de Tolly and Bagration by almost three to one.
"We shall be in Moscow before a month has passed,'' Napoleon announced at the beginning of the campaign, hoping to crush each of the Russian armies separately in battles on the frontier. But the Russian forces on the Western front (some 230,000), recognising the enemy's superiority in numbers, withdrew, fighting a rearguard action and evading a pitched battle. All stores of munitions and provisions in the path of the enemy were destroyed. The people burned down their houses and fled to the woods with their cattle. Napoleon's army advanced through devastated country and gradually melted as garrisons 199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/1HU376/20051214/299.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2005.12.03) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ were left in occupied towns and large detachments were sent foraging over long distances.
"It is now a national and not an ordinary war,'' wrote Bagration in one of his reports. The young progressives among the nobility were seized with patriotic enthusiasm, but most of the landowners who were not serving in the army gave little thought to the defence of the fatherland. After the fall of Smolensk the nobility began to flee from Moscow in large numbers. When Alexander I asked Prince Voltkonsky, his aide-de-camp, about the mood of the nobility, he answered: "Sire, I am ashamed to be one of them, there were many words but no deeds.'' But in answer to a question about the spirit of the people Volkonsky said: "Every peasant is a hero."
At Smolensk, where the two Russian armies joined forces, Napoleon again failed to decide the campaign at a single blow. In battles of unprecedented fury a few Russian corps, in the words of the French general Segur, covered the "lion-hearted retreat''. Napoleon was so astonished at the fortitude of the Russians that he tried to offer Alexander I peace, but his message from Smolensk was left unanswered.
The Russian army was in the difficult position of being without an authoritative leader. General Barclay de Tolly did not enjoy the confidence of the troops and could not, therefore, be Commander-- in-chief. Rumours of treason spread among the officers and men. At that moment the voice of the soldiers and the people made itself heard, naming the leader to whom the country would entrust its fate --- Mikhail Kutuzov. Kutuzov had spent more than fifty years in battles and campaigns, he had participated in all Russia's wars and had displayed outstanding ability as a commander. Suvorov had had a very high opinion of him, and he was popular in the army. Despite Alexander's dislike of the aged soldier he was compelled to appoint him commanderin-chief. Kutuzov's arrival at the front inspired the troops With confidence in victory. "Kutuzov has come to beat the French" was the catch-word of the day.
Kutuzov selected the site for a pitched battle against Napoleon at the village of Borodino, about a hundred kilometres from Moscow and to the west of the town of Mozhaisk. Napoleon brought an army of 135,000 to Borodino; Kutuzov had 132,000, among them several thousand volunteers who had no muskets. On the morning of August 26, when the sun rose behind the Russian lines, Napoleon rode in front of his troops. "Behold the sun of Austerlitz!" he exclaimed joyfully. The triumph of 1805 was not destined to be repeated. The attacks, launched by Marshals Ney, Davout and Murat against the Russian defences did not effect a breach. Gunners died at their guns but did not retreat. The infantry and cavalry repulsed attack after attack. General Bagration was mortally wounded by a cannon-ball in one of the counter-attacks. Kutuzov's skilful strategy and the staunchness of the Russian troops prevented Napoleon achieving victory. When the fighting died down towards evening the two armies retired to their earlier positions. The French had lost 58,000 men and the Russians 45,000. "The most terrible of all my battles was that outside Moscow,'' wrote Napoleon when he was in exile on St. Helena. "The French proved themselves worthy of victory and the Russians earned the right not to be beaten."
200 __CAPTION__ Mikhail Kutuzov. Engraving from the portrait by George Dawe, 1829Kutuzov, not wishing to risk losing his army, decided to withdraw beyond Moscow. "The loss of Moscow does not mean the loss of Russia,'' he said to the Council of War held at Fili on September 1, "but the loss of the army means that Russia is lost.'' The decision was a difficult one to take.
A large part of the population left Moscow with the army, and on September 2, the French looked down from Poklonnaya Hill on to the green city with its golden domes flashing in the sun. Napoleon ordered his troops to wear full dress uniform and await a deputation with the keys of the Kremlin But nobody came, and on that first day fires began to rage in Moscow. Many houses were fired by their owners who did not want their property to fall into the hands of the French, but still more were destroyed by French marauders. Of Moscow's thirty thousand houses less than five thousand were left.
Kutuzov had left Moscow by the south-eastern Ryazan road and had then outwitted the French patrols and turned westward, outflanked the 201 French and straddled the Kaluga road at the village of Tarutino. This skilful manoeuvre determined, to a large extent, the course of the war.
The Russian camp at Tarutino blocked the way to the rich black-earth area that had not been laid waste by war. Here the Russian army obtained reinforcements, was able to rest and prepare for a fresh battle.
The guerilla warfare had begun during the first days of the war and reached the peak of its development during the Tarutino period. The initiator of the guerilla movement was the poet, Lieutenant-Colonel of Hussars Denis Davydov. Cossack guerilla patrols literally blockaded Moscow. In the western guhernias, where the French authorities forced the serfs to continue serving the Polish landowners, peasant partisan detachments were formed. The war against the foreign invaders became a war of the whole nation.
Being unprepared for a winter campaign, and with Moscow burning around him, Napoleon realised that the war was hopeless. He made three attempts to offer peace to Russia, but received no reply.
Early in October, Napoleon decided to abandon Moscow and move westward. He ordered the Kremlin to be blown up, but heavy rains made the fuses damp and only two turrets were damaged; the Faceted Palace was destroyed by fire. Napoleon had intended to withdraw along the Kaluga road, but Kutuzov barred his way.
Napoleon's advance guard, Murat's corps, was defeated by Kutuzov at Tarutino. Napoleon's attempt to get his revenge in a battle at Maloyaroslavets was also a failure. He was forced to turn his army on to the Smolensk road where the countryside had been laid waste.
The Russian army began its counter-offensive. Cossack regiments harassed the enemy's rear and guerilla fighters assailed the flanks. Peasants boldly attacked the French vanguard. To use Tolstoy's apt phrase, "The club of a people's war had been raised with all its menace and its tremendous power''. At Vyazma, Platov's Cossacks and Miloradovich's cavalry defeated Davout's corps, and Ney's corps was cut off, surrounded and destroyed at Krasnoye. The remains of Napoleon's army were completely destroyed in their attempt to cross the River Berezina.
In a bulletin issued on December 3, Napoleon tried to deceive public opinion by blaming the serious situation on sudden frosts. This was the origin of the legend of "General Frost" who is supposed to have destroyed the Grande Armee in Russia. The future Decembrist N. I. Turgenev wrote in his diary at the time: "The French were driven out by the army and the people, not by bitter frosts."
Early in December, Napoleon secretly abandoned the pitiful remnants of his Grande Amide and drove headlong to Paris, without an escort, to raise a fresh army.
On January 1, 1813, the guns of the Fortress of Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg fired a salute in honour of the liberation of Russian territory from the French.
The Patriotic War of 1812 is a heroic page in Russian history, the national epic of the Russian people. A permanent monument to the "storms of 1812" is Tolstoy's great novel War and Peace.
In the Patriotic War of 1812 the Russian people saved Europe from enslavement; the destruction of the Grande Armee was the signal for the 202 __CAPTION__ Retreat of the French Army from Russia. Engraving by Manisfeld, early nineteenth century [203] beginning of a national liberation movement against Napoleon's rule. In 1813, there was a patriotic revolt in Prussia. Napoleon's allies began to desert him, including Murat, who was King of Naples as well as Marshal of Napoleon's army. In the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813 (in which Russian, Prussian and Austrian troops participated), Napoleon was again defeated. In 1814, Paris capitulated and Napoleon was banished to the Island of Elba. Even his sudden return to France and the historic Hundred Days could not change anything.
The allies restored the Bourbon dynasty that had been overthrown by the French revolution. On the initiative of Tsar Alexander I the Holy Alliance was formed in Europe, an alliance of monarchs against peoples. The flames of freedom that had been started by the French revolution could not, however, be extinguished.
A fresh revolutionary hurricane struck Europe in 1820; the revolution in Spain was followed by one in Portugal, then began popular rebellions in Naples and Piedmont. The year 1821 saw the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, which was linked indissolubly with the history of the Russian and Moldavian peoples. The outcome of the Greek people's struggle for freedom only became clear as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828--29, after which Greek independence was proclaimed. At this period there was a growing revolutionary ferment in Russia, too, where a revolt against tsarism, the Decembrist revolt, took place in December 1825. The Decembrist movement had its sources in the people's hatred of serfdom, in the emancipationist traditions of Radishchev and in the events of the Patriotic War of 1812 which marked an important stage in the development of the political consciousness of the Russian people. "We were the children of 1812,'' one of the Decembrists wrote later.
Among progressive young members of the nobility the great patriotic deeds of 1812 aroused feelings of pride in the Russian people and a desire to help in their emancipation. During the campaigns abroad from 1813 to 1815 young officers gained closer acquaintance with European democratic ideas, the ideas that had been born at the time of the French revolution. While progressive young people were dreaming of liberty, the government was determined to keep the people in slavery, to extinguish the sparks of freedom and enlightenment. Alexander I, "trained to the sound of the drum'', as Pushkin said of him, began to get rid of army officers of the Suvorov-Kutuzov school. Stultifying drills, beatings and, in general, infamous treatment of the soldiers, brought the army back to the system current under Paul I.
The tsar was too busy fighting the revolutionary movement in Europe to rule the country, and he entrusted the government to Count Alexei Arakcheyev, an ignorant and brutal serf-owner. Arakcheyev covered Russia with a network of army ``settlements'' where soldiers were compelled, under threat of severe punishment, to till the land in addition to serving in the army.
In an attempt to prevent the spread of progressive ideas, the government instituted a system of religious education.
According to an instruction dated 1820, mathematics was to be taught at the University of Kazan in close conjunction with religion. Professors were directed to explain in their lectures, for instance, that "the Holy 204 Church has from time immemorial used the triangle as a symbol of the Lord as the Supreme Geometer''. Lecturers who disagreed with the official obscurantism were removed from the universities (among them was A. P Kunitsyn, Pushkin's teacher at the lyceum). Strict censorship attempted to stifle the voice of free'dom-loving poetry and independent thought. Metropolitan Filaret even detected an "insult to the Church" in the harmless line from Yevgeny Onegin "And flocks of jackdaws on the crosses''. A period of the darkest reaction had set in.
Nothing, however, could hold back the growing discontent of wide sections of the people.
The revolt at the army settlement in Chuguyev (Ukraine) in 1819 and the disturbances in the Semyonovsky Guards Regiment in the capital in 1820 gave the government cause for concern. The unrest in the army and among the peasants was an indication of the growing will of the people for freedom.
In feudal Russia the proletariat was a small force and the ascendant bourgeoisie was weak. Right up to the Peasant Reform of 1861, the leadership of the political movement was in the hands of progressive intellectuals from the nobility.
The first of the Decembrist organisations, the Union for Salvation, was formed in 1816, in this atmosphere of discontent and ferment, by young officers returning from campaigns abroad. The aims of the union were the abolition of serfdom and the introduction of a constitution. In 1818, the society was reformed as the Union for Prosperity, but its generally moderate position did not satisfy the more radically minded members and it ceased to exist in 1821.
That same year the Southern Society was formed in the Ukraine and the Northern Society in St. Petersburg. Both societies drew up plans for the reconstruction of the political and social system of Russia.
Colonel Pavel Pestel, a prominent Decembrist, became the head of the Southern Society. A hero of the Battle of Borodino and of the war to liberate Europe, this brilliant officer devoted himself wholeheartedly to the cause of the secret society. He was the greatest political thinker in Russia at the time and spent several years working on Russian Law, a fundamental work that was intended to guide a revolutionary government during the revolution. According to the Russian Law, which was approved by the Southern Society, a provisional revolutionary government was to declare Russia a republic, abolish the social estates and prepare for the introduction of a representative political system. The independence of Poland was to be declared; the peasants were to be emancipated together with their land; every citizen would be entitled to a plot of land from a social fund to be formed by the confiscation of half the landed estates.
Unlike this radical plan, Muravyov's constitution that was discussed by the Northern Society confined itself to restricting somewhat the tsarist autocracy and to liberating the peasants with practically no land. The highest legislative authority in both plans was a Popular Assembly.
Both societies set about preparations for a revolutionary upheaval. In 1823, the Southern Society concluded an agreement with the Polish Society of Patriots on joint action, and in 1825, the Southern Society was joined by another officers' organisation, the Society of United Slavs, 205 which proclaimed the need for revolutionary regeneration and the union of all the Slav peoples.
The leading role in the insurrection, however, was to be played by a secret organisation in the regiments stationed in the capital. By 1825 the radical group---the poet Ryleyev and the writer brothers Alexander and Mikhail Bestuzhev---had gained the leadership of the Northern Society.
In November 1825, Alexander I died and the leadership of the Northern Society decided to take advantage of the interregnum.
The plan for the military revolt, drawn up in Ryleyev's house, envisaged the capture of the Winter Palace and the Fortress of Peter and Paul. The insurrectionary regiments were to surround the Senate and compel it to promulgate a Manifesto to the Russian People, announcing the abolition of the autocracy and of serfdom.
On the morning of December 14, 1825, the Moscow Regiment, led by Alexander Bestuzhev, formed a square under the statue of Peter the Great opposite the Senate. They were soon joined by a naval column under Nikolai Bestuzhev and a regiment of Grenadiers. Altogether over three thousand insurgent troops assembled on the Senate Square; Prince Sergei Trubetskoi, who had been appointed military leader, took fright and failed to appear.
Other organisers of the revolt acted indecisively. Nicholas I, the new tsar, succeeded in surrounding the square with 10,000 loyal troops; not all was lost, however.
A number of regiments were prepared to join the revolt. The Senate Square was also packed with civilians --- factory workers, artisans, servants and intellectuals of other classes than the nobility, many of whom sympathised with the revolt. Workers building the Cathedral of St. Isaac threw stones at Nicholas I and his suite.
The situation became critical as twilight fell, and the tsar ordered the artillery to fire at the insurgents. Many of the troops in the square were either killed or wounded, and the remainder fled across the ice on the Neva. The revolt was suppressed.
At the beginning of January 1826, another attempt at revolt was made near the town of Belaya Tserkov; the Chernigov Regiment revolted when called upon by Sergei Muravyov-Apostol and Mikhail BestuzhevRyumin, who were members of the Southern Society.
The new tsar dealt ruthlessly with the rebels. Five of the leaders Pavel Pestel, Kondraty Ryleyev, Sergei Muravyov-Apostol, Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Pyotr Kakhovsky were executed and over a hundred were sent either to penal servitude and exile in Siberia or as private soldiers to fight the mountain dwellers of the Caucasus.
It is not difficult to understand why the Decembrist revolt failed. The Decembrists were afraid to rely on a mass movement of the people and prepared a purely military revolt.
Nevertheless the Decembrist revolt had great significance for the emancipation movement in Russia. "The guns in St. Isaac's Square awakened a whole generation,'' wrote Alexander Herzen.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Historians often referred to the thirty years' reign of Nicholas I (1825--55) that began with the defeat of the Decembrists as ``the apogee of the autocracy''.Historians often referred to the thirty years' reign of Nicholas I (1825--55) that began with the defeat of the Decembrists as ``the apogee of 206 __CAPTION__ The Decembrist Revolt, December 14, 1852. Water-colour by K. Kolman, 1825 [207] the autocracy''. Unlike his elder brother, the new tsar did not display a grain of liberalism but acted with straightforward despotism. According to a comment made by N. Dobrolyubov, the new Russian Emperor was "a soldier by vocation, a soldier by education, by his outward appearance and by his inner being''. Never before had Russia so closely resembled an undisguised army barracks, never before had the secret police and the censor been granted such great powers, and never before had any spark of free thought been so ruthlessly extinguished.
Nicholas adored military parades and tried to subordinate everyone to army discipline. Most of his ministers were generals; even the church department was headed by a colonel of Hussars.
Nicholas I did everything possible to preserve serfdom and the autocracy. He strengthened the position of the nobility by limiting the entry of people into that social estate from other estates. To consolidate the state, laws were codified for the first time in Russia, a currency reform was undertaken, etc. In the main, the home policy of Nicholas I was a direct struggle against the revolutionary movement. For this purpose political power was centralised to the maximum and the tsar intervened personally in all branches of government. Nicholas I founded the Corps of Gendarmes and the Third Department of the Imperial Chancellory that filled one of the most dire pages of Russian history; the Third Department became known as the "higher police''. The two institutions were headed by Count Benkendorf, a general enjoying the particular confidence of the tsar.
With stubborn narrow-mindedness Nicholas I and his ministers shored up the foundations of serfdom in clear defiance of the promptings of reality. Count Kankrin, the Minister of Finance, openly resisted the country's industrial development. "Factory development,'' he wrote, "gives rise to the immorality of rebellion in the lowest class, as well as to the solicitation of the highest pay.'' Another of his pronouncements was: "Railways are the disease of the age'', since they "encourage ffequent journeys without any real need and so increase the impermanence of the spirit of the age".
Throughout the reign of Nicholas I the landowners exploited their serfs (or ``souls'' as they were called) mercilessly, and at times resorted to such brutalities-that the Third Department was forced to report them to the tsar. Among the peasants the urge to deliver themselves from the torments of serfdom continued to grow stronger and their hatred of the landowners was approaching boiling point. Refusal to do corvee service and pay quitrent was becoming more frequent, and serfs set fire to their masters' houses and beat up the stewards of the estates and even the landowners themselves. Although the peasant movement was not a united one and was very sporadic, it frightened the government.
Nor were the troops and the urban population fully reliable. Mutiny broke out in 1830 and 1831 in Sevastopol and in the Novgorod army settlements. The quarantine measures adopted by the authorities in connection with outbreaks of plague and cholera epidemics served the immediate cause of these mutinies. At that time also there were "cholera revolts" in St. Petersburg and Tambov.
In the more distant parts of the country the peasant movement often coincided with the national liberation movement. In Byelorussia and the 208 Ukraine the peasant armies of Ustim Karmalyuk, the famous Ukrainian peasant leader, raided the estates of the Polish landowners throughout the twenties and thirties. In 1841, a peasant revolt embraced all Guria (Georgia) and in the early forties there were also peasant disturbances in Latvia and Estonia.
The colonial policy of tsarism met with the heroic resistance of the peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia. The Caucasian mountaineers continued their struggle for more than thirty years. This anti-colonial movement was headed by a religious leader, Imam Shamil; as the leader of the pro-Turkish aristocracy and the Moslem priesthood he declared a holy war against all infidels, including all Russians. The mountaineers' hopes of social liberation could not be fulfilled by the theocratic state established by Shamil; he introduced a despotic regime based on the dominance of the local feudal aristocracy. Shamil's orientation on the Shah of Persia and the Sultan of Turkey and his reliance on help from the British could not bring freedom to the Caucasian peoples. In 1859, Shamil was surrounded in the mountains and gave himself up. The conquest of the Caucasus, however, was not completed until 1864 when the last mountain villages near Sochi were captured.
In this period of crisis and of the break-up of the system of serfdom the liberation movement was joined by a new force, the working class. During the first quarter of the century 64 disturbances were recorded in which workers participated, but between 1826 and 1855 their number was over 170, mostly in factories run by serf labour where the owners completely disregarded all law.
The government, however, was mainly worried by the ever increasing wave of peasant revolts. The government of Nicholas I realised the need to settle the peasant question in some way or other if a revolution was to be averted, and issued a number of laws on partial measures that were not always obligatory and did not touch the foundations of the system of serfdom. The ukase on "bound peasants" of 1842, for instance, permitted them to acquire personal rights from the landowner, with his consent and in return for certain services, the right to the tenure of a plot of the landowner's estate. This ukase liberated 24,000 of Russia's 10,000,000 serfs.
A more significant reform was that of the management of state lands, for which purpose a special ministry was set up. It surrounded the life of state serfs with numerous irksome rules and created the need for a big bureaucracy. Nevertheless the state serfs were better off than the landowners' serfs.
Despite all the punitive and prohibitive measures adopted by the government after the defeat of the Decembrists, the ideas of liberation spread farther and farther and were taken up by the younger generation.
Small anti-government groups and circles were formed in Moscow, Orenburg, Vladimir and other towns in the late twenties and early thirties under the influence of the Decembrist revolt and the revolutionary wave that swept over Europe in 1830. All these groups were discovered and their members severely punished. Some of the groups had had connections with Moscow University which, in the early thirties, became the centre of the progressive forces of the youth of Russia.
__PRINTERS_P_209_COMMENT__ 14--160 209 __GOBLYGOOK_COMMENT__JBBWITi
__CAPTION__ The title page of Pofyarnaya Zvezda (PotafStar), published by Herzen and Ogaryov, with portraits of the five Decembrists who were executedThe government made use of the ideological weapon as well as repressions to counteract the new ideas. This was the introduction of what was known as the "theory of official patriotism" which stipulated the main political slogan of Russia as "orthodoxy, autocracy and patriotism''. This ``theory'' was introduced with great firmness into all schools and universities and into journalism and literature. Its author, Minister of Education Uvarov, counterpoised Russia to the seething atheistic West, and tried to prove that the Russian people loved the tsar and the landowner and gave warning that serfdom could not be uprooted without a general upheaval. This particular leading light of the reign would frequently say: "If I manage to set Russia back by 50 years from the future that the theories have in store for her, then I shall have performed my duty and shall die at peace with myself."
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Professors M. Pogodin and S. Shevyrev of Moscow University, supporters of the "theory of official patriotism'', wrote in the magazine Moskvityanin ( Muscovite) of tsarism's mission of salvation and condemned the progressive ideas of the "rotten West''. Nicholas' minister and his henchmen could not, however, check the social movement in Russia.
Two of the ideological leaders of the revolutionary youth in the period from the thirties to the fifties emerged from Moscow University --- Alexander Herzen and Vissarion Belinsky.
Alexander Herzen (1812--1870) was the illegitimate son of a rich Moscow landowner. As a boy he was brought up among his father's serfs and hated all forms of oppression. His tutor Bouchot, a Jacobin, inspired him with admiration for the French revolution. Herzen recalls in his My Past and Thoughts how he and his friend Ogaryov, the future revolutionary poet, stood with their arms around each other on the Vorobyovy Hills, "in view of all Moscow'', and took oath to devote their lives to the path of struggle they had chosen. They carried out their oath to the letter and remained ardent revolutionaries to the end of their lives. In 1829, they entered Moscow University where they founded a circle to study Hegelian philosophy and the ideas of Utopian socialism. On 210 graduating from the university Herzen and Ogaryov were regarded as ``unreliable'' and were banished to distant gubernias for five years. By the time he returned from exile Herzen was quite well known as a writer and philosopher. Among other things, he published his talented short novels that were permeated with a spirit of enmity towards serfdom. His philosophical works, with their dialectics and materialism, place him on a level with the greatest philosophers of his day.
Another friend and fellow thinker of Herzen's was the critic Vissarion Belinsky (1811--1848); the son of a naval doctor, he entered the university at the same time as Herzen but a plausible excuse was found to send him down in 1832. The real reason for this action was an anti-feudal drama he had written.
After leaving the university Belinsky devoted himself entirely to journalism. His critical articles brought to the attention of readers the wealth of ideas and images contained in Russian and foreign literature; he was able, by means of hints and the use of Aesopian language, to discuss current events in social life. Magazines carrying Belinsky's articles were passed from hand to hand, and every new article added fresh supporters to the struggle for liberty.
Belinsky was a powerful propagandist who called to the struggle a new contingent of fighters, the democratic intelligentsia or raznochintsi (of non-noble origin) that was just taking shape. In the forties, Belinsky's name was the banner of the liberation movement.
Lenin called Herzen and the Decembrists representatives of the nobility stage of the liberation movement. Belinsky, said Lenin, Was the predecessor of the stage of raznochintsi revolutionaries.
The progressive activists of Russian democracy conducted a tireless search for a better future for their country, paying particular attention to the socio-philosophical and, particularly, the socialist systems of Western Europe. Despite the Chinese wall of the censorship, erected by the highly-placed obscurantists, the works of Saint-Simon and Fourier had already reached Russia by the thirties and forties. Belinsky and Herzen read the first articles by the founders of Marxism in the mid-forties, and several of their friends became personally acquainted with Marx in Paris and began to correspond with him. In several substantial respects, the Russian progressives of the 1840s and 1850s repeated the initial stages in the thinking of the young Marx, when he was just a democrat and not as yet a proletarian revolutionary. It is from the time of Belinsky and Herzen that Russian thinkers, dissatisfied with the Utopian doctrines of the West, began to construct original social theories that were distinguished by their militant and practical democratism. Unlike most Utopians in the West, Herzen and Belinsky held views with a sharp political content and considered the class struggle and the revolutionary coup to be the means of transforming society. Although there were moments when Herzen wavered towards liberalism, he nevertheless remained a supporter of revolution.
In the mid-forties, the revolutionism and democracy of Belinsky and Herzen led to serious differences with their liberal friends from the circle known at that time as the Westerners and to a clash with the equally well-known circle of Slavophils. The Westerners, K. Kavelin, T. Granovsky, V. Botkin, P. Annenkov and others, denounced the 211 autocracy and serfdom and advocated liberalism and the bourgeois path of development. They saw Russia's only salvation in the adoption from the West of the institutions of bourgeois democracy through a series of slow reforms. Their opponents, the Kireyevsky brothers, the Aksakov brothers, A. Khomyakov, Y. Samarin and others, they ironically called Slavophils because of their enmity towards the ``rotten'' West and their praise of the ``exceptionalism'' of the Russian people. The doctrine of the Slavophils was a contradictory mixture of bourgeois liberal and aristocratic conservative ideas. They were convinced monarchists and did not want to limit the autocracy in any real way, but at the same time spoke of the desirability of freedom of opinion and of the renascence of the Zemsky Sobor. The Slavophils favoured the gradual emancipation of the serfs and at the same time idealised the village commune. They propagandised the reactionary idea of Panslavism, the union of the Slav peoples under the aegis of Russian tsarism.
The revolutionary events of 1848 in Europe exercised a strong influence on the mood of Russian society. M. Bakunin played a direct and guiding role in the risings in Prague and Dresden, and N. Sazonov became- a prominent publicist in the Parisian revolutionary press.
The differentiation into revolutionary democrats and liberals that took place among the Westerners in 1848 was also to be seen in another well-known circle of that period, that of Petrashevsky.
Mikhail Petrashevsky (1821--1866), the founder of the group, was the son of a doctor; he was an interpreter working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1845, a group of young noblemen and middle-class intellectuals with literary interests met every Friday evening in Petrashevsky's house. Among the members of the circle were some future academicians, the writer F. Dostoyevsky and some young writers who were then just beginning --- M. Saltykov, A. Pleshcheyev, A. Maikov and others. The ideas of these young men were influenced by Belinsky and Herzen and also socialist thinkers in the West, Fourier in particular. "Implacable speeches about the government" and about "the unimaginable sufferings of Russia" were made here. Petrashevsky said: "We passed the death sentence on the present social order; now the sentence has to be carried out.'' There were a number of trends in the Petrashevsky group, ranging from revolutionary-democratic to liberal. The more radical members recognised the importance of political struggle and revolution, unlike Fourier who was apolitical and appealed to the higher classes of society. Preparations were made for setting up the first Russian underground printing press. Unlike the Decembrists, many members of the group regarded the people as an active revolutionary force. "Is not a landowner who fleeces his peasants worse than a robber?" asked the Ten Commandments, which were intended for distribution among the peasants.
The young people's all but open meetings and their speeches in support of freedom inevitably attracted the attention of the St. Petersburg police. An agent penetrated the circle of Petrashevsky's close friends. In April 1849 Petrashevsky's group was arrested, and on December 2 of that year 21 of them who had been sentenced to death were led out into St. Petersburg's Semyonovskaya Square. They 212 __CAPTION__ Vissarion Belinsky. Lithograph from K. Gorbunov's drawing, 1843 were dressed in shrouds and hooded, but Petrashevsky tore the hood off, saying that he was not afraid of death and could look it in the face. An order was given, and the soldiers raised their rifles, ready to fire. But no shots rang out. Instead the soldiers were ordered to stand at ease. A carriage drew up alongside, and the emperor's aide-de-camp jumped out, bearing a pardon from the tsar. Petrashevsky and his friends were sent to Siberia in chains. Among those exiled was Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who described the scene in Semyonovskaya Square in his novel The Idiot. The writer was to spend four years in penal servitude and then to serve six years as a private in the army. It was only by chance that the young student Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who was close to one of the members of Petrashevsky's group, did not share their fate.
The Petrashevsky group helped spread revolutionary-democratic and Utopian social ideas in Russia.
In the first half of the nineteenth century progressive ideas began to spread among the non-Russian peoples of the Empire under the influence of progressive Russian social ideas. Iri 1846, the Society of Cyril and Methodius was founded in Kiev to promote the national and 213 sociah emancipation of the Ukraine. Taras Shevchenko, the great Ukrainian poet and painter, unlike most other members of the society who favoured reformist tactics, held revolutionary views; he regarded the fraternal union of the revolutionary forces of Russia and the Ukraine as being the true road to emancipation.
The society was suppressed in 1847 and Shevchenko was sent into the army as a private.
Anti-government societies existed among many other peoples ---the Fraternal Alliance formed at the end of the forties in Lithuania, for instance --- and many people prominent in the field of culture favoured a closer alliance with the Russian people to oppose feudal oppression; among them were F. Kreuzwald and F. Felman in Estonia; A. Chavchavadze and N. Baratashvili in Georgia; M. Akhundov in Azerbaijan; H. Abovyan in Armenia; Ch. Valikhanov in Kazakhstan, etc.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The culture of the peoples of Russia developed in the first half of the nineteenth century in a sharp struggle against serfdom, class privileges and the despotic rule of the bureaucracy.The culture of the peoples of Russia developed in the first half of the nineteenth century in a sharp struggle against serfdom, class privileges and the despotic rule of the bureaucracy. The most talented people of Russia, those most interested in progress, at first from the nobility and later from the raznochintsi members of the intelligentsia, strove to liberate their country from the burden of serfdom and the autocracy and advocated the generaLeducation of the people, believing the people to be a tremendous creative force.
Tsarism and the landowners were the enemies of all enlightenment, although the country's economic requirements compelled the government to gradually increase the number of schools and make vocational education more widely available. The majority of the people, however, remained illiterate, the increased number of universities and other higher educational institutions being reserved almost exclusively for the privileged classes.
The schools cultivated monarchist and religious ideas. "The schools are crushed by supervisors and priests,'' Herzen complained. The University Charter of 1835 was an attempt to institute military discipline into the universities; a similar system was introduced into the newly founded railway and forestry institutes. Half-educated generals were appointed as supervisors of school districts. "I do not need educated people, I need loyal subjects,'' Nicholas I is reputed to have said. The government tried to base all education on Uvarov's principles of "orthodoxy, autocracy and patriotism''; in the universities the teaching of philosophy, natural law and political economy ceased.
It is no wonder that under these circumstances the social sciences were frequently developed away from a university or academic auditorium. Advanced ideas in philosophy, political economy and history were developed by progressively minded people, by the Decembrists and the Petrashevsky group, by Belinsky and Herzen.
History and philology were well developed, especially in the fields of Oriental and Slavonic studies, Russian Slavists working in company with Safafik and other Czech Slavists.
214 __CAPTION__ Alexander Pushkin. Painted by Vasily Tropinin, 1827Russian achievements in the natural sciences and technology in this period are noteworthy. Russian captains circumnavigated the world, exploring the northern shores of the Pacific and the Arctic seas. In 1819, the sloops Vostok and Mirny, under Faddei Bellinshausen and Mikhail Lazarev, discovered the Antarctic continent. In 1839, the Pulkovo Observatory was opened; its telescope was one of the biggest in the world at that time. Professor Nikolai Lobachevsky of Kazan University was a mathematical genius who made a leap into the future with his elaboration of non-Euclidean geometry. In physics, especially electricity, some important discoveries were made ---Vasily Petrov (the electric arc and electrolysis) and Emili Lentz (conversion of heat into electric power). Russia was also well to the fore in chemistry and biology ---N. Zinin obtained aniline dye from benzene; K. Behr and K. Rulye expounded the theory of the evolutionary development of the animal kingdom before Darwin's works were published.
Among the technical achievements of the period special mention must be made of the electro-magnetic telegraph invented by Pavel Schilling in 215 1832, before the telegraph invented by Morse was demonstrated in the West. The world's first electrically driven vessel was launched on the River Neva in 1839; it was designed by Boris Jacobi whose work in this field was acknowledged by Faraday. The first steam railway in Russia, and one of the first in the world, was built in the Urals in 1834 by two serf mechanics, Yefim Cherepanov and his son Miron. In 1837, a railway 25 kilometres long was built to join St. Petersburg and the tsar's summer residence --- Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin).
The Russian literature of the period was a real treasure-house of the creative ability of the people and was the vehicle of progressive social ideals. Beginning with the Decembrists and Pushkin, the leading writers and poets advocated liberty and enlightenment and gave expression to the idea of emancipating their country from the yoke of serfdom and the autocracy.
The development of emancipatory ideas in Russian literature met with the open opposition of the tsarist government. In 1826 and again in 1828, savage censorship rules were introduced to quench the slightest spark of free thought. A period of the "freedom of silence" had begun, as a contemporary so aptly put it. Censors and writers who offended against the censorship laws were confined in army guardrooms or were banished. A special secret committee was set up to supervise the activities of the censor. The censor suspected a secret code in musical notes, and when three dots used to indicate ellipsis in an arithmetic textbook appeared in the wrong place the author was suspected of some secret design. The names of ancient Greeks and Romans were removed from history textbooks because they were Republicans. Literary careerists flourished, people like Bulgarin and Grech, who served the government faithfully; these mercenary journalists even acted as informers to the Third Department in their persecution of progressive literature.
Despite the oppression of reaction and obscurantism, Russian literature managed to develop and in the forties and fifties the trend of critical realism became dominant.
The most prominant exponents of the new Russian literature always sympathised with the oppressed peasantry and pilloried the oppressors. This is perfectly true of the well-known Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov, who rises from the humorous exposure of personal weaknesses to satire that has a broad public significance --- to political and social satire. His belief in the powerful forces of the people is particularly clear in the fables written on the theme of the Patriotic War of 1812. Gogol wrote of Krylov's work: "His parables are a national heritage and form the book of wisdom of the people themselves.'' Such romantic poets as V. Zhukovsky and K. Batyushkov ushered in the appearance of "the sun of Russian poetry'', Alexander Pushkin.
Alexander Pushkin (1799--1837), the greatest Russian national poet, is regarded as the founder of modern Russian literature and the Russian literary language. He was closely connected with a number of the Decembrists and the spirit of the young generation, its striving for struggle and freedom is reflected in his work. His freedom-loving verses and epigrams aimed at Alexander I and Arakcheyev were widely known among the young people. The government tried to isolate the poet and in 216 __CAPTION__ Mikhail Lermontov. Painted by K. Gorbunov, 1883 1820 banished him to the south, but this only increased his popularity. Pushkin was the favourite writer of all progressive Russia. His novel in verse Yevgeny Onegin, the long poems Ruslan and Ludmila and The Gypsies and his lyric poems were all learned by heart. The sonorousness and musicality of his verses, the clarity and precision of his language, and the high degree of artistic simplicity made Pushkin's works accessible to the whole people. With the advent of Pushkin, Russian literature stood on a par with the great literatures of Europe. No sooner had Pushkin's works appeared in print than they became known in Poland and Bohemia, France and England. His work had a strong influence on the development of literature in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and the Ukraine.
Pushkin's life was cut short when he was at the height of his powers. The poet was persecuted by the tsar and by court circles and was killed m a duel.
Pushkin's aim "to set hearts aflame with the word" was continued in Russian literature by Mikhail Lermontov (1814--1841). Lermontov was banished to the Caucasus for his On the Death of the Poet, verses 217 __CAPTION__ Nikolai Gogol. Engraving by F. Jordan from F. Moller's portrait, 1841 cursing the tsar and his entourage, the assassins of Pushkin. The rebellious lyricism and romanticism of his poetry made Lermontov the favourite poet of whole generations of young progressives. While he was in the Caucasus, Lermontov wrote A Hero of Our Time, a prose work that was the first in a brilliant series of nineteenth-century Russian novels, which have since become classics. He was the bard of the proud unconquered Caucasus and, as the bard of liberty, he was hated by the government. In 1841, at the zenith of his creative powers, he was killed in a duel under suspicious, circumstances, and Nicholas I was unable to hide his joy.
The major literary development of the late thirties and early forties was the songs written for a short time by Alexei Koltsov (1809--42). It was in the songs of this self-taught poet that the poor peasant and the simple country girl became lyrical heroes for the first time. In the forties also, Fypdor Tyutchev, who at that time held views close to those of the Slavophils, wrote a number of poems with a philosophical and political content.
The forties, however, are famous in Russian literary history as the 218 __CAPTION__ Alexander Griboyedov. Painted by Ivan Kramskoi, 1875 "Gogol period''. Nikolai Gogol (1809--1852) painted a series of vivid pen pictures of life in feudal Russia. Underlying the brilliant humour of his novel Dead Souls and his comedy The Inspector-General, one feels very strongly the author's sorrow and pain at the oppressive atmosphere of, Russian social life. The audience gave the premiere of The InspectorGeneral (1836) an ovation, and Nicholas I, who was present, had no difficulty in deciding against whom Gogol's biting satire was directed. "Everybody got what was coming to him,'' he said, "and I more than anyone.'' Gogol's characters and his sayings became universally known and were widely used to typify similar persons.
Some of the greatest Russian writers who began their work in the forties belong to the Gogol school of critical realism --- SaltykovShchedrin, satirist; Goncharov, novelist, and Dostoyevsky, a writer with a profound knowledge of psychology. The democratic trend in literature also became stronger in the forties. Nekrasov, the bard of nascent democracy, regarded civil courage for the sake of the people to be the sacred duty of -the artist. This was the watchword in art, not only of Nekrasov himself, but also of the young writer, Ivan Turgenev, who was 219 __CAPTION__ Mikhail Glinka, nineteenth-century lithograph by no means a radical. In his A Sportsman's Sketches, published in 1847, Turgenev depicted with the great talent of a humanist artist the lofty morality of the serf, crushed by the injustice of the social system. A Sportsman's Sketches was of great significance to the emancipatory traditions of Russian literature.
In the first half of the nineteenth century the Russian theatre acquired great social significance. A classic of the period, comparable to Gogol's Inspector-General, was Alexander Griboyedov's Wit Works Woe. Somewhat later, in the early fifties, the plays of Alexander Ostrovsky began to appear on the stage. Gribpyedpv had been a friend of the Decembrists, and in the twenties his brilliant satire on the Moscow nobility, "this most ingenious of Russian plays'', as Alexander'Blok described it, was passed round in hand-written copies. Verses from the play immediately became catchwords.
Ostrovsky's comedies brought to the stage the "dark kingdom" of the ignorant and avaricious merchant class.
220 __CAPTION__ Mikhail Shchepkin. Water-colour by A. Dobrovolsky, 1839Mikhail Shchepkin displayed his remarkable talent on the stage of the Maly Theatre in Moscow in the 1820s-1840s. Shchepkin was the son of a serf; he became the friend of Herzen and Gogol and raised the actor's social position to unprecedented heights. To quote Herzen, Shchepkin "was the first actor who was not theatrical in the theatre".
An independent and original musical school emerged in Russia in the first half of the nineteenth century. In the twenties and thirties the music of A. Alabyev, A. Gurilyov, A. Varlamov and A. Verstovsky was very popular and their works, full of folk melodies and purely Russian themes, did much to prepare the way for the appearance of the musical genius, Mikhail Glinka, justly regarded as the founder of Russian classical music. His operas Ivan Susanm(1836) and Ruslan andLudmila (1842) immediately placed him among the world's greatest composers. In all his work Glinka made extensive use of folk melodies. "It is the people who create music,'' he said, "and we musicians only arrange it.'' Famous 221 __CAPTION__ The Admiralty in St. Petersburg, 1805--23. Architect A. Zakharov. Modern view [222] __CAPTION__ The Boishoi Theatre, Moscow, 1824. Architect O. Beauvais. Lithograph by J. Lemercier from a drawing by Vivien. Forties of the nineteenth century among his many symphonic works is his Kamarinskaya. Glinka also wrote a large number of vocal pieces. He travelled very extensively and produced music based on the folk music of Spain (Spanish Overture), Italy and other countries.
A younger contemporary of Glinka's was Alexander Dargomyzhsky, who wrote a number of vocal pieces and two operas on Pushkin's texts--- The Mermaid and The Stone Guest. His music also has sources in folk music.
Architecture of the period followed classical lines, but Russian architects added original motifs to the general European style (Russian Empire). The St. Petersburg builders completed groups of classical buildings in the first half of the nineteenth century, which gave the city "a stern and graceful appearance" (Pushkin). A. Zakharov's Admiralty with its golden spire became the compositional centre of the city. A group of buildings designed by Thomas de Tomonne was erected on the sharp-pointed promontory of Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg. A. Voronikhin built the Kazan Cathedral, C. Rossi designed the magnificent groups of buildings that make up the General Staff, the Alexandrinsky Theatre, the Senate and the Holy Synod, and the whole of Teatralnaya Ulitsa (Theatre Street), now Ulitsa Rossi. In Moscow, Osip Beauvais erected the classical Boishoi Theatre and Gilardi restored the buildings of Moscow University.
The main tendency in the fine arts was academic painting under the auspices of the Imperial Academy of Arts. An outstanding work in this style was the Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Bryullov.
223 __CAPTION__ Taras Shevchenko. Painted by I. Repin, 1888There were, however, other trends in Russian painting that expressed new ideas and rejected biblical mythology as a theme for painting and ignored the outdated canons of classicism. V. Tropinin and O. Kiprensky attempted to depict the inner world of man. A. Venetsianov painted peasants and rural landscapes, something formerly unknown in Russian art. P. Fedotov depicted the reality of the period of serfdom in his satirical pictures. A. Ivanov, who lived for many years in Italy, painted a gigantic canvas on the theme Christ Appears to the People; the artist succeeded in giving this picture on a religious subject a realistic, philosophical and ethical content. Aivazovsky's seascapes are worldfamous.
The sculpture of the period is best known from the works of Martos and Klodt.
Progressive Russian culture, closely connected with the country's social movements, had a tremendous influence on the development of the cultural life of the non-Russian peoples.
224 __CAPTION__ Mirza Fatali Akhundov, nineteenth-century lithographThere was particularly close contact between Russian and Ukrainian workers in the cultural field. Taras Shevchenko, the great poet and revolutionary, was an impassioned champion of friendship between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples; his work shows the influence of the Decembrists and Pushkin, Belinsky and Herzen. Shevchenko not only opposed all forms of national oppression; his writings exposed the brutality of the Ukrainian and Polish landowners. His great poems Kobzar and Haydamaki made him the national poet of the Ukraine, the bard of Ukrainian emancipation. Other writers who helped found the national literature of the Ukraine were I. Kotlyarevsky, P. GulakArtemovsky and Y. Grebyonka, all of whom worked in the first half of the nineteenth century.
In Byelorussia progressive national tendencies found expression in the work of the poet and playwright V. Dunin-Martsinkevich; A. Strazdas played the same role in Lithuania.
Georgian literature of the period is marked by such famous names as __PRINTERS_P_225_COMMENT__ 15--160 225 those of the lyrical poets N. Baratashvili, G. Orbeliani and A. Chavchavadze. In Azerbaijan Mirza Fatali Akhundov, novelist and playwright, laid the foundations of Azerbaijanian realistic literature. The first important name in modern Armenian literature was Abovyan, who also worked in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Russian science, literature and art developed in close contact with the culture of Western Europe. European technical and scientific achievements became known in Russia immediately; Russian writers and the Russian reading public were familiar with the writings of Byron and Scott, Schiller and Goethe, Balzac and Beranger. The music of Beethoven and Berlioz, Liszt and Chopin was heard in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Many Russian painters studied in Italy.
Russian culture, thanks to the originality, humanism and artistic value of the work of Pushkin, Glinka and other giants of the period, became known throughout the world and began to influence the culture of other nations.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The last great event in the history of Russia in the pre-reform period was the Crimean War.The last great event in the history of Russia in the pre-reform period was the Crimean War.
From the twenties to the fifties of the nineteenth century Russian foreign policy had been directed mainly towards the solution of two basic problems --- the protection of absolutism in Europe against the danger of revolution and, secondly, die Eastern question. The tsarist government of Russia on a number of occasions sacrificed the country's national interests for the sake of preserving decadent monarchies and of mustering the forces of European reaction.
When Charles X was forced to leave France in July 1830 and a month later, Belgium revolted against the rule of the Netherlands, Nicholas I made preparations for intervention, but the insurrection that broke out in Warsaw in November prevented him from carrying out his plans.
The Polish insurrection for liberation (1830--31) at first developed successfully because of the support afforded it by the urban poor and the peasantry, and because progressive public opinion in Russia was on the side of the insurrectionists. The leadership of the movement, however, was in the hands of the Polish aristocracy, and the aristocratic Sejm rejected the bill for a peasant reform; this act deprived them of the support of the peasants.
In September 1831, Russian troops occupied Warsaw; the Constitution of 1815 was annulled and Poland declared an integral part of the Russian Empire. The counter-revolutionary role of tsarism, which had taken on itself the mission of an international gendarme, became fully apparent during the revolution of 1848, which gripped a number of European countries. When the tsar received despatches from France, according to a story told at the time, he went immediately to a ball being given by the Crown Prince, stood in the middle of the ball-room and announced in a thunderous voice: "Saddle your horses, gentlemen, a republic has been set up in France.'' Nicholas I personally wrote a manifesto containing threats to the ``rebels'' in the West.
Nicholas I demanded of Austria and Prussia that they suppress the 226 __CAPTION__ General Staff Headquarters in St. Petersbrg, 1819-29. Architect C. Rossi. Modern view [227] movement in Western Poland; in agreement with the Sultan of Turkey he suppressed the liberation movement in the Danube principalities and in the spring of 1849 moved a huge army to save Vienna from the Hungarian revolutionary army. The most progressive people of Russia, Herzen and Chernyshevsky among them, sympathised with the Hungarian revolution.
Russia's demand that Turkey hand over refugee Hungarian revolutionaries led to a further sharpening of the "Eastern question" which came to the surface every time political storms in Europe died down.
Alexander I had refused, in support of the legitimatist principles of the Holy Alliance, to support the Greek insurrectionists who had taken up arms against the Sultan of Turkey in 1821. The British government, taking advantage of the indecisiveness of Alexander I, recognised the Greek insurgents as belligerents. Nicholas I did not desire stronger British influence in the Balkans and pursued a more active policy in the Eastern question by lending the Greek insurgents military aid. AngloRussian political and commercial rivalry was also extended to the Caucasus and Central Asia.
In the late twenties and early thirties Russian diplomacy achieved considerable success in the Balkans. The Russo-Turkish War of 1828--29 gave Russia the mouth of the Danube and the eastern coast of the Black Sea. The Sultan of Turkey recognised the right of Greece, Serbia, Moldavia and Walachia to internal autonomy. Russian influence was consolidated by the Treaty of Friendship with Turkey concluded in __CAPTION__ The Sale. Painted by N. Nevrev, 1866 [228] __CAPTION__ Admiral Nakhimov on the Sevastopol fortifications. Painted by I. Pryanishnikov, 1872 1833. The London Conventions of 1840--41, however, again strengthened the British position by bringing Turkey under the collective protection of the Great Powers.
Following the defeat of the revolution of 1848 in Austria and the Danube principalities, Nicholas I decided on another attempt to strengthen Russian influence in the Balkans. He regarded Turkey as a "sick man" whose property should be shared out in good time; the tsar made an attempt to come to an agreement with Britain on spheres of influence. Nicholas did not bother about either France, shaken by the events of 1848, or Austria, saved by Russia in 1849. But he left a great deal out of his calculations. The British bourgeoisie had in view serious colonialist plans for the Middle East and did not want a powerful rival like Russia in that area.
229 __CAPTION__ Monument to K. Minin and D. Pozharsky in Red Square, Moscow. Sculptor I. Martos, 1818When Louis Bonaparte became Emperor Napoleon III in 1851, he was anxious to strengthen his throne by a short and victorious war, and he willingly entered into a military alliance with Britain. Austria wavered, but there was no doubt of her anti-Russian position on Eastern question.
The intrigues of French diplomats in the early fifties made the question of the holy places of Palestine, then under the rule of the Sultan, even more acute. St. Petersburg sent a special mission to Stamboul headed by Count Menshikov; the mission demanded the conclusion of a convention by which the tsar of Russia would be the protector of all Orthodox Christians under Turkish rule. The Sultan refused to negotiate on such a convention, and Menshikov announced the cessation of diplomatic relations. The Russian army entered the Danube principalities. The allied powers --- France and Britain --- succeeded in persuading the Sultan to remain adamant. Operations began on the Danube. In November 1853, Admiral Nakhimov dispersed the Turkish fleet at Sinop; an Anglo-French squadron entered the Black Sea and in March 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia.
230The Crimean War (1853--56) had begun. Russia, technically and economically backward, was attacked by two industrially highly developed states, the most powerful of that time. The Russians were armed with smooth-bore muskets, whereas the allied armies had rifles. The Russian fleet of old-fashioned sailing vessels was opposed by the steamships of the allied navies. The lack of railway communications in the southern part of the country left the Russian army short of powder and provisions.
In the summer of 1854, the allied fleet attacked the Russian coastal towns on the Baltic Sea, the White Sea and the Pacific Ocean. In all cases the Russian garrisons succeeded in beating off the attacks. The allies decided to launch their main assault on Russia in the Crimea.
An army of 60,000 landed in September 1854 near Evpatoria and laid siege to Sevastopol, the chief Russian naval base. The course of events showed the worthlessness of Nicholas' generals who were accustomed to parades but were helpless in battle. The defeats in the Crimea seemed to affect the tsar who, until then, had been deluded by the idea of his own greatness. When he died in February 1855, there were rumours, believed by many people, that he had poisoned himself.
The campaign, however, was not entirely favourable to the allies. The siege of Sevastopol lasted almost a year; under the command of Admiral Kornilov, and, after his early death, of Admiral Nakhimov, the Russian soldiers and sailors turned the town, formerly poorly defended from the land, into a formidable fortress. By their frequent sallies, exchanges of artillery and mortar fire, they inflicted blow after blow on the enemy, displaying tremendous courage and military skill. The numerous attacks of the allies were beaten off, and only after a siege of eleven months did the French infantry, in a desperate attack, succeed in capturing Malakhov Kurgan, the key position. The Russian forces were compelled to retire to the northern coast of Sevastopol Bay.
Partial successes on the Caucasian front did not fully compensate the Russian army for the losses in the Crimea, but they did make possible peace negotiations; the allies were also anxious for peace, since they recognised the failure of their far-reaching plans.
The defence of Sevastopol was a great exploit performed by thousands oLrank-and-file soldiers and sailors, an exploit that won the admiration 'of all Russia. "The Sevastopol epos, the hero of which was the Russian people, will for a long time leave a great mark in Russian history,'' wrote Leo Tolstoy in his Sevastopol Tales; at the time of the siege Tolstoy was an artillery officer on one of the batteries.
The terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856) were, however, harsh for Russia. Russia was not allowed to maintain a fleet in the Black Sea or build fortresses on the coast; she was also deprived of the right to act as protector of the Balkan peoples. In the Balkans the war led to a fresh outburst of the liberation struggle. Battalions of Greeks, Bulgars and Walachians fought against the Turks. The most important consequence of the Crimean War, which weakened feudal Turkey, was the union of Walachia and Moldavia into a single Rumanian state that remained only nominally dependent on the power of Sultan; this union was carried out between 1859 and 1861 with the support of Russia.
[231] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Nine __ALPHA_LVL1__ RUSSIA AFTER THE PEASANT REFORM.The upward trend of capitalism reached its peak in the second half of the nineteenth century, by which time it had become the world socio-economic system; the transition to monopoly capitalism, imperialism, took place in this period, bringing the sharper all the contradictions typical of it.
In the fifties and sixties, powerful bourgeois-democratic and bourgeois-nationalist movements brought about the unification of Italy, of Germany, the abolition of slavery in the United States of America, the formation of the Third Republic in France and the ``unconsummated'' revolution of 1868 in Japan.
The proletariat rapidly increased in numbers and its specific weight in politics became greater. The important theoretical works of the founders of scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, appeared in print and the First International was founded and functioned for nearly ten years. In 1871, the Paris Commune made the first attempt in history to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dissolution of the First International did not mark the end of world proletarian relations, which, in the late eighties, promoted the formation of the Second International. In the seventies, the working-class organisation of Germany advanced to first place in the world.
In Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century feudal serf relations collapsed and capitalist relations took their place, although some important features of serfdom survived. Russia remained an unlimited monarchy, a country in which the tsarist authorities did as they pleased; Russia was a prison of the peoples, one of the chief bastions of world reaction. The rulers of Russia easily found a common tongue with the most reactionary elements of other countries in the East and in the West. At the same time, however, Russia's democratic forces were steadily growing.
All the progressive movements of Europe and America found a response in Russia, and the emancipation struggle of the intellectuals, workers and peasants of Russia met with sympathy among progressives abroad and had an important effect on the revolutionary and democratic movements in Western Europe, in the East European states and later in Asia. Twice a revolutionary situation arose in Russia---in the late fifties and early sixties, and again in the seventies and eighties; in neither case 232 did the situation lead to revolution, but nevertheless acquired a great significance at home and abroad. At the end of the nineteenth century the centre of the world revolutionary movement shifted to Russia where the proletarian class struggle gained in scope and the Marxist revolutionary party was growing.
The Russian revolutionary movement brought the progressive sections of the non-Russian peoples into the orbit of the revolution. The ties between peoples of Russia grew stronger. Economic relations between the Great Russia centre and the non-Russian areas were strengthened.
The second half of the nineteenth century saw great achievements in the sciences, arts and letters. In Russia exceptional progress was made in science and the creative arts. The contacts between the scientists, writers, musicians, artists and actors of Russia and the West were greatly increased. The work of the leading people in Russian science and culture was receiving recognition everywhere.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Crimean War was the prologue to some of the most important events in Russian history. These events began with the collapse of the system of serfdom; the Peasant Reform of 1861 was the first big step towards converting the feudal, serf-owning monarchy into a bourgeois monarchy.The Crimean War was the prologue to some of the most important events in Russian history. These events began with the collapse of the system of serfdom; the Peasant Reform of 1861 was the first big step towards converting the feudal, serf-owning monarchy into a bourgeois monarchy. The capitalist relations that had been growing in the womb of the feudal system before the Reform, now became dominant.
Alexander II, who ascended the throne at the beginning of 1855, stated in a speech delivered in 1856 to the Moscow nobility that it was better to emancipate the serfs "from above" than wait for them to start freeing themselves "from below".
The Crimean War also accelerated the Peasant Reform by revealing the danger, from the standpoint of foreign policy and Russia's military position as a great power, of retaining the serf system. The defeats in the war greatly compromised the "Nicholas regime" in the eyes of the wide sections of society, the moderate and even conservative sections included.
The opponents of the abolition of serfdom also had their position undermined to some extent by events abroad. The reactionary regime that had been dominant in Western Europe since the revolutions of 1848--49 had given way to a fresh wave of emancipation movements that embraced even the United States of America; there were also revolts in India and China. The progressive movements abroad favoured the struggle for liberty that was developing in Russia.
There was no unity among the nobility on the question of the reform. Although the irrationality of the rotten system of serfdom had been revealed there were still many landowners who hoped to maintain it. Many of them thought only in terms of slight concessions to the spirit of the times. It was only the liberals among the nobility who believed more important concessions to be inevitable and at the same time dreamed of civil liberties, even if only on a modest scale, and of the establishment of Ideal self-government to include all classes.
The main contradictions among the nobility were between the 233 landowners in the black-earth area, who farmed their fertile lands using the corvee service of their serfs and placed a high value on their property, and the landowners of the industrial northern gubernias, whose chief source of income was quitrent paid them by their serfs. The northern landowners were generally more inclined to favour a liberal policy.
In the government there were also different opinions on the reform, the reformist trend being represented by Milyutin, who took a prominent part in drawing up the reform bill, General Rostovtsev, Chairman of the Editorial Commissions that elaborated the Bill, and Minister of the Interior Lanskoi. The fiercest opponents of the reform were Prince Dolgorukov, head of the Third Department, and Minister of State Property Muravyov.
At the end of 1857, Alexander II addressed rescripts to the governors-general of Vilnius and St. Petersburg that envisaged the institution of gubernia committees of the nobility to draw up plans "to make arrangements for the landowners' serfs and improve their way of life''. The rescripts themselves and the government letters of explanation were permeated with the spirit of landed proprietorship. It was explained that the abolition of serf dependence was not to be accomplished "suddenly, but gradually''. The landowners retained their property rights to all the land and only part of it was to be leased to the peasants either in return for the payment of quitrent or corv6e service. The landowners retained the right to act as "estate police" over the peasants on their estates.
Nevertheless, the tsarist government had to make some changes to the reform as at first envisaged.
The renewed programme put forward by the government for the Peasant Reform took final shape at the end of 1858. It was now agreed that immediately after the promulgation of the Reform the peasants would be legally free men; in addition to their plots they would receive certain tracts of land for which they would pay compensation, the payment to be made through the government; until the legal formalities of the compensation payments were completed they were to be regarded as temporarily bound. The last discussion of the Bill was mainly on the size of the plots to which the peasants were to obtain a title (``allotments'') and on their obligations and payment for the land.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The ``liberals'' and the ``serf-owners'' represented the interests of different sections of one and the same class --- the nobility.The ``liberals'' and the ``serf-owners'' represented the interests of different sections of one and the same class --- the nobility. The interests and aspirations of the peasants were expressed by the revolutionarydemocratic trend in the Russian social movement, by the raznochintsi, intellectuals who came from non-privileged classes, from the lower ranks of the clergy, the lower civil servants, the petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry and, sometimes, from among the merchants and declassed noblemen. In the fifties and sixties, these raznochintsi became the chief figures in the emancipation movement in Russia. Their leadership of the revolutionary movement lasted for several decades, right up to the nineties, when the leadership was taken over by the working class. The 234 __CAPTION__ Alexander Herzen. Photo, 1865 circle of those engaged in the emancipation struggle became much wider in this period, the fighters for freedom were closer to the people than their predecessors, the revolutionary nobility, had been and they were more active.
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The link between the two generations of revolutionaries, the nobility and the raznochintsi, was forged by Herzen and Ogaryov.
Herzen remained abroad to develop revolutionary propaganda and founded the Free Russian Press in London (1853), thereby earning the right to a place in history.
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In 1857, Herzen and Ogaryov started the political magazine Kolokol (The Bell) in which they carried on an impassioned struggle for the abolition of serfdom. Kolokol announced as the main item of its immediate programme the emancipation of the peasants with the land and other allotments that had been in their tenure before the Reform, and a number of other important demands.
For some years the publishers of Kolokol believed in the liberal intentions of Alexander II. Time, however, dispersed those illusions, and the closer the reform bill came to publication the more frequently and more decisively Kolokol spoke of the fruitlessness of placing hopes in the tsar; it criticised the government and called on all progressives to 235 engage in a real struggle for the land for the people and for a democratic state system.
Herzen did much to acquaint public opinion in the West with the situation in Russia. Because of his close contact with many progressives (he was the friend of Garibaldi, Mazzini, Hugo and of prominent fighters for emancipation in Hungary, Poland, etc.), Herzen was able to act as intermediary between Russian democrats and those in other countries.
In addition to the London Kolokol, another important ideological publication by Russian democrats was the magazine Sovremennik (The Contemporary), published in St. Petersburg, the most important contributors to which in the late fifties and early sixties were Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov.
Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828--1889) was the most outstanding figure in the social and literary movement of Russia in the period under review. He was a great scholar who made a splendid contribution to materialist philosophy and aesthetics, political economy and historiography, literary criticism and fiction. Chernyshevsky assimilated the best of everything in Russian literature and science, and was the direct continuer of Belinsky's work. He absorbed critically the most valuable ideas of Feuerbach and Hegel, the Utopian socialists (especially Fourier), and the classic English economists, Adam Smith and Ricardo.
Chernyshevsky had a thorough knowledge of the conditions of the Russian peasantry and understood their interests and aspirations; he firmly believed in the revolutionary possibilities of the masses; and in Russian progressive circles, he kept alive sympathies for the emancipation movement of the peoples of other countries.
Although Chernyshevsky struggled against feudalism he did not idealise capitalism; he strongly criticised capitalist society and, according to Marx, revealed in masterly style the bankruptcy of bourgeois political economy. Chernyshevsky's ethical views served to train the young people in freedom of thought, respect for women, love of labour and loyalty to the people. Chernyshevsky's literary criticism and his writings on aesthetics are permeated with the idea of the social significance of art, the idea of the indestructible bond that exists between art and the life of the people.
Chernyshevsky did not rise to the heights of scientific socialism. He did, however, succeed in liberating himself to some extent from the historical idealism that was typical of the Utopian socialists. In his treatment of historical events he gave an important place to the class struggle and paid considerable attention to the conditions of economic life and their role in the historical development of nations. He expected a better social system to come through the struggle of the working people.
The Utopian nature of Chernyshevsky's views on the socialist development of Russia was mainly in his recognition of the possibility of Russia's transition to socialism through the peasant commune, without passing through the stage of capitalist development. Chernyshevsky, however, was not only a Utopian socialist---he was also a revolutionary democrat. He saw in the peasant revolution the one real means of achieving the emancipation of the peasantry.
236 __CAPTION__ Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Photo, 1859He and Herzen were among the founders of the revolutionary Narodnik movement in Russia. The generation of Narodnik revolutionaries in the seventies was to a great extent brought up on the ideas and writings of Chernyshevsky. Even after the Marxist, SocialDemocratic trend had appeared in Russia, Chernyshevsky's literary legacy did not lose its power of attraction. Lenin regarded Chernyshevsky as a great Russian writer, a great Russian Utopian socialist.
Some of Chernyshevsky's more important works very soon attracted attention abroad, in particular his famous novel What Is To Be Done? which was translated into French, German, English and other languages in the seventies and eighties.
Nikolai Dobrolyubov (1836--1861) was the friend and disciple of Chernyshevsky, one who shared his views. He was well known as a literary critic and publicist who deeply loved the people of Russia; he displayed revolutionary ardour and a profound hatred for the oppressors; his was a brilliant, sober mind. Dobrolyubov had great faith in the revolutionary.prospects of the Russian people. He did much to train bold revolutionary fighters. Like Chernyshevsky, he was the son of a 237 __CAPTION__ Nikolai Dobrolyubov. Engraving from a photograph provincial priest; he fully expressed the mood of the new generation of democratic youth that at that time had joined the social struggle.
Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov wrote for Sovremennik, a publication that was subject to censorship, and could not express their views as openly and fully as Herzen and Ogaryov in Kolokol. Nevertheless their attitude to the social problems of Russia was more consistent and more militant. They demanded the complete eradication of feudal relations and exposed the indecisiveness and political decrepitude of the liberals, their readiness to come to an agreement with the serf-owners. The two journals Kolokol and Sovremennik did much to assist the growth and gradual consolidation of the forces of the democratic intelligentsia in the two capitals of Russia and in a number of local centres.
The serious disturbances among the peasantry and the activation of revolutionary-minded intellectuals, on the one hand, and the contradictions and wavering among the dominant class and in government circles, their fear of a revolutionary solution of the country's internal crisis, on 238 the other, showed the existence of a revolutionary situation. It was in these circumstances that the government carried out what was known as the Peasant Reform.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ On February 19, 1861, Tsar Alexander II signed the Act on ``peasants emerging from serf dependence'' and the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom; the two documents were published on March 5, 1861.On February 19, 1861, Tsar Alexander II signed the Act on ``peasants emerging from serf dependence'' and the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom; the two documents were published on March 5, 1861. Shortly before the Act was approved and while the draft was still under discussion by the Council of State, the tsar stated with admirable frankness that everything that could be done to protect the interests of the landowners had been done. And the Reform really did protect the interests of yesterday's owners of ``souls'' in every way possible and at the same time infringed on the most vital interests of the peasants.
It is true that the publication of the Reform meant that landowners could no longer dispose of the peasants as chattels, could not sell them or make gifts of them, and could not interfere in their family affairs; the peasants were allowed to acquire real estate in their own name, to engage in commerce and industry and to litigate in their own name. The abolition of the personal dependence of the peasant on the landowner, although bought at a high price (the price of manumission was actually included in the amount of the compensation for land the peasant was forced to pay), was, of course, an important step forward, without which there could have been no progressive movement in the country; as Lenin later wrote, however, the reform period of the sixties left the peasant impoverished, downtrodden, ignorant and subordinated to the feudal landowner in all spheres of life.
The Reform of 1861 proceeded from the assumption that the property rights to all the land that had been used by the serfs were vested in the landowner. Although the peasant had a certain allotment of arable land at his disposal, he had to pay rent for it in very arduous corv6e duties or in quitrent for the period he was "temporarily bound''. This bondage ended only when the agreement on the amount to be paid for the land was concluded with the landowner and the peasant became "a peasant-owner''. The payment of compensation, however, was made in the way the landowner wished and he could drag it out as long as he thought would be to his advantage. The outcome of this was that twenty years after the Reform of 1861 about one-seventh of the former landowners' serfs still remained "temporarily bound".
The Reform brought about a considerable reduction in the amount of land in peasant tenure. In the black-earth area the landowners cut off for themselves an average of about a quarter of the peasant holdings; on a national scale these ``cut-off'' lands amounted to about one-fifth of the total formally held by peasants. As a rule, the part of the land cut off was that particularly necessary to the peasant, which left him again fully dependent on the landowner.
The peasants had to pay a tremendous sum for a holding that was less than, and inferior to, the one they had previously held and which greatly exceeded the market value of the land. Since most of the peasants did not possess the means of paying the compensation money, the 239 government acted as the intermediary; up to eighty per cent of the compensation was paid to the landowners by the government and regarded as a loan to the peasants which had to be repaid to the treasury with interest in 49 years. These compensation payments were a heavy burden on the peasantry for over forty years --- until the Revolution of 1905--07 forced the government to annul them. By that time the peasants had paid the landowners (through the treasury) about 2,000 million rubles for land that in 1861, at the time of the Reform, had been worth little more than 500 million rubles.
The conditions under which serfdom was abolished in Russia determined the future specific features of the country's agrarian structure. The landowning class remained dominant in Russia and held the reins of government in its hands. The landowners possessed gigantic estates. Since the peasants were land-poor they had to obtain additional land from the landowner at exorbitant rents or in return for "labour service" which, in actual fact, was nothing more than the old feudal corvee service.
Despite its negative features, the Peasant Reform marked an important turning-point in the history of Russia; the feudal, serf-owning country was becoming a bourgeois, capitalist country. The countless survivals of serfdom, however, held back capitalist development, made it much slower and more painful than it would have been had the system of serfdom been completely swept away by a revolution.
After the Peasant Reform the tsarist government was forced to consent to a number of other reforms, which, however, were also of a halfhearted nature, kept the nobility and the high civil servants in a dominant position and left no road open for initiative on the part of social forces.
Some of the reforms undertaken during the reign of Alexander II concerned local government organisation. A Decree on Rural Local Government (the Zemstvos) was promulgated in 1864, followed by a Decree on Urban Local Government in 1870. The rural bodies were set up in each gubernia and in each uyezd (administrative division of a gubernia, or province); they were known as the Zemstvo Assemblies and their executive bodies were the Zemstvos or Rural Councils. In the towns there were Town Councils with their Executive Committees. The laws governing election to these bodies were so framed that the landed nobility were ensured a majority in the rural councils and the more affluent bourgeoisie in the urban councils; the greater part of the urban population had no franchise. The competency of these bodies, both rural and urban, was very limited---local economy, health protection, and, to some degree, education. Despite the limited nature of these reforms and the hampering effect of supervision by the administration, the Zemstvos brought certain benefits to the people in the shape of health services, schools, etc., mainly owing to the selfless and disinterested activities of most of the people employed in them.
In 1864, the government reformed the judicial system. The courts of justice were made up of representatives of all social estates, trials were made public, criminal cases were tried by jury, and advocates (defending counsel) were introduced. On the whole the judicial reform was the most consistent of all the reforms of. the period insofar as it was based on 240 purely bourgeois principles. Even so, it still bore the hallmark of serfdom --- disregard for the law and violence pervaded all court proceedings of a political nature.
The army reform of 1874 legalised the changes that had been begun in the sixties; formerly recruits had been provided by village communes from among the serfs, who drew lots to choose the unfortunates who had to serve for twenty-five years. The reform introduced universal conscription and gradually reduced service to six or seven years. Measures were taken to re-equip the army technically and raise the training of officers to a higher level.
The reforms enacted in the sixties were insufficient to satisfy the more progressive sections of the public, the Peasant Reform causing the greatest discontent.
Very many peasants still retained their firm faith in the tsar and simply did not believe in the genuineness of the Reform; they believed that the landowners, civil servants and the clergy had twisted and distorted the royal will. There were widespread rumours that the Reform as published was not final and that another reform would be introduced in two years that would bring complete emancipation.
Peasant disturbances broke out all over the country, which both in number and in the sharpness of the struggle far exceeded those of previous years. There were more than 1,800 peasant disturbances in 1861; in many cases the government used troops to pacify the peasants. Democratic opinion was greatly disturbed by the events in Kazan and Penza gubernias in April 1861. In Kazan Gubernia the village of Bezdna was the centre of the revolt; a peasant named Anton Petrov appealed to peasants not to perform corvee service or pay quitrent. Petrov and his followers believed that the land belonged to them. General Apraksin, a count, dealt ruthlessly with the peasants of Bezdna, killing about a hundred of them outright. Petrov was shot by order of a court martial.
In Penza Gubernia peasants gathered in thousands in the villages of Chernogai ^and Kandeyevka shouting: "All the land is ours! We won't pay quitrent and won't work for the landowners!" Troops fired on the crowds killing and wounding many of them; large numbers of peasants were exiled to Siberia.
The peasants' protest against serfdom took on many and varied forms. They refused to sign papers defining the relations established between temporarily bound peasants and landowners; nevertheless the regulations were put into effect without their consent.
During the following two years peasant disturbances were fewer in number than in 1861, and by 1864, they had almost ceased. The peasants were unorganised and dispersed throughout the country; they lacked political consciousness and were consequently the victims of illusions; these were features that doomed to failure the peasant movement engendered by the Reform of 1861. It had, however, become clear that the peasants would not be satisfied with the Reform and would fight for complete emancipation from the oppression of the landowners and for a plot of land sufficient for subsistence.
The revolutionary movement of the progressive sections of the intelligentsia developed under the direct influence of the peasant __PRINTERS_P_225_COMMENT__ 16--160 241 disturbances; the student youth occupied an important place in this movement.
The student body was not homogeneous in its social composition or in its political views; it was, however, in general against the government and in part revolutionary. There were many fervent followers of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov among the students and Herzen's publications were popular.
In the period immediately preceding the Peasant Reform, the students had in many respects succeeded in breaking down the police and barrack-like atmosphere that had dominated the higher educational establishments under Nicholas I. In an effort to check disturbances among the students, the government drew up new university regulations in the summer of 1861 that put an end to the ``freedoms'' the students had won for themselves.
In their actions against the authorities the students were not only defending the rights of a group, but actually began a struggle against the entire policy of the reactionaries.
The protest of the students of Kazan University and the Theological Academy in the same city against the shooting of peasants at Bezdna had many repercussions. At a demonstrative requiem organised by the students, Professor Afanasy Shchapov, a democrat, said in his speech that the exploit of the Bezdna peasants had dispersed the unjustified opinion that the Russian people were incapable of "the initiative of political movements''. Shchapov spoke in favour of a democratic constitution.
The students' anti-government movement developed on an unprecedented scale in St. Petersburg and Moscow universities in the autumn of 1861 in response to the publication of new rules by the government. There were demonstrations and studies were stopped. The authorities carried out mass arrests of students, many of whom were banished.
Chernyshevsky and Herzen regarded action by the students as being of great significance. It was in connection with these actions that Herzen first turned to the students with a passionate appeal "to go to the people" and join their protest to the rising murmur.
The peasant disturbances and the student movement provided an atmosphere suitable for increased underground anti-government activities. The underground movement attracted democratic writers, the more active and the politically conscious section of the student youth, the best of the young officers, progressive teachers and doctors.
After the promulgation of the Reform, revolutionary work became more active and better organised. Its core was formed by a close circle of Chernyshevsky's followers that was grouped around the journal Sovremennik.
It was among the closest and most consistent followers of Chernyshevsky that a plan was formed to engage in systematic agitation by means of proclamations addressed to different sections of the public. Chernyshevsky himself helped carry out the plan; he wrote a long manifesto addressed to the landlords' serfs "being emancipated" ``(To Landlords' Serfs from Their Well-wishers---Greetings''), which was not published at the time owing to the treachery of one of the circle members. This valuable document illustrating Russian revolutionary-- 242 democratic thought exposed the consequences of the Reform of February 19, 1861 as ruinous for the peasants; Chernyshevsky revealed the true face of the tsar whose interests were intimately bound up with those of the land-owning nobility; he explained that the people could achieve their aims only by an organised insurrection and called on them to prepare everywhere for a peasant revolution.
The leaflet entitled "To the Younger Generation'', written by a prominent journalist, N. Shelgunov, was one of the manifestoes of the revolutionary-democrats of 1861 that became widely known. There were other appeals addressed to different sections of the public, for instance, the leaflets issued by the Velikoruss (Great Russian) revolutionary group. These leaflets and manifestoes contained ruthless criticism of the entire government system, exposed the fraud of the 1861 Reform, demanded the introduction of a democratic system and recognition of the national rights of the peoples of Russia.
The publication of illegal agitational literature continued on a wide scale throughout 1862 and 1863. Of those issued in 1862, the one entitled "Young Russia" was the most effective; it was issued by a group of Moscow student revolutionaries and its author was P. Zaichnevsky. This leaflet contained an appeal to destroy the social and political system then existing in Russia and establish a dictatorship of the "revolutionary party" to create the "social and democratic republic of Russia".
As the political situation in the country grew more acute the more active members of the radical intelligentsia began to set up the broadest possible organisation capable of guiding the revolutionary struggle. This unification of revolutionary forces led to the foundation of the Zemlya i Volya (Land and Freedom) secret society (1861--62) with its centre in St. Petersburg and branches in Moscow and a number of other cities. Chernyshevsky was the political teacher of the society. Ogaryov, Herzen, and Bakunin were closely connected with the Zemlya i Volya society. Ogaryov's article "What Do the People Want?'', published in Kolokol in 1861, served the society as its first platform. Early in 1863, the society's programme was briefly formulated in the illegally printed publication Svoboda (Freedom).
"The chains of the Emperor's despotism that have bitten deeply into the body of the people must be broken,'' announced Svoboda. Svoboda called for a ruthless struggle against "the enemy of the Russian people, the imperial government'', and prophesied the inevitability of revolution in Russia.
Zemlya i Volya expected a revolutionary outburst in 1863 and tried to attract the widest circles of the intellectuals to the side of the people before this happened.
There was discontent and ferment even in the privileged strata of Russian society. The liberal movement among some sections of the nobility became stronger. In Tver gubernia, in the winter of 1861--62, for instance, a liberal opposition made itself prominent among the nobility; these liberals criticised, to a certain extent, the Reform of 1861 and demanded that the work of all branches of the government and the local administration be made public; they also demanded the institution of an independent and public judicial system, radical reforms to the financial system and the fusion of the social estates. The liberals did not __PRINTERS_P_243_COMMENT__ 16 243 regard the government as capable of carrying out such reforms and considered the only path to salvation to be in "an assembly of representatives elected by the entire people irrespective of social estate''. The liberal opposition of the Tver nobility was led by A. Unkovsky and the Bakunins (brothers of Mikhail Bakunin, the revolutionary exile). Most of the liberal oppositionists of that period were much more moderate than the Tver opposition.
The liberal-minded nobility were dissatisfied with the large number of survivals of serfdom that remained after the Peasant Reform, but the conservatives among the nobility criticised the government for having too greatly infringed on the privileges of the landowners. Some even demanded that an aristocratic ``constitution'' should be brought in. The government had little difficulty in dealing with this landowners' opposition.
Increased activity on the part of the reactionaries was partly due to the revolts that broke out at the beginning of 1863 in the Kingdom of Poland, in Lithuania and in Byelorussia.
The growing national liberation struggle in Poland merged with the anti-feudal acts of the Polish peasantry and was influenced by the revolutionary situation in Russia and the reawakening of the democratic movements throughout Europe. The tsarist government's effort to check the disturbances in Poland combined minor concessions with the most brutal suppressive measures (shooting of demonstrators in Warsaw, etc.).
In January 1863, an insurrection flared up in Poland, in which many diverse groups participated---the very moderate (``Whites'', who represented more or less big landed proprietors and big bourgeoisie) and radicals of various shades (``Reds''---representatives of the democratic sections of the people). The Whites relied mainly on support from the Western powers, but their hopes were not fulfilled. The Reds pursued a policy that was not without vacillation both on the national and on the peasant issues, although the better part of the movement was fully democratic, and some of its leaders were very greatly influenced by the Russian revolutionary democrats; among these latter were Sigismund Sierakowski, Jaroslaw Dombrowski, Konstantin Kalinowski and Waleri Wrublewski.
The insurrection of 1863 gave rise to a militant chauvinistic campaign among the privileged sections of Russian society, both because it was directed against Russia and because of the diplomatic intervention of France and Britain. The campaign was headed by M. Katkov, a prominent journalist, editor of Russky Vestnik (Russian Herald) and Moskovskiye Vedomosti (Moscow Recorder). The brutal persecution of the insurrectionists and those who sympathised with them, carried out by Generals Muravyov (``Hangman'') and Berg who were sent to pacify the Poles, met with the obvious approval of a considerable part of the Russian ruling classes.
The attitude of the democrats to the events in Poland was the opposite.
Chernyshevsky, writing in Sovremennik, and Herzen in Kolokol (and even before Kolokol was founded), displayed a complete understanding of the interests and rights of the Polish people long before the uprising. Chernyshevsky was in prison when the insurrection broke out in Poland; 244 in mid-1862 the government had arrested him and a number of other Left democrats and had temporarily suppressed Sovremennik and Russkoye Slovo (Russian Word) in an effort to deprive the movement of its leadership. When Sovremennik reappeared, however, it continued to defend the interests of the Poles as far as was possible under the strict censorship.
Herzen was a brilliant advocate of the just cause of the Polish people. He stressed the common interests of the Russian and Polish peoples in the struggle against a common enemy, tsarism. "One chain binds us both,'' he wrote. Lenin later recalled that Herzen, by his defence of Poland's freedom and his castigation of those who butchered her, had saved the honour of the Russian democrats. This could also be said of all Russian democrats of the sixties.
The Zemlya i Volya society gave strong support to the Polish freedom fighters in its manifestoes. There were many progressive Russians fighting in the ranks of the insurgents, among them a Russian officer, Lieutenant Andrei Potebnya, the leader of a Russian revolutionary organisation in the army in Poland which had merged with Zemlya i Volya; he was killed in battle fighting for the Polish cause.
By 1864, the insurrection in Poland, Lithuania and Byelorussia had been suppressed by the tsarist army. The Russian revolutionaries had expected a fresh upsurge of the peasant movement to grow into a general peasant revolt, but this did not occur. The forces of the revolutionary democrats were undermined by the brutal repressive measures of the government. Liberal society was badly scared by the extent of the emancipation movement and did not offer the revolutionary democrats any support; some liberals even regarded the government's measures as justified.
Early in 1864, Zemlya i Volya ceased to exist and the circulation of Kolokol in Russia was greatly reduced, although the journal continued publication until 1867.
The revolutionary situation died down, and the government continued its anti-popular policy.
The democrats, however, refused to be reconciled to the victory of reaction. They continued the struggle in various ways wherever possible; democratic journalists managed to get around the censorship and boldly exposed the reactionaries. In this an important part was played by the new editors of Sovremennik, the novelist Saltykov-Shchedrin and the philosopher and journalist Antonovich. In the other democratic journal, Russkoye Slovo, the prominent literary critic D. Pisarev and a group of his followers struggled boldly against reaction.
An organisation of student youth in Moscow that had connections in St. Petersburg sought ways and means of continuing the revolutionary struggle in the deep underground; this group was known by the name of its leader, N. Ishutin. They conducted revolutionary propaganda among the intelligentsia and tried to reach the people. In 1866, D. Karakozov, a member of the group, made an attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II. The shot he fired did not harm the tsar but Karakozov was hanged, and other members of the group were sentenced to long terms of penal servitude. Feudal-minded circles of the ruling class took advantage of this attempt on the life of the tsar to make the policy of the government 245 still more reactionary than before. Mass arrests were made and the journals Sovremennik and Russkoye Slovo were banned. The reactionaries, however, were unable to crush the spirit of revolt. A few years passed, and the early seventies saw a fresh upsurge of the emancipation movement.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Twenty-five years after the Peasant Reform, in some two-fifths of the gubernias of European Russia (mainly the older Central Russian gubernias) the landowners were still running their estates on the ``labour-service'' system,Twenty-five years after the Peasant Reform, in some two-fifths of the gubernias of European Russia (mainly the older Central Russian gubernias) the landowners were still running their estates on the ``labour-service'' system, which was a direct continuation of feudal corv\'ee service under capitalist conditions.
A capitalist economic system, based on the hire of labour and the use of agricultural machinery, took shape in many regions. But the level to which capitalism developed in the countryside was still low. Precapitalist economic forms displayed considerable resilience.
Substantial changes were occurring in the social structure of the countryside. The development of monetary relations and the need for punctual redemption and tax payments provided favourable ground for money-lending, and this in turn helped to bring about the destitution of the peasantry. The way was thus paved for the differentiation of the rural population and the emergence of a rural proletariat, on the one hand, and rich peasants, or kulaks, on the other.
Lenin detected two courses of agricultural development in the economic history of the Russia of the time. One of them, the ``Prussian'' course, named after the similar process that was taking place in Prussia, consisted in the gradual and slow conversion of the landowner's estate from a serf-based entity into a bourgeois unit through decades of expropriation and bondage of the bulk of the peasantry, and through the emergence of a certain number of "big peasants''. The second course, referred to as ``American'' after the example of agricultural development in North America, consisted in the conversion of the peasant into a capitalist farmer and involved the elimination of the landowner's estate.
The struggle of the peasants and the landowners was the struggle for the triumph of one course or the other.
The break-up of the peasantry provided a home market for Russian capitalism. The existence of landed estates worked in the feudal manner by the employment of labour service and the impoverished condition of a very large section of the peasantry greatly hampered the development of agriculture, causing a big lag in that branch of the economy. This backwardness could be seen in the frequent harvest failures and the famines that accompanied them (in 1873, 1880, 1891).
Capitalist development in industry was more rapid than in agriculture. The industrial revolution that had begun in the thirties and forties was, in the main, completed by the eighties; in the chief branches of industry factories had replaced petty production and manufactories.
Of the light industries, cotton goods production was developed with particular intensity, the centre being the Moscow industrial area; in the thirty years following the Peasant Reform of 1861, cotton fabric production increased fourfold. Beginning with the seventies, coal output rapidly increased (Donets Basin, Dabrowa Basin in Poland, etc.); 246 between 1871 and 1891 the increase was eightfold. The oil industry developed in the Baku area. Up to the seventies oil had been extracted in minute quantities, but by the end of the century the annual output reached ten million tons. The iron industry made a big advance when a new centre was opened in the Ukraine in addition to the old centre in the Urals. The engineering industry, only the germs of which existed prior to the Reform, underwent rapid development, with its centre in St. Petersburg.
In 1861, there were only 1,500 kilometres of railway in Russia, but in the twenty years that followed fifteen times this length of railway line was built.
An important feature of Russia's industrial development that must be stressed was the high degree of concentration in big and very big enterprises. In this respect Russia exceeded the most highly developed capitalist countries, including even the young and industrially powerful United States. However, small-scale, semi-peasant industry as well as medium-sized industry still accounted for a very significant proportion of the country's total industrial output.
Even big enterprises retained vestiges of the feudal past. This was particularly manifest in the low technological level and the reliance of the employers on various forms of subsidy from the exchequer.
Despite the rapid rate of industrial development after the Peasant Reform, Russia's industrial output was still relatively small, leaving her behind a number of countries in the West.
Home and foreign trade developed, and the turnover of some big enterprises inside the country increased by about 300 per cent during the last three decades of the century. The volume of foreign trade in the period from 1861 to the mid-nineties increased by about 250 per cent. Russia's chief exports were still agricultural produce, mainly grain. Grain was exported in the interests of the landowners and the state treasury, despite regular underconsumption by the working people of Russia, in an effort to ensure a favourable trade balance.
In the decades following the Reform a social process of great historical importance was under way---the formation of an industrial proletariat in Russia. There had been factory workers before the Reform, but the proletariat developed as a class only when big capitalist production had been fully established. The contingent of factory, mine and railway workers rapidly increased, being almost doubled between 1865 and 1890. This new contingent of industrial workers came mainly from the countryside, although the urban lower classes, including former petty bourgeoisie and artisans, helped swell the ranks of the workers.
Labour conditions in the factories, mines and railways and on building jobs were unbelievably harsh. Wages were beggarly, the working day was from 12 to 15 hours, and in some enterprises was extended even to sixteen or eighteen hours. Female and child labour was extensively employed and was paid at lower rates than the labour of adult males. Since no safety precautions existed, accidents were frequent, and living conditions were abominable. Unemployment was a real scourge, especially at times of crisis and depression from which industry frequently suffered. The workers possessed no rights of any kind and 247 were completely at the mercy of their employers, the employers' supervisors and the police. There were no legal (and, in the early days, no illegal) workers' organisations; any attempt to lessen exploitation 01 improve labour conditions was brutally suppressed.
On account of what has been said above it is clear that the cost of maintaining the labour force in Russia was much lower than in the more developed capitalist countries and the profits made by the employers were correspondingly higher. Huge profits were extracted from Russian industry (especially heavy industry) by foreign capitalists from France, Germany, Britain and Belgium. The influx of foreign capital, which had been very great in the eighties, reached a particularly high level in the nineties.
In these conditions of brutal exploitation and absence of all rights, the factory workers of Russia gradually took up the struggle against the forces that were inimical to them and to the entire people. The urban proletariat of Russia became the most progressive class in the country, the class that was to fulfil an historic mission, that of the leading force in the struggle for emancipation against the autocratic monarchy and the capitalist system. The growth of class consciousness among the proletariat and their mustering into an organised force was a process that took several decades.
The urban population grew rapidly as capitalism developed in Russia. In the period between the sixties and the second half of the nineties, the rural population increased by fifty per cent but the urban population increased by a hundred per cent. The towns were not only the leading centres of industry and commerce, they were also centres of the political and cultural life of the country, centres of the emancipation movement of the people. St. Petersburg (population 1,250,000 at the end of the century) and Moscow (population over 1,000,000 at that time) played the most important role in the political, economic and cultural life of Russia. Other big economic and cultural centres, and also centres of the revolutionary movement were Kiev, Odessa and Kharkov in the Ukraine, Riga in the Baltic area and Tiflis (Tbilisi) in the Transcaucasus. In the Kingdom of Poland two big centres were Warsaw and Lodz.
The growth of big industry, the formation of the proletariat, the differentiation of the peasantry, the capitalist evolution of the big landed estates, the growth of home and foreign trade --- all these features showed that capitalism was developing "in depth" in post-Reform Russia. At the same time, however, Russian capitalism was developing "in breadth".
Between 1864 and 1885, the territory of Central Asia inhabited by Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmenians was annexed to the Russian Empire. An important stage in this process of conquest was the capture of Tashkent in 1865.
A number of Kirghiz tribes that had formerly remained outside Russia began to join the Empire voluntarily in the fifties, so that by the second half of the seventies both Northern and Southern Kirghizia came under the rule of the Russian tsar.
Prior to the annexation of Central Asia, there had been three big khanates in that area---Kokand, Bukhara and Khiva. The first of these was abolished in 1876 and converted into Ferghana Region. The Emirate 248 of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva became the vassals of Russia and were actually controlled by the tsarist government. In the regions fully annexed to Russia a mixed military and civil administration was set up. In 1876, the province of Turkestan, headed by a Governor-General, was established with its centre at Tashkent, the biggest of the Central Asian towns.
The tsarist government pursued a policy of colonial oppression in Central Asia. The population suffered from the lawless acts of tsarist generals and civil servants and from the exploitation of Russian capitalists and the wealthy section of the local population. Turkestan was a centre providing cotton for Russian industry and a market for the sale of Russian manufactures.
Objectively, the annexation of Central Asia nevertheless was beneficial to its peoples. At the time of the annexation, the peoples of the region were living in feudal and even patriarchal-feudal conditions. With their inclusion in the Russian Empire relatively more progressive forms of capitalist economy began to penetrate into the area. The cultural level of the people began to improve, although very slowly, and the first secular schools were opened. It was of particular importance that the peoples of Central Asia established a closer contact with the Russian people and other peoples of Russia and joined them in their common revolutionary struggle. Thousands of Russian workers were employed in Central Asia, and a local proletariat began to take shape and to go through a school of political training in company with and under the influence of their Russian brothers. Central Asia as a whole, however, did not follow the path of the capitalist development. Small peasant farming, weighed down by debts to usurers and by numerous feudal duties, remained the chief form of economy in Turkestan throughout the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century.
Capitalism developed more rapidly in the Transcaucasus---in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. The Peasant Reform in this area was carried out somewhat later than in the Russian gubernias (1864--71) and the survivals of feudalism were greater. The peasants remained temporarily bound until the early twentieth century. These circumstances slowed down the development of capitalism but could not stop it. Big capitalist industry was established with capital from outside, foreign capital playing an important part, especially in the Baku oil industry. Two big centres of capitalist industry were Baku (oil) and Chiatura, where there were manganese mines. The extraction of coal and copper ore also developed. The big industrial enterprises in the Transcaucasus were staffed by workers of many nationalities --- Russians, Persians, Turkic peoples, Georgians and Armenians.
Capitalism penetrated into both industry and agriculture in Siberia too; Siberian industry was mainly extractive --- gold and coal. Some of the non-Russian peoples of Siberia were drawn into the orbit of capitalism (Yakuts, Buryats) but in most cases patriarchal-feudal and patriarchalclan relations dominated among the non-Russian peoples of Siberia.
The industries of the Ukraine and the Baltic provinces did not lag behind those of the Great Russian gubernias in their level of capitalist development, and agriculture in these areas (and also in Byelorussia and Lithuania) was more capitalist than in the Great Russian centre.
249The capitalist development of the country had a certain effect on the government's foreign policy. The Crimean War (1853--56) seriously undermined Russia's international position, but she did not lose her place as a great power and continued to exercise considerable influence in world affairs. Tsarist diplomacy, headed in this period by Prince Alexander Gorchakov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, tried to take advantage of the contradictions existing between the West European countries. At the time of the Franco-Prussian War (1870--71) Russia secured for herself the right to maintain a fleet in the Black Sea and to build fortifications in that area. This was of great importance in view of the interest of the Russian government in the Balkan Peninsula, where the peoples were engaged in a struggle against feudal Turkey.
In 1875, an insurrection broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1876, there was an uprising in Bulgaria, and in the same year Serbia and Montenegro began to fight against the Turks. Russia showed great sympathy for the struggle of the South Slav peoples, and indignation was expressed at the atrocities of the Turkish authorities and troops perpetrated against Slav fighters for emancipation. Many Russian democrats who wanted to help the oppressed peoples achieve freedom fought as volunteers in the ranks of the Slav insurgent armies. At the same time, Russian ruling circles and sections of society close to them (including the Slavophils headed by Ivan Aksakov) tried to use the Slav movement to strengthen and extend Russian influence in the Balkans.
The Serbo-Turkish War was used as an excuse for a war by Russia against Turkey; it began in April 1877 and was conducted on two fronts --- in the Balkans and in the Caucasus. Rumania at that time still dependent on Turkey entered into an alliance with Russia; Bulgarian volunteer armies also took part in the war.
In June 1877, the Russian army forced the Danube, after which there was a fierce battle in the vicinity of the Pleven fortifications. At the same time there was heavy fighting in the Shipka Pass through the Balkan Mountains which was heroically defended by Russian and Bulgarian troops. It was not until late November 1877 that the Russian army, which had received reinforcements, compelled the garrison of Pleven to surrender. At a somewhat earlier date the Russian army captured the fortress of Kars in the Caucasus. In December 1877, Russian troops crossed the Balkan Mountains under difficult winter conditions and occupied Sofia; in January 1878, they occupied Philippopolis and Adrianople and reached the vicinity of the Turkish capital, Constantinople. The Treaty of San Stefano (near Constantinople) was signed on February 19 under which Serbia, Rumania and Montenegro became independent, Bulgaria was declared an autonomous but formally tributary principality of Turkey with a territory stretching from the Danube to the Aegean Sea and from the Black Sea to Ohrid Lake. Bosnia and Herzegovina became autonomous. The strip of Bessarabia which Russia lost after the Crimean War was returned to her and she also obtained Batum, Kars and several other towns. Under pressure from Britain and Austria-Hungary, factually supported by Germany, the tsarist government was forced to consent to a revision of the Treaty of San Stefano. By the new Treaty of Berlin (1878) Bulgaria was partitioned into three parts of which only one (north of the Balkan Mountains) 250 remained an autonomous Bulgarian Principality, while the other two were tributary to Turkey under different conditions. Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under Austro-Hungarian protection and were later annexed by that country. Although the tsarist government pursued expansionist aims in the fight against Turkey and the burden of the war was borne entirely by the people of Russia, the war nevertheless played an important part in liberating the Balkan peoples from the Turkish yoke.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The late sixties and early seventies of the nineteenth century constituted a period of the gathering of forces of the young democratic intelligentsia which had suffered a heavy blow from the reactionaries after Karakozov's attempt on the life of Alexander II in 1866.The late sixties and early seventies of the nineteenth century constituted a period of the gathering of forces of the young democratic intelligentsia which had suffered a heavy blow from the reactionaries after Karakozov's attempt on the life of Alexander II in 1866. In 1868 and 1869, there were fresh disturbances among the students in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
The suffering of the peasants and their dreams of a better future met with sympathy among the democratic intellectuals.
The Paris Commune of 1871 made a profound impression on Russian intellectuals. The reactionary forces in Russia were hostile to the Commune, but democratic intellectuals, although most of them were unable to grasp fully the meaning of the events in Paris, expressed sincere sympathy with the fighting proletariat of the French capital and discontent with the brutal treatment of the Communards. There were some Russian revolutionaries among the fighters of the Commune.
In Russia great interest was displayed in the International Working Men's Association (First International) founded in London under the leadership of Karl Marx. The more radical section of the Russian youth obtained a better conception of the association when the Russian section was formed in 1870 in Geneva by a small group of revolutionaries living in exile; Marx himself represented the Russian section in the General Council of the International, and Marx's friend G. Lopatin, a prominent Russian revolutionary, at one time took part in the work of the Council.
Marx and Engels, the leaders of the world proletarian movement, had other contacts besides Lopatin; they were acquainted with a number of Russians prominent in politics and culture --- Lavrov, sociologist and revolutionary journalist; Danielson, economist; Kovalevsky, a wellknown scientist, and others. Marx and Engels were deeply interested in Russia's economic and political problems and followed the revolutionary struggle there with great sympathy. Their sympathy was not less because they did not share many of the views of the Russian revolutionaries of the seventies.
The Narodniks, the revolutionaries of the seventies, believed that Russia could by-pass the capitalist stage of development and go over directly to socialism or to a form of social organisation close to socialism. They saw a guarantee of this in the peasant commune, and they devoted all their efforts to making this possibility a reality.
It was typical of the Narodniks of the seventies that the most influential trends among them had a negative attitude to all forms of statehood and tried to avoid all political struggle. The Narodniks nevertheless believed that it would be possible to effect a radical and 251 all-embracing revolution in the foreseeable future, which revolution should, in their opinion, destroy the existing economic and political system. This apolitical attitude in the ideological field on the part of the Narodniks was overcome, although not completely, by the end of the seventies.
The "peasant socialism" of the Narodniks expressed the interests and aspirations of the peasants of Russia; it embodied the peasants' dream of complete emancipation from bondage to the landowners and civil servants, their dream of winning land, liberty and equality.
The Narodniks were divided into a number of groups. The views of Mikhail Bakunin (1814--1876), the ideologist of anarchism, won great popularity among them. Bakunin and his followers at one time joined the First International and tried to oust the leadership of the association, headed by Marx, and divert it into anarchist channels. Bakunin was expelled from the International in 1872 for his disorganising activities. The Russian Narodniks were impressed by Bakunin's implacable hostility to the Russian semi-feudal state, his passionate belief in the readiness of the masses to raise a rebellion and in the salutary role of a peasant revolt. Bakunin's followers were known as ``rebels'' because of this attitude.
Pyotr Lavrov (1823--1900), a former colonel and professor of mathematics at a military academy in St. Petersburg, escaped abroad from exile, where he headed another Narodnik group; this group rejected ``insurrectionism'' and stood for the necessity of preparing for a revolution mainly by means of propaganda.
Still another Narodnik group, numerically small, was led by the journalist and critic Pyotr Tkachov, a follower of the French Utopian socialist and revolutionary Blanqui. Tkachov placed all his faith in the conspiratorial activities of a minority of revolutionary intellectuals who would seize power and introduce ``socialist'' reforms from above by decree.
In the Russia of the seventies there were also many revolutionaries and revolutionary circles that occupied an intermediate position between the main trends. Out of the revolutionary underground of the period came many bold and active people who played an important part in the emancipation movement, people like Felix Volkhovsky, Mark Natanson, Sergei Kravchinsky, Prince Pyotr Kropotkin, Sophia Perovskaya, Sophia Bardina, the Figner sisters, Ippolit Myshkin, Andrei Zhelyabov and Nikolai Mprozov. Revolutionary propaganda, however, was being conducted in circles other than those of the intelligentsia; revolutionary propaganda had begun to reach factory workers in the big industrial centres, who, in turn, began to produce such outstanding revolutionary fighters as Victor Obnorsky, Pyotr Alexeyev and, somewhat later, Stepan Khalturin and Pyotr Moiseyenko. In the movement of the seventies the towns of the Ukraine as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg played an important part. There were also Narodnik circles in Byelorussia, Lithuania, Georgia and Armenia.
From 1873, the idea of direct activity among the peasants began to pervade the revolutionary milieu. In 1874, hundreds of revolutionary intellectuals moved into the countryside. This was known then as "going to the people''; revolutionaries, who dressed in peasant clothing, learned 252 __CAPTION__ Pyotr Alexeyev. Photo taken in the seventies of the nineteenth century various trades so that the peasants would not regard them as aristocrats, took with them a supply of revolutionary pamphlets calling on the people to struggle ruthlessly against the exploiters, and moved into the villages. They hoped to learn to know the people, to get closer to them and, on the other hand, to develop propaganda among them or even arouse them to rebellion.
The Narodniks went to the people fully convinced that the peasant, the muzhik, was the vehicle of communist ideals. Reality dispersed their far too optimistic illusions, and the government, furthermore, did not allow them to continue their experiment for any length of time. Numbers of these bold people were arrested and kept in prison for many years. The failure of the ``go-to-the-people'' movement helped others realise the need for a serious organisation of the revolutionary forces. A new secret society bearing the name of Zemlya i Volya (which must not be confused with a society of the same name that existed a decade earlier) emerged in 1876; it set out to create a strictly disciplined organisation of revolutionaries, which to a certain extent it succeeded in doing. Among those active in this society were Georgi Plekhanov and Alexander Mikhailov. In the seventies the Zemlya i Volya society did something to renew the Narodnik programme and tactics; the implementation of the ideals of anarchism and collectivism were pushed aside as being too distant an objective. The immediate aim was the transfer of all land to the peasantry and the liberation of the village commune from all its shackles, making it completely independent. In a number of gubernias the society established "village settlements" to ensure firm bonds with the peasants and draw them into the work of preparing a popular revolution. In a number of towns, especially in St. Petersburg, the Zemlya i Volya worked among the intelligentsia and the factory workers.
Despite the peasant disturbances that took place in many parts of the country in the seventies, the. Zemlya i Volya was unable to really establish contact with the peasants and draw them into organised revolutionary struggle.
In the towns in this decade the working-class movement was developing; every year there were dozens of strikes and disturbances among the workers. The workers protested against the lawless acts of the employers, their effort to make labour conditions still worse; they sometimes demanded wage increases and a reduction of the working day. An illegal organisation, the South-Russian Workers' Union, was 253 __CAPTION__ Andrei Zhelyabov. Photo taken in the seventies of the nineteenth century founded in Odessa in 1875 and kept going for nearly a year. In 1878, St. Petersburg workers managed to found the North-Russian Workers' Union, under the leadership of S. Khalturin, a cabinetmaker, and V. Obnorsky, a fitter. The aim of this union was "to overthrow the existing political and economic system of the state, as an extremely unjust system''. This aim was to be achieved, in the first place by winning political liberty. In this way progressive workers, although they had not completely freed themselves from the influence of Narodnik ideology, made the first open step towards a break with the anarchist and apolitical tendencies that pervaded the revolutionary movement. The programme of the North-Russian Workers' Union clearly expressed the idea of contact with the international working-class movement.
The revolutionary energy of the Russian proletariat that was to place it at the head of the entire emancipation movement in the country was already making itself felt in the seventies through the activities of its best people. During political trials the courageous, militant speeches of workers arraigned before the court were sometimes heard. The speech delivered in court by the weaver Pyotr Alexeyev (1877) created a very great impression; Alexeyev exposed the tsarist regime and prophesied that it would be swept away by a revolution of the people.
The revolutionary movement reached its highest level towards the end of the seventies when, for the second time after the Peasant Reform, there was a revolutionary situation in Russia. This was brought about by the Russo-Turkish War (1877--78) which, despite Russia's having achieved a victory, revealed the rottenness of the autocracy. There were great defects and many abuses in the way the troops were supplied, and their weapons were out of date. The disappointment and indignation aroused by the miscalculations of the tsarist generals in the conduct of operations, the needless sacrifice of soldiers served to increase discontent among various sections of the population. The unfavourable economic consequences of the war aggravated the situation---taxation was increased and the peasant farms went into decline. The diplomatic retreat of the tsarist government at the Berlin Congress also helped undermine the prestige of the authorities.
The seriousness of the political situation was expressed at the time of Vera Zasulich's attempt on the life of F. Trepov, the governor of St. Petersburg (1878). Zasulich, a Narodnik revolutionary, fired at Trepov in revenge for tortures inflicted on Bogolyubov, a member of the Zemlya i
[254] __CAPTION__ Stepan Khalturin. Photo taken in the seventies of the nineteenth century Volya, in a St. Petersburg prison. At a trial by jury Vera Zasulich was acquitted. The acquittal met with admiring approval among wide circles of the general public.After this the Narodniks began to resort more and more frequently to acts of political terror; in 1878, S. Kravchinsky assassinated Mezentsov, head of the gendarmerie; in 1879, A. Solovyov made an abortive attempt on the life of Alexander II and was arrested and sentenced to death.
A section of the Narodniks came to believe in individual terror as the most effective means of struggle for the overthrow of the autocracy and the winning of political liberty. The absence of widespread and durable contacts with the masses was one of the reasons for the emergence of the terrorist trend.
During the political crisis of 1878--81 there was considerable ferment among all sections of the population. The war had again aroused among the peasantry hopes of the redistribution of the land. The clashes between peasants and landowners that had become customary still continued in dozens of gubernias; there were also clashes with the rural authorities.
Towards the end of the seventies there were relatively big strikes in St. Petersburg, Moscow and qther towns. At this time the strike movement in Russia was still of a spontaneous nature, but in some of the St. Petersburg strikes in 1878 and 1879, worker and intellectual revolutionaries took part hand in hand.
The students made a substantial contribution to the social movement at the time of this second revolutionary situation. A number of disturbances occurred at Moscow and St. Petersburg universities, at the Academy of Medicine and Surgery and at technical schools, some of which were openly anti-government.
This new social movement was accompanied by a revival of liberalism. In the second half of 1878, the government appealed to the public for help in combating the revolutionary movement. Many Zemstvo Assemblies responded by sending Addresses to the tsar. In most cases the Addresses were an assurance of loyal sympathies and readiness to act in concert with the authorities, but some Zemstvos (Tver, Chernigov and Kharkov in particular) criticised the policy of the 255 __CAPTION__ Sophia Perovskaya. Photo taken in the seventies of the nineteenth century government and proposed liberal reforms and, in a more or less veiled form, the introduction of a constitution. In the spring of 1879, a secret congress of liberals was held in Moscow to bring about unity in the liberal movement.
In these circumstances, when there was widespread discontent and increased revolutionary activity, there were noticeable symptoms of wavering on the part of the government itself. Measures for combating the revolution were made more stringent in 1878 and 1879 and the authorities again resorted to the policy of terror and made extensive use of courts martial; revolutionaries were executed one after another. The persecutions and repressive measures did not bring peace even to the rulers themselves. "Nobody believes in the durability of the existing state of affairs,'' Minister of War Milyutin wrote in his diary in June 1879.
At the time Milyutin was making this entry, a secret congress of revolutionaries, supporters of the new political orientation, was held in Lipetsk. The differences existing in the Zemlya i Volya between those who advocated the old idea of apolitical struggle and those who favoured the struggle by regular acts of terror had reached a critical stage. Compromise decisions adopted by a Zemlya i Volya congress in Voronezh brought no results. In the summer of 1879, the society split into two revolutionary organisations, Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) and Chorny Peredel (General Redistribution, i.e., of the land).
In August 1879, the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya passed a death sentence on Tsar Alexander II. The members of the society expected the assassination of the Emperor to play an important part in the emancipation of their country.
The leaders of Narodnaya Volya were Andrei Zhelyabov, Alexander Mikhailov, Alexander Kvyatkovsky, Sophia Perovskaya, Vera Figner, Nikolai Morozov and Lev Tikhomirov, who later betrayed the cause of the revolution.
When the tsar was returning from the Crimea in November 1879, Narodnaya Volya terrorists organised the blowing-up of the railway line outside Moscow. The attempt failed. An explosion in the Winter Palace
256 in St. Petersburg set off by Stepan Khalturin in February 1880 on the instructions of Narodnaya Volya was also a failure since the tsar was not killed.After the explosion in the Winter Palace the country's rulers felt still less confident in themselves.lt was decided to institute a sort of dictatorship that could carry out a determined suppression of revolutionaries while playing up to the ``noble-minded'', as public men loyal to the tsar were called. Count M. Loris-Melikov, a general who had been prominent in the Russo-Turkish War, was selected to act as dictator.
The popular liberal newspaper Golos (The Voice) welcomed the appointment of Loris-Melikov and announced that "his dictatorship is a dictatorship of the heart and the mind''. This "dictatorship of the heart'', however, produced extremely little in the way of liberal institutions; there was a very slight slackening of the censorship, more polite language was used in addressing the Zemstvos; Count Dmitry Tolstoy, who was hated throughout the country, was removed from the post of Minister of Education, etc. But this "dictatorship of the heart" did not stop at anything in the persecution of radical elements who were fighting in the interests of the people.
The Narodnaya Volya party regarded the policy of Loris-Melikov as an attempt to isolate the revolutionaries and "to make the yoke of the old system comfortable for the man in the street to wear''. The party, therefore, did not cease its active struggle against the government of Alexander II. A ``hunt'' after the tsar that lasted eighteen months was finally successful---Alexander II was killed by Narodnaya Volya members in St. Petersburg on March 1, 1881.
In the period before March 1, when the assassination of the tsar was being organised, the Narodnaya Volya suffered heavy losses as a result of the arrest of a number of important leaders. After March 1, they suffered fresh attacks from the tsarist authorities.
After the assassination of the tsar, those members of the Narodnaya Volya Executive Committee who escaped arrest published an open letter to Alexander III, the new tsar, in which they promised to cease their terrorism if the government would declare a political amnesty and convene a popular assembly (for election to which there should be freedom of agitation) to reorganise the political and public life of Russia in accordance with the will of the people.
The Narodnaya Volya, however, was unable to stir up mass action to support its demands. Again the revolutionaries failed to receive the support of the liberals at a critical moment; the liberals confined themselves to timid appeals to continue the reforms and to vague murmurs about a constitution.
The working class of Russia still had no sound organisation of its own. The peasant movement was still sporadic and widely dispersed. For these reasons the new social movement that began in the years immediately following the Russo-Turkish War did not lead to a revolution. The tsarist government proved able to maintain its position; more than that, it went over to a more vigorous reactionary policy. For a year after March 1 there was a certain amount of hesitation and discord among ruling circles over the future orientation of home policy. Even the plans for convening a Zemsky Sobor, as suggested by Slavophile ideas, __PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 17--160 257 were considered. However, all this was soon abandoned and a lengthy period of the darkest reaction set in. The new Emperor Alexander III began his reign by executing members of the Narodnaya Volya; Zhelyabov, Sophia Perovskaya- and Kibalchich were hanged. The tsar expressed distaste for every progressive movement of the age, all of which he regarded as "lousy liberalism''. He was a firm believer in the policeman's truncheon and fully earned the nickname of "the policeman on the throne".
One of the chief figures behind the reactionary policy of the eighties and later was K. Pobedonostsev, the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod. He regarded the slightest concession to public opinion as "the ruin of Russia".
K. Pobedonostsev and D. Tolstoy, who became Minister of the Interior in 1882, had a powerful influence over Emperor Alexander III. Tolstoy was the bitter enemy of literature and the press and of all true education; he proved to be an exceptionally suitable minister for the implementation of the policy of the reactionary nobility that was triumphant throughout the reign of Alexander III. The tsarist government persecuted its political opponents, attacked the universities and the press, pursued a policy of unbridled infringement and curtailment of the rights of non-Russians, and set about a revision of the reforms of Alexander II to remove from them everything that was not to the liking of the reactionary landowners. The competency of the Zemstvos was curtailed still further, they were placed under stricter supervision, and election rules were changed to ensure a dominant place for the nobility. Similar ``counter-reforms'' affected the urban local government. The office of Rural Superintendent (selected from the nobility) was introduced; this official had great authority over the peasants.
The reactionaries of the eighties had their ideological headquarters in the newspaper Moskovskiye Vedomosti, edited by M. Katkoy, a master of political intrigue and slander. To all progressive Russians his name, like that of his friend and political confrere Pobedonostsev, became a synonym for obscurantism, retrogression and mockery of social forces.
The defeat of the revolutionaries resulted, in part, in the spread of defeatism and indifferentism in some sections of Russian society.
The voice of the liberal opposition became weaker than ever. The liberals no longer dreamed of extending political rights but concentrated on defending the little that had been achieved at the time of the reforms of Alexander II. Some of the former ``oppositionists'' defected to the side of the victorious reactionaries. The theory of "petty advances'', the rejection of ``heroism'' and "reconciliation with reality" were widely preached; a process of degradation had set in among the Narodniks in the eighties.
It was under these circumstances that the trend known as Tolstoyism emerged. Leo Tolstoy began to preach against violent resistance to evil and appealed for personal moral perfection as the only true means of overcoming the misfortunes of mankind. Tolstoy himself combined his propaganda of "non-resistance to evil" with a bold and biting exposure of the exploitation of the masses, the oppression of the people by the ruling classes, the government machine and the official church. Among Tolstoy's followers there were many people who were impressed by the 258 weaker, false elements in Tolstoy's doctrine --- the appeal to be humble and the condemnation of revolutionary activity.
It would, however, be a mistake to regard the eighties as a period of decline only. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Shelgunov and other writers and journalists from among the democrats fought vigorously against the ideas of ``non-resistance'' and "petty advances''. To their voices were added those of the younger intellectuals who would not reconcile themselves to the foul reality of their day and sought ways of conducting a revolutionary struggle against it.
Student disorders broke out time and again during the reign of Alexander III; they were particularly widespread in 1887 and 1890. Among those who took part in the student disturbances at Kazan University at the end of 1887 was seventeen-year-old Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), the future leader of the revolutionary proletariat and the Communist Party, the founder of the Soviet state. That same year, but a few months earlier, a group of student revolutionaries had been executed in Schliisselburg Fortress near St. Petersburg for an attempt on the life of Alexander III. The leader of this group was Lenin's elder brother, Alexander Ulyanov.
Nor did the peasant disturbances cease; they broke out first in one place, then in another.
The most important feature in the social and political life of Russia and of the emancipation struggle of the eighties and nineties was the increase in the number of mass actions on the part of the workers and the emergence of Social-Democracy in Russia.
Between 1881 and 1890, there were more than 450 separate actions undertaken by workers, with several hundred thousand workers participating. The strike of 8,000 workers at the textile mills in Orekhovo-Zuyevo (near Moscow) in 1885 marked an important turningpoint in the history of the Russian working-class movement. The governor arrived on the scene and was presented with "demands drawn up with the common consent of the workers''. Among these demands was the adoption of state legislation to impose a limit on fines and deductions, and to control the terms on which workers were hired and dismissed, and the establishment of state control over changes in rates, etc. This strike at the Morozov Cotton Mills was distinguished by its organised character and by the staunchness displayed by the workers in their struggle both against the factory management and against the troops called out to put down the strike. One of the strike leaders was Pyotr Moiseyenko, who in the past had been a member of the North-Russian Workers' Union. Hundreds of workers from the Morozov Mills were banished to Siberia without trial and others were tried in court. The trials were of such a nature that even reactionary newspapers said that "the labour question" had emerged in Russia.
The Morozov strike was followed by other big actions. The government, alarmed by the working-class movement, in 1886 promulgated a law that was intended to curtail arbitrary actions on the part of capitalists in levying fines on their workers.
The development of capitalism in Russia, the increase in the number of factory workers, the growing frequency of strikes, the gradual growth of political consciousness among the workers all served to draw the __PRINTERS_P_259_COMMENT__ 17* 259 attention of the more politically keen section of the democratic intellectuals to the proletariat and its struggle and prepared the ground for the birth of a Social-Democratic movement in Russia.
The pioneer of Social-Democracy in Russia was Georgi Plekhanov (1856--1918). While still a student of the St. Petersburg Mining Institute in the mid-seventies, Plekhanov joined the Narodnik revolutionary movement and became one of the most prominent members of the Zemlya i Volya society. When the terrorist movement began, Plekhanov was among its opponents; he became one of the founders, together with P. Axelrod, O. Aptekman and V. Zasulich, of the Chorny Peredel organisation. On account of police persecution he went abroad; he and a number of his companions began to lose faith in the Narodnik methods of struggle. They undertook a profound study of the theory of Marx and Engels and of the experience of the European working-class movement; by 1882--83 they had broken completely with Narodnik theory and, at the end of 1883, the first Russian Social-Democratic group was formed abroad under Plekhanov's ideological guidance. This group was known as the Emancipation of Labour group and consisted of G. Plekhanov, P. Axelrod, V. Zasulich, L. Deutsch and V. Ignatov.
The Emancipation of Labour group translated into Russian and distributed many of the writings of Marx and Engels, and published Plekhanov's books Socialism and the Political Struggle and Our Differences. In the early period of his work as a Marxist, Plekhanov also wrote his well-known book The Development of the Monist View of History.
Plekhanov was a champion of the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism and one of its most talented propagandists. He elaborated problems of Marxist sociology constructively, counterposing the doctrine of historical materialism to the unscientific, idealist "subjective method in sociology" that was widespread among the Narodniks. Plekhanov rejected the views of the Narodniks and showed that Russia was at that time already developing steadily and irrevocably along capitalist lines; he called on the progressive youth to devote their ene gy to the organisation of the working class and to inculcate socialist consciousness in the workers. He was firmly convinced that the fate of the revolution in Russia depended on the success of the working-class movement and insisted on the absolute need for a Marxist SocialDemocratic working-class party in Russia. He made it clear that the Russia of that day was not approaching a socialist revolution, as the Utopian Narodniks believed, but a bourgeois-democratic revolution.
There were, however, some weak points in the views held by Plekhanov and his associates. At times they underestimated the role of the peasantry as the ally of the proletariat in the revolutionary struggle: sometimes they tended to overestimate the role of the bourgeoisie in the coming emancipation movement. In the eighties and nineties these fallacies were apparent only in embryonic form, but later they led Plekhanov to side with the opportunist Mensheviks.
The emergence of the Emancipation of Labour group, whose members were personally acquainted with Engels and enjoyed his support, was of great social significance. Despite the sharp attacks made on them by Narodnik critics, the views of the group and their writings, when they 260 __CAPTION__ Georgi Plekhanov. Photo taken in the eighties of the nineteenth century reached Russia, gradually won over young intellectual and working-class revolutionaries to the side of Marxism.
In the eighties and early nineties a number of Marxist-study circles and groups were functioning in Russia. The first in point of time ,was the group headed by D. Blagoyev, a Bulgarian student who later became prominent in the Social-Democratic and communist movement in Bulgaria. Parallel with Blagoyev's group was the circle in St. Petersburg run by Tochissky; in the eighties and early nineties, the Brusnev group also conducted Social-Democratic propaganda in St. Petersburg. Apart from those in St. Petersburg there were Marxist groups and study circles in Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, Kazan, Vilnius, Minsk and other towns. The first Social-Democrats in Kazan and in the Volga area were headed by N. Fedoseyev, a talented and courageous revolutionary, whose group was joined by young Lenin at the end of the eighties. The activities of the first Social-Democratic groups was of a relatively limited nature. They were concentrated in small propaganda circles whose purpose was to explain the fundamentals of the Marxist doctrine and train politically 261 conscious Social-Democrats from among progressive workers and intellectuals. This work, however, was important in that it prepared the way for the next stage, the stage closely connected with, the name of Lenin.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The collapse of serfdom and the development of capitalism, the imposing growth of the revolutionary movement and the increasing activity of the masses and the break-down of the old way of life connected with these changes were determining factors in the development of the culture of the Russian people and other peoples inhabiting Russia.The collapse of serfdom and the development of capitalism, the imposing growth of the revolutionary movement and the increasing activity of the masses and the break-down of the old way of life connected with these changes were determining factors in the development of the culture of the Russian people and other peoples inhabiting Russia.
The post-Reform period was marked by increased literacy among the population and developments in education.
Problems of education were widely discussed in the press, and progressive journals devoted to pedagogical problems made their appearance. Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov and Pisarev had decisively exposed the routine and stagnation in educational affairs and had stressed the close connection between the struggle for education and culture with the general tasks of the emancipation movement. It was in this period that a number of brilliant thinkers and practitioners in the field of pedagogy made their appearance, Nikolai Pirogov (a famous surgeon and scientist) and Konstantin Ushinsky being the best known. Leo Tolstoy also made an important contribution to the development of pedagogy.
One of the finest features of the social and pedagogical movement carried out in many towns was the campaign to organise schools for the people where classes were held on Sundays; this campaign was carried out mainly by students. In the early sixties the government had forbidden these Sunday schools. Later the needs of economic development compelled the government to institute certain reforms in education (elementary, secondary and higher) which made for some progress. As reaction increased, supervision over the schools by civil servants, the clergy and powerful members of the nobility was made stricter. Very many children of school age still remained outside the schools. A relatively good type of elementary school in the rural areas was that run by the Zemstvos; the worst were the church parish schools.
At the time of the Peasant Reform there were 85 boys' gymnasia (the main type of secondary school) in Russia with a total enrolment of about 25,000. Twenty-five years later there were three times as many schools and the enrolment was more than 70,000. Measures adopted by the government that were clearly intended to prevent children from the lower classes ``(cooks' sons'') from obtaining a secondary education reduced the number of gymnasia (and semi-gymnasia) pupils. In addition to the gymnasia there were also commercial and other schools.
Under pressure of public opinion, secondary education for women was introduced, and in the early nineties there were 300 girls' secondary schools of various types with as many as 75,000 pupils.
262 __CAPTION__ Dmitrv Mendeleyev. Photo, 1900The post-Reform period was also marked by some improvements in higher education. Several new universities were opened and the number of university students increased from 5,000 to 14,000 between the mid-sixties and the mid-nineties. In 1863, the universities were granted a semi-liberal charter which helped improve university education. The government, however, soon began to violate its own charter and in 1884, introduced a new, purely reactionary charter. In addition to the increase in the number of universities, higher vocational schools also developed---the Medical and Surgical (later Military-Medical) Academy, the Technological, Mining, Railway and Electrical Engineering institutes, the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, and others. A beginning was made with higher education for women.
Despite the difficult conditions in which the social sciences developed, some important successes were achieved, mainly outside the walls of the universities and the Academy of Sciences. A decisive role was played by the revolutionary democrats (Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Herzen, 263 __CAPTION__ Ivan Sechenov. Painted by Repin, 1889 Pisarev) and, later, the Marxists. There were many scientists outside the circle of revolutionary democrats who did excellent work in the humanities. Engels wrote that in Russia there was critical thought and valiant searching in the field of pure theory that were worthy of the nation that produced Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky. He also said that the Russian school of history and criticism was infinitely higher than anything that had been created in Germany and France by official historians.
Among the works on the history of Russia written by bourgeois historians, the writings of S. Solovyov and V. Klyuchevsky deserve special attention. Valuable research into the history of the peasantry was done by V. Semevsky, a Narodnik adherent. Russian students of West European history ---M. Kovalevsky, N. Kareyey, I. Luchitsky and P. Vinogradov --- became very authoritative. An independent Russian school studying the eighteenth-century French revolution grew up. A. Pypin, A. Potebnya (brother of the hero of the Polish uprising in 1863) and A. Veselovsky made important contribution to the history of Russian and Western literature and to linguistics. The work of 264 __CAPTION__ Nikolai Nekrasov. Painted by Kramskoi, 1877 I. Minayev, V. Rozen, V. Radlov and others in the study of the culture of the Orient were a big contribution to Orientalogy; Byzantine and Slav studies continued to attract the serious attention of scholars.
The spread and development of Marxism in Russia had the greatest significance for the development of the humanities. Plekhanov laid the foundations of Russian political economy, Russian Marxist philosophy, historiography and literary criticism on Marxist lines. With the appearance of Lenin's first writings a new stage in the development of Marxism opened, and scientific thought was raised to an unprecedentedly high level.
Considerable progress was apparent in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering in Russia from the sixties onward. Russian scientists, of course, worked in close collaboration with those of other countries.
Russian mathematics and mechanics became widely known through the works of P. Chebyshev, A. Lyapunov, A. Markov, S. Kovalevskaya. A. Stoletov made important discoveries in the field of photo-- 265 electric phenomena and, at the end of the nineteenth century, A. Popov invented the first wireless apparatus.
F. Bredikhin's study of the comets led to discoveries of worldwide importance. The names of the Russian chemists A. Butlerov, author of the theory of chemical structure, and D. Mendeleyev, who discovered the periodic law of chemical elements, are known everywhere. The geologist Y. Fyodorov laid the foundations of modern crystallography, and another geologist, A. Karpinsky (he was for many years President of the Academy of Sciences), made many important discoveries. V. Dokuchayev laid the foundations of soil science and his pupil V. Vernadsky later founded the science of geochemistry.
Progress made in biology in Russia was closely connected with the mastery of Darwin's theory and its further development. Kliment Timiryazev, the great Russian botanist who did very important work on the photosynthesis of plants and was one of the founders of the science of agronomy, successfully defended Darwinism against its enemies in Russia and abroad. Ivan Michurin, the famous "transformer of nature'', a follower of Darwin, began his scientific work in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Alexander Kovalevsky and Ilya Mechnikov were pioneers in the field of comparative embryology whose discoveries played an important part in the study of the evolution of the animal kingdom. Mechnikov is also famous for his work in the sphere of medicine; another great medical scientist of the period was S. Botkin. Kovalevsky's brother, Vladimir, whose work was highly appreciated by Darwin, was the real founder of the science of evolutionary palaeontology. Ivan Sechenov is justly named "the father of Russian physiology''. His successor was Ivan Pavlov, who began his researches in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century, although his greatest work was done during the first three decades of the twentieth century.
The discoveries of Russian geographers made a splendid contribution to our knowledge of the world; the names of P. Semyonov-Tyanshansky, N. Przhevalsky, G. Potanin and others are well known; the famous traveller and explorer of Oceania and Indonesia, N. Miklukho-Maklai, was a fervent opponent of the colonial system of oppression and of racism who ardently defended the rights and dignity of the individual.
A prominent place in the list of Russian nineteenth-century technical achievements belongs to the electrical engineers A. Lodygin ( incandescent lamp) and P. Yablochkov (arc lamp and alternating-current transformer). The army engineer A. Mozhaisky built the world's first aircraft. Among many other technical achievements the works of Chernov, the founder of the modern science of metallurgy, deserve special mention.
Literature continued to occupy the important place in cultural, social and political life that it had occupied in the first half of the century. The leading critics Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, then Pisarev and later (despite his theoretical errors) Mikhailovsky continued the traditions of Belinsky, upholding the principle of the close contact between literature and real life, and the need for literature to further the aspirations of the people. Critical realism was the main trend in literature; the writing of the period attempted to give the broadest possible picture of reality and 266 __CAPTION__ Ivan Turgenev. Photo taken in the early eighties of the nineteenth century to reflect the life of the various strata of society. It revealed social injustice and supported progressive social ideals. The national spirit, democracy and patriotism, the struggle for social justice, defence of the rights and interests of the people and of the individual were the main features of the progressive literature of the time.
There were, of course, also supporters of reaction among writers, but they did not have any great social significance and they left but few traces in the history of literature.
The period between the fifties and the seventies was the most flourishing period of the Russian novel. In this period Turgenev produced a long series of socio-psychqlogical novels (the best known are Rudin, A Nest of the Gentry, On the Eve, Fathers and Sons, Virgin Soil) and with the power of a real poet reflected the stages of the ideological development of Russian society. Turgenev has been called "the writer most sensitive to the heartbeat of Russia''; he was at the same time in close contact with the literary life of the West.
267 __CAPTION__ Leo Tolstoy. Painted by Repin, 1887One of Turgenev's contemporaries was Ivan Goncharov, best known for his novels The Same Old Story, Oblomov and The Chasm. The novel Oblomov gave the Russian language the word ``oblomovshchina'', a synonym for feudal parasitism, passivity and stagnation.
The great novelists, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, produced their finest books in the second half of the century.
Andre Maurois, the French novelist, said that never before had anything more splendid and more essential to people than War and Peace and Anna Karenina been written. In War and Peace, Anna Karenina and Resurrection, and in his shorter stories and plays (The Power of Darkness, The Fruits of Education, The Living Corpse), Leo Tolstoy, a great genius with an unsurpassed knowledge of human psychology, .painted amazingly realistic pictures of the life of the Russian peasantry and of the upper strata of society at various periods of development in the course of a whole century. Lenin called Tolstoy the "mirror of the Russian revolution''. Tolstoy's philosophy and his writings expressed the strong and weak sides of the peasant's outlook on the world and the peasant's struggle. He hated feudal and capitalist exploitation, the state, 268 __CAPTION__ Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Painted by Perov, 1872 the ruling class, the established church and militarism. Nevertheless he alienated himself subjectively from the revolution and sought salvation for people in the rejection of all violence, even revolutionary violence, and in the moral perfection of the individual.
As an outstanding realist Tolstoy had a great influence on the development of Russian and world literature; the character of this influence, however, was felt differently by different writers. There are writers and men prominent in public life both in the East and in the West who seize upon the weak aspects of Tolstoy's literary legacy and close their eyes to the exposures in his books, to the powerful spirit of protest in them. There are, however, far more writers and artists who learned and are now learning from Tolstoy how to serve mankind, how to reflect ruthlessly the truth of life and to hate social evil and war. Such famous writers as Anatole France and Remain Rolland, John Galsworthy and Bernard Shaw were among those who appreciated Tolstoy and followed the example of his realism.
The story of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's life was a complicated one. In the sixties and seventies, after he returned from the penal servitude to 269 __CAPTION__ Alexander Ostrovsky. Painted by Perov, 1871 which he had been sentenced for his connections with the Petrashevsky group, he published The House of the Dead, The Insulted and Humiliated, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Devils, A Raw Youth and The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevsky was a psychologist of genius who had an acute perception of the contradictions of contemporary life and who revealed the intricate and tormenting experience of the individual under the power of money. Dostoyevsky showed tremendous sympathy for all the oppressed and downtrodden and dreamed passionately of a morally pure and beautiful life. He did not know the true path to the achievement of his ideal and tried to find salvation in religious faith, in humility and submission. Such ideas at times interfered with the realistic structure of his works and led him into an overt and covert polemic with revolutionary circles.
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin was a great satirist; his Provincial Sketches, The History of a Town, The Golovlyov Family, Poshekhonye Antiquities, Tales and other writings are inimitable in their manner of 270 __CAPTION__ Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. Painted by Kramskoi, 1879 presentation and are equal in their expressiveness to the best works of satire in world literature. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote as the true friend of the people and the menacing exposer of their enemies, the autocracy, the serf-owners, the predatory capitalist profit hunters and the thick-skulled and wilful civil servants.
Nikolai Nekrasov, the great bard of the people, the poet who sang of their sorrows and suffering and of their greatness, courage and strength, was a contemporary of Saltykov-Shchedrin. In his poetry, which was truly the poetry of the people (his greatest poem --- Who Lives Well in Russia?), and in his work as editor of the finest journals of his day, Sovremennik and Otechestvenniye Zapiski(Fatherland Notes), Nekrasov upheld the principles of his friends Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov.
Another writer closely connected with the revolutionary movement was Gleb Uspensky, whose sympathies were with the Narodniks, but who was able to make a profound and serious analysis of the contradiction in rural life.
271 __CAPTION__ Modest Moussorgsky. Painted by Repin, 1881New writers who appeared in the eighties were Vladimir Korolenko, Anton Chekhov and Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak, the author of a series of brilliant novels on the manners and customs and social life of the Urals industrial area. Their activities continued into the succeeding decades.
As we have said, critical realism was the main trend in Russian literature in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was, however, not the only trend; the prominent poets Apollon Maikov, Yakov Polonsky, Afanasy Fet, Alexei Tolstoy and several others were supporters of the "pure art" trend.
The second half of the nineteenth century is a most fruitful period in the history of Russian music.
The sixties and seventies have been called the period of "storm and stress" in Russian music, the time, the coterie of composers known in the West as the Big Five was active; this coterie consisted of Mily Balakirev, Modest Moussorgsky, Alexander Borodin, Nikolai RimskyKorsakov and Cesare Kui. The name of the critic Vladimir Stasov is closely bound up with those of the Big Five. These composers were to a great extent brought up on the democratic literature of the enlighteners; the ideas of art's great social mission and the connection between art and the social and political demands of the people permeated all their work. They recognised their own kith and kin in the people and found in folk 272 __CAPTION__ Pyotr Chaikovsky. Photo taken in the seventies of the nineteenth century art, the art of the people, an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Realism (frequently strangely intertwined with progressive romanticism), national originality and love of the people were the basic principles on which their music was founded.
The Big Five accepted and developed the legacy left them by Glinka and Dargomyzhsky and at the same time studied the work of the Western composers; closest to them in spirit were Beethoven, Schumann, Berlioz, Liszt and Chopin.
The Big Five wrote a number of famous operas --- Moussorgsky's two popular musical dramas Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, RimskyKorsakov's Pskovityanka and Borodin's great epic Prince Igor. RimskyKorsakov outlived the Big Five, and after it had ceased to exist as a coterie, composed a number of works in his favourite genre, the opera fantastique, the fairy-tale opera, among them the famous May Night, Snow Maid and Sadko.
The Big Five made a splendid contribution to symphonic and chamber music, their symphonies, in particular, being distinguished by their lyricism and by their epic and heroic character.
The second half of the century gave the world the great musical genius Pyotr Chaikovsky. Chaikovsky's work has its roots in the same period as __PRINTERS_P_273_COMMENT__ 18--1611 273 that of the Big Five, the sixties of the nineteenth century, although he was at the height of his power between the seventies and the nineties.
Chaikovsky was a master of the opera, his greatest works in that sphere being Yevgeny Onegin and The Queen of Spades. Chaikovsky's ballets (The Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcraker) enriched the world of music and were, at the same time, a new word in the history of choreography. His contribution to symphony and chamber music was tremendous and the equal of that of Mozart, Beethoven and other geniuses of world culture.
The Big Five developed the Russian epic symphony, while Chaikovsky may be regarded as the founder of the lyrical-dramatic symphony in Russia. Like the Big Five, he was a profound believer in the social mission of music. His work was infinitely sincere, it possesses warmth and is deeply psychological; it embodies in sound the themes, ideas and images of both Russian (Pushkin, Gogol, Ostrovsky) and Western literary classics (Dante, Shakespeare, Schiller, Byron), although Chaikovsky, in his musical idiom and his ideological and artistic methods, remained a purely national composer to the end of his life.
Another prominent composer and musical critic was Alexander Serov who wrote three operas in the sixties --- Judith, Rogneda and Hostile Power.
The founder of the first Russian conservatoire in St. Petersburg, Anton Rubinstein, was a very prolific composer. His lyrical opera Daemon, pianoforte pieces, songs and vocal cycle (Persian Songs) are still popular today.
In the eighties and nineties there appeared a new generation of composers---S. Taneyev, A. Glazunov, A. Lyadov, A. Arensky, V. Kalinnikov, M. Ippolitov-Ivanov, A. Grechaninov and, the youngest of them, S. Rakhmaninov and A. Skriabin.
The second half of the century was marked as well by the rise of considerable executive talent in the world of music. The Mariinsky Opera Theatre in St. Petersburg gave the world such talented singers as Petrov, Lavrovskaya, Leonova, Stravinsky and the Figners, husband and wife. At this time Khokhlov and Korsov were singing at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow; Anton Rubinstein rivalled Liszt as a pianist.
In addition to the opera theatres, Russian cultural life was enriched by the development of the drama theatre, which, from the fifties onward, was closely connected with the name of Alexander Ostrovsky. He wrote something like fifty plays, the best known of them being Between Near Relatives No Accounts Are Needed, Easy Earnings, The Storm, The Forest, Wolves and Sheep, and The powerless Bride. Ostrovsky had a profound knowledge of the Russian life of his day and was a master of dialogue! as a democrat he boldly exposed the "kingdom of darkness'', as he called the world of the merchant and landowner classes, but at the same time portrayed that which was best and most noble in human nature.
Nineteenth-century Russian drama was further enriched by the work of A. Sukhovo-Kobylin, A. Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, A. Tolstoy, and M. Saltykov-Shchedrin; at the en.d of the century Anton Chekhov began writing his famous plays. The works of foreign playwrights produced on the Russian stage were also extremely popular; these included the plays 274 __CAPTION__ Sergei Rakhmaninov. Photo taken in 1902 of such giants as Shakespeare, Moliere, Lope de Vega, Schiller and Hugo.
First place among the Russian theatres of the day was held by the Maly Theatre in Moscow, although its priority was challenged by the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
The history of the Russian theatre is marked by a number of ``dynasties''---the Sadoyskys in Moscow, the Samoilovs in St. Petersburg and the Vasilyevs in both cities; most prominent among them was Prov Sadovsky, the friend of Ostrovsky and the interpreter of his characters; Sadovsky continued the stage work begun by Shchepkin. The leading actors and actresses of the Maly Theatre of the period were G. Fedotova, O. Sadovskaya, A. Yuzhin-Sumbatov and A. Lensky; M. Yermolova, one of the world's greatest tragic actresses, played in the Maly Theatre from the seventies of the nineteenth century to the twenties of the twentieth century.
The period under review saw the rise of the national Russian school of realistic and democratic painting. Vasily Perov produced his satirical works of exposure in the late fifties and early sixties. In 1863, there __PRINTERS_P_275_COMMENT__ 18* 275 __CAPTION__ Ivan Franko. Engraving occurred the famous "revolt of the fourteen'', a group of graduates from the Academy of Arts who defied the Academy in their loyalty to the ideals of national, realistic art. The leader of the group of ``rebels'' was Ivan Kramskoi who headed the newly formed Artists' Co-operative. Somewhat later, 1870--71, the Association of Mobile Art Exhibitions was formed under the leadership of Ivan Kramskoi, Vasily Perov, Nikolai Ghe and Grigory Myasoyedov, and was actively supported by Vladimir Stasov, the critic. The principles underlying the work of the Association were truth to life, simplicity, naturalness, direct connection with the interests of the people and democratic ideology. They wanted to acquaint as many of the public as possible with works of art and for this reason moved their annual exhibitions from town to town.
The artists of the Association covered a wide range of subjects; an important place in their work was occupied by social themes that enabled them to display their attitude to contemporary reality. Historical paintings, portraits and landscapes were also well represented. The artists A. Savrasov, I. Shishkin, V. Polenov, A. Kuinji, and F. Vasilyev were famous for their landscapes; V. Makovsky, K. Savitsky, 276 V. Maximov and N. Nevrev devoted their attention to genre painting, while I. Repin, one of Russia's great artists and a painter of world renown, worked in all fields.
Repin and all the members of the Association were connected spiritually with the emancipation movement in Russia. In his paintings Repin depicted many episodes from this movement---"The Arrest of a Propagandist'', "Refusal of Extreme Unction'', ``Unawaited''---all powerful canvases. He produced brilliant pictures of the life of the people and Russian types of the period in his "Volga Boatmen" and "Procession of the Cross in Kursk Gubernia''. His historical picture, "Ivan the Terrible'', was a passionate protest against absolutism. Repin left to posterity a magnificent gallery of portraits of his contemporaries. Other portrait painters whose paintings were distinguished by profound psychology were Kramskoi, Perov, Ghe and Yaroshenko, followed in the eighties and nineties by Valentin Serov, master of the psychological portrait.
Victor Vasnetsov skilfully illustrated themes from the Russian fairy-tales and folk-tales, and Vasily Vereshchagin, who exposed militarism and colonial oppression, made striking innovations in the painting of the battle scenes.
Among the great works of Russian art are the historical paintings of Vasily Surikov. The eighties saw the appearance of his "Morning of the Execution of the StreltsF', "Menshikov in Beryozovo" and "Boyarynya Morozova''; somewhat later he painted "Yermak's Conquest of Siberia'', "Suvorov Crossing the Alps" and "Stepan Razin".
Troika. Painted by Vasily Perov, 1866
[277]Among the sculptors of the period M. Antokolsky acquired world fame; his work was close in spirit to that of the painters of the Association of Mobile Art Exhibitions. Opekushin created a number of well-known monuments, among them the Pushkin statue in Moscow.
The culture of the non-Russian peoples in the post-Reform period developed under the great influence of Russian" culture. The more progressive people of the nationalities oppressed by tsarism saw in the Russian democratic intellectuals allies and friends in the common struggle against the autocracy.
Russian literature played an important role in the development of cultural ties between the Russian and non-Russian peoples. Ilya Chavchavadze, the Georgian writer, showed that every writer and every other person prominent in public affairs in Georgia had experienced the influence of Russian literature. Chavchavadze's statement may be equally well applied to workers in the field of culture among all other nationalities in Russia.
Even after the Reform, all cultural activities among the peoples of Russia were conducted with the greatest difficulty. The tsarist government forbade the printing of books in a number of languages, instruction in schools was not given in the native language and only Russian was used in government institutions; the Russification of the non-Russian peoples was intensified. Nevertheless, many of the peoples of Russia, supported by the progressive forces of the Russian nation, produced a number of cultural values.
This is primarily true of literature. Shortly before the Peasant Reform Taras Shevchenko returned from exile; his best work, the finest expression of his revolutionary ideals, belongs to the last years of his life (he died in 1861). Marko Vovchok wrote in both Russian and Ukrainian; she was the author of a number of realistic novels. Panas Mirny's writings give a realistic picture of the Ukrainian countryside and the people he loved; they deal with the post-Reform period. Ivan Franko, poet and prose writer, playwright and critic, lived in Galicia, in Western Ukraine; he was a revolutionary democrat who also came under the influence of Marxist ideas. Byelorussian literary history of the period records two poets of distinction, Frantsisk Bogushevich and Yanka Luchina.
Great names in Georgian literature were those of Ilya Chavchavadze and Akaki Tsereteli, both of whom wrote poetry and prose; they were progressive writers whose works exposed serfdom and the autocracy and played their part in the struggle for national liberation. Somewhat later Vazha Pshavela wrote his inspired verses in praise of his native landscapes; Pshavela was a poet who raised a voice of protest in his freedom-loving works.
Mikael Nalbandyan, revolutionary, journalist and poet, a friend of Herzen, did much to promote the cultural and social development of Armenia. A realist playwright of the period was Gabriel Sundukyan. The work of Alexander Shirvan-zade, democratic writer, began at the end of the seventies and in the early eighties.
Kazakh classical literature begins with the work of Abai Kunanbayev, poet and educator, a champion of Russian-Kazakh friendship. In the sixties the famous folk bard (akyri) Jambul Jabayev first became known.
278 __CAPTION__ Akaki Tseieteli. PhotoThe progressive movement in Tajik culture was headed by the writer Ahmad Donish and in Uzbek cultuie by the poets Furkat and Mukimi.
In this period there were important cultural developments in the Baltic provinces. In Estonia in the eaiiy sixties, the famous folk epic, Kalevipoeg, compiled by F. Kreizwald, was published. The poem Lacplesis by the Lettish poet and patriot A. Pumpur was based on themes from folklore.
The first writings of Sholom ileichem, the Jewish satirist and humourist, who was then living inthe Ukraine, date back to the late seventies.
There was also a considerable development of music among the non-Russian peoples in the second half of the century. In the Ukraine the composer Lysenko, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov's, wrote a number of operas, among them Taras Bulba; lysenkp was an ardent collector and student of Ukrainian folk music. Song festivals that later became annual events were first launched in Estonia in 1869 and in Latvia in 1873. The Latvian composers Jazep Vitol, Andreas Jurian and Ernest Vigner were 279 all pupils of Rimsky-Korsakov and Chaikovsky. The Georgian composer Meliton Balanchivadze was also a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov's.
The Ukrainian national theatre functioned under unfavourable conditions. The first professional theatre troupe in the Ukraine was formed in the early eighties; it produced plays by the best Ukrainian playwrights---I. Karpenko-Kary (Tobilevich), M. Staritsky and M. Kropivnitsky. Most famous on the Ukrainian stage was Maria Zankovetskaya.
In Georgia the professional theatre developed earlier, due to the work and participation of the writers Eristavi, Tsereteli and Chavchavadze.
In Armenia the successes of the national theatre are linked with the names of Sundukyan and Gevorg Chmshkyan (actor and playwright who founded the national theatre in the early sixties).
Artists of many of the nationalities inhabiting Russia did a great deal to develop their national art. The ideas of the Association of Mobile Art Exhibitions had a great influence on the development of progressive painters in the Ukraine, the Transcaucasus and the Baltic provinces (N. Pimonenko and K. Kostandi, G. Gabashvili, K. Gun, and many others). A number of artists of non-Russian nationalities belonged to the Association and exhibited their works with the Russians.
The achievements in science, literature and art of the peoples inhabiting Russia, primarily of the Russian people, became known throughout the world in the second half of the nineteenth century. The outstanding discoveries of Russia's scientists, the works of her writers, composers and painters, with their high degree of artistic perfection and their close contacts with the emancipation movement, conquered the minds and hearts of millions of people in their own country and far beyond her frontiers. Mendeleyev and Sechenov, Shevchenko and Nekrasov, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoyevsky, Chaikovsky, Moussorgsky and Repin, Chernyshevsky and Plekhanov, had admirers and followers all over the world.
[280] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Ten __ALPHA_LVL1__ RUSSIA IN THE EPOCH OF IMPERIALISMCapitalism entered its highest and last stage, the stage of imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. The monopolies had become the determining factor in the economic and political life of the leading capitalist countries and in world affairs. The division of the world into the spheres of influence of the colonial powers had been completed and imperialist wars for the redivision of the colonies and spheres of influence had begun; the first imperialist wars were the SpanishAmerican War of 1898, the Boer War 1899--1902, and the RussoJapanese War 1904--05. The imperialist blocs that gave rise to the First World War were formed during the first decade of the century. Imperialism rendered still sharper all the contradictions of the epoch---economic, social and international. The revolutionary struggle for the emancipation of the working people acquired a new content.
The uneven historical development of the various countries became more marked in this period. Capitalism with its new organisational forms developed at high speed in Russia, but the country still lagged far behind the leading capitalist countries of Europe and the United States. Parallel to the banks and monopolies of the modern type, big landed estates conducted on semi-feudal lines continued to be dominant in the countryside. Owing to the shortage of capital in Russia, West European financial circles became the creditors of the tsarist government and began to occupy a strong position in the country's economy. This made Russia's role in world affairs less significant than it had been in the preceding decades. Tsarism oppressed the peoples of the Russian Empire and at the same time conducted its own colonial policy in the neighbouring countries of the East; nevertheless the interests of tsarism were closely intertwined with those of Russia's imperialist allies in Western Europe.
Although Russia was not a classic imperialist country, the contradictions of the epoch of imperialism affected her more strongly than other countries so that she became the weakest link in the chain of imperialist states.
From the very beginning of the century Russia became the chief centre of the world revolutionary movement, the birthplace of Leninism. The great revolutionary exploits of the Russian working class supported by the working people of all other nationalities in the Empire, the activities 281 of Lenin and the party he created, had a tremendous influence on the course Of world history.
The imperialist stage was a short one in the history of the peoples of Russia. It ended with the victory of the socialist revolution in October 1917. A study of the events of that brief period will help the reader understand the causes, character and driving forces of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the historic necessity for the revolution and its great progressive significance to the history of all mankind.
By the mid-nineties of the previous century capitalism had developed to a considerable extent in Russian industry and agriculture. In the preceding decades the railway network had been greatly extended and the smelting of metals and the extraction of coal had increased, mainly due to the new industrial region in the South, the Donets Basin and the Ukrainian towns connected with it---Yekaterinoslav and others. The demand for coal and iron on the home market was satisfied mainly by home produce and in oil production Russia not only satisfied her own needs but became one of the world's biggest exporters.
Monopoly associations began to grow up alongside the big capitalist enterprises that belonged to individuals or to joint-stock companies. In the early days these were syndicates associated by agreements that ensured monopoly prices for the parties, but which were very unstable and soon collapsed.
The development of agriculture was held back somewhat by the agrarian crisis in Europe brought about by the competition of American grain exports. This was a circumstance that helped promote the growth of capitalism in the rural areas; big farms, organised on capitalist lines, helped overcome the marketing difficulties.
This was the basis of the big industrial boom that lasted in Russia from 1893 to 1899. In that period the output of large-scale industry as a whole doubled, while the basic branches of industry trebled their output. The overall industrial output of Russia, however, still lagged behind that of the leading capitalist countries, but in her rate of development she was far ahead of them. Russia also outstripped the leading capitalist countries in concentration of production.
The industrial boom and the building of railways were closely connected. In the first place the building and exploitation of the railways required the development of branches of industry providing materials for it---mainly the iron and steel and engineering branches --- and the government, owing to its interests in railway construction, gave its support to those branches. The railways, furthermore, extended and built up the home market and at the same time connected the country's various economic regions with foreign markets. The biggest railway construction job undertaken in this period was the Great Trans-Siberian Railway. It was begun in 1891 and was completed fifteen years later, although some sections were ready for exploitation as early as 1900. Siberia and the Far East were brought closer to European Russia and were drawn into the tempestuous process of capitalist development. Siberia, however, remained predominantly an agricultural colony, only those branches of industry developing that processed farm produce. The extractive industries were poorly developed in Siberia and consisted mainly of gold mining.
282The state of affairs in Central Asia was very similar; cotton mills accounted for most of the manufactures and cotton-growing made the region a single-crop area.
On the whole the boom of the nineties did not create any new industrial regions in the country, but the relative significance of the old regions underwent a great change. The southern industrial area (the Ukraine) became the main iron and steel producer, where the favourable proximity of iron and coal deposits and the extensive participation of foreign capital, mainly French and Belgian, made possible the building of large-scale enterprises. Organisationally and technically the South was far in advance of the old Urals iron and steel region.
Another feature which distinguished the South from the Urals was the development of metal-working and heavy engineering industries, although the chief engineering works were still those of St. Petersburg. The Moscow area was the most important textile producer; the Kingdom of Poland remained mainly a producer of textiles, coal and iron ore. Another region that developed rapidly, parallel to the Ukraine, was the Caucasus, with the oil industry growing rapidly in Baku and with new coal and manganese mines working in Georgia.
The industrial boom of the nineties brought new imperialist features to the Russian economy. The formation of monopoly associations, the participation of the banks in industrial enterprises by financing and granting credits to joint-stock companies and the inflow of foreign capital into the country's economy became determining features in Russia's capitalist activity. Yet alongside the large factories and the newest forms of organisation were medium-sized and even petty enterprises at which the relations between the employers and the workers, apprentices and pupils frequently displayed the exploiter devices characteristic of pre-capitalist and early capitalist times. Domestic handicraft production retained its importance in the multistructural economy of the country. Interference by the autocracy in the economy and government aid for capitalist industry in order to politically reinforce the regime remained important features of the country's socio-economic system. The activities of Count Sergei Witte, Minister of Finance from 1892 to 1903, are typical. Witte was a militant monarchist who, throughout that economically stormy decade, tried to accelerate the country's progress along capitalist lines by offering favourable conditions to attract foreign capital and by budget subsidies for Russian capitalists.
The accelerated rate of capitalist development and the new features appearing in the epoch of imperialism aggravated the deep contradictions that were already inherent in the Russian economy. The boom was followed by the industrial crisis of 1900--03. It began with "money hunger" and a number of bankruptcies and as it developed proved particularly ruinous to the iron and engineering industries. The government-subsidised banks bought up the shares of the ruined companies, granted them credits and financed them in various ways. The crisis naturally led to the formation of big monopolies, and these held undivided sway in whole branches of industry; for instance, the syndicates Prodamet (company for the sale of the products of the 283 Russian iron works) founded in 1902 and Produgol (company for the marketing of Donets coal) founded in 1904.
One of the causes of the crisis was the survivals of serfdom in the countryside which kept the greater part of the rural population impoverished and, consequently, narrowed the home market---all this held up capitalist development. Peasant farming did not as yet produce for the market in all areas, and in some places even retained some features of natural economy.
The legacy of the past---the corvee-type work performed by the peasants with their own implements --- also retarded capitalist evolution on the landowner's farm. Needless to say, its surplus produce was far larger than that of the peasant farm, but only a small part of the landowner's estate was cultivated by hired labour.
A total of 70,000,000 dessiatines of land was held by 30,000 landed proprietors; 10,500,000 peasant holdings totalled 75,000,000 dessiatines. The process of differentiation that took place among the peasantry during those years was particularly painful for the peasant masses. In Central Russia the ruined peasant generally became a farm labourer, destitute but still retaining his allotment; he was opposed by the tyrannical kulak, who frequently preferred to exploit his fellow villagers commercially and through money-lending rather than develop his own farm along broad capitalist lines.
This situation provided the prerequisites, as Lenin put it, for two social wars in the Russian countryside --- the war between the peasantry as a whole and the landed proprietors, and the war between the rural bourgeoisie and the rural poor. The first of them took the more vivid and acute form.
The process of class differentiation in the countryside was changing the country's social structure, helping to form the classes of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Fleeing from poverty and hunger to the towns, the peasants reinforced the ranks of the industrial proletariat. The presence of this reserve army of labour had the most adverse effect on the condition of the proletariat, which was already bad enough. Oppression by the feudal landowners and the deprivation of political rights suffered by the workers facilitated exploitation by the industrialists. In 1897, the working day was officially established at eleven and a half hours. Production was poorly mechanised because of the abundance of cheap labour, and safety precautions in the factories were practically non-existent.
The occupational diseases, tuberculosis among miners and weavers, skin diseases among the oil workers, etc., were widespread. The Russian worker was paid far less than his counterpart in the West. This was even true of the St. Petersburg and Moscow metal-workers (the highest paid). Female labour was paid at a rate thirty to forty per cent lower than that of male labour. The employer took back quite a large portion of the workers' earnings in the shape of fines for all sorts of petty offences. The same sort of robbery was effected by the truck system --- the sale of foodstuffs on credit from the factory shop, which was widespread on factory estates.
The official documents of the period contain numerous instances of the harsh working and living conditions of a worker. The majority of 284 workers were housed by what was known as a ``bed-and-corner'' system. "In such houses,'' wrote a contemporary, "the tenant occupies a small room, a corner of a room, a bed or half a bed. Families usually live on a big bed fenced off with calico curtains; families of as many as five or six people sometimes live on one of these beds.'' The factory-owners themselves built accommodation for workers that was no better. The people, the press and even official documents called these buildings ``barracks'', although the hard life of the soldier was paradise compared to life in a workers' barracks.
The conditions in which the Russian proletariat lived were certain to lead to a sharpening of class antagonism. This could be prevented neither by the traditional tsarist policy over the "question of the workers'', which, in addition to factory legislation, incorporated various forms of "guardianship of the workers" that were intended to strengthen tsarist illusions, nor by the educational drives started by the authorities and the bourgeoisie among the workers in a spirit of ``loyalty'' and official religious morality.
The proletariat became the leading revolutionary force of Russian society. At the turn of the century the working class (families included) was no less than 22,000,000 strong, i. e., eighteen per cent of the population. It is true that only about three million workers were engaged in big industrial establishments and on the railways. The strength of the Russian industrial proletariat, however, was not so much in its numbers as in the high level of its class consciousness, due to the acuteness of class contradictions. It was also strong through its close contact with the proletarian and semi-proletarian elements in the rural areas.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Alexander~III died in the autumn of 1894 after a reign of 13 years. His favourite minister, Witte, who paid hypocritical respect to the memory of his late master, had to invent the conception of two minds,Alexander~III died in the autumn of 1894 after a reign of 13 years. His favourite minister, Witte, who paid hypocritical respect to the memory of his late master, had to invent the conception of two minds, "the mind of the intellect" and "the mind of the heart''. Alexander possessed a lot of the latter but as to the first, "the mind of the intellect'', he was somewhat short of it. According to Witte his education had "not been very great'', it had been ``ordinary''. Witte could not describe him in any other way, since the idiosyncrasies of the tsar were too well known.
His son, Nicholas II, who ascended the throne in 1894, was both like and unlike his father. As with his father, his tutor had been the leading ideologist and practitioner of reaction, Pobedonostsev. In intellect he was in no way superior to his father. Nicholas himself admitted that it was difficult for him to think, so difficult "that the effort of thinking, if it could have entered the horse he was sitting on, would have greatly upset it''. Unlike his father, he was outwardly a polished gentleman, had certain high-society manners, was cold and dully indifferent even in the most critical moments (which was explained as restraint). The consciousness of his own limited intellect and his poor physical appearance (he was short and weak-looking) gave his character traits of irritability and hypocrisy. "I always agree with everybody in everything but do as I please,'' he once admitted.
His wife Alexandra Fyodorovna (Princess Alice of Hessen) had a 285 strong influence over him; she was ambitious, fanatical and hysterical The frantic fear harboured by the royal couple and their entourage for the future of the monarchy opened the doors of the palace to charlatans and quacks, Russian and foreign. Mysticism, bordering on mental disorder, flourished at court. Extreme cruelty, at times senseless cruelty, gave Nicholas II the nickname of "Nicholas the Bloody''. Leo Tolstoy, applying the words of Herzen about Nicholas I to Nicholas II, said: "He is Jenghiz Khan with a telegraph."
Nicholas Romanov and his wife were the ideal embodiment of the reactionary dictatorship of the feudal landowners. When he ascended the throne, Nicholas II immediately informed a deputation from urban and rural local government bodies that all hopes of a constitution were "senseless dreaming''. In the spring of 1895, the new tsar made himself ``famous'' throughout the country by his open approval of the shooting of workers in Yaroslavl. A year later the catastrophe that earned him melancholy fame throughout the world took place---the catastrophe tha« caused the death of thousands of people at Khodynskoye Polye during the traditional coronation celebrations in Moscow. A huge crowd assembled, but the government had not taken any steps to ensure law and order; thousands were crushed in the crowd. That same evening the tsar danced at a ball given by the French Ambassador as though nothing of importance had happened.
The policy of the tsarist government, devoted as it was to the interests of the land-owning nobility, was nevertheless influenced by the country's capitalist development. Although the economic power of the bourgeoisie was growing year by year, real power was in the hands of a narrow circle of relatives of the tsar and aristocratic families.
The Russian bourgeoisie had grown up under the protection of the tsarist government; it was politically helpless and unorganised and feared more than anything else to have to stand face to face with the people. The bourgeoisie needed the autocracy, because only tsarism, with its gigantic apparatus for the suppression of the working people and its doles paid out of the budget to big businessmen, could ensure the high level of exploitation that existed in Russia.
The economic measures of the tsarist government were primarily intended to prevent the ruin of the landed proprietors. The Peasant Bank and the Bank of the Nobility, founded in the eighties, became extremely active in the last decade of the old and the first decade of the new century. The Bank of the Nobility provided the landowners with cheap credits and the Peasant Bank was the mediator in the sale of landed estates, ensuring the landowners the most favourable conditions of sale. The interests of the big aristocratic families were considered when concessions for the exploitation of natural resources or for railway construction were granted. In this way many members of the nobility became capitalist entrepreneurs.
The active economic politics of tsarism and the extensive interference of the feudal government in the country's economic life continued on traditional lines, but acquired certain new features. This was to be seen in the system of government contracts and in the personal connections between the leading men in the monopolies and the government departments. It is noteworthy that Ivan Vyshnegradsky, Minister of 286 Finance from 1887 to 1892, and Count Sergei Witte, Minister of Finance from 1892 to 1903, before entering government service, both held important posts on the South-Western Railway, one of the most important capitalist enterprises in the Russia of that time, which was, in turn, closely connected with the treasury. In those years, too, tsarism became more dependent on West European industrial and, especially, banking monopolies. Witte was most active in pursuing the policy of attracting foreign capital; he made the European money market a regular source of funds for the tsarist government. France soon became the Russian treasury's chief creditor. There can be no doubt that the tsarist government's use of foreign loans to build up a government war industry, subsidise enterprises fulfilling government orders, build railways, etc., facilitated the capitalist indutrialisation of the country, but the payment of interest on the loans meant the regular flow into the European money market of huge funds created by the blood and sweat of the working people of Russia.
Witte did his best to promote the financing and granting of credits to private enterprises by foreign capitalists, and also the foundation of foreign companies, or their branches and daughter companies in Russia. In so doing he hoped, he said, that foreign capital would enrich the Russian economy financially and technically and would become assimilated with it.
The dual class nature of the economic policy of tsarism became remarkably clear in 1899 on the occasion of a clash between Witte and representatives of court and bureaucratic spheres. Witte's opponents regarded foreign capital in the country as a threat to the interests of the landowners, but Witte succeeded in overcoming their resistance.
In the fundamental question of home policy, the interests of the two ruling classes coincided; this fundamental question was, in official terminology, "the protection of the foundations of the state'', or, in ordinary language, the savage suppression of the revolutionary movement and of any kind of free speech. The strict supervision of workers and students and the persecution of revolutionaries was combined with the prohibition of the most innocent steps undertaken by the liberal organisations of the bourgeoisie and the landowners, the Zemstvos and various congresses.
The tsarist government tried to reduce as far as possible the influence on society of Russian people famous in the field of culture; examples of this are the excommunication of Leo Tolstoy from the church (1901), the refusal of the tsar to confirm the election of Maxim Gorky as honorary academician, because of which Chekhov and Korolenko refused the title (1902), the prohibition of the commemoration of the anniversary of Turgenev's death (1903), etc.
"The protection of the foundations of the state" was also the bas'is of tsarist policy in the outlying non-Russian areas. According to census data for 1897, the Great Russians, or Russians proper, constituted 43 per cent of the population of the Russian Empire; the Ukrainians made up 17 per cent, the Byelorussians four per cent, the Tatars about three per cent, the Kirghiz (this term then included Kazakhs) over three per cent, and so on. Class oppression united the working people of various nationalities in the struggle against the autocracy and the entire 287 exploiting system. Tsarism tried to prevent this union, and the method mostly used was that of inflaming national discord. In addition to Great Russian chauvinism that was actively encouraged by the tsarist authorities in all spheres of life, bourgeois-nationalistic ideas became widespread among the ruling classes of the non-Russian nationalities. In the end, however, Great Russian chauvinism proved alien to the masses of the Russian people, as bourgeois-nationalist ideas to the working people of the non-Russian nationalities in the Russian Empire. This was made possible to no small degree by the revolutionary movement of the Russian workers who provided an example of struggle against tsarism; Russian progressive culture also had a big influence.
The internal weakness of tsarism was felt with particular force in world affairs. The influence of the Russian government in European politics grew weaker. The transfer of Russian valuables from Berlin to Paris at the end of the eighties opened the road to a Russp-French alliance that was given legal form by two acts---the diplomatic agreement of 1891 that was in the nature of a consultative pact, and the military convention of 1892 to be applied as mutual aid in the event of a German attack. To a certain extent this alliance was promoted by Germany herself through her prohibitive tariffs against Russian grain and other similar acts. The relations of alliance between Russia and France, confirmed in 1899, developed in such a way that Russia became the junior partner. French creditors found a profitable investment for their capital in Russia, and the French government dictated terms for the application of that capital that brought France strategic as well as commercial profit. When the French government sanctioned the floating of a Russian railway loan in France it demanded the building of railways that were strategically directed against Britain as well as against Germany.
The Russo-French alliance, however, was brought into being by the national interests of the two countries to counteract the German threat and in this respect played an important role in the development of world relations.
In this period the Russian government was not in a position to carry out any far-reaching aggressive plans in the Balkans and the Middle East. On the question of the Straits the tsarist government confined itself to upholding the inviolability of the Straits, although in the mid-nineties the British government had twice offered to partition Turkey with Russia and give Russia the Straits. There was a different state of affairs in Persia and in the Far East where Russia carried on her policy of expansion. In the early twentieth century Northern Persia was factually under Russian influence and Southern Persia under British influence. Russian influence was exercised through the Credit Bank of Persia, road and railway construction concessions, the laying of telegraph lines, etc. All these were private capitalist enterprises in form but actually either belonged to the Russian government or were closely connected with it. Russian capitalists could not compete with their Western rivals in the struggle for the foreign markets---tsarism did it for them and to their advantage.
At the turn of the century Russia joined the European powers, the USA and Japan in the struggle for China. When Japan, as a result of the 288 __CAPTION__ V. I. Lenin. Photo, 1910 (sepia) [289] war with China in 1894--95, seized the Liaotung Peninsula, Russia, acting jointly with France and Germany, forced Japan to renounce that act. In 1896, the Russo-Chinese Bank, organised by Witte as a private capitalist enterprise, obtained a concession from the Chinese government to build a railway from Chita to Vladivostok, through Manchuria. Prompted by Germany, Russia obtained China's agreement in 1898 to the lease of the Liaotung Peninsula and the building of Port Arthur as a naval base.
The seizure of bases in China (Britain and France also took part in this), the growing penetration of foreigners into China, and the anti-popular policies of the Emperor led to the anti-imperialist uprising of the I Ho Tuan. The troops of all the imperialist powers took part in suppressing the uprising in 1900. Russia occupied Manchuria. All these events took place against the background of Japan's obvious war preparations which had begun immediately after the Sirto-Japanese War and were to a certain extent the outcome of that war. These preparations were supported by Britain and the USA. That, in particular, is how matters stood when Japan seized Korea. The Anglo-Japanese alliance (1902) made possible the Russo-Japanese War, for which both sides, Russia and Japan, were equally responsible.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The mid-nineties, a period of serious social and economic changes in Russian life associated with the consolidation of imperialism, were marked by fresh manifestations of the revolutionary emancipation movement.The mid-nineties, a period of serious social and economic changes in Russian life associated with the consolidation of imperialism, were marked by fresh manifestations of the revolutionary emancipation movement. The proletariat became the driving force of the movement and the struggle of the working people its chief content. The specific feature of this new stage of the working-class movement was the application of Marxist theory. From this time onwards the name of Vladimir Lenin as a great revolutionary, scholar and statesman of genius is intimately connected with the history of the struggle of the Russian proletariat, and with the history of Russia and the world. Lenin was outstanding, not only among his contemporaries, but also among the great men of all time, for his profound understanding of and powerful influence on the course of human history, and for his unbounded loyalty to the cause of the communist ideals of peace and happiness for all peoples.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) was born on April 10 (22), 1870 in the town of Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk) into an intellectual Russian family. His father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was a prominent pedagogue who had devoted his life to educational work among the more ignorant and downtrodden, among the Chuvashes and Mordovians. His mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, was the daughter of a doctor; she was a well-educated woman who devoted herself entirely to the upbringing of her six children. Lenin was brought up in an atmosphere of lofty culture, persistence in work undertaken, sensitive feeling and justice in relations with other people and sympathy with others in their joys and sorrows. All the Ulyanov children except one of the daughters, who died when still young, took the revolutionary road of struggle; the elder brother, Alexander, as we have said already, was hanged for his participation in the attempt on the life of Alexander III.
290Lenin graduated from a gymnasia with honours and in 1887 entered the Faculty of Law of Kazan University where he took an active part in the revolutionary movement. Only a few months passed before Lenin was arrested. "What are you rebelling against, young man?" asked the police officer who took him to prison. "You are up against a stone wall.'' 'That wall is decrepit, push it and it will fall down,'' answered Lenin.
Lenin was expelled from the University but read the whole course of law independently and passed all examinations in the subject with honours at St. Petersburg University. Lenin made a profound study of the writings- of Marx and Engels in the original (he possessed great linguistic ability and had had a good training in foreign languages) while living in Kazan and Samara (now Kuibyshev) where he also took an active part in illegal Marxist study circles. By the time he went to St. Petersburg (1893) he was a mature Marxist of a new type, one who was capable of linking up Marxism with the working-class movement. In his What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats (1894) Lenin's severe criticism of the Narodnik views and tactics was fully grounded. Somewhat later he wrote "The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr.~Struve's Book''. In this article he exposed the true nature of the so-called legal Marxists, bourgeois liberals who criticised Narodist theory, taking as their starting point an acknowledgement of the Marxist doctrine of the historical necessity of the development of capitalism. But, as Pyotr Struve, the leader of the legal Marxists, put it, they only acknowledged "Marxism without socialism''. The principal content of Marxist theory---the doctrine of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat---was not to their liking.
There were some two dozen Marxist study circles active in the working-class quarters of St. Petersburg at the time Lenin arrived in the city; Lenin immediately began propaganda work among them, linking up the teaching of Marxist ideas with the political and economic struggle of the workers in the factories. At the Semyannikov Works (now the Lenin Works) the study circle led by Lenin took an active part in the workers' movement; they issued a leaflet on the occasion of disturbances among the workers.
In the autumn of 1895, the workers' circles of St. Petersburg united to form the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. In December 1895, the police arrested Lenin and other leaders of the League of Struggle. This was a heavy blow for the League, but it continued issuing leaflets and guiding the strike struggle.
The strike in May 1896 in St. Petersburg and the unprecedented strike movement throughout the country in the second half of the nineties, the formation of groups and leagues in Moscow, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kiev and other towns similar to that of St. Petersburg all testified to the alliance of Marxism and the working-class movement. As for the strikes, they were far more conscious in nature than the action taken in the previous decades, although, while feeling the opposition between their interests and those of the employers, the workers did not as yet perceive the irreconcilable enmity between their class aspirations and the whole social and political system.
The Social-Democratic circles of the time were all engaged in a 291 profound study of Marxist works, the publications of the Emancipation of Labour group, the recruitment of workers and the diffusion, through workers who had joined the circles, of Social-Democratic influence on the working masses.
However, the study-circle approach of the Social-Democrats of the time, who confined themselves to propaganda and agitation work, was proving more and more inadequate in view of the scale of the mass movement. A trend that became known as ``Economism'' grew up among some of the Social-Democrats. The Economists, of whom S. N. Prokopovich and Y. D. Kuskova are the best known, considered that the proletariat could only understand and care about economic needs, and so the Social-Democrats should confine themselves to economic slogans. They rejected the political struggle against the autocracy as a separate task, and cast doubt on the possibility of founding an independent workers' party in Russia.
In March 1898, representatives of local Social-Democratic organisations met at a congress and passed a decision to organise a Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. This congress did not succeed in uniting the local organisations in a party, and did not elaborate a programme and party rules, but it is significant in that it proclaimed the historic mission of the proletariat, proclaimed the struggle for political liberty as its task, and prepared the way for the unification of the proletarians of all nationalities of Russia in a single party.
In order to found a real party of the working class it was necessary to overcome the influence of the Economists in the Social-Democratic organisations. The newspaper Iskra (The Spark), founded by Lenin jointly with the Emancipation of Labour group in Geneva in 1900, where Lenin lived after his return from exile in Siberia, and his book What Is To Be Done? (1902) which formulated the ideological and organisational principles of a working-class party of a new type, played the leading part in overcoming the influence of the Economists.
The influence of Lenin's ideas and the activities of revolutionary Marxists led to a growth of the revolutionary working-class movement, that, in the early years of the twentieth century, took the form of open and ruthless class battles. Every May Day festival became a real review of the forces of the Russian proletariat.
On May 1, 1900, there was a demonstration of 10,000 workers and students in Kharkov. In 1901, actions by workers were marked by a spirit of political consciousness in a number of towns---St. Petersburg, Kazan, Tiflis and Warsaw among them --- and culminated in the defence of the Obukhov Works (now the Bolshevik Works in Leningrad). Over three thousand workers of the Obukhov Works and neighbouring enterprises in the Nevskaya Zastava district in an heroic battle beat off the attacks of police and troops. In 1902, the strikes and political demonstration in Sormovo, described by Maxim Gorky in his novel Mother, took place on the occasion of the May Day celebrations. In November of the same year a strike and demonstration of considerable dimensions in Rostov-on-Don marked the beginning of a new stage in the working-class political movement which grew directly out of the strike struggle and did not, as earlier, attach itself to the movement of the intelligentsia and students. The general strike of 1903 in the south of 292 __CAPTION__ Ivan Babushkin. Photo Russia was typical in this respect. Unlike the previous strikes, it consisted of a whole series of proletarian actions, in which the Social-Democratic organisations linked with Iskra played an active organising role. However, they were unable to secure unity of worker action in different towns, partly through their own lack of cohesion. The combination of economic and political demands, the participation of Ukrainians, Azerbaijanians and Georgians side by side with the Russian workers gave the strike a character that was particularly alarming to the tsarist government and the bourgeoisie. The movement was on so large a scale that the government could not cope with it by means of punitive measures alone. In the 1901--03 period it therefore tried to gain control of the movement by the introduction of workers' associations led by agents of the secret police and under the aegis of the police. The head of the Moscow secret police, S. Zubatov, was the initiator of this policy. This 'police socialism'', however, did not help, for Zubatov's organisation was unable to hold the workers back from anti-government acts.
293 __CAPTION__ Mikhail Kalinin. Photo, 1910The spring of 1902 saw the outbreak of serious peasant unrest, including the seizure of the landowners' land, grain and forage, in the Poltava, Kharkov and later in several other gubernias in the Ukraine, the Volga area and Georgia. Under the influence of these events, the Socialist-Revolutionary (SR) Party, which was then in the process of forming its own ideology and organisation, began to look in the direction of the peasantry. The SR Party, which included a number of neo-Narodnik circles, added to the Narodnik theory of the village peasant commune as the embryo of socialism the then fashionable Western theory of the stability of small-scale production in agriculture that was propounded by the critics of Marxism. The main plank in the SR platform, "socialisation of the land" with the subsequent development of co-operation for the purpose of collective production, called for reform rather than revolution, since the SRs had an imperfect understanding of the balance of class forces both in a bourgeois-democratic revolution and in a socialist one. The equalitarian land tenure that they were championing could not lead to the victory of socialism but to the sharpening of class contradictions in the countryside. Eventually the SRs themselves broke with their equalitarian principle, since, in addition to everything else, it was totally unrealistic.
294 __CAPTION__ Yakov Sverdlov. Photo, 1910All the SR programme of rural reform could do was pave the way for the development of capitalist relations in the countryside. Although the SRs regarded work among the peasant masses to be their prime task, their struggle against the autocracy was basically conducted through individual terrorism directed against ministers, governors and others. They assassinated two Ministers of the Interior in succession---Sipyagin in 1902 and Pleve in 1904.
The scale of the mass movement also had its effect on liberal circles among the bourgeoisie. In particular there was a revival of the Zemstvo movement. In 1902, a group of liberals living abroad, headed by Pyotr Struve, founded the journal Osvobozhdeniye (Emancipation). The bourgeois liberals, however, could not go and did not want to go further than the demand for political reforms and a constitution, but the very fact of the appearance of a liberal bourgeois opposition was itself evidence of the crisis in the autocratic regime.
The only consistently revolutionary political group in the country was that of the Marxists-Leninists. In the summer of 1903, the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) was convened. At the Congress the supporters of Iskra were confronted by the Economists and by representatives of the Bund (General Jewish 295 __CAPTION__ Nadezhda Krupskaya. Photo Workers' Union) who were saturated with petty-bourgeois nationalist ideas. Among the Iskra supporters there was a group, numerically smaller than Lenin's group, which called itself ``moderate''; it was headed by Martov. The Congress adopted a consistently Marxist programme such as no other workers' party in the world had at that time. In the discussion on the Party Rules, Martov and his group, supported by the Economists and the Bund, secured the adoption of a programmatic formulation of the definition of who could be a member of the Party that left the doors open to all who wished to join the Party without requiring their observance of Party discipline and their participation in the work of a Party organisation. In his struggle to form a party of a new type, a party of revolutionary action, Lenin sought to mould it as a single organised and disciplined unit. The opportunists tried to curtail the rights of the Central Committee as the leading body of the Party and to undermine its fighting potential. The ideological defeat of the Economists and the Bund and their withdrawal from the Second Congress ensured the victory of Lenin's supporters over the moderates in the Iskra group. Lenin's supporters obtained a majority on the Central Committee of the Party and on the editorial board of Iskra, the central organ of the Party. From that time onwards Lenin's followers were given 296 the name of Bolsheviks, or members of the majority, and their opponents became the Mensheviks, or members of the minority.
The serious differences between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks that had made their appearance at the Congress were still more clearly defined immediately after it. The Mensheviks took advantage of the conciliatory attitude of Plekhanov, who himself soon degenerated to the Menshevik position, laid their hands on Iskra and then obtained a majority on the Central Committee. The Menshevik campaign against the Party was headed by Martov, Trotsky and Axelrod. This outward difference of opinion between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks concealed the profound difference in their social character. The Bolsheviks, champions of the ideas of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, expressed the interests of the proletariat, the most consistent revolutionary class in history. The Mensheviks, on the contrary, were opportunists who expressed the inconsistency, wavering and half-heartedness typical of the petty bourgeoisie that becomes particularly clear at times of revolutionary upheavals and outbursts.
Lenin's book One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, that appeared in 1904, was of outstanding importance in the struggle against Menshevism. In this book Lenin elaborated the organisational principles of the Bolshevik Party. Lenin proved that the Party as the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat must become its organised and most united and disciplined section, for only such a party could make the masses ready for revolutionary battles. In his struggle to form this party Lenin was supported by many staunch proletarian revolutionaries--- workers like I. Babushkin, M. Kalinin and G. Petrovsky, revolutionaries from various sections of society who were devoted to the cause of revolution from their very youth like Y. Sverdlov, V. Kurnatovsky,' N. Bauman, M. Litvinov, R. Zemlyachka and N. Krupskaya, and talented writers like V. Vorovsky and M. Olminsky. The one thing they had in common was their unbounded loyalty to the cause of the revolution, a cause to which they devoted themselves entirely throughout their lives.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ During the night of January 26 and 27, 1904, Japanese destroyers made a sudden attack on a Russian squadron at anchor off Port Arthur.During the night of January 26 and 27, 1904, Japanese destroyers made a sudden attack on a Russian squadron at anchor off Port Arthur. Following this, Japanese warships attacked the cruiser Varyag and the gunboat Koreyets that were at that time at Chemulpo in Korea. In an unequal battle against six Japanese cruisers and eight destroyers the sailors of the Varyag and the Koreyets sank their ships rather than let them fall into the hands of the enemy. Thus began the Russo-Japanese War, in which Japan was supported by Britain and the USA. The war was fought for the annexation of territory and was unjust on the part of both sides. One of the causes of the war was the desire of Nicholas and his police entourage to hold off the revolution by means of "a little victorious war'', as Pleve, Minister of the Interior, expressed it. But the war was by no means ``little'' and certainly was not victorious for tsarism; instead of preventing the revolution it helped speed up revolutionary events.
297The Russian Pacific Fleet was weaker than that of Japan. The Japanese were then able to transport large forces to the mainland and begin their attacks on Port Arthur and on the Russian troops in Manchuria. Russian officers and men displayed great valour in these battles, but the Russian army nevertheless 'retreated. The determined resistance of the Russian units at Liaoyang and the huge losses suffered by the Japanese, were not taken advantage of by the Russian command. The Japanese siege of Port Arthur began in July. The heroic defence put up by the 50,000-strong garrison of the fortress lasted five months and is one of the finest pages in Russian military history. In the defence of Port Arthur an important part was played by the talented General Kondratenko who was killed shortly before the fortress fell. The Japanese lost over 100,000 men but did not succeed in capturing the fortress until December 1904, and then only because Generals Stessel and Fok, and several other high-ranking officers surrendered the fortress although they could still offer resistance.
"It is the autocratic regime and not the Russian people that has suffered ignoble defeat. The Russian people has gained from the defeat of the autocracy. The capitulation of Port Arthur is the prologue to the capitulation of tsarism,'' wrote = Lenin.^^*^^ The Bolsheviks conducted agitation in the army and at home against the war and against the autocracy. The Mensheviks, however, made their slogan "Peace at any price''. In view of the defeat Russia had suffered in the war, this slogan, since it was not connected with the struggle against the autocracy, was in accordance with the views of the bourgeoisie, the recommendations of the Western powers and the position of certain prominent bureaucrats in court circles; there were many people who realised that the continuation of the war meant the ruin of tsarism.
The unpopular nature of the war facilitated the progress of the mass movement, although actually the revolutionary events had much more profound causes, causes that were deep-rooted in the entire social and economic system. A big strike of the workers at the Putilov Works (now the Kirov Works) in St. Petersburg began in 1905. Gapon, a priest who had organised workers' associations in St. Petersburg similar to the Zubatov organisations in Moscow, advanced a plan for a .peaceful procession to the tsar's residence, the Winter Palace, to hand the tsar a petition on the needs of the workers. The procession was appointed for Sunday, January 9. On the day before, the tsarist authorities took a decision to fire on the crowd and not allow the people near the palace, even though the tsar and his family were staying at one of their country residences at the time. The whole affair was so clearly the work of provocateurs that on January 8 a group of writers and scientists sought an audience with the tsar's ministers wjth a request to prevent the bloodshed that was being planned. Their efforts were in vain. Witte, who was at that time Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, said that it had nothing to do with him, and Svyatopolk-Mirsky, Minister of the Interior, simply refused to receive the deputation.
Columns of workers from all the working-class districts of St. Petersburg began to move towards Palace Square on the morning of _-_-_
~^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~8, p.~53.
298 January 9. It is estimated that some 150,000 people turned out; they marched with their wives and children and carried portraits of the tsar and church banners. The workers did not believe it possible that it was planned to shoot them down, their faith in "our father the tsar" was still too strong. Troops, however, had already been stationed in various parts of the city and they carried out the planned shooting without mercy. Several thousand people were killed and wounded, and faith in "our father the tsar" turned to hatred and a demand for weapons. By evening barricades had been erected in many parts of the city. Crowds of workers drank in every word uttered by Bolshevik speakers. The news of Bloody Sunday (the name by which January 9, 1905 is known in Russian history) gave rise to indignation and protest throughout the country. Numerous political actions in Moscow, a strike and demonstration in Riga, strikes in Warsaw and Tiflis were the answer given by the proletariat of Russia to the brutality of the tsarist government. Then there were revolts by peasants in Orel, Voronezh and Kursk gubernias and by the working people of the non-Russian border provinces---the Ukrainian, Georgian, Polish and Latvian peasants and the Baku workers. Bloody Sunday strengthened sentiments of solidarity with the Russian proletariat and brought expressions of sympathy with the Russian people from the working people and progressive statesmen and public leaders of Europe and the USA. That is how the first Russian revolution (1905--07) began. As it was the __CAPTION__ January 9, 1905. Painted by Vladimir Makovsky [299] Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/1HU376/20051214/376.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2005.12.03) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ first people's revolution in the epoch of imperialism, it was bourgeois-democratic in character. The broad sections of the people who took part were struggling primarily for the abolition of the remnants of serfdom that remained in literally all spheres of life throughout the country. The abolition of the remnants of serfdom and the landed proprietorship on which they were based had become a national problem whose solution could be found only in the struggle against the autocracy. It is natural, therefore, that the peasantry played an important part in the struggle, although they could not become the main driving force of the revolution because of the wavering and hesitation typical of all petty producers. The proletariat was the only class capable of becoming the leader of the revolution and then only with the peasantry as its ally. As the revolutionary events developed, the proletariat took the line of isolating the bourgeoisie. This was necessary because of the class nature of the bourgeoisie, the loyalty of that class to tsarism and its readiness at any moment to betray the interests of the people in order to come to terms with the autocracy. The Third Congress of the RSDLP that assembled in London in April 1905 based its appraisal of the nature of the revolution on these facts. Only the Bolsheviks took part in this congress; the Mensheviks refused to participate and held a separate conference by themselves. Their appraisal of the revolution differed from that of the Bolsheviks on the main point: they insisted that the bourgeoisie and not the proletariat should be the leading class in the revolution and that it was the task of the proletariat to support the bourgeoisie. The Third Congress of the RSDLP elaborated a tactical programme of the Bolsheviks that was to ensure the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and its subsequent development into a socialist revolution. The Congress dealt in particular with the question of insurrection and mass political strikes, and came to the conclusion that the chief and most urgent task was the organisation of an uprising. The Congress accepted Lenin's formula of the article in the Rules defining who could be a member of the Party and annulled Martov's opportunist formula adopted by the Second Congress, thereby strengthening the Party organisationally on the eve of great revolutionary battles. Lenin's book Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution appeared in the summer of 1905; the tactical line of the Bolsheviks, elaborated at the London Congress, was given an all-round and profound theoretical substantiation in this book.In the meantime the defeats of tsarism in the war and revolutionary events succeeded each other with growing intensity. In February, there was a big battle at Mukden and the city was captured by the Japanese. On May 14, the naval engagement in the Tsushima Strait decided the outcome of the war in favour of Japan although on this occasion, too, the Russian sailors displayed miracles of heroism and splendid fighting qualities.
The revolutionary events in the country in the spring and summer of 1905 were, in a way, a response to the heavy defeats in the Russo-Japanese War. The proletariat celebrated May Day with demonstrations and political strikes in which 220,000 workers participated. Then came the strike of the textile workers in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. The strikers, led by Bolsheviks, elected from among their number a Soviet of 300 Workers' Representatives (Deputies). In June there was an uprising of workers in Lodz in Poland that was followed by heavy barricade fighting in which many of the insurgents lost their lives. The flames of peasant risings spread over the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Volgaside gubernias and the Transcaucasus area. Workers in Perm, Yekaterinburg (now Sverdlovsk), Chelyabinsk, Nikolayev, Kharkov and Lugansk went on strike. The scale of the strike struggle among the Lettish, Polish, Georgian and Azerbaijanian workers was equal to that of the Russians and Ukrainians. Trade unions were organised on semi-legal lines with the active participation of local Bolshevik organisations. The All-Russia Peasant Union, a mass peasant organisation, was formed but the leadership was immediately seized by the SRs and bourgeois Left-wing liberals.
The culminating point of the revolutionary events in the spring and summer of 1905 was the revolt on the cruiser Potemkin. It was a menacing indication to the tsarist government that the alliance of the working-class and peasant movements had revolutionised the soldiers and sailors. This was the first occasion in world history when the crew of a warship took part in open revolutionary action. The Potemkin, flying the red flag, went to meet the whole Black Sea squadron that had been sent against it, and the crews of the other ships refused to fire on her. The vessel, however, was without coal, water and provisions and was forced to surrender to the Rumanian authorities.
The revolutionary events of the summer led to fresh activity in bourgeois-liberal quarters. Increasingly broad and socially heterogeneous sections of the population became involved in the movement against the autocracy. Various forms of political protest grew among the intelligentsia. It was becoming more and more obvious that punitive measures alone were unable to prevent the spread of the revolution, and the tsarist government resorted to general political measures. The first and most important of them was to conclude peace with Japan. The bourgeoisie of other countries, as well as that of Russia, were now in favour of peace. The British and American bourgeoisie, tsarism's French creditors and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany were worried by the Russian revolution, which they perceived as an event of world importance. The Japanese government was also anxious to conclude peace because the country had been greatly exhausted and the army had suffered heavy losses. In August 1905, peace was concluded in the American town of Portsmouth through the mediation of President Theodore Roosevelt. Russia conceded her rights to the land leased on the Liaotung Peninsula, the South-Manchurian Railway and the southern half of Sakhalin.
That same month, a law on the convention of a consultative State Duma (Parliament) was published. The Duma was intended to be a means of satisfying the constitutional hopes of the bourgeois-liberal opposition. Circumstances had long been prompting the autocracy to adopt this course, despite the stubborn resistance of Nicholas himself. Promises were given in December 1904 to the effect that the rights of the peasants would be gradually brought up to the same level as those of the other estates, and that the rights of the Zemstvosand the towns would be broadened. As early as February 1905 the authorities had to declare their 301 intention to involve the people's elected representatives in legislative activity. The Duma became known as the "Bulygin Duma" after Minister of the Interior Bulygin, who framed the law on its convention; Lenin called it a mockery of the idea of popular representation. An involved combination of the various principles underlying the electoral law imposed severe limitations on eligibility to vote. It was proposed that the workers should be entirely deprived of voting rights, as well as a considerable proportion of the intelligentsia (except those who rented expensive apartments). The nature of the functions to be performed by the "Bulygin Duma" and the ruling on elections to it failed by and large to satisfy either the bourgeois-liberal opposition or democratic circles. The development of revolutionary events prevented the "Bulygin Duma" from being convened, but Bulygin's electoral law served as the basis for subsequent laws of this type. In the summer of 1905 the active supporters of the autocracy pinned their hopes on the tsar's being able to rely on the nobles in the Duma as well as on the representatives of the peasants with their age-old faith in "our father the tsar".
The revolutionary actions of that summer prepared the ground for the all-Russia political general strike, that in October gave the whole system of the autocracy a severe shake-up. The strike declared by the Moscow Bolsheviks for the period between October 7 and 12 was supported by the railwaymen of various parts of the country until it became a nation-wide strike. It was then joined by office workers and intellectuals and not only the factory workers of St. Petersburg and most other cities. The slogans put forward by the Moscow Bolsheviks --- the overthrow of the autocracy and the convening of a Constituent Assembly --- found response everywhere. This all-Russia general strike was on a truly gigantic scale; it was the greatest mass strike that had ever taken place in Russia, or, for that matter, anywhere in the world.
The military and police forces of the tsarist government were, to a certain extent, paralysed. The tsar and his family did not risk leaving their residence at Peterhof; they hid behind the back of General Trepov, the Palace commandant, whom the tsar made his closest adviser, regarding him a "strong personality''. Trepov tried to drown the revolution in blood; he issued an order "No volleys of blank, don't grudge cartridges''. The higher bureaucracy, however, realised that reliance on the army was not enough, and that the army, furthermore, was not dependable. Concessions had to be made to the bourgeois liberals and tsarism had to enter into an alliance with them against the revolutionary people. Witte was entrusted with the implementation of this programme of counter-revolution; he was appointed Chairman of the newly created Council of Ministers (until then the tsar had personally supervised the work of each minister). The tsar issued a Manifesto on October 17 in which he promised to grant civil liberties and convene a Duma, this time a Duma with legislative powers,and increase the number of those eligible to vote.
The bourgeoisie and the liberal intellectuals were in ecstasies over this Manifesto. A group from the liberal opposition immediately began talks with Witte on their inclusion in his government. Even radical sections of the intelligentsia and certain strata of the working class placed some belief in the tsar's promises. Only Lenin and the Bolshevik Party 302 correctly appraised this move that had been forced on the autocracy. The Bolsheviks warned the people that the tsarist government was mustering forces to crush the revolution; in a number of towns this was immediately proved true---police-inspired anti-Jewish pogroms, the assassination of revolutionaries and other acts began. Gangs known as Black Hundreds were formed under the auspices of the reactionaries; they recruited members from among the most backward urban elements, criminals and tramps. With the aid of these gangs the reactionaries tried to demonstrate the "oneness of the tsar and the people".
Outstanding among the reactionary organisations of the time was the Union of the Russian People, founded in October 1905 by Doctor A. Dubrovin and the landed proprietors V. Purishkevich and N. Markov (Markov II).
It was in this period, in October and November, that the chief political parties of the Russian bourgeoisie were formed. The ConstitutionalDemocratic Party (abridged to Cadets) later turned out to be the main bourgeois party; in addition to regular bourgeois elements and landowners turned-bourgeois, it included in its membership part of the bourgeois intellectuals. The main programme demand of the Cadets was a constitutional and parliamentary monarchy. Traditionally liberal propaganda of the Cadets appreciably influenced the press and found wide response among the bourgeois intellectuals. Among the organisers of the Cadet Party were Milyukov, a well-known professor of history, and Pyotr Struve, the legal Marxist. Empty phrases and demagogy characterised their political tactics.
Another bourgeois party founded at this time was the Union of the 17 October, also known as the Octobrist Party. The big capitalists and the owners of capitalist latifundia established the Union as their own political party based on the principles of the tsar's October 17 Manifesto which the Octobrists did not regard as infringing the principle of autocracy. Prominent among the leaders of the Octobrists were A. Guchkov and M. Rodzyanko.
The preservation of the monarchy was the basic political principle of the two bourgeois parties. "An Octobrist is a Cadet who applies his bourgeois theories in business. A Cadet is an Octobrist who, when not busy robbing the workers and peasants, dreams of an ideal bourgeois society,'' wrote Lenin in his article "An Attempt at a Classification of the Political Parties of = Russia".^^*^^
Both of these parties emerged from the Zemstvo and liberal movement, which had grown stronger at the turn of the century. Of very mixed composition, this movement strove to liberalise the autocratic system, to establish its own supremacy in the emancipation struggle and to forestall revolution.
Immediately the parties were organised both the Cadets and the Octobrists began to support Witte's Cabinet. In the meantime, throughout the autumn months, Soviets of Workers' Deputies were formed in the majority of towns of any importance and in some places _-_-_
~^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 229.
303 there were, in addition, Soviets of Peasants' Deputies and of Soldiers' Deputies. The Soviets, which had arisen as organs of the revolutionary strike movement, became embryonic forms of popular state power. They implemented and defended revolutionary-democratic measures, setting up a workers' militia and detachments of armed workers, producing their own publications and securing de facto freedom of the press. The Moscow Soviet, like a number of others, became, under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, who emerged from the underground for the first time, a body for the guidance of the uprising. Matters were different in St. Petersburg, where the Soviet was in the hands of the Mensheviks.In late October and in November, there were a number of revolts of sailors and soldiers in Kronstadt, Vladivostok and on the Black Sea. The biggest of them was the Black Sea revolt, led by Lieutenant Pyotr Schmidt. The tsarist government, with unparalleled brutality, managed to suppress this and other revolts. Pressure was then brought to bear on the Soviets. Under these circumstances the Moscow Soviet, in compliance with a decision of the Moscow City Bolshevik Conference, decided to launch a general strike and develop it into an armed uprising. A political general strike was declared on December?. That same day the leaders of the Moscow Bolsheviks, V. Shantser and M. VasilyevYuzhin, were arrested. On December 9, troops made numerous attacks on strikers, next day barricades were erected in a considerable part of the city, and the people conducted a heroic struggle against punitive troops. The working-class districts of Moscow --- Zamoskvorechye, Rogozhsko-Simonovsky and, especially, Presnya---became centres of uprising. Several thousand armed workers, supported by tens of thousands of Muscovites, defended these districts. The Semyonovsky Guards Regiment was hastily called from St. Petersburg. It was only with the aid of this regiment that the punitive troops succeeded in reducing heroic Presnya, the last centre of revolt; the district has become known as Krasnaya (Red) Presnya in the history of the emancipation struggle of the Russian proletariat. The tsarist government marked the defeat of the revolt with mass shootings of the insurrectionists without trial or investigation.
The December uprising in Moscow was the main event of the culminating period of the revolution. It was accompanied by outbreaks in other cities and among the non-Russian peoples. The workers of Rostov-on-Don and Sormovo (the working-class district of Nizhny Novgorod) put up a hard fight at the same time as the Moscow workers. Of great significance was the struggle of the Siberian workers. One of their aims was to prevent the hurried recall of troops from Manchuria to European Russia to be used against the revolutionary people. In Chita and Krasnoyarsk, important points of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the insurrectionists organised something in the nature of little republics in which all power was in the hands of the Soviets.
In December, by way of solidarity with the Moscow workers, the Ukrainian proletariat declared strikes and took up arms in Yekaterinoslav (now Dniepropetrovsk), Kiev, Kharkov and the Donets Basin. The Polish railwaymen kept up a determined strike struggle that prevented the transfer of troops to Moscow for punitive purposes. In the Baltic 304 area contingents of armed workers maintained power in a number of towns. There were also uprisings and strikes in Tiflis, Baku and the Armenian towns.
Revolutionary acts in the rural areas developed on a wide scale in December 1905; peasants burned down the houses of the landowners and seized their lands.
On the whole, however, the tsarist authorities had the situation in hand by the beginning of 1906. The main reason for this was the failure of the revolutionary outbreaks in various parts of Russia to merge into a single uprising on a national scale. In addition, the action of the proletariat had not received sufficient support from the peasants and soldiers.
In the various countries of Europe and in America the working people and the more consistent labour and socialist leaders and progressive writers and other intellectuals expressed their support for the cause of the Russian revolution. Among them were such people as Paul Lafargue, Jean Jaures and Anatole France in France, August Bebel, Franz Mehring, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany, Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, Daniel Deleon, Jack London and Mark Twain in the USA.
As far as bourgeois ruling circles in the West were concerned, after the December events they tried to afford tsarism every possible help. This help took the form, for instance, of a big loan granted the tsarist government by French financiers, with British banks participating, in the spring of 1906. The 2,500 million francs obtained were needed by the government to fight the revolution and strengthen their disrupted finances.
The Fundamental State Laws were adopted in April 1906 in order to enable the autocracy to coexist with the Duma. Under these laws, borrowed from the Austrian constitution, the tsar was able to by-pass the Duma and publish laws on his own account in the intervals between Duma sessions. The conclusion of international treaties and the leadership of the army and navy remained royal prerogatives. The rights of the Duma were limited by the conversion of the Council of State into an upper chamber that had to approve bills passed by the lower chamber, i.e., the Duma, before they could be presented to the tsar. The Council of State consisted of members who were annually appointed by the tsar and of elected representatives, mainly big landowners, as well as a few members each from the Orthodox clergy, the Academy of Sciences and the universities, and the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie.
The Duma was to meet at the end of April. The elections to it took place in many stages, and the balloting was not secret. Instead, the elections were conducted through what were known as ``curias'', of which there were four---the landowner, urban, peasant and worker curias. Workers only received the franchise if they worked at factories or mining establishments employing over 50 male workers. The number of electoral stages and the degree of representation were different and were laid down on clearly defined class lines. As a result, the landowners elected some 32 per cent of the electors, the peasants 42 per cent, the non-proletarian urban population 22 per cent and the workers 3 per cent. 305 Limitations backed up with arbitrary police action were imposed on electoral meetings. Women, students, landless peasants, agricultural labourers, soldiers and sailors had no franchise at all. The elections to this, the First Duma, took place at a time when the revolution was on the decline. The Cadets, who attracted part of the peasantry to their side with promises of land, obtained a majority in the Duma. Boycott tactics adopted by the Bolsheviks, were not very efficacious under these circumstances. Lenin's prophecy that the Cadet Duma would strive to come to terms with the autocracy was regarded as improbable by many people at the time. Nevertheless, that statement, made at the Fourth Congress of the RSDLP, was a true prophecy.
The Fourth Congress was held in April 1906 in Stockholm, shortly before the opening session of the Duma. At this congress, known as the Unity Congress, the Bosheviks and Mensheviks united, although the union was of a purely formal character. The Mensheviks were in a clear majority at the Congress and they foisted their opportunist point of view on the delegates. The Mensheviks took the line of winding up the revolution. The Bolsheviks continued to pursue their independent Leninist line.
The First Duma lasted little more than two months. The peasant deputies (united in the Duma as the ``Trudovik'' group) demanded the abolition of the landed estates, the nationalisation of all land, with each peasant family receiving as much land as it could till using only its own labour (hence the name ``Trudovik'' from the Russian word trud, meaning labour). The government of landowners could not permit even a discussion on this question, and the Duma was dispersed by royal decree in July, despite the talks that were currently under way with the Cadet and Octobrist leaders concerning their inclusion in the cabinet.
The Council of Ministers was headed by Stolypin, a man who had considerable experience in suppressing the revolutionary movement. In the summer of 1906, strikes at the factories and peasant disturbances began again, and there were revolts of sailors at Sveaborg (now Suomenlinna in Finland), Kronstadt and Revel (now Tallinn). Stolypin's first reply to the fresh wave of a revolution on the retreat was the introduction of summary courts-martial that sentenced participants in the emancipation movement to death under circumstances of complete lawlessness- He then launched a far-reaching policy of crushing the revolution by enforcing a new system of social relations in the rural areas which, he expected, was to undermine the revolutionary movement of the peasants. On November 9, 1906, an ukase was published permitting peasants to leave the village communes and receive a title to the allotment they had tilled as commune members. This reform was intended to create a strong group of kulaks in the countryside who were closely bound up with tsarism and with the landowners; the ukase provided various easy means for peasants who had become rich to leave the communes. Tsarism abandoned its traditional policy in home affairs --- that of placing its reliance on the commune and on its preservation and consolidation. The illusion that the peasant of the commune was a patriarchal type had been dispelled by the revolution. It is particularly noteworthy that in conducting these reforms, known as 306 the Stolypin Reforms, the government relied on the support of the landowners through their newly founded Council of the United Nobility, whose programme was to abolish at all costs all the concessions that had been forced out of the tsarist government by the revolution.
The Second Duma opened in February 1907. It was elected on the basis of the formally unchanged electoral law, yet the Senate's clarifications and interpretations of it had considerably lessened the numbers of those eligible to vote. On this occasion the Bolsheviks did not boycott the elections, but they rejected the bloc with the Cadets that the Mensheviks participated in, and pursued a policy of a Left bloc with the Trudoviks, SRs, and the Popular Socialists (the Popular Socialist Party was formed in 1906 from Right-wing SRs). On this occasion the Cadets were not the dominant force in the Duma, for the Trudoviks obtained the greatest number of votes. The Left wing was stronger than it had been in the First Duma, but the Right wing was also stronger, so that the struggle was sharper. Attention was again centred on the agrarian question. The Rights and Octobrists naturally supported Stolypin's agrarian programme. The Cadets pursued the same line as they had in the First Duma---they proposed the alienation of part of the landed estates and the transfer of the land to the peasants on payment of compensation. The peasant deputies were determined in their demand for the nationalisation of all land and its transfer to the peasants. Under these circumstances it was impossible for the government to get the Stolypin bill through the Duma. A congress of the Council of the United Nobility demanded that the government disperse the Duma and convene another, more submissive Duma, by making changes in the election laws. Three months after the Second Duma opened, its fate was decided.
The Fifth Congress of the RSDLP took place in London in May 1907. On this occasion the Balsheviks had a majority and not the Mensheviks as had been the case at the Fourth Congress. This was one of the results of the revolution. The main report, that on the attitude towards bourgeois parties, was delivered by Lenin. The decisions of the Congress, based on the experience of the revolution, indicated the need to struggle ruthlessly against the reactionary parties, to expose the false democracy of the Cadets and stressed that joint actions between Bolsheviks and petty-bourgeois parties (SRs, Popular Socialists, etc.) in the Duma did not mean a departure from Marxist principles and that the Bolsheviks must show the masses the reactionary aspects of those parties.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks based their actions on the lessons of the revolution. These lessons were: despite the insufficient stability of the alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry formed during the revolution under the leadership of the proletariat, despite the insufficient organisational capacity of the proletariat itself (these circumstances were the causes of the defeat of the revolution), the revolutionary struggle had borne fruit. The Russian people had obtained certain political rights, small though they were. The trade unions and various other workers' associations were able to exist legally. Although the rights of the Duma were greatly restricted, it had become a permanent factor in the political life of the country and it was now possible to use it as a platform for political agitation. The role of the press in social life had __PRINTERS_P_307_COMMENT__ 20* 307 increased, especially that of the revolutionary press. Criticism of the established regime began to appear more frequently in liberal publications, that were forced to meet the interests of their readers halfway. The proletariat and its party now had to use all legal possibilities in the revolutionary struggle. The decisions of the fifth Congress opened the way for these new activities.
The revolution of 1905--07 was an outstanding event, not only in the history of the peoples of Russia, but also in world history. It was the first bourgeois-democratic revolution in which the proletariat, acting in alliance with the peasantry, was in the lead. It provided the world proletariat with much valuable revolutionary experience---the armed uprising as a proletarian means of struggle, the Soviets that later developed as the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was for this reason that Lenin called the 1905--07 revolution the "dress rehearsal" for the October revolution of 1917. The first Russian revolution marked the completion of the shift of the centre of the world revolutionary movement to Russia.
The revolution had a tremendous effect on the revolutionary and national liberation movements in many countries at the beginning of this century. The workers of the many nationalities inhabiting AustriaHungary (Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks), for instance, applied the revolutionary experience of the Russian workers---mass political demonstrations and the general strike---in their struggle for the introduction of universal suffrage. The German workers also organised mass demonstrations and strikes in their struggle for universal suffrage. In Britain, France and the USA, the working-class movement was greatly influenced by the idea of the general strike.
The first Russian revolution aroused the peoples of the colonial and dependent countries; it exercised considerable influence on the Chinese revolutionary democrats headed by Sun Yat-sen. Its influence was also felt by the leaders of the Young Turks in the revolution of 1908, and the revolutionary upsurge in India (1905--08) and in Persia (1905--11) was also closely connected with the revolutionary movement of the masses of the people in Russia. Imperialism was experiencing a tangible shake-up in its colonial system.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Second Duma was dissolved on June 3, 1907. This was effected by means of a despicable act of provocation plotted by the gendarmerie headquarters in St. Petersburg.The Second Duma was dissolved on June 3, 1907. This was effected by means of a despicable act of provocation plotted by the gendarmerie headquarters in St. Petersburg. The provocateurs worked inside the military organisation of the St. Petersburg Social-Democrats, where they faked instructions from the military organisation for the SocialDemocratic deputies in the Duma. Stolypin, with this falsified document in his hand, demanded that the Duma annul the parliamentary immunity of the Social-Democratic deputies. The Rights greeted the demand with enthusiasm, the Cadets, as usual, wavered, and the government, without waiting for the decision of the Duma, dissolved it demonstratively. The members of the Social-Democratic group were arrested, some were sent to penal servitude and others banished to Siberia.
308Actually, what occurred was a coup d'etat. A new election law, called ``shameless'' by the people, was promulgated on the authority of the tsar in contravention of the Duma's prerogatives. The population of Central Asia, the present Kazakhstan and Yakutia were deprived of their franchise entirely. The rate of representation for Russia in Asia, the Caucasus and Poland was greatly reduced. The new law was compiled like the old on the principle of representation by classes; this gave the landowners and big bourgeoisie a dominant position in the Duma. Under the new law the landowner curia elected one elector for every 230 voters instead of one for every 2,000 as was formerly the case. The peasants, on the contrary, had formerly elected one elector for every 30,000 voters, but under the new law they elected one for every 60,000 voters. In the elections to the Third Duma over 50 per cent of the electors were landowners, 22 per cent peasants and only 2 per cent workers. Furthermore, the new law gave the bourgeois and landowner majority at the electoral assembly, the final stage at which the deputy was actually elected, an opportunity to defeat representatives of the workers and peasants and to select from among them the most ``reliable''.
The Third Duma was exactly as the government wanted it and was, therefore, able to exist for the entire period for which it had been elected --- five years, beginning from November 1907. The largest number of seats in the Duma belonged to the Rights, members of the Union of the Russian People and other reactionary organisations and the numerous groups of ``nationalists'' that supported Stolypin's policy. Next in order came the Octobrists, with the Cadets a long way behind them. Neither the Rights nor the Octobrists, however, had an absolute majority, so that there existed two possible ways of passing bills --- a bloc of the Rights and Octobrists or a bloc of Octobrists and Cadets. The way the voting in the Duma went depended on the Octobrists, and their position always favoured the first bloc. The role of the Duma became of still less importance in the political life of the country.
A period of brutal, black reaction set in after the coup d'etat of June 3. Death sentences were meted out thick and fast, and the hangman's noose became known as "Stolypin's necktie".
Mass actions by workers and peasants became fewer in number. The authorities closed down hundreds of trade unions. The Bolshevik leaders caught by the secret police were banished or sent to penal servitude. Lenin was forced to go abroad. The less stable elements, those that had joined the Party under the influence of the revolutionary upsurge, left the Bolshevik organisations. The intelligentsia experienced a difficult ideological crisis; they were intimidated by the punitive measures of the counter-revolutionaries and disappointed in the revolutionary struggle. A mood of defection set in and increased after the exposure of Yevno Azef (1908)., one of the leaders of the military organisation of the SRs who was a secret police agent. On the other hand, the loss of spirit and the ideological disunity of the period was taken advantage of by the secret police to recruit new provocateurs and plant them in the revolutionary movement.
It was natural that extreme reactionaries should try to take leading positions in the ideological life of Russian society in those years. The clergy began to interfere in the affairs of society to a far greater extent 309 than before. The mysticism that became the main interest of bourgeois intellectuals and their fatalistic views of life were in complete accordance with the aims of the counter-revolutionary leaders, whose purpose was to end all progressive social ideas, once and for all. In 1909, a group of Cadet ideologues headed by Struve published a collection of articles entitled Vekhi (Landmarks) which, to use Lenin's expression, became the encyclopaedia of liberal backsliding. The Vekhi writers rejected and vilified the revolutionary democratic traditions of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. They called for the religious and moral self-perfection of the individual in opposition to the slogans of revolutionary struggle. They reviled the recent revolution in every way and praised the autocracy to the skies for having suppressed it.
"First pacification and then reforms,'' announced Stolypin. "Reliance on the strong" was the way in which the political idea behind Stolypin's agrarian reform was formulated; this reform was conceived as a means of providing the shaky edifice of tsarism with a new social foundation.
The majority of Rights and Octobrists in the Third Duma approved the Ukase of November 1906, and in June 1910, after its acceptance by the Council of State, it became law. The communes began to break down under pressure from the kulaks who were given every possible assistance by the administration. The kulaks obtained title to the commune lands both with the consent of the commune and, as was mostly the case, against the will of the commune. The land-surveying commissions, called "land-grabbing commissions" by the peasants, worked under the protection of an armed escort and demarcated the best lands for the kulaks. The poor peasants, who were compelled to take their allotments from what was left to the commune, sold their land and went to work as wage-labourers. Every step of the "reforming activities" of Stolypin's Cabinet was accompanied by violence perpetrated against the downtrodden masses. New features appeared in the Russian countryside. Among the impoverished farms of the poor and middle peasants, split into a number of strips far from each other, there appeared large areas of land to which the rich villagers had obtained a title. If the owner of such a plot of land built a house there and moved from the village it became a farmstead (khutor in Russian) in the Western meaning of the word; if, however, he preferred to remain living in the village, his farm was called otrub, i.e., a holding "hacked off" from the commune lands. Side by side with these new landholders who immediately organised kulak or capitalist farms on their lands, there were still many peasants who lived the same miserable lives they had lived before the reform.
The far-reaching plans of the tsarist government envisaged the settlement in Siberia and the non-Russian territories of peasants who had lost their land. In this way the government hoped to rid the Centre of these "unquiet elements" and at the same time develop the colonisation of Siberia, Central Asia and the Caucasus and create a class of ``reliable'' settlers of Russian nationality that could be opposed to the local population. The resettlement of peasants took on a mass character. Between 1906 and 1910, over two and a half million peasants left their homes; in the whole period from 1861 to 1905 less than two million 310 peasant families had moved. Trains for settlers were made up of cattle trucks and sometimes took months to cross the country to the new places of settlement. The land allotted to the settlers was poor and they did not usually possess the means of uprooting trees and breaking virgin soil; the support given by the government was insignificant. Sickness and death was the lot of many of the settlers ---the death rate was enormous and begging and vagrancy became a mass phenomenon. About 800,000 settlers, completely ruined and embittered, returned to Russia. On the eastern fringe of the country, the resettlement policy of the tsarist government was closely bound up with its national policy. In Kazakhstan, Central Asia and the Trans-Baikal the best lands were taken away from the local population. These lands fell into the hands of the kulaks who were among the settlers or were handed over to local aristocrats or merchants. This policy led to an exacerbation of the antagonism between the poor people and the feudal lords, with the tsarist authorities carefully safeguarding the interests of the latter.
The national policy in the western areas was also a dominant-nation policy and was based on the principle of "divide and rule''. Finland was a sore spot for the top bureaucrats, the Duma nationalists and the Rights; the Finns possessed some degree of political liberty, and national oppression in the country was weaker than in other parts of the Empire. In 1910, the Duma approved a bill by which the Finnish Diet was factually deprived of its legislative rights. In its efforts to Russify the non-Russian areas of the Empire and intensify national discord, the __CAPTION__ A group of political prisoners leaving for their place of exile in Turukhansk district. St. Petersburg, August 2, 1906. Photo [311] government introduced a bill into the Duma to separate the gubernia of Kholm from the Kingdom of Poland; this gubernia was inhabited by Ukrainians and the landowners were Russians. The measure brought about an outburst of nationalist agitation of various types --- dominantnation Russian agitation against the Poles and Ukrainians, anti-Russian and anti-Ukrainian on the part of Polish nationalists, and anti-Russian and anti-Polish agitation on the part of Ukrainian nationalists. The Bolshevik deputies to the Duma put up a consistent and determined struggle against both these bills.
The activities of Social-Democratic deputies in the Duma became one of the most important forms of Party work at the time of the Stolypin reaction. The few Bolshevik deputies elected by the workers of the St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vladimir and Kostroma gubernias were a minority in the Social-Democratic Duma group. Nevertheless, the Bolshevik deputies (the leading role belonged to N. Poletayev, a deputy from the workers of St. Petersburg), who worked under the guidance of Lenin and other prominent Party leaders, were strong in their close contacts with the working class. The Bolsheviks used the Duma as a rostrum from which they exposed the politics of the autocracy and the bourgeois parties and thereby increased the political consciousness of the proletariat.
The Party functioned under extremely difficult conditions in those years. The Mensheyiks demanded the complete disbanding of the underground revolutionary party of the working class. They were prepared to abandon revolutionary principles and traditions for the sake of legalisation; it was then that they earned for themselves the name of ``liquidators''. Dan, Martov, Potresov and other leaders of the Mensheviks proceeded from the concept that Russia was already a bourgeois monarchy and that they should fight for reforms with the aid of the Duma. The revision of revolutionary Marxism became the ideological watchword of the Mensheviks. There was also an ideologically erroneous trend among the Bolsheviks which was known as ``otzovism'' (from the Russian word otozvat, meaning ``recall''). The otzovists, headed by A. Bogdanov, wanted the Bolsheviks to refuse to work in the Duma and thus abandon all possibilities for legal political activity. The proposals of the otzovists, if put into effect, would have meant isolating the Bolsheviks from the masses and their degeneration into a sectarian organisation. Lenin for this reason called the otzovists "liquidators turned inside out''. In their struggle against the liquidators the Bolsheviks were seriously hampered by Trotsky and his group of Centrists, the supporters of unprincipled reconciliation who declared themselves outside of all factions. These waverings and deviations of intellectuals inside the Party were closely connected with the general ideological instability that reigned in intellectual circles at the time of the reaction. Bogdanov tried to revise dialectical materialism, the philosophical foundation of Marxism, calling this revision solicitude for the " improvement'', ``correction'' and ``development'' of Marxism. A. Lunacharsky created a theory known later as ``god-building'', a worthless attempt to reconcile Marxism and religion. The ideological split among the Russian intelligentsia coincided with the "crisis, in natural science" that scientists and philosophers in all countries were then speaking of in connection 312 with the fact that the new data provided by physics and other natural sciences did not fit into the old theoretical concepts. It was on this basis that empiric-criticism developed; this trend in philosophy, also known as Machism from the name of the Austrian philosopher Mach, was nothing but a variation of idealist philosophy. The newly appearing Russian critics and improvers of Marxism immediately came under the influence of this reactionary philosophy.
Marxists could not permit the reconciliation between Marxism in politics and idealism in philosophy. Hence the timeliness and topicality of Lenin's book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism which appeared in 1909. This monograph was a considerable step forward in the development of world scientific thought; Lenin summed up the latest scientific discoveries of his time from the position of Marxist philosophy and rebuffed the attacks on Marxism that were being made by bourgeois philosophers and by revisionists among the Social-Democrats; he upheld and developed the theoretical basis of Marxism, dialectical and historical materialism. In addition to writing this book, in itself a matter of great theoretical and practical significance, Lenin worked out the tactical line of the Party under the new conditions; the basis of this new line was the combination of legal and illegal forms of struggle. The liquidators were dealt a severe blow at a Party conference held in Paris at the end of 1908, and in 1909, a Bolshevik conference, also held in Paris, condemned the otzovists and expelled them from the Bolshevik ranks. The influence of the liquidators and otzovists began clearly to decline; workers were attracted more than ever to Lenin's ideas. The actions taken by workers in the worst years of the Stolypin reaction were closely bound up with the persistent and tense work of the Bolshevik organisations among the masses. The main Bolshevik forces in Russia were at that time concentrated in the biggest industrial centres where prominent Bolsheviks who had escaped arrest or who had returned from exile were working. In St. Petersburg these leaders were I. Dubrovinsky, M. Kalinin and V. Kuibyshev, in Moscow --- A. Bubnov, D. Kursky, Y. Sverdlov and I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, in Baku---Meshadi Azizbekov, P. Japaridze, G. Orjonikidze, S. Spandaryan, J. Stalin and S. Shahumyan.
For the working-class movement, however, objective conditions were extremely unfavourable; the persistent attacks made by employers on the rights and interests of the workers had a background of unemployment caused by the depression that continued, mainly in heavy industry, up to 1909. Nevertheless the annual number of workers participating in strikes was twice as great as it had been before 1905, although it is true that the strikes were mainly of an economic nature, and were mostly defensive. In the summer of 1910, the number of mass acts on the part of the proletariat began to increase. The mass peasant movement was a very considerable force in the years of reaction and constituted the peasants' reply to the Stolypin reforms. Between 1907 and 1910, there were from two to two and a half thousand actions by peasants a year, and in 1910, the number was over six thousand. More and more often landowner and kulak houses went up in flames during the night. The farmsteaders and owners of lands within the villages were living on a volcano. The peasants cut wood in the landowners' forests, pastured their cattle on the landowners' grasslands and used force to 313 prevent the partitioning of commune lands. Of the 9,500,000 peasant households which belonged to the commune some 2,500,000 received titles to the land they tilled by communal right, but of these about a million sold out. In the areas where landed proprietorship predominated (in particular the Central Black-Earth area) the smallest number of households left the commune, although it was mainly in this area that the fathers of the reforms wanted to "open the valve" to lessen popular discontent. The policy of the government did not produce those "twenty years of peace" that Stolypin dreamed of obtaining for his reforms. Although the landowner and kulak farms improved their technical level and their farming methods were more scientific, and although there were certain successes in agriculture, the development of the country's agriculture as a whole remained in its fettered state, while the growth of capitalism in the countryside accelerated after the revolution of 1905--07. The serious famine resulting from the poor harvest of 1911 repeated the horrors of 1891, with the peasants living on messes of stewed crowfoot, and with the accompanying typhus epidemic, and was one of the clearest proofs that Stolypin's policy was a failure. The voice of the peasants demanding a curtailment of landed proprietorship grew louder and louder, both within the Duma and outside its walls. The Stolypin policy proved unable to achieve a complete victory tor-capitalism in agriculture and the introduction of kulak land tenure was unable to save the landowners from the peasants' general demand for the break-up of the landed estates.
Premier Stolypin had ceased to be of use, he had quarrelled with the Duma and with the Council of State, he no longer had the support of the court camarilla; he was coming to the end of his tether and everybody expected Nicholas II to force him into retirement. The problem, however, was settled very simply. In September 1911, when Stolypin was in the Kiev Theatre very close to the tsar, he was mortally wounded by Bogrov, an anarchist and agent of the secret police. Stolypin was himself the victim of that system of agents provocateurs that he had instituted as Premier and Minister of the Interior, posts that he held simultaneously. His successor as Chairman of the Council of Ministers was V. Kokovtsov, the Minister of Finance under Stolypin.
Kokovtsov was a completely colourless individual. He was unable to satisfy the court intriguers and their placemen among the ministers and the Duma Black Hundreds, and he was replaced in early 1914 by I. Goremykin, who displayed the typical indifference of an old man to everything except the tsar's prerogatives. Goremykin's subordinates referred to him as "His High-indifferent-ness'', and he himself was amazed at having been taken "out of mothballs".
In 1910 and 1911, there were clear signs of a new historical situation in the social, economic and political life of Russia. The depression that had dominated the years of the Stolypin reaction was followed by the industrial boom of 1909--13. The kulaks were growing stronger in the countryside and were demanding improved farm machinery and implements and the purchasing power of the countryside had also grown following the abolition of the redemption payments as a result of the 1905 revolution. The peasants deprived of their land moved into the towns (the urban population grew by one-third between 1900 and 1914), 314 made a break with their rural way of life and also helped increase the home market for Russian capitalism. The slight growth in earnings that the workers' struggle had managed to achieve was also a factor. The colonisation of the non-Russian areas involved the building of railways by the government and by private companies and also stimulated the industrial boom of those years.
The boom was greatest in heavy industry, which now included engineering and shipbuilding as well as munitions and iron smelting.
Russia, however, still lagged behind the leading capitalist countries as far as her total industrial output was concerned. This lag, however,'was not felt in the development of finance capital and its organisational forms.
The powerful syndicates already operating in the country --- Prodamet and Produgol---developed into nation-wide organisations since their apparatus for distribution and accounting actually covered the whole country. The enterprises belonging to the Produgol Syndicate (French and Belgian capital was very influential in this organisation) handled more than half the coal extracted in the Donets Basin. Prodamet squeezed out almost all competition in the marketing of some varieties of metal goods. In addition to these two syndicates a number of new ones appeared in many branches of industry, from the production of locomotives and rolling stock to the manufacture of plate glass. Furthermore, parallel to the syndicates there were other big monopoly trusts and concerns.
. The role of the banks and their infiltration into industry increased; the banks were now subordinating to themselves whole branches of industry. Personal connections were established between the banks and the industrialists. One of the most important figures in capitalist industry and in the banking system of Russia was A. Putilov (not to be confused with N. Putilov, owner of the Putilov Works in St. Petersburg in the 1870s and 1880s). He stood at the head of the Russo-Asiatic Bank which controlled a large number of enterprises in the most important branches of industry. The director of the International Bank (St. Petersburg) was A. Vyshnegradsky who was also on the boards of directors of a whole group of engineering firms. Privately owned banking companies were closely connected with the Ministry of Finance and were often compelled to ask the ministry for financial support. It was not by accident that many of their directors were retired civil servants from that ministry (Putilov and Vyshnegradsky among them, the latter, furthermore, being the son of the minister).
Half the share capital of the big banks came from abroad. The penetration of foreign capital into Russia continued steadily in this period, but its overall importance declined owing to a general rise in investment. Russian and foreign capital had interests that were closely intertwined; the Russian and mixed financial groups became more powerful; at times Russian banks themselves headed international monopoly organisations, the Russo-Asiatic Bank being particularly active in this field.
At the same time, petty-capitalist enterprises and peasant crafts were also developing. In such sectors as carpentry, joinery, leather goods and footwear, and sewn commodities they predominated over large-scale 315 capitalist industry, while in others they merely supplemented it. An interlacement of the socio-economic forms typical of the early- and highly developed stages of capitalism developed.
The boom-induced growth in the employment of hired labour both in the town and, particularly, in the countryside did not diminish the agrarian overpopulation in the country's European gubernias, a state of affairs which had been made worse by semi-feudal bondage and money-lenders' credit. Chronic hunger and loss of land drove the peasants from their homes to foreign parts. Some migrated to the lands beyond the Urals, others left the country. Among other causes of emigration (the urban poor also emigrated) were political and national oppression. Between 1900 and 1910, about one and a half million Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Poles, Lithuanians, Letts, Jews and others left Russia for the USA, Canada and South America.
A fresh upsurge of the working-class movement began in 1910. In November 1910, when Leo Tolstoy died, the workers of sixteen St. Petersburg factories petitioned the Duma to honour the memory of the great humanist writer by abolishing capital punishment. In 1911, the number of strikers exceeded 100,000. At the end of the year the falsification, by means of which the government had condemned the Social-Democratic deputies to the Second Duma, was revealed. The Social-Democrats in the Third Duma questioned the Prime Minister on this subject and were supported by numerous demands from the workers of St. Petersburg and other towns.
The intelligentsia began to return to politics. In 1911, there was unrest among the students of Moscow University. As a protest against the police persecutions twenty-one professors and a large number of lecturers demonstratively resigned from the university, among them such prominent scholars as the physicist P. Lebedev, the chemist N. Zelinsky, the geochemist V. Vernadsky. The movement was joined by the universities of other towns.
The new revolutionary upsurge brought new conditions, and the Bolsheviks conducted a struggle to reorganise and strengthen their ranks. The Bolshevik legal newspaper Zveida (The Star) began to appear in St. Petersburg at the end of 1910; Lenin, who was living abroad, guided the work of the paper, to which M. Gorky, M. Olminsky, N. Poletayev and others were contributors. Zvezda was closely connected with the workers of Russia and played an important part in paving the way for an all-Russia Social-Democratic conference, which was held in Prague in January 1912. Almost all Social-Democratic organisations functioning in Russia sent delegates to the conference so that it had the factual significance of a congress. The delegates were almost all Bolsheviks; they represented the largest Party organisations of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Saratov, Baku, Tiflis and other cities.
The Conference purged the party of opportunists by declaring that the liquidators had placed themselves outside the party and had no right to use its name. The Conference ended with the formal unification of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in a single Party and strengthened the RSDLP as a militant organisation of the working class capable of heading the mass movement. The Conference elected a Central Committee headed by Lenin.
316Three months after the Prague Conference there occurred in distant Siberia an event that shook the whole of Russia. On April 4, 1912, workers in the Lena Goldfields were brutally shot down. This enterprise belonged to a big monopolist concern, the Lena Goldfields Corporation. Shortly before the tragic events in the goldfields, 70 per cent of the shares were acquired by the London investment company Lena Goldfields, in which the Russo-Asiatic and the International Bank were big shareholders. A number of important government officials and even the Dowager Empress Maria (widow of Alexander HI) had a personal interest in this enterprise. The company's shares paid an exceptionally high dividend. But in the goldfields themselves, deep in the Siberian taiga, 2,000 kilometres from the nearest railway, lawlessness and merciless exploitation reigned supreme. The people worked for twelve hours at a stretch, not counting overtime, and often up to their knees in ice-cold water. They lived in hutments unsuited for habitation in the severe climate of Siberia. The food sold in the company's shops (and there was nowhere else to buy anything) was usually inedible. "The goldfield workers aren't pigs, they can eat anything,'' a spokesman from the administration used to say. The goldfield workers declared a strike. They were peacefully-minded but firm and united in demanding an improvement in their conditions. On April 4, a peaceful procession of workers went to the procurator with a letter of complaint in their hands; the procession was fired on and 270 were killed outright and 250 wounded. This massacre generated a sense of outrage throughout the country.
Minister of the Interior Makarov, in answer to a question put by the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, said: "That is how it was, and that's how it will be in the future!" The wave of popular indignation upset the tsarist government's expectations that the peo'ple could be ``pacified'' by force of arms. Workers and students in St. Petersburg and Moscow came out into the streets in protest against the shootings. Workers celebrated the May Day festival with a strike in which some 400,000 people took part. The workers of the Ukraine, the Baltic area and the Volgaside towns came out in support of those of St. Petersburg and Moscow. As Lenin said, "that year saw a great, a historic change in Russia's working-class = movement".^^*^^ The year 1913 was no less stormy. The movement continued to grow and its slogans were revolutionary; the scale of the movement and the combination of economic and political demands were reminiscent of 1905. Solidarity strikes, protests against the arrest of fellow-workers and the persecution of workers' organisations and newspapers became commonplace events. A strike of 250,000 workers demanded the reprieve of a group of revolutionary sailors. Minister of the Interior N. Maklakov tried to exceed his predecessors in police persecutions. Arrests and exile, provocation for the purpose of chauvinistic counter-revolutionary propaganda, the whole arsenal of the tsarist government's methods were brought into play. But nothing helped. The "Beylis affair'', for instance, was a failure; this was an attempt to accuse a Jew named Beylis of the ritual murder of a Russian boy. Forty thousand workers went on strike in October 1913 to protest _-_-_
~^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 450.
317 together with large sections of Russian society against this provocation on the part of the reactionaries.The number of strikes held under political slogans increased; the centre of the movement was St. Petersburg and the metal-workers were the leading force.
In 1912, the number of strikers had been about a million, but in 1913, it was 1,270,000, and in 1914 (for the first six months), 1,300,000.
On April 22 (May 5), 1912, the newspaper Pravda began to appear as the legal organ of the Bolshevik Party. Lenin, guiding the work of the newspaper, moved to Krakow in order to be closer to Russia; he published over 250 articles in this proletarian daily. Other prominent contributors were the poet Demyan Bedny, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's wife and comrade-in-arms, Nikolai Poletayev, a worker deputy to the Duma, Yakov Sverdlov and many other leading Party members. Contributions by the workers themselves were given prominence in the paper; their notes told of their lives, their working conditions and the strike struggle. The newspaper became the organiser of the workingclass movement, and did a great deal to help the Bolsheviks win the workers of Russia over to their side. The government suppressed Pravda on many occasions but it always reappeared with slightly changed names (Rabochaya Pravda, Severnaya Pravda, Pravda Truda, etc.).
The anti-Bolshevik bloc formed by Trotsky in August 1912 (known as the "August bloc'') tried to prevent the consolidation of the working class under the Bolshevik banner. The bloc united the liquidators, Trotskyites, Bund members and otzovists. In the course of 1913 and 1914, however, the bloc fell apart.
The growth of the national liberation movement in the outlying regions of Russia and the acuteness of the national question throughout the world on the eve of the First World War gave extremely great importance to the Party policy on the nationalities question. Lenin devoted two long essays to the development and substantiation of the Marxist programme on the nationalities question---Critical Notes on th% National Question (1913) and The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914). The cornerstone of Lenin's nationalities programme is the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination, up to and including secession, the principle of the full equality of all nations and languages. In conformity with Marxist doctrine, the Bolsheviks put forward the slogan of proletarian internationalism, the fraternal alliance of the workers of all nations. They counterposed this slogan to bourgeois nationalism.
Conferences of the Central Committee of the RSDLP and the functionaries from local Party organisations were held under the leadership of Lenin in Krakow in December 1912 and in Poronin (near Krakow) in September 1913; these conferences outlined the tasks of the Party in the period when a new revolution was maturing. The conferences confirmed that the international unity of the proletariat was a necessary condition for successful struggle. In the new situation the task was set of strengthening the illegal organisation of the Party. This, however, did not mean that advantage should not be taken of all legal opportunities, including those offered by the newspaper Pravda and work in the Duma. The Fourth Duma opened in November 1912. By 318 "cooking up" the elections (this is the expression Lenin used for the Unscrupulous system of election falsifications) the authorities tried to preserve their method of balancing between two possible majorities --- the Right-Octobrist and the Octobrist-Cadet --- by strengthening the Rights and Nationalists. The Black Hundred reactionaries gained a number of seats from the Octobrists, and the Cadets and Progressists also gained seats from them. The latter, dissatisfied with the position they had held in the Third Duma between the Cadets and the Octobrists, formed an independent political party on the eve of the opening of the Fourth Duma. Among the leaders of this new party were two big factory owners, P. Ryabushinsky and A. Konovalov.
The workers were able to elect their deputies only in six industrial gubernias, and the four-fifths of the Russian proletariat concentrated in these gubernias elected only Bolshevik deputies. The attempt made by the tsarist authorities to annul the elections of electors at some of the St. Petersburg factories was prevented by a 100,000-strong strike called in response to an appeal by the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolshevik Party. The Bolsheviks elected to the Fourth Duma were A. Badayev, M. Muranov, G. Petrovsky, F. Samoilov, N. ShagovandR. Malinovsky (the last-named turned out to be an agent provocateur).
The Fourth Duma was somewhat more oppositional than the Third. The fresh impetus gained by the revolutionary movement in the country inspired some of the bourgeois liberals to indulge in challenging speeches and put forward demands that the manifesto on civil liberties of October 17, 1905, be observed. The Duma even refused to approve the estimates submitted by individual government departments, including the Ministry of the Interior.
This friction was not sufficient to prevent the government from putting political measures, including punitive and war measures, into effect; moreover, the government always had a reliable weapon in hand---the Duma majority's fear of revolution. In this difficult political situation the Bolshevik deputies, working under the guidance of Lenin, became an influential political force in the country and had direct connections with the people. The official questioning of ministers in the Duma about various facts of violence and oppression, the speeches of deputies and their submission of bills, collaboration with Pravda, visits to factories, the use of their position as deputies to protect the rights of trade unions---all these various forms of legal work were combined with the Party's underground activities. In 1912, for instance, the question put by Bolshevik deputies on the persecution of trade unions was accompanied by impressive strikes at some factories called by the St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committee. In 1914, some 120,000 workers struck work as a protest against the horrible working conditions that had led to the poisoning of large numbers of employees at the Treugolnik Rubber Works in St. Petersburg and the Provodnik Works in Riga. Somewhat earlier there had been mass strikes on the occasion of the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The first six months of 1914 were, in general, record months for the strike movement. The May Day celebrations, which were marked throughout Russia, were followed in the spring and summer by the general strike of Baku workers. The workers of Moscow and St. Petersburg came out in solidarity with those of Baku. On July 3, the 319 police fired on a meeting attended by about 12,000 workers --- the day shift at the Putilov Works in St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committee called a three-day strike and appointed July 7 for a street demonstration. The working-class district around the Narvskaya Zastava (where the Putilov Works is situated) and other industrial districts were in an uproar.
On the day when the tsar's court welcomed President Poincare of France (July 7, 1914), 130,000 workers were on strike in the capital. This was the time when tension in the great European diplomatic battle was at its height. The world war was approaching, which for the time being relieved tsarism of the serious political crisis it was then experiencing.
__*_*_*__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The culture of the Russian people and the other peoples inhabiting the Russian Empire developed under extremely complicated social and political conditions in the early years of the twentieth century.The culture of the Russian people and the other peoples inhabiting the Russian Empire developed under extremely complicated social and political conditions in the early years of the twentieth century. On the one hand, there was open reaction supported in official and semi-official quarters and by the clergy and others. On the other hand, MarxismLeninism was making remarkable progress as the ideology of the proletariat in struggle; and the living, undying democratic traditions of progressive Russian culture continued to make themselves felt.
The government still remained hostile to all real culture and nothing better could be expected from it. Education, however, continued to improve, although the improvement was too slow and did not meet the requirements of a great country. Between 1897 and the last years preceding the First World War, the proportion of literates among the population increased from 21 per cent to about 30 per cent.
In 1900, the Ministry of Education opened some 37,000 elementary schools with an enrolment of up to 2,600,000 pupils. In 1914, the number of elementary schools had increased to 81,000 with about 6,000,000 pupils. In addition to this 2,000,000 children were attending church parish schools in 1914. According to the school census of 1911, the proportion of children attending rural primary schools was 33 per cent of the total number of boys and 14 per cent of the total number of girls, which gives an average of about 24 per cent of all village children of school age. In the last years before the revolution that desroyed the tsarist regime and then the capitalist system, over three quarters of the children of the peasant population did not attend school.
By 1914, secondary schools of all types were attended by over half a million students, which was only two or three per cent of the children of secondary school age.
The number of Russian university students doubled between 1900 and 1913 and reached about 36,000 by 1913, with the entire student body for the country's higher educational establishments adding up to some 120,000.
The situation was much worse in many of the non-Russian outlying districts. The All-Russia Census of 1897 showed that among the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia only 2.6 per cent were literate; there was not a single higher educational establishment in either Central Asia or the Caucasus.
320Large sections of the public were extremely dissatisfied with the organisation of the schools and with the bureaucratic and police methods employed in them.
The revolutionary period 1905--07 had brought masses of students and teachers into the emancipation movement. Despite the resistance offered by government bodies they did their best to refashion the schools. The progressive public, with the Bolshevik Party in the lead, put forward a broad programme for the democratic reorganisation of the schools from top to bottom.
After the defeat of the revolution the pressure brought to bear on the schools by the reactionary government increased. The portfolio of Minister of Education was held by out-and-out reactionaries, first Schwarz and later Kasso. These "bulwarks of culture" fought against both public and private initiative in the field of education, persecuted progressive teachers, banned parents' committees in the schools and subjected pupils and students to police supervision. The reactionaries showered all their violence on the higher school, and the partial autonomy that had been won in struggle in 1905 was combated by every means the government could muster. Many of the best professors were driven out of the universities; in 1911, Moscow University was almost without a teaching staff.
The authorities, however, were unable to counter the thirst for knowledge on the part of the people. After the 1905 revolution many new forms of cultural and educational work among the people were developed, independent of the government. Bolshevik revolutionaries headed the educational activities of the trade unions and workers' clubs and conducted vast cultural propaganda in the working-class press. The working class of Russia had to overcome many obstacles in the struggle for democratic culture, the struggle to obtain an education.
The country's leading scientists continued selflessly to uphold the cause of Russian science; in addition to those whose work had begun in previous years, there appeared a number of new scientists whose names became widely known.
Professor Pyotr Lebedev, one of the greatest Russian physicists, was well known in those years for his theory of light pressure. The specialists in mechanics and mathematics, Nikolai Zhukovsky and his pupil Sergei Chaplygin laid the foundations of the science of aerodynamics; Lenin called Zhukovsky the "father of Russian aviation''. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, working on problems of jet propulsion, foresaw the great successes that would be achieved in the conquest of space. A. Krylov, mathematician, physicist and astronomer, achieved world-wide renown for his work on the theory of shipbuilding. Mathematical physics was the field in which V. Steklov worked, and B. Golitsyn, the seismologist, was also outstanding in the sphere of physico-mathematical science.
The high reputation of Russian chemistry was upheld, after the discoveries of Mendeleyev and Butlerov, by such scientists as N. Kurnakov, founder of the branch of physico-chemical analysis, A. Favorsky who specialised in organic compounds, his pupil S. Lebedev, and N. Zelinsky, who became famous for his work in organic chemistry in general, and in catalystic processes in particular. I. Kablukov occupied an important place in the development of physical chemistry.
321Throughout the world Ivan Pavlov was known as father of the science of physiology; he was the author of brilliant monographs on the digestive system, blood circulation and higher nervous activity; he was the founder of the theory of conditioned reflexes and the school of physiologists that he established continued his work after his death in 1936.
The distinguished botanist, Kliment Timiryazev, worked during the first decades of the twentieth century. The outstanding zoologist Alexei Severtsov began his research into the theory of evolution. Vladimir Komarov was already famous as a botanist, geographer and explorer who had studied the flora of China, Mongolia, Yakutia and Kamchatka.
Vladimir Obruchev, a prominent geologist, led expeditions to various parts of Siberia and the Far East, beginning in the late nineties. His contemporary, Pyotr Kozlov, who began his career as the pupil and companion of the explorer Przhevalsky, led a number of expeditions into Inner Asia. Dmitry Anuchin, geographer, anthropologist, ethnographer and archaeologist, in his monographs opposed all racial theories and all reactionary doctrines in geography and anthropology. Georgi Sedov, hydrographer and bold polar explorer, undertook an expedition to the North Pole without the support of the government (1912--14); he and his colleagues made a number of valuable scientific observations; Sedov died at the beginning of 1914 without having reached the Pole.
This short list contains but a few of the names that made Russian natural sciences famous in the period under review.
The social sciences in this period made tremendous advances due to the sound position of Marxism in Russian social thought and to the masterly development of the Marxist doctrine in the writings of Vladimir Lenin.
Lenin's contribution to social science was epoch-making. The ideas of Leninism laid their impress on all the more important spheres of progressive social science. Lenin's The Development of Capitalism in Russia, his study of the agrarian question and many other writings were of tremendous importance to political economy, the study of Russian economy in particular, and to the study of social relations in Russia and the determination of her prospects. The laws of historical development on a world scale in the period of monopoly capitalism were investigated in Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, a book which provided the scientific foundation for Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution. Lenin developed Marxist philosophy and sociology--- dialectical and historical materialism --- in a number of his writings--- in his early book What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats, in his famous philosophical monograph Materialism and Empirio-Criticism and in his Philosophical Notebooks. Lenin dealt with the cardinal philosophical problems of the natural sciences; he wrote theoretical papers on problems of Russian and world history, the history of the working class and the revolutionary movement. He also dealt with matters of principle in culture, literature and art. His writings brought into science the spirit of militant materialism, revolutionary boldness, the depth of new theoretical 322 __CAPTION__ Ivan Pavlov. Photo, 1912--13 conclusions and proletarian partisanship. All Lenin's varied theoretical work was closely bound up with his practical activity as a revolutionary leader; for Lenin, theory meant the scientific cognition of life in the interests of the struggle and victory of the people, in the interests of the triumph of socialism and communism.
A number of Lenin's disciples were working in various fields of social science; Vorovsky and Olminsky were talented literary critics, Lunacharsky made a fresh and interesting contribution to art and literary criticism.
Plekhanov, who disagreed with Lenin on a number of important political issues early in the twentieth century, still remained one of the most prominent figures in the humanities as philosopher, literary and art critic and to a certain extent as historian. Another leading figure in the humanities was Pokrovsky who, despite the fallacy of some of his concepts, made an important contribution by his criticism of reactionary and liberal historiography.
There were clear signs of a crisis in the ``official'' science of the period. __PRINTERS_P_323_COMMENT__ 21* 323 The most extreme forms of idealism, mysticism and clericalism made their appearance in philosophy. In political economy, Struve and Tugan-Baranovsky, who had once bedecked themselves in Marxist clothing, engaged in attempts to ``refute'' Marxism. Rejection of generalisations, denial of the objective laws of social development, and, as Lenin said, a desire to fence in the forest with trees, became more and more clearly marked in the works of many bourgeois historians, economists, jurists and sociologists. These tendencies became more sharply defined in the period following the defeat of the revolution of 1905--07.
Despite all this there were many progressive scientists who did not belong to the Marxist school. A. Shakhmatov, philologist and historian, made a profound analysis of the Russian chronicles; N. PavlovSilvansky, A. Presnyakov, later B. Grekov, and a number of Moscow historians who belonged to Klyuchevsky's school (S. Bakhrushin, Y. Gotye and others) made an important contribution to the study of the feudal period in Russia. I. Grabar, talented art historian and painter, studied the history of Russian art.
D. Petrushevsky and Y. Tarle developed world history as a science. S. Zhebelev worked in the field of ancient history, B. Turayev was a prominent Egyptologist and student of the Ancient East whose work was continued by V. Struve; P. Kokovtsov was outstanding in Semitic studies, V. Alexeyev's work was devoted to a study of Chinese culture and that of S. Oldenburg and F. Shcherbatskoi, to Indian culture; I. Krachkovsky won renown by his Arabic studies. A leading Orientalist, V. Barthold was the author of a number of important monographs on the history and culture of Central Asia; N. Marr was a leading figure in Caucasian studies.
The literary life of Russia was marked by sharp conflicts between trends and schools of writers. The great Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, tvas active up to the time of his death in 1910 and his writings were often in the very centre of public attention. The ruling clique and the church persecuted the rebellious writer and thinker. Tolstoy's writings in the last period of his life are among his most powerful in their artistry and their exposures; these are the novel Resurrection, the play The Living Corpse and the short novel Hadji Murat.
The work of another famous Russian writer had continued for a quarter of a century---this was Anton Chekhov, one of the most prominent representatives of the school of critical realism in Russian and world literature. His finest work was done in the nineties of the nineteenth century and in the first years of the twentieth; he died prematurely, when he had just turned 44 (1904). Chekhov was passionately loyal to the ideals of humanity, justice and freedom; he despised all forms of vulgarity, philistinism, lack of will-power and self-effacement, qualities that were widespread in the semi-feudal, property-owning society of Russia. Chekhov longed for a better future for his country and as time went on believed more and more in the nearness of that future. His work had a tremendous influence on Russian and world literature and theatre and also on the development of the Russian literary language. Chekhov was one of those representatives of Russian culture who earned world renown.
324 __CAPTION__ Anton Chekhov. Photo taken in the nineties of the nineteenth centuryVladimir Korolenko, whose writings belong to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, was one of the older generation of writers, a man who was connected with the Narodnik movement from his youth and who was an active participant in the revolutionary movement. The embodiment of everything of the best to be found among the Russian democratic intelligentsia, his works depicted the people not only as a suffering mass but also as an awakening force capable of struggle and victory. Both as a novelist and as a courageous journalist, he carried on the struggle against social injustice and national oppression.
Maxim Gorky (the pseudonym of Alexei Peshkov) was closely connected with Tolstoy, Korolenko and Chekhov; his writing, however, marked an epoch that was new in principle in the development of Russian and world culture, marked the beginning of proletarian art and socialist realism. Gorky came from a poor family, suffered considerably in his childhood and youth; while still a young man he travelled the length and breadth of Russia and became familiar with the life of the 325 people. Gorky began writing in the early nineties, bringing to literature his genius, his fine feeling for reality and his close contacts with the people. His work was organically connected with the new historical epoch; as an artist he sang the praises of man the fighter, man the labourer, man the possessor of intellect and will-power; he combined his realistic pictures of life with optimistic romanticism. He sang the death knell of the old capitalist world and from the turn of the century devoted his life and his writing to the working-class movement, to the revolutionary Marxist party of Bolsheviks. Lenin became his teacher and friend, his ideological inspiration. Gorky was very active in the first Russian revolution as a writer and journalist; he was also prominent in public affairs. Lenin proclaimed his doctrine of the partisanship of literature and art in the columns of Novaya Zhizn (New Life), a magazine founded with Gorky's close participation.
Almost from the beginning Gorky attracted the attention of progressive readers both in Russia and abroad. The most bellicose reactionaries persecuted him, saying that Gorky was finished, but they were unable to shake his popularity and his authority among the democratic public. Gorky's name and his writings became the banner of world revolutionary and socialist literature.
Gorky devoted considerable effort to organising progressive writers. The Znaniye (Knowledge) Publishers, which was headed by Gorky, attracted the most talented writers of the time: A. Serafimovich, whose writings, close in spirit to those of M. Gorky, dealt with the hard life of the workers and peasants and the revolutionary struggle of the people; V. Veresayev, the artist-chronicler of the Russian intelligentsia, who depicted their path towards the working-class movement; A. Kuprin, a versatile writer among whose works are such outstanding realistic novels as Moloch and The Duel. A very popular writer of the period, Ivan Bunin, wrote of the landed nobility and the peasantry, but his political outlook was too limited. The novelist and playwright, Leonid Andreyev, travelled a long and tortuous road in art; his best writings, mainly those of the earlier period, give truthful pictures of life that called for protest against social oppression, war and the violence of the autocracy.
Other realist writers were Mamin-Sibiryak, Garin-Mikhailovsky, Chirikov, Gusev-Orenburgsky, Shmelyov, the young Alexei Tolstoy, etc.
Gorky displayed a fondness and gave great attention to writers from peasant and working-class circles that were gradually making their way into Russian literature. The Bolshevik press nurtured a strong group of proletarian writers and poets, among them the popular revolutionary satirist Demyan Bedny. In 1914, a collection entitled Proletarian Writers was published.
Realist and democratic writers and critics, led by Maxim Gorky, had to carry on a perpetual struggle against ideologically hostile trends, in particular against the modernist, decadent, symbolist and futurist trends. The poets and novelists N. Minsky, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, F. Sologub, K. Balmont and the poet and literary critic Bryusov were prominent in modernist literature and aesthetics; early in the twentieth century they were joined by the Young Symbolists (Blok, Bely 326 __CAPTION__ Maxim Gorky. Painted by Serov, 1904 [Bugayev] and others) who brought their pwn motives and their own shades of modernism into the movement.
The decadents and symbolists gave expression to the old theory of "art for art's sake''. Their declared principle was the rejection of realism, the refusal to participate in the social struggle; they preached extreme subjectivism and individualism and their writings were permeated with depression and mysticism.
The revolution of 1905 caught many of the symbolists in its wake and they even wrote at that time for the proletarian press. For the majority of them, however, it was mere flirting with the revolution; they were superficial and unstable. Nevertheless the revolution left a deep mark on the work of a number of symbolists and compelled them to reasses their ideological position as artists. This is particularly true of Valery Bryusov and Alexander Blok. "The Russian revolution is a great divide, beyond which very different streams flow into a different sea,'' wrote Bryusov at the end of 1905. His ideological waverings did not end with the first Russian revolution; as a keen observer of life, as an important and active worker in the field of culture (Gorky later called him the most cultured 327 writer in Russia) he nevertheless came over to the side of Soviet power immediately after the October Revolution and became a member of the Communist Party.
Alexander Blok, one of the finest Russian poets, began his career at the turn of the century with the publication of his Verses about a Beautiful Lady; these bore the stamp of symbolist mysticism, but very soon motifs of social and civic significance appeared in his work. Blok's poems are permeated with a romantic, revolutionary dissatisfaction with life, with a foretaste of the inevitable fundamental changes in the Russian way of life. "There is a Russia that has broken out of one revolution and is looking with hungry eyes at another,'' he said. He was a poet of "fearless sincerity" (as Bryusov said of him), a poet of quivering sensitivity, who understood the October Revolution in his own, Blok's way, and welcomed it in his immortal poem The Twelve with the voice of a great artist.
A new formalistic trend, futurism, appeared on the stage with a loud noise at the beginning of the second decade. Futurism preached the emancipation of literature and art from all ideological message and from all connection with social demands.
Vladimir Mayakovsky began writing as a futurist. But he soon became imbued with revolutionary ideas and wrote as a wrathful exposer of capitalism and an enemy of the imperialist war.
The modernist tendency was not confined to literature, it made itself felt in the theatre, in music and in painting. The power and influence of realism in Russian art, however, was too great for these new tendencies.
The Moscow Art Theatre, founded at the very end of the nineteenth century (1898) was of great importance in the theatrical world. It was founded by Konstantin Stanislavky, the famous producer and art theoretician, one of the greatest actors of the new period and an excellent teacher, and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, also a prominent producer, theoretician and pedagogue and, at the same time, a playwright of renown. They built up a brilliant troupe of actors, mostly young people, who gave themselves up enthusiastically to the innovations of their leaders. The most famous members of this troupe were V. Kachalov, the favourite actor of the Russian democratic intelligentsia, I. Moskvin, L. Leonidov, O. Knipper (Chekhov's wife), etc.
The Art Theatre carried on a struggle against stereotyped and routine acting and strove to achieve profound realistic art that portrays the truth of human experience. The Art Theatre assigned the producer a prominent role and worked for unity and integrity in the concept of the production, for perfection in the troupe as a whole. The theatre made great demands of an ethical character on every member of the troupe and on the troupe as such. All Stanislavsky's searchings in the realm of art, as Lunacharsky noted later on, were dominated by the idea that art is sacred and that creative work in art is a feat.
One of the most important features of the Moscow Art Theatre was the struggle it carried on for a repertoire that had ideological and aesthetic -significance and literary value. It opened the doors of the theatre to Chekhov. His plays were produced there in a style that made 328 __CAPTION__ Konstantin Stanislavsky. Photo them models of stage art. The production of Gorky's plays (Philistines, The Lower Depths and others) determined the democratic social character of the theatre. It was, in fact, the work of the Art Theatre that induced Gorky to turn to playwriting. Of the West European playwrights most prominent in the Art Theatre were Hauptmann and especially Ibsen.
The Moscow Art Theatre brought Russian dramatic art to the notice of the world. The theatre gradually earned the reputation of being the world's most outstanding playhouse.
Although the Moscow Maly Theatre had to cede the first place among Russian drama theatres that it had formerly held to the Art Theatre, it did not lose its reputation as a bastion of realism and the home of a school of brilliant actors. Yermolova, Olga and Mikhail Sadovsky, Lensky, Yuzhin, Yablochkina, Turchaninova---these are but a few of the famous names connected with the Maly Theatre. Yuzhin headed the theatre in the last years preceding the October 1917 Revolution; like others of his theatre, he was an uncompromising enemy of modernist tendencies in art.
329The Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg was the home of another famous school of realistic stage art where such great champions of realism as V. Davydov, M. Savina, K. Varlamov, K. Yakovlev and V. Michurina thrilled the audiences of their day.
The history of the Russian theatre in the late nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century would be incomplete without mention of the work of Vera Komissarzhevskaya, whose acting accorded with the mood and passions of freedom-loving youth and with the aspirations of the democratic section of society. According to a contemporary, she was not merely a great artist in the eyes of the young people, she was their symbol of revolt against the suffering of the oppressed and underprivileged. At the time of the first Russian revolution, the theatre founded by Vera Komissar/hevskaya in St. Petersburg held a prominent place in the forefront of Russian stage art.
In the years immediately before the overthrow of the autocracy, leading theatrical people gave considerable thought to the urgent and critical problem of bringing the theatre within the reach of the general public. The company of the Moscow Art Theatre had this in mind when the theatre was founded. The Peripatetic Theatre, ``Ope''n to All'', which was run by P. Gaideburov in St. Petersburg and the provinces from 1903 to 1905, enjoyed great popularity in proletarian circles.
At the turn of the century Russian composers made a big contribution to Russian and world music. Development in this field was somewhat spasmodic. There was a considerable decline in the composing of operas at the turn of the century in Russia as well as in Western Europe; Rimsky-Korsakov, however, continued his work in this field, and the great master of the opera composed a number of masterpieces between 1895 and 1907 (he died in 1908); Sadko, The Tsar's Bride, The Tale of the Invisible Town of Kitezh, The Golden Cock are all world famous.
While the old centres of the opera art --- the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow --- continued their work, a number of private opera theatres were gaining prominence. The best known among them was the Russian Private Opera in Moscow, founded by the energetic patron of the arts Savva Mamontov. Mamontov's opera theatre raised the question of the opera troupe as a single, integral collective; it enthusiastically propagandised the work of Russian composers and produced many operas that had never appeared on the stage of the Imperial opera houses because of the opposition of tsarist administrators.
The Russian Private Opera played a big role in the training of the great Russian singer, Fyodor Shalyapin, as an artist. Shalyapin was the ideal combination; he possessed a voice of rare beauty and unparalleled musical intuition, and was a great actor who created a whole gallery of characters from the works of Russian and Western composers. "Such people as he,'' wrote Gorky, "appear in order to remind us all how strong, how beautiful and how talented the Russian people are!"
Russia produced a large number of other famous singers. Among these charming poets of the stage were Antonina Nezhdanbva, the wonderful lyrical tenor Leonid Sobinov, the heroic Yershov and the world-famous Phelia Litvin (Yershov and Litvin, in addition to their 330 __CAPTION__ Alexander Blok. Photo, 1910 Russian repertoire, earned fame for their inimitable execution of Wagner's musical dramas), Alchevsky and many others.
Russian composers achieved important successes in symphony and chamber music; one of the greatest symphonists of the time was Glazunov, who, in addition to his symphonies, wrote a number of concertos and excellent ballets, best known abroad by their French names Raymonda, Ruses d 'amour and Les Saisons. The true spirit of the people, optimism, a wealth and brilliance of colour and musical forms of great beauty and finish are the specific features of Glazunov's work.
The chamber music of Sergei Taneyev, composer, thinker, and writer on the theory of music, is characterised by depth of content and a style which is noble. He was also the author of a number of symphonic and vocal works, prominent among them the opera Orestes, which gave expression to some profound ideas.
Sergei Rakhmaninov, a composer of genius, worked in many different fields of music; works written in the pre-revolutionary period include two symphonies, a number of pianoforte concertos that marked a new epoch 331 in that musical genre, several symphonic poems and fantasies, the poem The Bells for orchestra and chorus, and a large number of piano pieces and romances. In addition to this Rakhmaninov was himself a brilliant pianist and a conductor of great originality.
Alexander Skriabin made an important contribution to the music of the new century; he was the author of numerous pianoforte pieces, three big symphonies with a very profound content, the orchestral piece Poem of Ecstasy and the symphonic poem Prometheus. Scriabin's musical development was an intricate one; he did not escape the influence of the ideas and moods of symbolism and mysticism but was nevertheless able to reflect in his own original way the tremendous social movements and catastrophes of the epoch in which he lived.
Symphonic music at the turn of the century was enriched by the works of M. Balakirev, V. Kalinnikov, R. Gliere, S. Lyapunov, A. Grechaninov and others. A. Lyadov produced some brilliant arrangements of Russian folk songs and a number of orchestral and pianoforte miniatures. Another popular name in the world of music was that of A. Arensky who worked in many genres.
Round about 1910 the Russian public began to hear the works of new composers, those of the still very young Sergei Prokofiev and Nikolai Myaskovsky. Musical modernism marked their early music, although from the very outset their works showed remarkable talent; many of Prokofiev's early works are still in the repertoires of Soviet and foreign orchestras. Both Prokofiev and Myaskovsky later played an important part in the development of Soviet music.
Igor Stravinsky began composing at about the same time as Prokofiev and Myaskovsky. Stravinsky's brilliant orchestration could be felt in his earliest works, especially in his ballets Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and Sacred Spring (1913), written under the influence of Russian classical composers, especially of his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov. Stravinsky left Russia before the First World War, and since then his work had been of a contradictory character, largely due to the modernistic influences of Western art.
The Russian ballet had won world renown by the early twentieth century. The work of Mikhail Fokin and Alexander Gorsky in reforming the whole system of choreography introduced new standards into the art. Olga Preobrazhenskaya, Yekaterina Geltser, Mathilda Kshesinskaya, Tamara Karsavina, Agrippina Vaganova, Vatslav Nijinsky delighted audiences with their brilliant performances. One of the greatest of the dancers of the times was Anna Pavlova. The tours of the Russian ballet in many countries, especially the performances arranged in Western Europe by Sergei Diaghilev, established the Russian ballet as the leader in world choreographic art.
The tours of the Russian opera abroad were as triumphant as those of the ballet; the first decade of the century saw the spread of Russian classical and contemporary music throughout the world. Mahler in Austria, Debussy and Ravel in France and many composers in the West-Slav countries, in Spain and elsewhere were greatly influenced by Russian music.
In painting, the Association of Mobile Exhibitions still remained the curator of realistic traditions, although its role was no longer as great as 332 __CAPTION__ Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Painted by Repin, 1895 it had been in the seventies and eighties; the great painters among the founders of the association, Repin, Makovsky, Savitsky and others, were very popular. At the end of the nineteenth century the first paintings by Isaac Levitan, known as "the poet of the Russian landscape" appeared. "Levitan has shown us the modest, unassuming spirit, the charm that is hidden in every Russian landscape,'' wrote Nesterov, himself a prominent artist. Levitan's work is filled with a fine civic spirit; one of his best pictures, The Vladimir Highway, was a real protest against tsarist absolutism (the tsarist authorities drove thousands of people condemned to exile in Siberia along this highway). Nesterov had been greatly attracted to religious subjects before the October Revolution, but was also a brilliant landscape painter. In the Soviet period he worked mainly as a portrait painter.
Nikolai Kasatkin struck a new note in Russian art as the painter of the working class; his pictures dealt with the life, labour and revolutionary struggle of the Russian proletariat.
333Sergei Ivanov and Abram Arkhipov were painter-democrats whose work depicted mainly life in the Russian village. Another painter of peasant life in this period was Sergei Korovin.
In the Russian art world of the time, a world so full of talent, one of the most prominent figures was Valentin Serov, a painter famous mainly for his portraits but who worked in almost all genres. One of the world's great portrait painters, he is remarkable for his profound psychological studies of his sitters, his truth to life and brilliant execution. Almost all sections of Russian society are represented in the great gallery of portraits left to posterity by Serov. Like Repin, Makovsky, Ivanov and Kasatkin, Serov responded to the events of the first Russian revolution through his art.
The World of Art was a modernist group of painters that first appeared in the late nineties. Its aim was to ``liberate'' art from social and aesthetic fetters; it preached "art for art's sake".
The most consistent painters of the World of Art were Alexander Benois (the theoretician of the group who was art critic and art historian as well as painter), K. Somov and L. Bakst, the pictures by Benois and Somov being mostly idealised and stylised depictions of late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century Russian aristocratic life and of the French court a century earlier.
A number of painters belonging to the World of Art group---Yevgeny Lansere, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, etc.---were drawn, in some measure or other, to realistic art. Boris Kustodiyev, a brilliant genre and portrait painter, belonged only formally to the group. His pictures of Russian provincial life are profoundly national in character.
Book illustrating and theatre decor were two fields in which the World of Art painters made a definitely positive contribution; in general these two branches of painting reached a very high level in Russia at the turn of the century (K. Korovin, A. Golovin, A. Benois, M. Dobuzhinsky, I. Bilibin, the illustrator of Russian folk tales, N. Roerich, Y. Lansere, D. Kardovsky and others).
The famous Russian painter, Mikhail Vrubel, was also a sculptor, illustrator and scene painter. A brilliant landscape and portrait painter, he was particularly attracted by monumental works. His impassioned Demon was inspired by Lermontov's poem of the same-name.
After the defeat of the 1905 revolution, the decadent movement in art became more influential in Russia. A number of ultra-modern groups made their appearance under such outlandish names as Knave of Diamonds and Ass' Tail. Abstract art was represented by such painters as V. Kandinsky and K. Malevich.
Even in this difficult period in the history of Russian art, however, many realistic works of great talent appeared, mostly the works of such weil-known artists as I. Repin, or of V. Byalynitsky-Birulya, V. Baksheyev, N. Dubovskoi, S. Zhukovsky, A. Rylov, A. Arkhipov and K. Yuon in landscape painting, and S. Malyutin in portrait painting. The brilliant gifts of K. Petrov-Vodkin and P. Konchalovsky also came to the fore.
Russian sculptors produced many fine works at the turn of the century; one of the best known was Pavel Trubetskoi, the sculptor of a number of portrait busts, the monument to Alexander III in St. 334 Petersburg, a statue famous for its bold accusatory revelation of the character of the tsar, and some monuments in Western Europe, among them a statue of Garibaldi. The splendid monument in Moscow to Ivan Fyodorov, the first Russian printer, was the work of Sergei Volnukhin. Anna Golubkina and Sergei Konyonkov introduced a clear-cut democratic trend into Russian sculpture. Modernist tendencies were to be seen in sculpture too. At times there was a struggle between realism and modernism in the works of one and the same sculptors.
The culture of other peoples of Russia continued to develop in close contact with Russian culture. Class-conscious proletarians and progressive intellectuals upheld the principles of internationalism and struggled against the bourgeois-nationalist, chauvinist tendencies that were brought into the national movement and into cultural work by the ruling classes.
A splendid example of this struggle is to be found in the work of the notable Ukrainian writers, Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka (the pseudonym of Larisa Kosach) and Mikhail Kotsubinsky. Franko welcomed the revolution of 1905 and wrote about the springtide in East Europe, the Ukraine included, when the ice of absolutism and despotism was cracking and in terrible catastrophes the forces of the people were seeking new paths. It was at this time that Franko wrote Moses, one of his best poems. Lesya Ukrainka, poetess, playwright and critic, was close in spirit to Marxism; she wrote with great feeling of the joys and sorrows of her people, of their dreams and aspirations.
Mikhail Kotsubinsky, a friend of Gorky's, like Franko and Lesya Ukrainka, was under the powerful influence of scientific socialism and, like them, carried on a struggle for art that was close and comprehensible to the people, art that reflected their interests. iCotsubinsky's novel Fata Morgana was a striking picture of life in the Ukrainian countryside, of the struggle of the Ukrainian peasants before and during the revolution of 1905; the novel is justly considered one of the greatest achievements in Ukrainian literature in the pre-Soviet period.
The founders of the new Byelorussian literature and the modern Byelorussian literary language began writing at the time of the first Russian revolution; the most prominent among them were the democratic poets Yanka Kupala (Ivan Lutsevich) and Yakub Kolas (Konstantin Mickiewicz) who were brought up on the traditions of Nekrasov and Shevchenko and owed much to the revolutionary influence of Gorky who, in his turn, had a very high opinion of their work.
At the turn pf the century Lithuania gave the world the talented authoress Julia Zemaite, whose writing expressed great sympathy for the Lithuanian peasantry, their hard life and their resistance to the oppressors. The life and struggle of the Lithuanian workers formed the subject matter of the books of Jonas Biliunas and Julius Janonis.
The prominent Estonian realist writer of the period, Eduard Vilde, wrote of the life of the peasants under the yoke of the German barons, the owners of landed estates in Estonia, and of the liberation movement of the Estonian peasantry. Another realist was Anton Tammsaare who also wrote about the Estonian peasantry.
Latvian literature reached a high level in the work of Jan Rainis (Plieksans), poet and dramatist, artist and revolutionary, founder of 335 __CAPTION__ Fyodor Shalyapin. Photo, 1911 socialist realism in Latvian literature. Rainis first began writing in the eighties, but the period in which his talent was at its greatest coincided with the development of the proletarian movement in Latvia, the early years of the twentieth century. The novelist and playwright Andreas Upits made an important contribution to the development of progressive, revolutionary principles in Lettish literature.
The literature of the Caucasian peoples continued to develop. In Georgia the works of Ilya Chavchavadze, Akaky Tsereteli and Vazha Pshavela were notable. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Georgian literature was joined by a number of talented young writers, among them Egnate Ninoshvili (one of the first Georgian Marxists) and David Kldiashvili who boldly exposed the antagonisms of Georgian society. About 1910, the poet Galaktion Tabidze published his first works.
The poetry of Ovanes Tumanyan, poet of the people, lyricist and citizen, is the pride of Armenian literature. Another Armenian lyricist, Avetik Isaakyan, was a younger contemporary of Tumanyan's. 336 __CAPTION__ Maria Yermolova. Painted by Serov, 1905 Proletarian literature in Armenia owes its foundation to Akop Akopyan, a courageous Bolshevik poet who began writing in the nineties. Vaan Teryan was a representative of the young Armenian literary generation of the twentieth century.
The Azerbaijanian people produced a number of brilliant writers, among them Jalil Mamedkulizade and the satiric Mirza Alekper Sabir, educators and propagandists of revolutionary-democratic ideas. They welcomed the 1905 revolution in Russia.
The great Ossetian poet Kosta Khetagurov, a lyricist, wrote in the North Caucasus in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. He was a fervent patriot and democrat who defended the interests of the poor peasants of the Caucasus Mountains, and called upon the people to unite in struggle against the tsarist monarchy.
Suleiman Stalsky, the Lezghin ashug (bard), who was later to become famous, produced his first songs at the turn of the century.
Modern Tatar literature had its beginnings in the writings of Habdulla Tukai. Another prominent Tatar and Bashkirian writer was Mazhit Gafuri.
Sadriddin Aini, the founder of Soviet Tajik literature, became known both as writer and educationalist in the early years of the century. Another important writer in Central Asia was Hamza, who later became the founder of Soviet literature in Uzbekistan. In Kirghizia (also in Central Asia) Toqtoghul Satylghanov and Togholok Moldo were noted folk bards whose songs expressed the moods and aspirations of the working people.
Two Jewish writers were widely known --- Sholom Aleikhem and Leon Perets.
The following names were prominent in music among the non-Russian peoples of Russia.
Armenia: Komitas (Sogomonyan), author of some excellent arrangements of folk songs and a student of folklore; AlexanderSpendiarov --- a __PRINTERS_P_337_COMMENT__ 22--160 337 __CAPTION__ Jan Rainis. Photo pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov's, he composed symphonic and vocal music, the opera Almost; Armen Tigranyan, composer of the first Armenian national opera Anush.
Georgia: Meliton Balanchivadze, Dmitry Arakishvili (who studied at the Moscow Philharmonic School) and Zakhary Paliashvili (a pupil of Taneyev's); the greatest of these Georgian musicians was Paliashvili whose work was almost exclusively in the field of opera music. His finest opera, Absalom and Eteri, was not performed until 1919, and since then has become widely known outside Georgia.
Azerbaijan: Uzeir Hajibekov wrote the first Aserbaijanian opera Leila and Majnun that had its premiere in 1908.
Ukraine: Nikolai Lysenko continued composing in the early years of the century; in his last years Lysenko was assisted by his pupil K. Stetsenko; the Ukrainian composers Y. Stepovoi and N. Leontovich wrote mostly choral music.
Latvia: the older Lettish composers Vitol and Jurian continued working in the early years of the century and a number of young 338 composers made their appearance, among them Melngailis, Darzin and Kalnin, graduates of Petersburg Conservatoire. Kalnin wrote the first Lettish national opera.
Estonia: Artur Kapp, the well-known Estonian composer, the founder of Estonian professional music, wrote his first works in the prerevolutionary period.
The national theatres of the non-Russian peoples developed in conditions that were as difficult as those in which literature and music developed. In 1907, Mikhail Sadovsky (Tobilevich) organised a permanent Ukrainian theatre in Kiev; Maria Zankovetskaya, the Ukrainian Duse, continued to charm her audiences. The Armenian theatre produced a number of famous artists---Siranush (pseudonym of the actress Kantarjian), Ovanes Abelyan and Vagram Papazyan. In Georgia a theatrical troupe under Lado Meskhishvili enjoyed an excellent reputation.
At the beginning of the century, the first professional theatre in Byelorussia was founded under the guidance of the actor and producer Ignat Buinitsky. The Lettish theatre that had been established in the sixties of the nineteenth century by the actor and playwright Alunan, grew and developed in the early twentieth century. The New Lettish Theatre that functioned from 1902 to 1905, and the New Riga Theatre, opened in 1908, were important landmarks in theatre history; the New Riga Theatre's repertoire consisted mainly of the revolutionary plays of Rainis. The professional theatre, Estonia, appeared in 1906.
The fine arts were also well represented among the non-Russian peoples: the landscape painters S. Svetoslavsky and S. Vasilkovsky, and N. Sampkish, painter of battle pictures, in the Ukraine; A. Mrevlishvili, portraitist and painter of genre pictures depicting peasant life, in Georgia, and somewhat later, M. Toidze, a pupil of Repin's as well as N. Pirosmanishvili, Martiros Saryan in Armenia; Y. Rosental, landscape, genre and portrait painter, and V. Purvits, landscape painter, in Latvia; the brothers Christian and Paul Raud in Estonia; Mikalojus Ciurlionis in Lithuania. Ciurlionis was a composer as well as a painter.
Maxim Gorky played an important part in the development of the culture of the peoples of Russia. He was the friend of many cultural workers among the non-Russian peoples, his work was an inspiration to both writers and artists; Gorky succeeded in bringing the work of many non-Russian writers to the notice of Russian readers. He lent them support in their struggle against reactionary and decadent trends and mustered them in the fight for emancipation from oppression and violence and for the victory of the ideals of fraternity, peace and socialism.
[339] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Eleven __ALPHA_LVL1__ RUSSIA IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR.The First World War, one of the major catastrophes of history, was a war for the redivision of the world unleashed by the imperialists of all the belligerent powers.
The military bloc in which Russia was involved had been formed long before the outbreak of war. The general weakening of tsarism and the growing dependence of Russia on the West that followed the RussoJapanese War and the revolution of 1905--07 naturally had their echoes in Russia's foreign policy. The tsarist government could not pursue an independent far-reaching policy of conquest with any great hopes of success. Stolypin realised this only too well when he said: "Our internal situation does not permit us to pursue an aggressive foreign policy.'' There was nothing left for Russia to do but to join the Anglo-French Entente that had existed since 1904. Before joining the Entente, Russia, an old ally of France, had to normalise her relations with Britain; this was achieved by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907, the chief feature of which was the division of Persia into spheres of influence---Russian in the north and British in the south. The Russian government willingly agreed to this division, its policy of economic expansion in Persia having proved a failure because Russia was unable to stand up to British competition.
When Russia joined the Entente, the tsarist government and bourgeois expansionist circles hoped to realise their objectives in the Middle East and the Balkans where the influence of Germany and Austria-Hungary was growing.
This great change in tsarist foreign policy took place despite the fact that certain influential court circles as well as leaders of Black Hundred groups, numerous Right Duma members and others remained Germanophiles and continued to dream of the "Alliance of Three Emperors".
There was, however, the other tendency of a traditional foreign policy centred on the Black Sea Straits; it was this tendency that gained the upper hand and was supported by big industrialists and merchants (the Moscow textile manufacturers were particularly active) and by many big landowners; a considerable part of Russian exports, especially grain, passed through the Straits. This trend had the support of influential diplomats and military and naval specialists who realised full well that 340 German domination of Turkey would be harmful not only to the economic but also to the strategic interests of Russia. It was natural that the Cadet and Octobrist parties, which hungered after the seizure of the Straits by Russia, should have made this demand the basis of their foreign policy programme. As German influence in Turkey increased, the words Bosphorus and Dardanelles were pronounced more and more loudly in their speeches.
The internal weakness of tsarism militated against the realisation of this programme of annexation by means of war. While the hopes that it would be realised by diplomatic means with the support of Britain and France were not fruitful. In 1908, Russian diplomacy promised Austria-Hungary to agree to the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkish provinces inhabited by Serbs and Croatians that had been occupied by Austrian troops since the Berlin Congress. In return Austria-Hungary promised to agree to the free passage of Russian warships through the Straits. Germany and Italy also promised not to oppose this. Russia, however, was betrayed by her allies, Britain and France. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, but Britain and France did not support Russian claims to the Straits, and Russia had to recognise the Austro-Hungarian annexation without obtaining anything in return. This was a serious defeat which justly earned the name of "a diplomatic Tsushima''. The next Russian attempt to obtain free passage through the Straits was in 1911, at the time of the war between Italy and Turkey; it was also unsuccessful. On this occasion British diplomacy ``torpedoed'' the Russian plan with the announcement that Britain would only agree to freedom of the Straits for the vessels of all countries. Russia's position in the Entente was an unequal one. This was demonstrated particularly during the Franco-Russian negotiations between 1911 and 1913, when it became clear that the French General Staff was planning to have Russia engage German forces as numerous as possible on her frontiers.
The British government did not want to bind itself by any sort of formal alliance with Russia; it played on the contradictions between the European powers and itself maintained the appearance of neutrality. However, the imperialist contradictions between Britain and Germany, the struggle that was going on between them for a redivision of the world were among the main causes of the First World War and Britain played no less a role in preparing for the war than the other imperialist countries.
In the years immediately preceding the war Russia's policy in the Balkans and the Middle East was motivated as much by her own plans of conquest as by the effort to limit the spread of German and Austro-Hungarian influence in those areas. In 1912, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece, as a result of the activities of Russian diplomacy, concluded the Balkan Alliance. In the autumn of the same year the alliance launched a war against Turkey and defeated her literally in a fortnight. Then the contradictions between the Balkan countries and the powers that stood behind them came into play, The Austro-German bloc very rightly regarded the outcome of the first Balkan War as a defeat for the bloc and the creation of the Balkan Alliance as an advantage to Russia and, therefore, turned its attention to breaking the alliance. 341 Germany took advantage of her powerful influence in Bulgarian affairs (the Bulgarian throne was occupied by a German prince of the House of Coburg) and, playing on the traditional contradictions that existed between the Balkan states and aided by Austria, urged Bulgaria into a war against Serbia, the country that was most closely connected with Russia and Greece. In the second Balkan War that broke out in 1913 Rumania fought with Serbia and Greece against Bulgaria; the three allies were later joined by Turkey. Bulgaria was defeated and Russo-German rivalry in Turkey and the Balkans became even more acute. The Germans had succeeded in bringing the Turkish army under their influence, so much so that there was a German general in command of the Turkish corps stationed on the shores of the Straits; Russian diplomacy had the greatest difficulty in getting him removed.
The relations between Russia and Germany became more difficult on account of the Russo-German trade agreement that was about to be concluded. Russian commercial and industrial-agrarian circles were loud in their protests against "dependence on Germany''. The German party insisted on the retention of the terms of the trade agreement concluded in 1904, when Russia was in difficulties; these terms were exceptionally favourable to Germany.
Such was the situation when the incident occurred that served as a pretext for the First World War. On June 15,1914 (Gregorian Calendar), a Serbian nationalist assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne. On July 10, the Austrian government presented an ultimatum to Belgrade that contained such humiliating terms that Serbia obviously could not accept them. Then began the week of horror in which the diplomats of the imperialist powers by their cold-blooded, carefully planned acts, plunged mankind into a bloodbath. "This means a European war!" exclaimed S. Sazonov, Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, when he saw the telegram from Belgrade containing the Austrian terms. Within two days of the presentation of the ultimatum, Serbia had accepted almost all Austria-Hungary's terms. Nevertheless the Austrians broke off relations. Peace hung by a thread. In the situation that developed the position adopted by British diplomacy acquired special significance. Berlin's plans depended to a considerable extent on British neutrality even if only for a short time. The British Foreign Office, represented by Sir Edward Grey, acted so ambiguously that the Germans were able to place their hopes on Britain's neutrality. Things continued in this way until the war actually began.
On July 16, Belgrade was shelled by the Austrians. On the same day Tsar Nicholas II signed the order for a general mobilisation. When the head of the Mobilisation Division of the General Staff was already at the Central Telegraph Office in St. Petersburg, and a few minutes before the telegraph was to send out the order to all parts of the country, the tsar suddenly changed the order for general mobilisation to one of partial mobilisation directed against Austria. In the meantime, Kaiser Wilhelm II, taking advantage of his relations with Nicholas (they were related and called each other Willy and Nicky) had sent him a telegram to the effect that he, Wilhelm, wanted to reconcile Austria and Russia and asked Russia not to hamper him in his war preparations. He tried to intimidate his "dear cousin" with the threat of a ``catastrophe''. 342 Throughout the morning of the next day, July 17, Foreign Minister S. Sazonov, War Minister V. Sukhomlinoy and Chief of the General Staff General N. Yanushkevich did everything in their power to persuade the tsar to order a general mobilisation. Procrastination was obviously dangerous; even without delay the tremendous area of the country and the insufficiency of railway communications 'made mobilisation and troop movements a matter of great difficulty. Telephone conversations with the tsar produced no results and Sazonov asked for an audience. It had been agreed that if Sazonov succeeded in persuading the tsar he would telephone straight from Peterhof Palace to Yanushkevich who would immediately send out the order by telegraph so that Nicholas would not be able to change his mind again. "After that,'' said Yanushkevich, "I'll smash my telephone and then take steps to see that nobody will be able to find me.'' About four in the afternoon Sazonov phoned from the palace and gave Yanushkevich the tsar's order for a general mobilisation. "Now you can smash your telephone,'' he added. "It is already out of action,'' answered Yanushkevich.
By that evening the order for a general mobilisation was received in all parts of the country. Next day the German Ambassador presented a demand that Russia cease mobilisation. On the evening of July 19, he called on Sazonov and, the German demand having been refused, handed him a note containing Germany's declaraction of war on Russia. It then turned out that Sazonov's answer had no significance since the German government had already decided to declare war no matter what answer was given. The German Ambassador was so excited and flurried that he delivered the note in two different wordings that had been prepared for use in accordance with the answer received.
Russia entered the war. The ruling classes greeted the tsar's manifesto with elation. Crowds of citizens, hypnotised by reactionary propaganda, carrying church banners and icons, filled the square in front of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg; kneeling they sang God Save the Tsar. But 27,000 St. Petersburg workers went on strike on the day war was declared and demonstrated with red banners in protest against the imperialist shambles. At the same time the Fourth Duma, that washolding a special session on the occasion of the outbreak of war, gave unconditional support to the tsarist government; all factions ifi the Duma were united with the exception of the Social-Democratic faction which came out against the war, refused to vote for war credits and left the session. The group of five Bolsheviks in the Duma, like the Bolshevik Party as a whole, were implacable in their opposition to the war and in exposing its anti-popular character. Despite the power of the chauvinistic propaganda the more class-conscious section of the proletariat was not deceived by it. Even among the four million soldiers mobilised during the first days of the war--- most of them peasants---the slogan of defence of the fatherland did not meet with universal approval. The Mensheviks at first adopted a hostile attitude to the war. Soon, however, most of them went over to the position of defence of the fatherland, similar to the other parties of the Second International. The majority of the Socialist-Revolutionaries also supported tsarigm and the war. The Bolshevik Party functioned under unbelievably difficult conditions. Within three months of the outbreak of war, the Bolshevik group in the 343 __CAPTION__ Bolshevik deputies to the fourth Duma who were exiled to Siberia--- G. Petrovsky, M. Muranov, A. Badayev, F. Samoilov, N. Shagov. Photo, 1915 Duma was arrested, tried and banished to Turukhansk district. The Bolsheviks were accused of high treason but they openly and courageously put forward the slogan of turning the imperialist war into a civil war in a manifesto written by Lenin and issued under the title "The War and the Russian Social-Democrats''. This was the only slogan under those conditions that was truly patriotic. Lenin gave exhaustive proof of this in an article entitled "The National Pride of the Great Russians''. It is because the class-conscious Russian proletarians are filled with a sense of national pride, he wrote, that they cannot defend their fatherland in any way than by struggling by all revolutionary means against the monarchy, the landowners and the capitalists of their own country, i.e., against that country's worst enemies. Such was the position of the class and political forces in the country that was destined to suffer most and make the greatest sacrifices in the war that had begun.
In the first days of the war the German offensive on the Western Front was very successful. Paris was quickly threatened with capture. To help her allies, Russia was compelled to launch an offensive in East Prussia a fortnight after the beginning of the general mobilisation that was calculated to take forty days. To divert part of the German army advancing on Paris, two Russian armies invaded East Prussia and in the first days defeated the Germans at Gumbinnen (now Gusev). The German High Command, however, was soon able to take advantage of 344 the inefficiency and carelessness of the Russian generals (Russian units communicated with each other by wireless in plain language, using no cipher) and encircled the Russian forces in a series of fierce battles. In the course of August and September the Russian offensive was halted and the Russian troops were forced to withdraw from German territory. The aim of Russia's allies, however, was achieved---the Germans were forced to transfer big army formations from the Western to the Eastern Front. The famous Battle of the Marne, that saved Paris, was won at the cost of the blood of Russian soldiers in East Prussia. A fierce battle between Russians and Austrians in Galicia lasted over a month and the Austrians were pressed back to the Carpathians. As the Russian forces pushed back the Austro-Hungarian army they approached the German frontier. The Germans immediately concentrated their forces at this point and tried to effect a breach in the Russian line and attack the Russian army in Austria-Hungary from the rear. The Russian Command, however, transferred part of its troops from the Austrian Front. These troops, tired from the long march, manned strong defences at Ivangorod and at Warsaw and held the Germans at bay in a desperate struggle and then, at the beginning of October, went over to the offensive. The Germans decided to counteract this new threat of a Russian advance into their territory by another attempt to breach the Russian line. The.breach was effected in the vicinity of Torn, towards Lodz, but the German troops that broke through were themselves encircled by Russian troops and had to effect a new breach in order to return to their main body. Both the Russian and German armies were by this time exhausted and were forced to go over to position warfare. The same thing occurred on the Western Front. The German plan for a lightning defeat, first of France and then of Russia, was frustrated by the superhuman efforts of the Russian army.
The already serious situation in the Russian armed forces was aggravated by the appearance of a new front in the Caucasus when Turkey joined the war against Russia in mid-October. By the end of 1914, Russian troops on this front had entered Turkish territory. The attempts by Britain and France to occupy the Straits were unsuccessful and the allies were forced to promise that after the war the Straits would go to Russia. This was at the beginning of 1915 when Russia had actually become the Entente's main fighting force. From the beginning of 1915, the Germans concentrated all their efforts on the Eastern Front so as to defeat Russia and then crush Britain and France without any hindrance in the East. By the beginning of the year, the German farces on. the Eastern Front had been more than doubled and continued to grow until the Germans achieved numerical superiority. By this time the growing economic chaos in Russia was beginning to have a dire effect on the army. Never before in Russia had there been such companyfounding fever, such speculation with stocks and shares, such a spirit of money-making on so huge a scale as during the war years. However the supply of the army was already extremely bad by the beginning of 1915; there was a shortage of shdlx, rifle cartridges and even of rifles. Uniforms and boots were in short supply and there were even hold-ups in the supply of rations to the army in the field.
__PRINTERS_P_345_COMMENT__ 23--160 345The War Department had expected that the output of governmentowned factories, added to the reserves built up before the war, would be sufficient, but it became bankrupt shortly after the outbreak of war. Nevertheless for the first nine months of the war the government tried to manage without mobilising private enterprises, realising that if the bourgeoisie were given a greater role in the war economy they would make greater political claims. The autocracy, however, soon had to resort to this. In May, the Central War Industries Committee was founded; it was an influential bourgeois organisation that distributed war orders among industrial enterprises. Similar committees were set up locally. The All-Russia Zemstvo Alliance and the All-Russia Urban Alliance that had existed since the beginning of the war were also allowed to participate in supplying the army. The government established its own bodies for the regulation of the economy; they took the form of four committees---the defence, fuel, food and transport committees headed by the relevant ministers. The Chairman of the Defence Committee had extensive powers; he not only distributed resources, controlled production and set prices on manufactured goods, but could close factories or sequester them, etc. Similar authority was vested in the chairmen of the other committees. These bodies provided an ideal form for the big banks and monopolies to merge with the government machinery. The bigger and more important the monopoly or financial group, the greater the profit it could obtain with the aid of the government regulating bodies. The lawlessness and bribery that reigned when orders were distributed made them a real gold-mine for industrialists and financiers.
Economic chaos grew worse. A fuel crisis soon began to make itself felt; the quantity of coal extracted and delivered was obviously insufficient. The fuel crisis had its effect on the efficiency of the railways that even before the war had been unsatisfactory. The transport of troops and supplies to the front was interrupted, and important economic freights were not delivered to schedule. Following the fuel crisis and the transport chaos came the steel shortage. Like other diseases of the Russian war economy it was brought about by the shortage of workers and the decline in the productivity of labour. Blast furnaces went out one after another, but the prices the government was now compelled to pay increased so rapidly that the industrialists' profits did not suffer.
The war also had a ruinous effect on agriculture, on the conditions of the peasants and on the food situation in the towns. Even the cessation of grain exports and the good harvest of 1915 could not make up for the adverse food balance due to the 15,000,000 men called up for service having been drawn mainly from the peasantry. Farm production continued to decline. The area under crops decreased slightly, less fertiliser was applied, there were fewer machines and up-to-date implements in use and there was a shortage of draft animals because large numbers of horses had been requisitioned by the army. The cattle population also decreased. The landowners' estates suffered from the labour shortage. Yet the causes of the worsening of the country's food situation did not lie in the field of agricultural production alone. There was grain to be found in the country, but, with prices constantly rising, those who had it tended to hang on to it.
346The food crisis had far-reaching political consequences. It fostered the growth of the revolutionary temper of the population of the big industrial centres. The poverty and misfortunes of the working people grew month by month. The rapidly growing inflation increased the burden borne by the working class because the prices of food and other prime necessities increased much faster than wages. The profits of the industrialists and financiers, on the contrary, reached astronomic figures, even when the depreciation of the ruble was ta"ken into account. Huge concerns were built up, each of which embraced entire branches of the economy.
Russian monopoly capital increased its power and influence in the conditions of economic chaos. Direct foreign investments in industry naturally decreased, and this was to the advantage of Russian businessmen. Nevertheless the dependence of the Russian war economy in its entirety on foreign capital and on the government bodies of the allied countries, Britain, France and the USA, increased with each passing month. Immediately after the outbreak of war the tsarist government had been forced to place big orders abroad for war material, locomotives, rolling stock, machine-tools, etc. Since no foreign currency was available (exports had almost completely ceased), the government had to ask for credit and got deeper and deeper into debt. Britain provided most of the war credits; most of the Russian orders placed with the USA were backed by British credits, and the British government took them under its control. The tsarist government was forced to agree to despatch part of its gold reserves to the allies. During the war years the tsarist government raised foreign loans to the extent of about 8,000 million rubles. In addition to this, interest had to be paid on pre-war loans. Nevertheless, the economic effectiveness of these loans was insignificant. Foreign firms delayed the delivery of orders, and the allied powers did not allow sufficient shipping for the delivery of the goods ordered. Goods manufactured for Russia piled up in American, British and French ports. The situation was no better in Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok when the goods were eventually delivered to those ports since the chaos on the railways prevented their reaching their destination. The tsarist government paid the high price of increased dependence on the allies and the USA for goods delivered, which helped make the war economy a complete failure.
Economic ruin and chaos became literally universal in Russia. At the same time the organisational forms of monopoly capitalism, that was becoming state-monopoly capitalism, continued to develop decisively and at terrific speed.
On the basis of this situation Lenin drew the conclusion, fully confirmed by subsequent events, that state-monopoly capitalism was the prelude to socialism. "The objective process of development is such that it is impossible to advance from monopolies (and the war has magnified their number, role and importance tenfold) without advancing towards = socialism."^^*^^
Despite the courage and fortitude of the Russian soldiers in the heavy battles, the objective conditions had an unfavourable effect on the course of the war. In May and June 1915, the Russian army was forced to _-_-_
~^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 358.
347 withdraw from Galicia. A German offensive began in Poland and in Eastern Prussia. In July and August, the Russian army also lost Poland and parts of Lithuania after heavy fighting. The army then withdrew from the remaining areas of Lithuania, part of Latvia and part of Byelorussia. The results of the 1915 campaign were extremely serious; total casualties, including prisoners, amounted to 3,500,000, and the country was deprived of economically and strategically important areas. The defeats at the front and the economic chaos at home exacerbated the political crisis.Lenin's activities, as always closely bound up with the urgent tasks of the revolutionary movement, became particularly intensive in the war years. He developed the theory of the socialist revojution in all its aspects and this became the basic strategic and tactical line of the Bolshevik Party. In his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism he showed that capitalism was historically doomed and that the socialist revolution was inevitable. Having discovered the law of the uneven development of capitalism in different countries, he proved that the victory of socialism was possible in just one or several countries initially. Lenin stipulated that the immediate task of the proletariat in Russia was the overthrow of the autocracy and the consummation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, to be followed by the growing over of that revolution into a socialist revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks carried on a constant fight in this period against opportunism in Russia and on a world scale. At the Zimmerwald International Socialist Conference in 1915, the ideas of Leninism united a group of Left-wing delegates who became known as "the Zimmerwald Left''; this group played an important part in preparing the way for the Third International.
A series of strikes and workers' demonstrations began in the summer of 1915, and from that moment the movement spread until it acquired a clearly marked political character. A strike was declared at the Putilov Works in Petrograd in May 1915. In June, a demonstration of striking textile workers in Kostroma was fired upon. In August, workers demonstrating in Ivanovo-Voznesensk were shot down. In their leaflets local Bolshevik organisations called for mass protest strikes. The best organised were the Petrograd workers --- up to 70,000 took part in the strikes in August and September. The Bolsheviks worked skilfully and successfully among the masses. The arrest of the Bolshevik Duma group, the difficulties of maintaining communications with revolutionaries living abroad and the frequent attacks on the Petrograd Bolshevik Committee that was playing a particularly important role at the time, were calculated to hamper Party work among the masses, but the underground Party organisations with their rich experience of the revolutionary struggle, greatly increased their influence both among the proletariat and among the soldiers and sailors. The revolutionary movement of the workers was aided by open anti-war actions in the army and navy that became more frequent in the autumn of 1915. The mutiny of the crew of the battleship Gangut in the Baltic, cases of fraternisation with German and Austrian soldiers at the front showed that in the imperialist war tsarism could no longer place full reliance on its armed forces, to say nothing of the struggle against its own people.
348The sharpening of the general political situation in the country was accompanied by increased opposition on the part of the bourgeoisie, as had been the case on previous occasions. The amazing shortsightedness of Nicholas II and his entourage, their failure to understand the true nature of social relations and the social movement in the country made them regard the bourgeois opposition as almost the worst enemy of the autocracy. The leaders of the bourgeois parties, however, under the influence of the mass revolutionary movement against tsarism, strove for reforms that would have strengthened the existing regime by slightly limiting the power of the autocracy. The defeats at the front forced the government to make something like concessions to the bourgeoisie. In June 1915, Minister of the Interior Maklakov, known as a fierce reactionary, and Minister of War Sukhomlinov, who was regarded as a German spy in bourgeois circles, were removed from their posts. In July, the Fourth Duma, that had met only on rare occasions since the beginning of the war, held a session. All the bourgeois leaders in the Duma wanted was a "cabinet of confidence" which they hoped to take into their own hands. Utro Rossii (Morning of Russia), the newspaper belonging to P. Ryabushinsky, Chairman of the Moscow Exchange Committee, even published the names of the ministers of the new government which it called "the cabinet of defence''. Rodzyanko, a member of the Octobrist Party and Chairman of the Duma, was to be Premier, his colleague in the leadership of the party, Guchkov, was listed as Minister of the Interior and the Cadet leader, Milyukov, was to be Foreign Minister. The slogan "a cabinet of confidence" was supported by the Moscow and Petrograd City Dumas. "Nobody needs their opinion,'' the Empress wrote to her husband, "it would be better for them to look after sewerage problems.'' At the beginning of August, the leaders of the political parties of the bourgeoisie and the landowners and several members of the Council of State formed what was known as the "Progressive Bloc" in the Duma. Some of the Rights as well as the bourgeois groups in the Duma joined this bloc. In addition to the "cabinet of confidence" the bloc put forward demands so modest that they did not justify its important-sounding name. However, the palace camarilla that held the fate of the country in its hands regarded these demands as rebellious. Tsar Nicholas removed Grand Duke Nicholas from the post of Commander-in-Chief because of his connections with the Duma and took the post himself. A week later, on September 3, he stopped a session of the Duma that had only just begun.
The autocracy again entered the political life of the country with its might seemingly unshaken. Behind the scenes, however, there was everywhere degradation and collapse. This "summit crisis" affected the court, the government and the ministries so profoundly that the fate of the country fell into the hands of a gang of adventurists and scoundrels headed by the mendicant ``monk'' Grigory Rasputin. Rasputin, former horse thief and debauchee, an illiterate hysterical ``soothsayer'', had the Empress and her intimates completely under his influence. Nicholas had always given way to the persuasion and insistence of his wife; by this time he had completely lost whatever will-power he had had of his own and was greatly influenced by the Empress and Rasputin. "I am wearing 349 invisible trousers,'' was how the Empress herself defined her role at court. "Our Friend said...'' those words in a letter from the Empress to the tsar, who for a long time remained at Field Headquarters in Mogilyov, were enough for him to act in the way the ``soothsayer'' had advised. Rasputin interfered in literally all questions of state, from the appointment of ministers to the guidance of operations at the front. The Empress regularly transmitted "strategic instructions" that she had learned from "the man of God" to her husband, the Commander-- in-Chief. In November 1915, for instance, she wrote: "Now, before I forget, I must give you an instruction from Our Friend, the result of his nocturnal vision. He asks you to order the launching of an offensive near Riga....'' The most influential people in the country, from big bankers to the highest police officers, began to curry favour with Rasputin. In return for large sums of money he gave petitioners scraps of paper covered with illiterate scribble addressed to ministers. The ministers could not refuse his requests because Rasputin's role in their appointment was too great.
The campaign of 1916 served to aggravate the internal situation in the country. After the Battle of Verdun had begun in the West, Russian troops launched an offensive in the Dvinsk (now Daugavpils) area (March 1916). The Russians suffered heavy losses in this battle but the French obtained a respite. In May, troops under the command of General Brusilov launched an offensive in the south-western part of the Russian Front against the Austro-Hungarian army. This operation was also undertaken to help the Western allies. On this occasion the help was for the Italians who had suffered a number of defeats from the Austrians. Brusilov's troops breached the enemy front and started an advance that lasted all summer. This offensive had dire results for the Austro-German bloc; Austria-Hungary was factually defeated and Italy was saved from a debacle. The French held out at Verdun and Rumania entered the war on the side of the allies. Incidentally, the Germans transferred part of their forces to the Rumanian front and speedily defeated the Rumanian army, so that Russia now had to spread her forces to the Rumanian Front. The Russian victory in 1916 could have been of much greater importance if the offensive in the south-west had been supported by operations on the other fronts. Army Headquarters, however, proved unable to support Brusilov's offensive or even to provide him with the necessary reinforcements and supplies. Furthermore, Rasputin and the Empress did everything they could to prevent the development of the offensive in the south-west.
Successes were also achieved on the Caucasian Front but the Russian forces were unable to develop them and complete the defeat of Turkey. On the whole, the 1916 campaign turned out favourably for Russia as far as operations were concerned, but this was of little consolation to the tsarist government. The victories were achieved at too high a price, and an anti-war and revolutionary mood was making itself felt more and more clearly both at the front and at home.
The "summit crisis" was aggravated by the growing revolutionary movement. There were peasant disturbances in many parts of the country. Cases of fraternisation at the front became more frequent, and the number of desertions increased. There was a constant increase in the 350 number of politically conscious working people who had become convinced that the Bolshevik slogan of turning the imperialist war into a civil war was the only way out of the catastrophe that Russia was plunging into. In the first three months of 1916, the workers of Petrograd carried out a number of big strikes, among them the strike of January 9 in which 100,000 workers participated and the February strike of 20,000 workers at the Putilov Works. Shipbuilders in Nikolayev and workers in the Donets Basin also went on strike. The centre of the movement, however, was Petrograd where it assumed particularly large proportions in the autumn of 1916. In October, the Petrograd Bolshevik Committee organised mass meetings at factories under slogans directed against the monarchy and the war. About 150,000 workers took part in the October strikes in Petrograd and altogether about a million workers participated in strikes throughout the year.
A new feature of the revolutionary movement of 1916 was the participation of non-Russian nationalities. A real revolt against tsarism began in Central Asia, where taxation, the alienation of land, levies and requisitioning "for the war" prepared the way for a mass outburst of discontent among the poor. The ukase published in June 1916 to mobilise non-Russians for service in the rear served as a signal for the outbreak (non-Russians wiere not mobilised for army service). The first action against mobilisation occurred in the town of Khojent (Uzbekistan) in July 1916, and within a few days the police headquarters in Tashkent was attacked and wrecked. In Kirghizia insurrectionists besieged the towns of Przhevalsk and Tokmak. In Turkmenia a revolt that began in October dragged out over a considerable period. Most menacing of all was the revolt in the Turgai region of Kazakhstan, headed by Amangeldy Imanov, a hired herdsman. Although the local feudal lords and bourgeoisie tried to divert the revolt against the entire Russian population, the anti-tsarist character of the emancipation movement was, on the whole, maintained.
Throughout the autumn of 1916 the political situation grew more tense day by day. A revolutionary situation was developing throughout the country. In order to win over the people the bourgeois politicians made use of loud revolutionary phrases and made attacks on palace circles. That was how matters stood when the Duma reopened on November 1, 1916. Milyukov made a long speech on the "dark forces" at court and openly declared that the Empress and Sturmer were Germanophiles. He interlarded his speech with exclamations of "What is that, foolishness or treason?" Even Purishkevich spoke against the "dark forces''. Sturmer, who was met with cries of 'Traitor!" when he entered the Duma, was removed. In mid-December Rasputin was assassinated. The "summit crisis" had gone so far that Grand Duke Dmitry, Purishkevich and Prince Yusupov hoped to save the monarchy by this act. The assassination of Rasputin, however, was no solution to the crisis. The leaders of the "progressive bloc" became convinced that the policy of the tsar could not possibly be changed and just like the opposition groups in the army and at court, began to favour the idea of a palace revolution.
The mass revolutionary movement, however, swept away all these plans and calculations. The profound changes that had taken place in the 351 __CAPTION__ Barricades on Liteiny Prospekt, Petrograd, February 27, 1917. Photo social and economic structure of Russia in the period of imperialism and the many years of the revolutionary struggle for emancipation in which all the working people, led by the Russian proletariat, had participated, provided the necessary conditions for a bourgeois-democratic revolution.
The year 1917 began with an unprecedented wave of strikes. In January and February, no less than 670,000 workers were on strike in all parts of the country. The revolutionary temper of the army was at its height. The anti-war and anti-government slogans of the Bolsheviks were meeting with growing support among the masses.
The Putilov workers came out on February 18; the Putilov Works was under government control and was run by an administration which declared a lockout. The Putilov workers were supported by those of Narva and Vyborg districts. Petrograd workers joined the struggle and by the evening of February 24, overcoming the resistance of the soldiers, Cossacks and police, workers' demonstrations swarmed on to Nevsky Prospekt.
On February 25, the Petrograd Committee of the Bolshevik Party published a leaflet "All out for the struggle! Everyone on to the streets!" The police were unable to cope with the situation and the soldiers and Cossacks were becoming less and less reliable. A political strike begun in Petrograd on February 25 developed into a general strike and on February 26 began to develop into armed insurrection. During the day of 352 February 26, crowds of workers on Znamenskaya Square and Nevsky Prospekt were fired on. The tsarist authorities regarded this as a victory for them, but it proved to be the beginning of the victory of the revolution. The soldiers, influenced by the workers, turned their bayonets against the autocracy. On February 27, following the Training Battalion of the Volhynian Regiment led by Sergeant Kirpichnikov, the Volhynian, Preobrazhensky and Lithuanian regiments went over to the side of the revolution. Revolutionary troops mingled with the columns of the workers' demonstrations. The railway stations were occupied. In various parts of the city police stations were destroyed and policemen were hunted down. Fires broke out in the buildings of the regional court, the Petrograd division of the secret police and the Lithuanian Castle. Members of the secret police and gendarmes dressed in plain clothes were burning their records to obliterate all traces of their work. The autocracy was factually overthrown but the bourgeois-landowner leaders of the Duma still did not want to renounce their plans for the retention of the monarchy. On the morning of February 27, an ukase by the tsar announcing an interval in the Duma session was promulgated. The Duma members obeyed the order, but immediately held a private meeting to discuss the possibility of checking the revolution and "restoring order''. Hour by hour it was becoming clearer in the Taurida Palace, where the Duma sessions were held, that if the bourgeois leaders did not declare themselves on the side of the revolution, the revolution would develop without them. The hastily formed Duma Provisional Committee, therefore, announced during the night of February 27 that it __CAPTION__ Revolutionary soldiers with sailors from the cruiser Aurora on Liteiny Prospekt. Petrograd, at the time of the February Revolution, 1917. Photo [353] __CAPTION__ The February Revolution in Moscow. Demonstration in Teatrainaya Square on March 12, 1917. [354] was taking power into its own hands. This occurred only after the Chairman of the Duma, Rodzyanko, had made it clear that there were no further hopes of crushing the mass movement. On the evening of February 27, however, another body began to function whose influence was far more real and effective than that of the Duma Provisional Committee. This was the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had a majority in the Soviet; they appointed the Menshevik N. Chkheidze chairman, and the Socialist-Revolutionary A. Kerensky and the Menshevik M. Skobelev deputy chairmen. The insurgent workers and soldiers regarded the Petrograd Soviet as the organ of revolutionary power. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionary members of the Soviet, however, took on the role of servants of the bourgeoisie and left the formation of a government to a Duma committee. A bourgeois Provisional Government was formed on March 2, with Prince Lvov as Premier and Minister of the Interior, Milyukov---Minister of Foreign Affairs, Guchkov--- Minister of the Army and Navy and Kerensky---Minister of Justice. The Cadet Party had an overwhelming majority in the Cabinet and included the Socialist-Revolutionary Kerensky as a representative of the democracy to appease public opinion. The Duma sent Guchkov and Shulgin to the tsar and, on the night of March 2, in the royal train, held up at Pskov by revolutionary troops who would not let it proceed from Mogilyov to Petrograd, he signed his abdication in the presence of the Duma emissaries; the throne was to pass to the tsar's brother Mikhail. To keep the matter legal, Guchkov and Shulgin thereupon asked the tsar to sign an order appointing Prince Lvov Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Immediately on arrival in Petrograd, Guchkov and Shulgin, while still at the railway station, tried to shout "Hurrah!" for the Emperor Mikhail. The answer given to this by the revolutionary masses and to Milyukov's announcement that the Provisional Government intended retaining the monarchy, was so emphatic that Mikhail followed his brother's example and abdicated on March 3.
Thus the February Revolution was accomplished, as a result of which power passed into the hands of the Russian bourgeoisie. Lenin explained this as the result of the petty-bourgeois influences that at the moment had conquered certain sections of the proletariat; for this reason the Petrograd Soviet handed over state power to the bourgeoisie. The proletariat, however, did not allow the bourgeoisie full power. Two dictatorships were set up simultaneously in the country---the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. A new period had begun in the history of the peoples of Russia. The Bolshevik Party emerged from the underground, reassembled its ranks and began to prepare the people to struggle for the further development of the revolution and the victory of socialism.
[355] __ALPHA_LVL1__ CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINEAdrianople---250 Aegean Sea---22, 250 Afon---74 Aland Islands---158, 160 Alaska---1% Alatyr---182 Albazin---129. Alexandrovskaya sloboda---102 Altai---7, 17, 190 America---117, 16, 164, 172, 184, 232, 305 America. Latin---194 America, North---246 America, South---316 " Amur Region---7 Amur, R.---11, 148 Ancient Russian State---23, 24, 25, 27, 29--39, 40--42 Angara, R.---11 Annau Hills---10 Antarctica---215 Aral Sea---13, 54 Arax, R.---13 Arctic Ocean---7, 11, 76, 129, 148 Arkhangelsk Region, gubernia---146, 169 Arkhangelsk---128, 130, 347 Argishti---13 Armenia---7, 13, 128, 161, 184, 196, 214, 216, 249, 252, 278, 305, 339 Armenia, ``Great''---13 Armenian Highlands---12 Artania---29 Asia---7, 23, 53, 86, 148, 164, 194, 1%, 232, 309 Asia, Anterior---10, 16, 17, 23, 86 Asia Minor---14, 16, 20, 33, 55 Astrabad---161 Astrakhan---99, 141, 155 Astrakhan, Khanate of---88, 99 Assyria---13 Athens---18 Austerlitz---200 __COL_B__ Austria---153, 158, 163, 174, 176, 179, 185, 186, 188, 197, 226, 332, 342 Austria-Hungary---250, 340, 341, 342, 345 Azerbaijan---161, 1%, 214, 217, 226, 249, 337, 338 Azow---153, 154, 155, 158, 167 Azov, Sea of---10, 15, 16, 17 B Baikal, L.---11 Baku---141, 161, 246, 249, 283, 300, 305, 313, 316, 319 Balkan Peninsula---179, 250 Balkans, the---24, 132, 180, 228, 231, 340, 341, 342 Balkan Mts.---250 Balkan Alliance---341, 342 Baltic area---9, 22, 23, 27, 57, 85, 90, 105, 118, 195, 304, 317 Baltic Sea---7, 86, 100, 105, 126, 231 Baltic, the---22, 23, 100, 101, 105, 108, 139, 153, 160, 184, 348 Bashkiria---99, 128, 129, 155, 161, 181 Batum---250 Belaya Sluda---146 Belaya Tserkov---139, 206 Belgium---226, 248 Belgorod---128 Belgrade---342 Beloozero---37, 134 Berezina, R.---202 Berlin---175, 288, 342 Bessarabia---196, 250 Bezdna, village---241, 242 Bezhetskaya pyatina (administrative area)---78 Black Sea---7, 10, 14, 17, 20, 22, 53, 86, 228, 230, 231, 249, 250, 304 Black Sea area, Northern, Western, Black Sea steppelands---5, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19--22, 24, 25, 33, 197 359 Black Sea littoral---7, 14 Bogolyubovo, village---40, 50 Bohemia---42, 47, 55, 110, 217 Bolkhov---122 Borodino, village---200 Bosnia---249, 250, 341 Bosphorus Kingdom---17, 18, 19, 20, 21,22 Bosphorus, Str.---341 Britain---229, 230, 244, 248, 250, 290, 297, 341, 345, 347 Bryansk---90 Bug-Dnieper lagoon---14 Bug, R.---14, 15 Bug, Southern---10, 25 Bukhara---53, 108, 130, 1%, 248 Bukhara, the Emirate of---248 Bulgaria---16, 24, 33, 34, 42, 43, 74, 250, 261, 341, 342 Burgas Bay---20 Byelorussia, Byelorussian lands'---137,138, 139, 140, 149, 177, 183, 187, 208, 252, 301, 339, 348 Byelorussia, Western---188, 225, 244, 245, 249 Byzantium---23, 24, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 42, 43, 48, 51, 52, 71, 74, 75, 91, 110, 117 Cabei---19 Canada---316 Carpathians, Mts.---24, 25 Caspian Sea---7, 53, 54, 86, 141, Caucasian coast of the Black Sea---13, 14, 20 Caucasus---5, 7, 8, 17, 42, 84, 86, 108, 160, 206, 209, 216, 228, 250, 263, 309, 310, 320, 337, 345 Caucasus, North---10, 11, 32, 53, 108, 128, 177, 337 Central Asia---5, 7, 8, 10,11,12,13,14,17, 22, 23, 53, 54, 55, 56, 84, 86, 118, 130, 160, 165, 196, 228, 249, 283, 309, 310, 311, 320, 324, 337, 351 Chelyabinsk---301 Chemulpo---297 Cherdyn---135 Cherkassk---155 Chernigov---27, 36, 38, 46, 48, 50, 58, 90, 255 Chernigov land---41 Chernogai, village---241 Chersones---14, 17, 18, 19,21, 22 Chertomlyk---16 Chesmen Bay---179 Chiatura, manganese mines---249 __COL_B__ China---22, 53, 54, 62, 148, 164, 168, 233. 288, 290, 322 Chios, Str.---179 Chita---290, 304 Chudskoye (Peipus), L.---57, 76 Chuguyev---205 Chukhcherma, village---146 Ciscaucasian area---197 Constantinople (Tsargrad)---32, 33, 34, 46, 74,250 Copenhagen---154 Corfu, I.---197 Courland---100, 105, 168, 188 Crimea---8, 9, 14,16,17,18,19, 33, 86,93, 104, 139, 179, 184, 231, 256 Crimea, Khanate of---89 D Dabrowa Basin---246 Daghestan---160, 179 Danube, R.---10, 15, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 32, 33, 158, 180, 185, 250 Dardanelles-^ 341 Denmark---85, 100,104, 108, 153,154,158, 179 Derbent---141, 161 Derevskaya pyatina (administrative area)---78 Desna, R.---9, 25 Deulino, village---126 Dioscurias---14 Dnieper, R.---7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 25, 26, 30, 36, 53, 77, 90, 118, 127, 128, 137, 138, 140, 150, 156, 161, 179, 183, 187 Dnieper Basin---5, 12, 106 Dnieper Route---27 Dniester, R.---10, 24, 25, 186 Don Army, the land of the---140 Don, R.---7, 15, 17, 18, 63, 65, 108, 128, 141, 155, 182 Donets Basin---246, 282, 304, 315, 351 Donets, Northern---9, 25 Dorostol---33 Dresden---212 Dvina basin---84 Dvina, Northern---25, 79, 81 Dvina, Western, R. (Daugava)---26,76,101 Dvinsk (Dinaburg, Daugavpils)---158, 350 £ East European Plain---23, 25, 28 East, Middle---229, 340, 341 Egypt---86 Elba, I.---204 360 Elbe, R.---10 England---35, 77, 81, 82, 85, 100,108, 138, 153, 155, 158, 160, 167, 174, 179, 184, 195, 197, 198, 217 Eregli (Pontian Heracleus)---14 Esel, I.---100 Estland---158, 160, 163 Estonia---209, 214, 279, 335, 339 Evpatoria---17, 231 Europe---5, 10, 23, 52, 55, 76, 118, 132, 139, 174, 176, 194, 196, 197, 199, 204, 209, 212, 217, 228, 232, 281, 282, 299, 305 Europe, Eastern---7, 11, 24, 25, 31, 60, 335 Europe, Western---11, 12, 33, 52, 56, 62, 85, 86, 100, 130, 131, 212, 226, 232, 233, 335 Far East---282, 288, 322 Feodosia---14, 19, 86 Ferghana Region---248 Fidonisi---185 Fili---147, 201 Finland---158, 160, 1%, 306, 311 Finland, Gulf of---76, 90, 105, 126, 185, 186 Florence---68, 77 Focsani---185 France---35, 51, 108, 153, 158, 170, 176, 179, 186, 197, 199, 204, 217, 226, 229, 230, 232, 244, 248, 264, 288, 290, 305, 320, 332, 340, 341, 345, 347 Friedrichsham, the fort of---184 Oaimanova Mogila---16 Galich---41, 42, 46, 84 Galicia---41, 42, 50, 278, 345, 348 Galicia-Volhynia---23, 40, 55 Gangut---158 Gatchina---193 Geneva---251, 292 Genoa---90 Georgia---13, 54, 108, 128, 161, 179, 184, 186, 1%, 209, 214, 217, 249, 252,' 263, 294, 338, 339 Germany---35, 42, 100, 108, 170, 176, 195, 232, 248, 250, 264, 290, 305, 340, 341, 342 German Empire---184 Gilyan---161 Gogland---185 Golden Horde---60, 62, 64, 66, 88, 89 __PRINTERS_P_361_COMMENT__ 24--160 __COL_B__ Gomel---90 Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom---14 Great Trans-Siberian Railway---282 Greece---228, 341, 342 Grengam---160 Grunwald, village---67 Gumbinnen (Gusev)---344 Guria---209 H Helsingfors---158 Heracles Peninsula---17 Hermonassa---14 Herzegovina---250, 341 Holland---85, 153, 158, 184 Hungary---16, 35, 37, 42, 55, 110, 236 Dimsk---188 Dmen, L.---26 Imeretia, Imeretia kingdom---184 India---14, 47, 62, 85, 86, 117, 233, 308 Indian Ocean---86 Indigirka, R.---148 Indonesia---266 Ingermannland---160 Ingria (Ingermannland)---154, 158 Ionian Isles---197 Iran---53, 54 Irtysh, R.---54, 109 Iskorosten---25 Ismail, the fortress of---186 Istanbul---154 Italy---42, 84, 112, 224, 232, 341 Ivangorod---108, 345 Ivanovo, village, Ivanovo-Voznesensk--- 176, 291, 300, 348 Izhora district---126 J Japan---232, 288, 290, 298, 301 Jassy---186 Jungaria---164, 168 K Kabardinian land, Kabarda---128, 179, 180 Kadashev Sloboda---127 Kakhetia, Kakhetia kingdom---108, 184 Kagul, R---179 Kalka, R.---53, 70 Kaluga---84, 121, 122, 123, 127, 173, 202 Kaluga road, the---202 361 Kama, R---32, 79, 89 Kamaside---17 Kamchatka---164, 322 Kamyshin---182 Kandeyevka, village---241 Karakorum---55 Karelia---158, 160 Kaigopol---82, 122 Kannir-Blur Hill---13 Kars---250 KartTily, KartTily kingdom---184 Kashlyk---109 Kazakhstan, Kazakh lands---168, 181, 186, 195, 214, 309, 311, 351 Kazan---86, 89, 92, 110,112,114, 115, 142, 181, 182, 258, 261, 291, 292, 316 Kazan gubernia---241 Kazan, Khanate of---76, 86, 88, 90, 99 Kayala, R---70 Kerch, Panticapaeum---14, 16, 17, 19, 180 Kerch Peninsula---18 Kerch Str.; Cimmerian Bosphorus---14, 17 Kharkov---248, 255, 292, 294, 301, 304 Kharkov gubernia---294 Khazar Kingdom---42 Khiva---130, 160, 196 Khiva, Khanate of---249 Khojent---351 Kholm, the gubernia of---312 Kholmogory---85, 146 Khoresm (Khwarizm)---14, 53 Khorthsa---137 Kiev---25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 46, 48, 50, 51, 55, 58, 69, 128, 137, 140, 173, 214, 248, 261, 291, 304, 339 Kinburn---180, 184 Kirghizia---7, 248, 337, 351 Klushino, village---124 Kokand---1% Kokand, Khanate of---168, 248 Kola Peninsula---9 Kolomenskoye---114, 121, 122, 140, 146 Kolomna---55, 82, 113 Kolyma, R.---148 Koporye---108 Korea---290, 297 Korela (Keksholm)---108 Korovniki---147 Korsun---33, 34, 138 Kostroma---58, 67, 82, 84, 177, 348 Kostroma gubernia---312 Kovno (Kaunas)---139 Kozlov---135 Kozluja, village---180 Krakow---318 __COL_B__ Krasnoufimsk---181 Krasnoyarsk---129, 304 Krasnoye, village---202 Kromy---121 Kronstadt---304, 306 Krutaya, Mt.---9 Kuban area---17 Kulikovo Field---65, 66, 70 Kul-Oba---16 Kumary---7 Kunersdorf, village---175 Kura, R.---13 Kurgan---181 Kuril Islands---164 Kurmysh---182 Kursk---128, 135 Kursk gubernia---277, 299 Kushan Kingdom---14 Kutchuk-Kainarji---180 Kuyaba (Kuyava)---29 Ladoga, L.---26, 31 Larga, R.---179 Lahta---166 Latvia---160, 209, 279, 339, 348 Leipzig---204 Lena, R.---129, 148 Leningrad---52 Lesnaya, village---156 Liaotung Peninsula---290, 301 Liaoyang---298 Lipetsk---256 Lithuania---60, 64, 66, 67, 84, 85, 88, 89, 90, 93, 101, 110, 112, 137, 188, 214, 225, 244, 245, 249, 252, 335, 339, 348 Livland---100, 160, 163 Livonia---67, 84, 90, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 158 Lodz---248, 301, 345 London---235, 251, 300, 307 Lugansk---301 Lvov---139 M Macedonia---20 Magnesia---13 Magnitnaya, the fortress of---182 Maikop Kurgan---10 Maloyaroslavets---202 Malta, I.---197 Manchuria---290, 298, 304 Mangazeya---129 Marmara, Sea of---22 Marne, R.---345 Mazandaran---161 362 Mediterranean---10, 14 Merv---53 Mesia---21 Mezen, R.---79 Mesopotamia---10 Miletus---14 Minsk---139, 261 Mogilyov---139, 350, 355 Moldavia---139, 167, 179, 186, 228, 237 Mongolia---54, 148, 322 Moscow---40, 52, 55, 58, 62, 63, 66, 68, 72, 77, 88, 121, 140, 142, 144, 145, 155, 156, 177, 193, 195, 199, 200, 201, 202, 209, 210, 220, 222, 226, 233, 242, 246, 251, 252, 255, 256, 259, 261, 274, 278, 283, 284, 286, 293, 298, 304, 312, 316, 330, 338 Moscow, the Principality of---53, 58, 60, 64, 66, 67, 69, 78 Moskva, R.---26, 58, 84, 113 Mozhaisk---82, 84, 200 Mukden---300 Murmansk Region---146 Murom---36, 84 Murom, the Principality of---41 Murom-Ryazan land---41 N Naples---90, 204 Narva---100, 105, 108, 154, 155, 352 Neapolis (Scythian)---18, 19 Neglinnaya, R.---113 Nepryadva, R.---64, 65 Nerchinsk---129 Nerl, R.---50 Netherlands---118, 226 Neva, R.---57, 126, 154, 216 Neuschlott, the fort of---184 Niemen, R.---199 Nienschantz, fortress---154 Nikolayev---301, 351 Nystadt---160 Nizhny Novgorod---58, 62, 70, 71, 84, 113, 125, 127, 169, 182, 304 Nizhny Novgorod gubernia---169 Nizhny Novgorod, the Principality of--- 64, 66 Nizhny Novgorod and Suzdal, the Principality of---58, 60 Nogai Horde---88, 99 Northern Sea Route---164, 172 Norway---51 Noteburg (Oreshek, Schliisselburg)---154 Novaya Zemlya---82 Novgorod---2-3, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 39, 40, 41, 43, 46, 48, 50, 52, 55, 56, 58, 60, 24« __COL_B__ 62, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 74, 75, 77, 78 82, 84, 85, 88, 89, 90, 103, 104, 110, 125 126, 128, 130, 145 Novgorod gubernia---169 Novgorod lands---78, 79, 90, 106, 123, 125, 126 Novgorod and Pskov, the lands of---77,79, 82, 106 Novgorod Seversky---46, 90, 93 Novgorod Republic (state)---40, 88 Novorossiisk---18 O Ob, R.---89 Ocenia---266 Ochakov---186 Oder, R.---10 Odessa---248, 253, 261 Oka, R.---26, 58, 64, 89, 90 Oka-Volga basin---59 Okhotsk, Sea of---127, 148 Ohrid, L.---250 Olomouc---55 Olonets region^-127 Olvia---14, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 Onega, L.---11, 79 Onega, R.---79 Opolye---82 Oranienbaum---193 Orekhovo-Zuevo---259 Orel gubernia---299 Orenburg---181, 209 Orenburg gubernia---181 Orsha---101 Osa---182 Ossetia---7 Ostrov, town---105 Pacific Ocean---7, 11, 148, 231 Palestine---229 Paris---77, 204, 231, 288, 313, 344, 345 Parthia---14 Pavlovo, village---176 Pavlovsk---193 Pechora, R.---9, 79, 89 Penza---161, 182 Penza gubernia---241 Perm---84, 301 Perm area---84, 89 Perm gubernia---181 Pereyaslavets---33 Pereyaslavl, Southern---38, 46 Pereyaslavl Zalessky---36, 40, 58, 84 Persia---16, 84, 86, 90, 108, 128, 130, 141, 160, 167, 184, 196, 209, 288, 340 363 Peterhof ---193 Phanagoria---14, 20 Philippopolis---250 Piedmont---204 Pitsunda (Pitius)---14 Pleven---250 Podolye---10 Poland---35, 37, 42, 55, 67, 84, 89, 90, 100, 104, 105, 108, 110, 118, 120, 122, 123, 126, 128, 131, 133, 138, 139, 140, 149, 150, 154, 158, 176, 179, 180, 187, 188, 217, 228, 236, 244, 245, 246, 248, 283, 301, 309, 348 Polish-Lithuanian state---100 Polota, R.---25 Polotsk---26, 48, 101, 105, 144 Poltava---156, 161 Poltava gubernia---294 Pomerania---158 Pomorye---79, 84 Pontian Kingdom---13, 19 Poronin---318 Port Arthur---290, 297, 298 Portsmouth---301 Portugal---204 Poti (Phasis)---14 Prague---77, 212, 316 Preobrazhenskoye---152 Pripyat---25 Prussia---158, 174, 176, 179, 185, 187, 188, 204, 226 Prussia, Eastern---344, 345, 348 Prut, R.---158, 162 Przhevalsk---351 Pskov---50, 51, 57, 58, 62, 63, 67, 69, 70, 75, 77, 78, 82, 84, 85, 88, 89, 92, 103, 105, 112, 128, 130, 136, 146, 355 Pskov lands---78, 79, 90, 106 Putivl---121 Rava Russkaya---153 Revel gubernia---183 Revel (Tallinn)---100, 105, 158, 183, 306 Riga---105, 139, 156, 158, 183, 248, 319, 350 Riga gubernia---183 Rimnic---185 Rodnya---30 Romodanovsky district---173 Roman Empire---19, 20, 22, 110 Rome---77, 197 Ropsha---193 Ros, R.---25, 30 Rostov, Great---37, 40, 41, 56, 58, 70, 147 Rostov, L.---144, 147 Rostov-on-Don---292, 304 __COL_B__ Rostov-Suzdal land---40 Rumania---250, 350 Rus---23, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 42, 45, 47, 51, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 64, 117 Russia, North-Eastern---55, 58, 64, 84 Russia, European---245, 282 Russia (Russian State), Russian Empire---5, 23, 28, 30, 31, 40, 42, 43, 45, 48, 51, 56, 62, 74, 86, 87, 104, 118, 140, 148, 149, 150, 155, 156, 158, 160, 166, 167, 168, 174, 176, 179, 183, 185, 191, 194, 195, 196, 199, 204, 205, 206, 210, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 237, 238, 243, 244, 245, 247, 248, 250, 252, 254, 257, 259, 260, 261, 262, 264, 266, 277, 280, 281, 287, 288, 290, 301, 305, 308, 311, 313, 314, 316, 317, 318, 328, 335, 339, 340, 342, 343, 345, 347, 350, 351, 352, 355 Rzecz Pospolita---104, 105, 136, 137, 139, 140, 153, 188 Ryazan---29, 41, 55, 69, 70, 84, 88, 124 Ryazan district---82 Ryazan, the Principality of---41, 55, 58,64, 69, 92 Ryazan road---201 Sakhalin---301 Samara---141, 181, 291 Samarkand---53, 55 San Stefano---250 Sarai---55, 62 Saransk---182 Saratov---141, 182, 316 Saxony---155, 174 Scandinavia---42 Schliisselburg Fortress---186, 259 Scythia---16 Seim, R.---25, 76 Serbia---24, 74, 228, 248, 250, 341, 342 Serpeisk---137 Serpukhov---82, 127 Serpukhov-Tula area---82 Sevastopol---14, 208, 231 Sevastopol Bay---232 Shelonskaya pyatina (administrative area)---78 Shelon, R.---88 Shipka Pass---250 Siberia, Eastern, Western, Siberian Khanate---8, 11, 12, 18, 88, 108, 109, 110, 118, 126, 129, 130, 148, 166, 169, 172, 177, 181, 206, 241, 249, 259, 262, 292, 308, 310, 317, 322, 333 364 Silesia---174 Simbirsk---128, 141, 181, 290 Simbirsk gubernia---181 Sinop---230 Sit. R.---55 Slavia---29 Smolensk---25, 27, 46, 48, 50, 58, 62, 67, 70, 85, 92, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 130, 137, 139, 140, 200 Smolensk region---82 Smolensk road---202 Sochi---209 Sogd---14 Sofia---250 Solikamsk---84 Solokha---16 Sol-Vychegodsk---81, 135 Sophene---13 Sormovo---292, 304 South-Manchurian Railway---301 Sozh---25 Spain---100, 204 St. George, fort of---184 St. Helena, I.---200 St. Petersburg (Leningrad, Petrograd)---154, 161, 162, 166, 168, 191, 193, 195, 198, 205, 208, 212, 215, 223, 226, 230, 234, 236, 242, 243, 245, 248, 251, 252, 253, 256, 257, 259, 261, 274, 275, 283, 284, 291, 292, 304, 308, 312, 313, 315, 316, 317, 320, 330, 335, 342, 348, 351, 352, 353, 355 St. Petersburg gubernia---312 Staraya Russa---84 Stavropol---181 Stockholm---158, 306 Sudak (Surozh)---62 Sukhumi---14 Sula, R.---25 Sungir, R.---9 Suzdal---37, 40, 41, 46, 56 Sveaborg---306 Sviyaga, R.---99 Sviyazhsk---99 Sweden---85, 90, 100, 104, 105, 108, 118, 123, 126, 131, 139, 140, 153, 160, 166, 179, 186 Switzerland---197 Syr Darya, R.---13 Taman Peninsula---14, 17 Tambov---128, 208 Tana---62 Tarutino, village---202 Tashkent---248, 351 __COL_B__ Tatishohevo, fortress of---181, 182 Tbilisi (Tiflis)---248, 292, 299, 305, 316 Teishebaini---13 Terek, R.---108 Tersky gorodok---108 Teshik Tash---8 Thrace---20 " Tien Shan---7 Tikhvin---82, 127, 130 Tikhvin area---82 Tilsit---199 Tokmak---351 Tolchkovo, village---147 Toropets land---78 Torun (Torn)---187, 345 Torzhok---104 Trans-Baikal---311 Transcarpathian---25 Transcaucasus---5, 7, 10, 13, 14, 21, 23,53, 54, 55, 56, 86, 108, 118, 128, 160, 184, 195, 1%, 248, 301 Tripolye---10, 11 Troitsk---182 Tsaritsyn---141, 161 Tsaritsyno, village---193 Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin)---173, 193, 216 Tsushima Str.---30 Tula---113, 122, 127 Tula-Kaluga area---169 Turgai region---351 Turkestan---249 Turkestan, the province of---249 Turkey (Ottoman Empire)---84, 85, 89, 90, 104, 108, 128, 138, 153, 155, 158, 167, 179, 184, 186, 196, 197, 228, 229, 231, 250, 251, 341, 345 Turkmenia---10, 351 Turov---46 Tushino---123, 124 Tushpa---12 Tver---56, 59, 60, 62, 66, 70, 78, 82, 85, 88, 104, 255 Tver gubernia---243 Tver, the Principality of---58, 64, 69, 88 U Ufa---129, 181, 182 Uglich---85, 107, 119, 122 Ugra, R.---89 Ukraine---7, 118, 119, 126, 128, 132, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 149, 150, 161, 177, 178, 183, 187, 205, 209, 214, 216, 225, 246, 247, 252, 279, 280, 301, 317, 338 Ukraine, Northern---U9, 120, 121, 122 Ukraine, Slobodskaya---142 Ukraine, Western---139, 277 365 Ula, R.---101 Upa, R.---122 Ural Mts.---11, 54, 89, 108, 109, 154, 164, 177, 182, 195, 216, 272, 316 Urals, the South region---17, 169 Urartu---12, 13 Urghench---53 USA---195, 1%, 232; 233, 246, 281, 288, 290, 297, 301, 305, 316, 347 USSR---5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 17, 76 Ustyug Veliky---84, 95, 127, 128, 135 Ustyug-Zheleznopolye area---82 Ust-Tsilma---9 Utrecht---160 Uzbekistan---338, 351 Van, L.---12 Varzuga---146 Vasilievsky, I.---166, 221 VelikieLuki---105 Velizh---105 Venice---84, 90, 153 Verdun---350 Verele, village---186 Vereya, the Principality of---68 Vienna---153, 199, 228 Vilnius (Vilno)---101, 261 Vistula, R.---10, 23, 24 Vitebsk---139 Vladimir gubernia---312 Vladimir, the Grand Duchy ( Principality)---41, 57, 58, 59, 60, 64, 66 Vladimir on the River Klyazma---9, 40, 41, 46, 50, 51, 55, 58, 72, 112 Vladimir-Suzdal---23, 40, 41, 48 Vladivostok---290, 304, 347 Volga area---78, 82, 106, 118, 123, 128, 261 Volga, R.---9, 11, 25, 26, 27, 53, 58, 77, 86, 89, 99, 123, 125, 141, 142, 147, 184 Volga Route---27, 62, 86 Volgaside (Lower Volga)---17, 55, 99, 121, 125, 128, 177, 181, 182, 301, 317 Volhynia---10, 12, 41, 42, 46, 50 Volkhov, R.---31, 62, 104 Vologda---82, 84, 85, 127, 128 Vorobyovo, village---95 Voronezh---127, 128, 135, 153, 256 Voronezh gubernia---299 __COL_B__ Votskaya pyatina (administrative area)---7 Vozh, R.---64 Vyatka, R.---79, 84 Vyazma---202 Vyborg---158, 160, 352 Vyborg Bay---186 Vychegda, R.---84 W Walachia---179, 186, 228, 231 Warsaw---226, 244, 248, 292, 299, 345 Warsaw, the Duchy of---199 Western Pont---21 Western Roman Empire---24 White Sea---11, 79, 85, 231 Z Zagorsk---72, 73 Zamoskovny region---77, 79 Zaporozhye Region---16 Zaporozhskaya Sech---137, 138, 183 Zavolochye---82 Zayachy, I.---154 Zborow---139 Zholtiye Vody, R.---138 Zimmerwald---348 Zvenigorod---72, 73 Y Yaik Fort---181 Yaik (Ural), R.---99, 128, 141 Yakutia---8, 309, 322 Yakutsk---129 Yam, town---108 Yaroslavl---56, 77, 82, 84, 125, 127, 145, 146, 147, 177, 286 Yaroslavl gubernia---177 Yaroslavl region---82 Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk)---181, 301 Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk)---305 Yenikale---180 Yenisei, R---11, 16, 129 Yeniseisk---129 Yerevan---13, 129 Yugor Peninsula---90 Yuriev (Derpt)---90, 100 Yuriev Polsky---40 Yuriev Region---90[366] __ALPHA_LVL1__ NAME INDEX
Abelyan, O. A.---339 Abovyan, Kh.---214, 226 Abulkhair---168 Achemenids, the---13, 14 Adadurov, V.---171 Adashev, A. F.---95, 97, 101 Adrian---153 Afanasy---102, 103 Ahmat---89 Aini, Sadriddin---337 Aivazovsky, I. K.---224 Akhundov, M. F.---214, 226 Akopyan, A.---337 Aksakov, I. S.---250 Aksakovs, the---212 Alchevsky, I. A.---331 Alevisib---113 Alexander---108 Alexander the Great---13, 48 Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky---57,69,70 Alexander 1---194, 198--200, 204, 206, 216, 228 Alexander 11---233, 234, 235, 239, 240, 245, 251, 255, 256--58 Alexander III---257--59, 285, 290, 317, 334 Alexander Mikhailovich---59, 60 Alexandra Fyodorovna---285, 349, 350 Alexei---60 Alexei Alexeyevich---141 Alexei Mikhailovich---130, 131, 132, 133, 135, 140, 144, 145, 146, 151 Alexei Petrovich---163, 167 Alexeyev, P. A.---252, 254 Alexeyev, V. M.---324 Alunan, A.---339 Alyabyev, A. A.---221 Alyosha Popovich---69 Amangeldy Imanov---351 Anastasia---35 Anastasia Romanovna (Zakharyina)---94, 106 Andrei Ivanovich---93, 94 Andrei Vasilyevich---89 Andrei Yuryevich Bogolyubsky---40, 41, 46,50 Andreyev, L. N.---326 Andrew---35 Andrich---35 Anna---35, 51 Anna---33, 35 Anna loannovna---167, 168, 172 Anna Leopoldovna---168 Annenkov, P. V.---212 Antokolsky, M. M.---278 Anton Fryazin---113 Antonovich, M. A.---245 Antonus Pius---22 __COL_B__ Antropov, A P.---173, 193 Antsiferov, D. Y.---164 Anuchin, D. N.---322 Apraksin, A. S.---241 Apraksin, S. F.---174 Aptekman, O. V.---260 Arakcheyev, A. N.---204, 216 Arakishvili, D. I.---338 Ardagast---24 Arensky, A. S.---274, 332 Argunov, I. P.---173, 193 Anstotle Fioravanti---112 Arkhipov, A. Y.---334 Askold---31 Atlasov, V. V.---164 Augustus Octavianus---109 Augustus 11---153, 154, 155, 158 Avvakum---133, 143 Axelrod, P. B.---260, 297 Azef, Y. F.---309 Azizbekov, M.---313 B Babushkin, I. V.---297 Badayev, A. Y.---319 Bagration, P. I.---199, 200 Baikov, F. I.---148 Bakhrushin, S. V.---324 Baksheyev, V. N.---334 Bakst, L. S.---334 Bakunin, M. A.---212, 244, 252 Bakunins, the---244 Balakirev, M. A.---272, 332 Balanchivadze, M. A.---280, 338 Balmont, K. D.---326 Balzac, H. de---226 Baratashvili, N. M.---214, 226 Barbara, I.---84 Barclay de Tolly, M. B.---199, 200 Bardina, S. I.---252 Barma---114 Barthold, V. V.---324 Baryatinsky, Y. N.---142 BasH 11---33, 35 Batu---48, 55, 69, 72 Batyushkov, K. N.---216 Bauman, N. E.---297 Bayer, G. Z.---171 Bazhenov, V. I.---193 Beauvais, O. I.---223 Bedny, Demyan (Pridvorov, Y. A.)---318, 326 Bebel, A.---305 Beethoven, L. van---226, 273 Behr, K. M__215 Bely, A. (Bugayev, B. N.)---327 Bekovich-Cherkassky, A.---160 367 Belinsky, V. G.---194, 195, 210--12, 214, 225, 236, 266, 272, 310 Bellinshausen, F. F.---215 Belobotsky, A.---149 Belsky, B. Y.---107 Belskys, the---93, 94 Benkendorf, A. K.---208 Benois, A. N.---334 B<5ranger, P.-J.---226 Berg, F. F.---244 Bering, V.---164, 172 Berlioz, H.---114, 226, 273 Bernoulli, J. B.---171 Bestuzhev, A. A.---199, 206 Bestuzhev, N. A.---206 Bestuzhev-Ryumin, M. P.---206 Beylis, M.---317 Bilibin, I. Y.---334 Biliunas, J. I.---335 Biron (Biihren), E. I---167--68 Blagoyev, D. N.---261 Blanqui, A.---252 Blau, I.---148 Blok, A. A.---220, 327 Bogdanov. A. A.---312 Bogolyubov (Yemelyanov), A. P.---254 Bogrov. D. G.---314 Bogushevich, F. K.---278 Boleslaw I the Brave---35 Bolotnikov, I. I.---121--22 Boltin, I. N.---191 Boretskys, the---88 Boris Fyodorovich Godunov---76, 106, 107, 108, 109, 119--21 Boris Vasilyevich---89 Boris Vladimirovich---36, 45 Borodin, A. P.---272, 273 Borovikovsky, V. L.---193 Botkin, S. P.---265 Botkin, V. P.---212 Bouchot---210 Bourbon (dyn.)---204 Bredikhin, F. A.---266 Brusilov, A. A.---350 Brusnev, M. I.---261 Bryullov, K. P.---223 Bryusov, V. Y.---327 Bubnov, A. S.---313 Buchholtz, I. D.---160 Bugrimovs, the---176 Buinitsky, I. T.---339 Bulavin, K. A.---155 Bulgarin, F. V.---216 Bulygin, A. G.---302 Bunin, I. A.---326 Burbista---20 Butlerov, A. M.---266 321 Buturlin, V. V.---139' Byalynitsky-Birulya, V. K.---334 Byron, G.---226, 274 C Caesar Gaius Julius---20 Cameron, Ch.---193 __COL_B__ Catherine 1---167 Catherine II---175, 176, 178, 179, 180, 182, 186, 187, 188, 197--98 Chaikovsky, P. L---5, 273, 274, 280 Chancellor, R.---77, 83, 85 Chaplygin, S. A.---321 Charles X---139 Charles X---226 Charles XII---154, 155, 158 Chavchavadze, A. G.---214, 226 Chavchavadze, I. G.---278, 280, 336 Chebyshev, P. L.---265 Chekhov, A. P.---272, 274, 287, 324, 325, 328 Chelyuskin, S.---172 Cherepanov, M. Y.---216 Cherepanov, Y. A.---216 Cherkassky, M. A.---152 Cherkassky, Y. K.---130 Cherkasskys, the---131 Chernov, D. K.---266 Chernyshevsky, N. G.---213, 228, 236--38, 242--44, 263, 264, 266, 272, 280, 310 Chika-Zarubin, I. N.---181 Chirikov, A. I.---172 Chirikov, Y. N.---326 Chistoi, N.---135 Chkheidze, N. S.---355 Chmshkyan, G.---280 Chodkiewicz, J. K.---125 Chopin, F.---226, 273 Ciurlionis, M. K.---339 Constantino Monomach---33, 35 Contarini, A.---84 Copernicus, N.---148 Cosma Indicoplous---47 Cromwell, O.---138 Croy, K. de---154 D Dan, F. I.---312 Danielson, N. F.---251 Daniil---133 Daniil Alexandrovich---58 Daniil the Black---72 Daniil the Recluse---46 Daniil Romanovich---42, 46 Dante, A.---274 Dargomyzhsky, A. S.---223, 273 Darius I---16 Darwin, Ch.---215, 266 Darzin, E.---338 Davout, L. N.------200, 202 Davydov, D. V.---202 Davydov, V. N.---330 Debussy, C.-A.---332 Debs, E.---305 Decebal---20 Deleon, D.---305 Demidov (Antufyev).N. D.---168, 173 Derzhavin, G. R.---188 Desnitsky, S. Y.---180 Deutsch, L. G.---260 368 Devlet-Oirei---99, 104 Dezhnev, S. I.---148 Diderot, D---179 Diaghilev, S. P.---332 Digenes Acritas---48 Dionisius--- 115 Diophantus---19 Dir---31 Dmitr---55 Dmitry---106, 107, 119, 120, 121--23 Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoi---60, 62, 64, 65, 66, 113 Dmitry Konstantinovich---60 Dmitry Pavlovich---351 Dmitry Yuryevich Shemyaka---67, 68, 87 Dobrolyubdv, N. A.---208, 237, 238, 262-- 63, 266, 272, 310 Dobrynya Nikitich---69 Dobuzhinsky, M. V.---334 Dokuchayev, V. V.---265 Dolgorukov, V. A.---234 Dolgorukys, the---167 Dombrowski, J.---244 Donish, Ahmad---279 Dostoyevsky, F. M.---5, 213, 219, 268, 270, 280 Dubovskoi, N. N.---334 Dubrovin, A. I.---303 Dubrovinsky, I. F.---313 Dunin-Martsinkevich, V. I.---225 E Engels, F.---194, 232, 251, 260, 264, 291 Elizabeth---35, 51 Elizabeth I (daughter of Peter the Great)---169, 173, 174, 175 Ennigen, Kuno von---35 Eristavi, G. D.---280 Euler, L.---171, 190 Falconet, E. M.---191 False Dmitry 1---119--21 False Dmitry H---121, 122, 123 Faraday, M.---216 Favorsky, A. Y.---321 Fedoseyev, N. Y.---261 Fedotov, P. A.---224 Fedotova, G. N.---275 Felman, F. R.---214 Feodosy Kosoi---110 Fermor, V. V.---174 Fet, A. A.---272 Feuerbach, L.---236 Figner, V. N.---256 Figners, M. I. & N. N.---274 Figner sisters, the---252 Filaret---131 Filaret---205 Filofei---110 Fletcher, G.---118 Fok, A. V.---298 Fokin, M. M.---332 __COL_B__ Fonvizin, D. I.---189 Fourier, Ch.---194, 211, 212, 236 France, A.---270, 305 Franko, I. Y.---278, 335 Franz Ferdinand---342 Frederick 11---173, 174, 175, 180, 197 Frolov, K. D.---190 Furkat (Zakirjan)---279 Fyodor Borisovich Godunov---120 Fyodor Ivanovich---76, 106--07, 119 Fyodorov, I.---112, 335 Fyodorov, Y. S.---266 Gabashvili, G. I.---280 Gafuri, M.---337 Gaideburov, P. P.---330 Galsworthy, J.---270 Ganelin, R. Sh.---6 Gapon, G. A.---298 Garibaldi, G.---236, 335 Garin-Mikhailovsky, N. G.---326 Geltser, Y. V.---332 George I---158 Georgios Amartolos---47 Ghe, N. N.---276, 277 Gilardi, D. I.---223 Gippius, Z. N.---326 Glazunov, A. K.---274, 331 Gleb Vladimirovich of Murom---36, 45 Gliere, R. M.---332 Glinka, M. I.---221, 223, 226, 273 Glinsky, M. L.---93 Glinskaya, Y. V.---93 Glinskys, the---94, 95 Gluck, Z.---164 Godunovs, the---120, 121 Goethe, J. W.---226 Gogol, N. V.---216, 219, 274 Golitsyn, A. M.---193 Golitsyn, B. A.---152 Golitsyn, B. B.---321 Golitsyn, D. M.---152, 167 Golitsyn, V. V.---151 Golitsyns, the---147 Golovin, A. Y.---334 Golovkin, G. I.---165 Golubkina, A. S.---335 Goncharov, I. A.---219, 268 Gonzago, P. G.---193 Gorchakov, A. M.---250 Gordon, P.---152 Goremykin, I. L.---314 Gorky, M. (Peshkov, A. M.)---5, 287, 292, 316, 325--26, 329, 330, 335, 339 Gorsky, A. A.---332 Gostomysl---30 Gotye, Y. V.---324 Grabar, I. E.---324 Grachevs, the---176 Granovsky, T. N.---212 Grebyonka, Y. P.---225 Grech, N. I.---216 369 Grechaninov, A. T.---274, 332 Gregory---144 Greig, S. K.---185 Grekov, B. D.---324 Grey, E.---342 Griboyedov, A. S.---220 Guchkov, A. I.---303, 349, 355 Gulak-Artemovsky, P. P.---225 Gun, K. F.---280 Gurilyov, A. L.---221 Gusev-Orenburgsky, S. I.---326 H Haiibekov, U.---338 Halloway, Ch.---113 Hamza, Hakim-zade---337 Harald---35 Harold 11---35 Hauptmann, G.---329 Haywood, W.---305 Hegel, P.---236 Henri 1---35 Herodotus---15, 16--18 Herzen,A.L---194, 195, 206, 210--11, 212, 214, 221, 225, 228, 237, 238, 242, 243, 244, 245, 263, 278, 286 Hevelius---148 Hugo, V.---236, 275 Hufagid (Khans)---54 Hulagu---54 I Ibak---89 Ibn al-Asir---54 Ibsen, H.---329 Ignatov, V. N.---260 Igor---32, 33 Igor Svyatoslavich---46, 70 Darion---45, 70 Eya Murotets---69 loannes---47 loann Zimisces---33 loannes Malala---47 lona---68 IppoKtov-Ivanov, M. M.---274 Irakly n---185 Isaakyan, A. S.---337 Isaiah---160 Ishutin, N. A.---245 Isidor---68 Istomih, K.---144, 149 Ivan V Alexeyevich---151 Ivan VI Antonovich---168 Ivan Danilovich ``Kalita''---59, 113 Ivan Ivanovich the Fair---60 Ivan HI Vasilyevich---69, 76, 78, 87--93, 100, 113 Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible---76, 81, 93, 94--98, 99--106, 108, 110, 112, 115, 119, 121 Ivanov, A. A.---224 Ivanov, S. V.---334 Izmailov, A. B.---137 Izyaslav I Yaroslavich---35, 37 __COL_B__ Jabayev, Jambul---278 Jacobi, B. S.---216 Jagailo---64 Jagatai---54 Jan Kazimierz---139 Janonis, J.---335 Japaridze, P. A.---313 Jaures, J.---305 Jenghiz Khan---5, 53, 54 Job---108 Juchi---54, 55 Jurian, A. A..---279, 338 Kablukov, I. A.---321 Kachalov, V. I---328 Kakhovsky, P. G.---206 Kajars, the---196 Kalinin, M. I.---297, 313 Kalinnikov, V. S.---274, 332 Kalinowski, K.---244 Kallistov, D. P.---6 Kalnin, A.---338 Kandinsky, V. V.---334 Kankrin, G. F.---208 Kantemir, A. D.---172 Kantemir, D. K.---158 Kapnist, V. V.---189 Kapp, A.---339 Karakozov, D. V.---245, 251 Karamzin, N. M.---199 Kardovsky, D. N.---334 Kareyev, N. I.---264 Karmalyuk. U. Y.---209 Karpenko-Kary, I. (TobHevich, I. K.) 280 Karpinsky, A. P.---266 Karsavina, T. P.---332 Kasatkin, N. A.---333 Kasso, L. A.---321 Katkov, M. N.---244, 258 Katyrev-Rostovsky, I. M.---143 Kavelin, K. D.---211 Kazakov, M. F.---193 Kazakova, N. A.---6 Kazimierz I---35 Kazimierz IV---88, 89, 90 Kelin, A. S.---156 Kerensky, A. F.---355 Khabarov, Y. P.---148 Khalturin, S. N.---252, 254, 256 Kheraskov, M. M.---189 Khetagurov, K. L.---337 KhmeTnitsky, B. M.---137--39 Khodota---29 Khokhlov, P. A.---274 Khomyakov, A. S.---212 Khosrow---29 Khovansky, I.---136 Khovansky, I. A.---151 Kibalchich, N. I.---258 Kii---25 370 Kiprensky, O. A.---224 Kireyevsky brothers, the---212 Kirill of Turov---46 Kirpichnikov, T. P.---353 KIdiashvili, D. S.---336 Kliment of Smolensk---46 Klodt, P. K.---224 Klyuchevsky, V. O.---264, 324 Knipper (Chekhova), O. L.---328 Kokovtsov, P. K---324 Kokovtsov, V. N.---314 Kolas, Yakub (Mickiewicz, K. M.)---335 Koltsov, A. V.---218 Komarov, V. L.---322 Komissarzhevskaya, V. F.---330 Komitas (Sogomonyan, S. G.)---337 Kon, F.---115 Konchalovsky, P. P.---334 Kondratenko, R. I.---298 Konovalov, A. I.---319 Konyonkov, S. T.---335 Kopanev, A. I.---6 Konstantin Dmitriyevich---67 Kornilov, V. A.---231 Korolenko.V. G.---272, 287, 325 Korovin, K. A.---334 Korovin, S. A.---334 Korsov, B. B.---274 Kosciuszko, T.---188 Kostandi, K. K.---280 Kotelnikov, S. K.---190 Kotlyarevsky, I. P.---225 Kotoshikhin, G. K.---131 Kotsubinsky, M. M.---335 Kott, E.---127 Kovalevskaya, S. V.---265 Kovalevsky, A. O.---266 Kovalevsky, V. O.---266 Kovalevsky, M. M.---251, 264 Kozelsky, Y. P.---180 Kozlov, P. K.---322 Kozlovsky, M. I.---193 Kozyrevsky, I. P.---164 Krasheninnikov, S. P.---171 Krachkovsky, I. Y.---324 Kramskoi, I. N.---276, 277 Kravchinsky, S. M.---252, 255 Kreuzwald, F.---214, 279 Kropivnitsky, M. L.---280 Kropotkin, P. A.---252 Krupskaya, N. K.---318 Kruse, E.---105 Krylov, I. A.---216 Krylov, A. N.---321 Kshesinskaya, M. F.---332 Kuchum---109 Kui, C. A.---272 Kuibyshev, V. V.---313 Kuinji, A. I.---276 Kulibin, I. P.---190 Kunanbayev, Abai---278 Kunitsyn, A. P.---205 Kupala, Yanka (Lutsevich, I. D.)---335 Kuprin, A. I.---326 __COL_B__ Kurbsky, A. M.---95, 101, 110 Kurnakov, N. S.---321 Kurnatovsky, V. K.---297 Kursky, D. I.---313 Kuskova, Y. D.---292 Kustodiyev, B. M.---334 Kutuzov, M. I.---199, 200, 201, 202 Kvyatkovsky, A. A.---256 Lafargue, P.---305 Laharpe, C.---198 Lansere, Y. Y.---334 Lanskoi, S. S.---234 Laptev, D. Y. & Ch. P.---172 Lavrit---24 Lavrov, P. L.---251 Lavrovskaya, Y. A.---274 Lazarev, M. P.---215 Lebedev, P. N.---316 Lebedev, S. V.---321 Lefort, F. Y.---152, 165 Lenin, V. I.---6, 180, 239, 245, 246, 259, 262, 265, 269, 284, 290--92, 2%, 297,298, 300--02, 307, 308, 310, 313, 316--19, 320, 324, 326, 344, 347, 348, 355 Lensky, A. P.---275, 329 Lentz, E.---215 Leonidov, L. M.---328 Leonova, D. M.---274 Leontovich, N. D.---338 Leopold 11---153 Lepyokhin, I. L---190 Lermontov, M. Y.---217, 218, 334 Levin, Sh. M.---6 Levitan, I. L---333 Levitsky, D. G.---193 Liebknecht, K.---305 Likhachov, D. S.---6 LIkhuda, I. & S.---149 Lind, Lucas de---148 Liszt, F.---226, 274 Litvin, P. V.---330 Litvinov, M. M.---297 Lobachevsky, N. L---215 Lodygin, A. N.---266 Lomonosov, M. V.---5, 170--72, 188 London, J.---305 Lopatin, G. A.---251 Lope de Vega---275 Loris-Melikov, M. T.---257 Lowenhaupt, A.---156 Lubecker---156 Luchina, Yanka (Neslukhovsky, I. L.)---278 Luchitsky, I. V.---264^ Lunacharsky, A. V.---312, 323, 328 Luxemburg, R.---305 Lvov, G. Y.---355 Lyadov, A. K.---274, 332 Lyapunov, A. M.---265 Lyapunov, P. P.---125 Lyapunov, S. M.---332 Lysenko, N. V.---279, 338 371 M Mach, E.---313 Magnitsky, L. F.---164 Mahler, G.---332 Maikov, A. N.---213, 272 Makarii---94--96, 98, 101, 112 Makarios of Antioch---133 Makarov, A. A.---317 Maklakov, N. A.---317, 349 Makovsky, V. Y.---276, 334 Mai---29 Malevich, K. S---334 Malinovsky, R. V.---319 Malyutin, S. V.---334 Mamai---64, 65, 66, 70 Mamedkulizade, J.---337 Mamin-Sibiryak, D. N.---272, 327 Mamontov, S. I.---330 Mankiyev, A. I.---164 Mankov, A. G.---6 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus---22 Maria Borisovna---91 Maria-Dobronega--- 35 Maria Fyodorovna (Nagaya)---106, 107 Maria Fyodorovna---317 Markov, A. A---265 Markov, N. Y. (Markov the 2nd)---303 Marr, N. Y.---324 Marios, I. P.---193, 224 Martov, Y. O.---296, 297, 312 Marx, K.---23, 163, 194, 232, 236, 251, 252, 260, 291 Massa, I.---121 Matveyev, A. S.---148 Matveyev, A. M.---165 Maurois, A.---268 Maximov, V. M.---277 Mayakovsky, V. V.---328 Mazeppa, I. S.---156 Mazzini, G.---236 Mechnikov, I. I.---266 Medvedev, S.---144, 149 Mehring, F.---305 Melngailis, E.---338 Mendeleyev, D. I.---5, 266, 280, 321 Mendy-Khan---141 Mengli-Girei---89 Menshikov, A. D.---152, 156, 167 Menshikov, A. S.---230 Mercator (Cremer), Gerardus---148 Merezhkovsky, D. S.---326 Meskhishvili, Lado (V. S.)---339 Mezentsev, N. V.---255 Michurin, I. A.---266 Michurina-Samoilova, V. A.---330 Miechowski, M.---77 Mieszko II---35 Mikhail Alexandrovich---60 Mikhail Alexandrovich, Emperor---355 Mikhail Borisovich---88 Mikhail Fyodorovich---125, 131, 132 Mikhail Yaroslavich---58 Mikhailov, A.---148 __COL_B__ Mikhailov, A. D.---253. 256 Mikhailovsky, N. K.---266 Miklukho-Maklai, N. N.---266 Miloradovich, M. A.---202 Miloslavsky, I. B.---127, 130 Miloslavsky, I. D.---127, 130 Miloslavskys, the---140, 151 Milyukov, P. N.---303, 349, 351, 355 Milyutin, D. A.---256 Milyutin, N. A.---234 Minayev, I. P.---265 Minich, B.---168 Minin, K.---125 Minsky, N. (Vilenkin, N. M.)---326 Mirny, Panas (Rudchenko, A. Y.)---278 Mithradates Eupator---19, 20 Mniszech, Marina---120 Mniszechs, the---119 Moiseyenko, P. A.---252, 259 Moliere, J. B.---275 Morosov, B. I.---130, 131, 135 Morosov, N. A.---256 Morosov, S. I.---259 Morosovs, the---176 Morse, S.---216 Moskvin, I. M.---328 Moussorgsky, M. P.---5, 273, 280 Mozart, W. A.---274 Mozhaisky, A. F.---266 Mreylishvili, A. R.---339 Mstislav Romanovich---53 Mstislav of Tmutarakan---36 Mstislav Vladimirovich---38 Mstislavets, P. T.---112 Mstislavsky, I. F.---107 Mukimi (Muhammed Amin-hoja)---279 Muranov, M. K.---319 Murat, J.---202, 204 Muravyov, M. N.---234, 244 Muravyov, N. M.---205 Muravyov-Apostol, S. I.---206 Musoky---24 Myaskovsky, N. Y.---332 Myasoyedov, G. G.---276 Myshkin, I. N.---252 N Nakhiraov, P. S.---231 Nalbandyan, M. L.---278 Napoleon 1---5, 197, 199--204 Napoleon III (Louis Bonaparte)---229 Nartov, A. K.---165 Naryshkin, L. K.---152 Naryshkins, the---147, 149, 151 Natanson, M. A.---252 Nekrasov, N. A.---219, 271, 280, 335 Nemirovich-Danchenko, V. I.---328 Nero Claudius Augustus---20 Nesterov, M. V.---333 Nestor---44 Nevrev, N. V.---277 Ney, M---200, 202 Nezhdanova, A. V.---330 372 Nicholas 1---194, 206, 208, 209, 210, 214, 218, 228, 229, 242, 286 Nicholas 11---285, 286, 297, 301, 342, 343, 349 Nicholas (the Grand Duke)---349 Nijinsky, V. F.---332 Nikitin, A.---86, 117 Nikitin, I. N.---165 Nikon---131, 133, 134, 141, 148, 162 Ninoshvili (Ingorokva), E. F.---336 Norris---160 Nosov, N. Y.---6 Novikov, N. I.---180, 186, 190 O Obnorsky, V. P.---252 Obruchev, V. A.---322 Ogaryov, N. P.---210, 211, 235, 238, 243 Olaf---35 Oldenburg, S. F.---324 Oleg---31, 32 Oleg Ivanovich---64, 66 Oleg Svyatoslavich---46 Olga---33, 34 Olgerd---60 Olminsky.M.S.---297, 316, 323 Opekushin, A. M.---278 Orbeliani, G. Z.---226 Ordin-Nashchokin, A. L.---131, 148 Orjonikidze, G. K.---313 Orlov, A. G. (Chesmensky)---175 Orlov, G. G.---175 Osterman, A. I.---167 Ostroumova-Lebedeva, A. P.---334 Ostrovsky, A. N.---220, 274 Otrepyev, G.---119 Ovchina-Obolensky-Telepnev, I. F.---93 Owen, R.---194 Ozeretskovsky, N. Y.---190 P Paliashvili, Z. P.---338 Pallas, P. S.---190 Palitsyn, Avraamy---143 Panin, N. I.---179 Papazyan, V. K.---339 Paul 1---193, 194, 197, 198 Pavlov, I. P.---5, 322 Pavlov-Silvansky, N. P.---324 Pavlova, A. P.---332 Peresvetov, I. S.---110 Perets, I. L.---337 Perfilyev, I.---148 Perisad---18, 19 Perov, V. G.---276, 277 Perovskaya, S. L.---252, 256, 258 Pestel, P. I.---205, 206 Peter 1---113, 145, 149--57, 158, 161, 163. 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172. 173 Peter 11---167 Peter III---174, 175, 197 Petlin, I.---148 Petrashevsky, M. V.---212, 213 Petrov, A.---241 __COL_B__ Petrov, O. A.---274 Petrov, V. V.---215 Petrov-Vodkin, K. S.---334 Petrovsky, G. I.---297, 319 Petrushevsky, D. M.---324 Pharnaces---20 Phocas Varda---33 Pimonenko, N. K.---280 Piragast---24 Pirogov, N. I.---262 Pirosmanishvili, N.---339 Pisarev, D. I.---245, 262, 264, 266 Pisemsky, A. F.---274 Pitt, W.---186 Platov, M. I.---202 Plekhanov, G. V.---253, 260, 265, 280, 297, 323 Pleshcheyev, A. N.---212 Pleshcheyev, L. S.---135 Pleve, V. K.---295, 297 Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus)---23 Pobedonostsev, K. P.---258 Pogankins, the---146 Pogodin, M. P.---210 Poincare, R.---320 Pokrovsky, M. M.---323 Polenov, V. D.---276 Poletayev, N. G.---312, 316, 318 Polonsky, Y. P.---272 Polzunov, I. I.---190 Popov, F. A.---148 Popov, A. S.---266 Postnik---114 Pososhkov, I. T.---165 Potanin, G. N.---266 Potebnya, A. A.---264 Potebnya, A. A.---245 Potresov, A. N.---312 Poyarkov, V. D.---148 Pozharsky, D. M.---125 Predslava---35 Preobrazhenskaya, O. O.---332 Presnyakov, A. Y.---324 Priselkov, M. D.---70 Prokhor---71 Prokofiev, S. S.---332 Prokopovich, F.---165 Prokopovich, S. N.---292 Przhevalsky, N. M.---266, 322 Ptolemy Claudius---23 Pugachov, Y. I.---180--82, 189 Pumpur, A.---279 Purishkevich, V. M.---303, 351 Purvits, W.---339 Pushkin, A. S.---5, 173, 205, 216--18, 223, 225, 226, 274, 278 Putilov, A. I.---315 Putilov, N. I.---315 Putyata---38 Pypin, A. N.---264 Quarenghi, G.---193 373 R Rakhmaninov, S. V.---274, 331, 332 Radishchev, A. N.---188, 191, 194, 204 Radlov, V. V.---205 Rainis (PliekSans), J.---335, 336, 339 Randolph, Th.---84 Rangoni, K.---119 Rasputin, G. Y.---349, 350, 351 Rastrelli, B.---173 Rastrelli, K.---173 Raud, Ch.---339 Raud, P.---339 Ravel, M.---332 Razin, S. T.---118, 141--43, 150 Rebrov, I. I.---148 Remezov, S. U.---148 Repin, I. Y.---5, 277, 280, 333, 334 Ricardo, D.---236 Richmann, G.---171 Rimsky-Korsakov, N. A.---272, 273, 280, 330, 332, 337 Rodes, I. de ---130 Rodzyanko, M. V.---303, 349, 355 Roerich, N. K.---334 Rokotov, F. S.---193 Rolland, R.---270 Roman Mstislavich---41, 42 Romanov (dyn.)---132 Rome, G.---198 Romodanovsky, Y. I.---130 Roosevelt, Th.---301 Rozen, V. R.---265 Rosental, Y. M.---339 Rossi, C. I.---223 Rostovtsev, Y. I.---234 Rousseau, I. I.---176 Rtishchev, F. M.---140 Rubinstein, A. G.---274 Rublyov, A.---71, 72 Ruffo (Fryazin), Marco---113 Rulers of Kwarizm---53 Rulye, K.---215 Rumovsky, S. Y.---190 Rumyantsev, P. A.---179, 180 Rurik---30--32, 112, 119, 132 Ryabushinsky, P. P.---319, 349 Ryleyev, K. F.---206 Rylov, A. A.---334 Sabir, Mirza Alekper---337 Sadovskaya, O. O.---275 Sadovsky (Tobilevich), M. K.---339 Sadovsky, P. M.---275 Sadovskys, the---275, 329 Safafik, P.---214 Saint-Simon, C. H.---194, 211 Saltykov, P. S.---174 Saltykovs, the---131 Saltykov-Shchedrin, M. Y.---212, 219, 245, 259, 271, 274 Samarin, Y. F.---212 __COL_B__ Samoilov, F. N.---319 Samoilovs, the---275 Samokish, N. S.---339 Saryan, M. S.---339 Satylghanov, Toqtoghul---337 Saumacus---19 Savina, M. G.---330 Savitsky, K. A.---276, 333 Savrasov, A. K.---276 Sazonov, N. I.---212 Sazonov, S. D.---342, 343 Schiller, F.---226, 274, 275 Schilling, P. L.---216 Schmidt, P. P.---304 Schumann, R.---273 Schwarz, A. N.---321 Scott, W.---226 Scriabin, A. N.---274, 332 Sechenov, I. M.---266, 280 Sedov, G. Y.---322 Sefevid (shakh)---128 Segur, P. P.---200 Seleucids, the---13 Semevsky, V. I.---264 Semyon Ivanovich the Proud---60 Semyonov-Tyanshansky, P. P.---266 Serafimovich, A. S.---326 Serdyukov, M. I.---165 Serov, A. N.---274 Serov, V. A.---277, 334 Severgin, V. M.---190 Severtsov, A. N.---322 Shagin-Girei---184 Shagov, N. R.---319 Shahumyan, S. G.---313 Shakespeare, W.---274, 275 Shakhmatov, A. A.---324 Shalyapin, F. I.---5, 330 Shamil---209 Shantser, V. L.---304 Shaskolsky, I. P.---6 Shaw, B.---270 Shchapov, A. P.---242 Shchepkin, M. S.---221, 275 Shcherbatov, M. M.---180, 191 Shcherbatskoi, F. I.---324 Shein, M. B.---137 Shelgunov, N. V.---243, 259 Sheremetev, B. P.---173 Shevchenko, T. G.---214, 225,278,280,335 Shevyrev, S. P.---210 Shirvan-zade, A. (Movsesyan, A. M.)---278 Shishkin, I. I.---278 Shmelyov, I. S.---326 Sholom Aleichem (Rabinovich, S. N.)---337 Shorin, V. G.---140 Shubin, F. I.---193 Shuisky, A. M.---94 Shuisky, I. P.---107 Shuiskys, the---93, 94, 107 Shulgin, V. V.---355 Shuvalov, P. I.---173 374 Shuvalovs, the---175 Sierakowski, S.---244 Sigismund II Augustus---101, 104 Sigismund III---119, 123--25 Silvester---95, 97, 101 Simeon the Black---71 Simeon Polotsky---144, 146, 149 Sipyagin, D. S.---295 Siranush (Kantarjian, M.)---339 Skilur---18 Skobelev, M. I.---355 Skopin-Shuisky, M. V.---123, 124 Skovoroda, G. S.---188 Skvortsov-Stepanov, I. I.---313 Smirnov, I. I.---6 Smith, A.---236 Smotritsky, M. G.---164 Sobinov, L. V.---330 Solari, Pietro Antonio---113 Sologub F. (Teternikov, F. K.)---326 Solomonia Yuryevna (Saburova)---93 Solovyov, A. K.---255 Solovyov, S. M.---263 Somov, K. A.---334 Sons of Rurik---121 Sons of Svyatoslav of Chernigov---38 Sons of Yaroslav---37 Sophia Alexeyevna---151--53 Sophie (Zoe) Paleolog---91 Spafary, N. G.---148 Spandaryan, S. S.---313 Spartocid (dyn.)---17, 18 Spendiarov, A. A.---338 Speransky, M. M.---198 Stadukhin, M. V.---148 Stalin, J. V.---313 Stalsky, S.---338 Stanislavsky, K. S.---5, 328 Stanislaw Leszczynski---155 Staritsky, M. P.---280 Starov, I. Y.---193 Stasov, V. V.---272, 276 Stefan Batory---105, 108 Steklov, V. A.---321 Stephen---35 Stepovoi (Yakimenko), Y. S.---338 Stessel, A. M.---298 Stetsenko, K. G.---338 Stoletov, A. G.---265 Stolypin, P. A.---306, 308, 309, 310, 313, 314, 340 Stravinsky, F. I.---274 Stravinsky, I. F.---332 Strazdas, A.---225 Streshnev, T. N.---152 Strijs, L.---141 Stroganov, P. A.---198 Stroganovs (fam.)---81, 109, 129 Struve, P. B.---291, 295, 303, 310, 324 Struve, V. V.---324 Sturmer, B. V.---351 Sukhomlinov, V. A.---343 Sukhovo-Kobylin, A. V.---274 Sumarokov, A. P.---172, 188 __COL_B__ Sundukyan, G. M.---278, 280 Sun Yat-sen---308 Surikov, V. I.---5, 277 Suvorov, A. V.---179, 180, 185, 197, 200 Sverdlov, Y. M.---297, 313, 318 Svetoslavsky, S. I.---339 Svyatopolk Izyaslayich---38 Svyatopolk Vladimirovich---35, 36 Svyatopolk-Mirsky, P. D.---298 Svyatoslav of Drevlyane---36 Svyatoslav Igorevich---32--34 Svyatoslav Yaroslavich---38 T Tabidze, G. V.---336 Tacitus Publius Cornelius---23 Tammsaare, A.---335 Taneyev, S. I.---274, 331, 338 Tarle, Y. V.---324 Tatishchev, V. N.---172 Taube, I.---105 Tauke---160 Teryan (Ter-Grigoryan), V.---337 Theodores Stratilatos---71 Theophanes the Greek---71 Thomonne, Th. de---223 Tigranyan, A. T.---337 Tikhomirov, L. A.---256 Timiryazev, K. A.---266, 322 Timofeyev, I.---143 Timur (Tamerlane)---5, 53, 54, 55, 66 Timurid (dyn.)---55 Tkachov, P. N.---252 Tochissky, P. V.---261 Togholok Moldo (Abdrakhmanov, B.)---337 Toidze, M. I.---339 Tokhtamysh---66 Tolstoy, A. N.---326 Tolstoy, D. A.---257, 258 Tolstoy, L. N.---5, 202, 231, 258, 262, 268, 269, 274, 280, 286, 287, 316, 324 Tolstoy, A. K.---272, 274 Trakhaniotov, P. T.---135 Trediakovsky, V. K.---170, 171 Trepov, D. P.---302 Trepov, F. F.---254 Trezzini, D.---166 Tropinin, V. A.---224 Trubetskoi, D. T.---125 Trubetskoi, P. P.---334 Trubetskoi, S. P.---206 Tsereteli, A. R.---278, 279, 336 Tsiolkovsky, K. E.---321 Tsykler, I. Y.---153 Tugan-Baranovsky, M. I.---324 Tukai, G.---337 Tumanyan, O.---337 Turayev, B. A.---324 Turchaninova, Y. D.---329 Turgenev, I. S.---219, 267, 268, 280, 287 Turgenev, N. I.---202 Twain, M.---305 Tyutchev, F. I.---218 375 MISSING: Ugedei---54 Ukrainka, Lesia (Kosach, L. P.)--- 335 Ulu Mahmet --- 67 Ulyanov, A. I.-259, 290 Ulyanov, I. N.--- 290 Ulyanova, M. A.--- 290 Unkovsky, A. M.--- 244 Upits, A. M.---336 Ushakov, F. F.---185, 186, 197 Ushakov, S.--- 147 Ushinsky, K. D.--- 262 Uspensky, G. I.--- 272 Uvarov, S. S.--- 210, 214 Vaganova, A. Y.---332 Vakhtang VI---160 Valikhanov.Ch.J.---214 Vallin de la Mothe, J.---193 Varlamov, A. Y.---221 Varlamov, K. A.---330 Vasilkovsky, S. I.---339 Vastly I Dmitriyeyich---66, 67 Vasily III Ivanovich---69, 76, 92 5U Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky---94, 120, Valily II Vasilyevich the Dark-67, 68, 87 Vasily Yuryevich the Cross-Eyed---67 Vasilyev, F. A.---276 Vasilyev-Yuzhm, M. 1.--- -W4 Vasilyevs, the---275 Vasnetsov, V. M.---277 Vazha Pshavela (Rasikashvili, L. P.)---in, Venetsianov, A. G.---224 Veresayev, V. V.---326 Vereshchagm, V. V.---277 Vernadsky, V. I.---266, 316 Verstovsky, A. N.---221 Veselovsky, A. N.---264 Vigner, E.---279 Vilde, E.---335 Vinius, A. D.---127 Vinogradov, P. G.---264 Vitol, J.-279, 338 Vladimir Andreyevich stamsKy---.«., --- Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomach---J3, Vladimir I Svyatoslavich Fine Sun---33--36, 48, 69, 109 Volk, S. S.---6 Volkhovsky, F. V.---252 Volkonsky, S. G.---200 Volkov, F. G.---172 Volnukhin, S. M.---335 Voltaire, F. M. A.---176, 179 Volynsky, A. P.---168 Voronikhin, A. N.---223 Vorontsovs, the---175 Vorovsky, V. V.---297, 323 __COL_B__ Vovchok, Marko (Vilinskaya-Markovich. M. A.)---278 Vrubel, M. A.---334 Vsevolod Mstislavich---40 Vsevolod I Yaroslavich---35, 36 Vsevolod Yuryevich Bolshoe Onezdo ( Vsevolod of the Great Nest)---41 Vyatkin, M. P.---6 Vyshnegradsky, A. I.---315 Vyshnegradsky, I. A.---286 W Waldhausen---148 Watt, J.---190 Whitworth, Ch.---198 Wilhelm 11---301, 342 Wisniewieckis, the---119 Witte S. Y.---283, 285, 287, 290, 298, 302. 303 Wladyslaw IV ---124, 137 Wroblewski, W.---244 Y Yablochkina, A. A.---329 Yablochkov, P. N.---266 Yakovlev,K. N.---330 Yanushkevich, N. N.---343 Yarets, T.---115 Yaroshenko, N. A.---277 Yaroslav---36, 37 Yaroslav the Wise---27, 35, 48, 51 Yediger---108, 109 Yelena Vasilyevna Glinskaya---93--94 Yermak Timofeyevich---109, 110, 144 Yermolai-Yerazm---110 Yermolova, N. N.---329 Yershov, I. V---330 Yulayev, Salavat---182 Yuon, K. P.---334 Yuri Dmitriyevich---67 Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruki---40 Yuri Vsevolodovich---55 Yuriev-Zakharin, N. G.---107 Yusupov, F. P.---351 Yuzhin-Sumbatov, A. I.---275, 329 Z Zaichnevsky, P. G.---243 Zakharov, A. D.---223 Zankovetskaya, M. K.---280, 339 Zarutsky, I. M.---125 Zasulich, V. I.---254, 260 Zelinsky, N. D.---316, 321 Zemaite, J. A.---335 Zemlyachka, R. S.---297 Zemtsov, M. G.---166 Zhelyabov, A. I.---252, 254, 258 Zhebelev, S. A.---324 Zhukovsky, N. Y.---321 Zhukovsky, S. Y.---334 Zhukovsky, V. A.---216 Zinin, N. N.---215 Zolkiewski, S.---124 Zubatov, S. V.---293, 298376 __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END] ~ [377]