The Tsar’s failure to address the problems of Russia (NOTES)
• His survival was pinned on the hopes of pleasing some groups in Russian society and ignoring the demands of others.
• To ensure his long-term survival, the Tsar needed to address the problems that had caused the 1905 revolution.
• The two main types of long-term reforms were:
o The introduction of a duma
o Prime Minister Stolypin’s efforts to create a more prosperous peasantry whose improved conditions would encourage loyalty to the Tsar.
Failure to make the duma work
• They went on to proclaim his rights to: dismiss the duma and announce new elections whenever he wished continue to personally choose and dismiss his ministers rather than allow the duma this power.
• Thus, before the first duma had met in July 1906, the Tsar had demonstrated his unwillingness to allow it any real power.
• This meant government ministers would continue to be responsible to the Tsar rather than to the duma.
• Declare new laws alone at any time that he announced a state of emergency or whenever the duma was not in session.
• The Fundamental Laws, issued in 1906 demonstrated the Tsar’s reluctance to do this
• Fundamental Laws include:
o Dismiss the duma and announce new elections whenever he wished
o Continue to personally choose and dismiss his ministers rather than allow the duma this power. This meant government ministers would continue to be responsible to the Tsar rather than the duma.
o Declare new laws alone at any time that he announced a state of emergency or whenever the duma was not in session.
Creation of a more conservative duma
• On 3 June 1907, using the emergency powers, Prime Minister Stolypin illegally changed the electoral law to ensure that the third duma would be dominated by landowners and businessmen and have limited chances of working-class membership.
• Between the periods of the first and second dumas, the Tsar used his emergency powers to declare a number of new laws, including Stolypin’s agrarian reforms.
Failure to increase peasant support for the Tsar
• Encouragement of migration to western Siberia would give peasants access to more land than was available in the overcrowded regions of central and southeastern Russia.
• Peasants could also demand this land as a single parcel, rather than the strips in several different areas as was the usual practice.
• His reforms included the following: Peasants could now demand that their commune allocate land to them as individuals.
• Only 10 per cent of households had requested their land in the single parcel that would enable them to establish separate farms.
• Peasants disliked the fact that it was the commune, not the individual, that owned land.
• Loans from the Peasant Land Bank would help peasants to buy additional land.
Revival of popular protest, 1912-14
• That year, 550 000 workers (compared with 8000 in 1911) went on strike as a form of political protest.
