Democracy In Russia 1900 Essay Research Paper

Democracy In Russia (1900) Essay, Research Paper

There were no prospects for democracy in Russian in 1914. Tsar Nicholas II believed he had the god-given right to rule over his country absolutely. His power to govern was reinforced by the strongest institutions in Russia, The Orthodox Church, The Army, and the peasant class. Even the Tsar s opposition unwittingly aided him in quashing all hope for democracy. While there were some small democratic institutions, they only helped reinforce the Tsar s belief that the people could never govern themselves. Embodied in Stolypin s reform s, these polices helped sustain the Star s rule until its eventual collapse. That couplep with the Tsar s policies of oppression, brutality, censorship, and class separation all helped him further in his goal to hold on to supreme power. The concessions he made to the people only served to further reinforce his right to rule. Nicholas II used repression, propaganda, the Orthodox Church, religion, migration, anti-Semitism, and war to help sustain what he believed to be his divine rule.

Nicholas was educated by private tutors and the reactionary Pobyedonostzev. Alexander III gave his son little training in affairs of state, and Nicholas proved to be a charming but ineffective and easily influenced ruler. Soon after his accession Nicholas stated that he intended to maintain the autocratic system. Nicholas was convinced that he had an absolute, God-given right to rule as he saw fit he refused to grant democratic right even to the Russian nobility. (Kronnenwetter, 43) The Tsar s belief in his religious right to power was pushed on to the people both by himself and the Orthodox Church, which had been a creature of the Tsar since Peter the Great. (Moynahan, 30)

The Russian Orthodox Church dates from the conversion of the Slavs by missionaries from Byzantium, led by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, in the ninth century A.D. In the tenth century Christianity became the Russian state religion, and the chief official, the metropolitan, was established first at Kiev and later at Moscow. Until the downfall of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Russian metropolitanate was considered an integral part of the Byzantine Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople. When Byzantium fell to the Turks, Russian Orthodox believers assumed an independent attitude and a century later elected their own patriarch. The Russians considered themselves the sole defenders of the true faith. (Roberts, 7)

The Russian Orthodox Church was favored by, and subordinated to, the Tsars. In 1721 Tsar Peter the Great by his Ecclesiastical Regulations deprived the church of its autonomy by abolishing the patriarchate. Peter placed the church under the administration of the Holy Synod, composed of clerics and laymen whom he had personally chosen. The tsar was represented in the Synod by the high procurator, and although this lay official had no vote, he nevertheless possessed enormous influence. No action could be taken by the Synod without the high procurator’s approval. Since the church was dominated by the tsar, it became a politically conservative element in Russian society during the next two centuries, and the hierarchy decried all liberal attempts to reorganize either the church the imperial government. The Tsar used the church alongside the military to control the mostly peasant population. (Hosking, 30)

The military was mainly composed of peasants and the uneducated who populated the lower ranks of the enlisted, making up the vast majority of the army. These soldiers were indoctrinated in the love for the Tsar from the beginning of their service, coupled with the teachings of the Orthodox Church, this made for a highly loyal force. Their military was also highly successful up until the Russo-Japanese war in 1904. It was an imperialistic conflict that grew out of the rival designs of Russia and Japan on Manchuria and Korea. Russian failure to withdraw from Manchuria and Russian penetration into N Korea was countered by Japanese attempts to negotiate a division of the area into spheres of influence. The Tsar, however, was inflexible, and provoked a war with Japan in 1904, (Kronenwetter, 43) in the belief that Japan was bound to be defeated and that a Russian victory would head off the growing threat of internal revolution in Russia. Japan broke off negotiations and severed diplomatic relations with Russia. Two days later, without a declaration of war, Japan attacked Port Arthur and bottled up the Russian fleet. A series of quick Japanese victories, which astounded the world, culminated in the fall of Port Arthur, the victory of troops under General Oyama at Shenyang), and the destruction of the Russian fleet under Rozhdestvenski at Tsushima by Admiral Togo’s fleet. The disastrous outcome of the war for Russia was one of the immediate causes of the Russian Revolution of 1905. (Russo-Japanese War, Columbia Encyclopedia)

The spark needed to ignite revolution came when an order to fire on a workers’ demonstration was given to the St. Petersburg militia. The demonstration had been peaceful. The workers of the capital with their wives and children had marched to the Winter Palace to petition the tsar to intervene on their behalf against the intolerable conditions brought about by depression and war. The demonstrators, carrying religious icons and pictures of the tsar, sang hymns a