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8. A Decade of Contrasts, and World War I

Russia changed a great deal as a result of the Revolution of 1905. What did not change is that it remained a land of extremes. On the one hand, the arts continued to flourish during what was known as the silver age of Russian culture, which began in the 1890s. On the other, the gap between the educated elite and the illiterate and semiliterate masses remained unbridged.

Russia had a parliament with limited powers from 1906 until the fall of the monarchy in March 1917.

Russia now had a real parliament, but the country continued to experience revolutionary and counterrevolutionary violence. Between 1906 and 1910 the SRs assassinated more than 4,000 government officials, while the government tried to quell violence by executing more than 1,000 people between August 1906 and April 1907 alone, after what were at best perfunctory trials. Even worse, that figure was only a fraction of the total number of executions carried out between 1905 and 1908.

Based on gross production Russia was a major industrial power, but based on per capita production it was badly outclassed not only by major industrial powers such as Great Britain and Germany but by semiindustrialized countries such as Spain and Italy. Meanwhile, as industrial production grew, so did the number and intensity of strikes by exploited factory workers. The Stolypin reforms produced a class of prosperous peasants, but many less capable or industrious peasants sank deeper into poverty. The Russian Empire controlled 40 percent of Eurasia, but millions of non-Russians dreamed of escaping its clutches.

It was with that heavy baggage that Russia entered World War I. About six months before the war began, Nicholas received a memorandum from Peter Durnovo, a former police official warning him of the risks Russia faced in a general European war, but neither Durnovo’s nor any other warning could keep the continent’s great powers at peace. The war broke out in August 1914 with Russia, Great Britain, and France (the Triple Entente) opposing Germany and Austria-Hungary (the Central Powers), who after several months were joined by the Ottoman Empire.

Within two months, by the end of September, Russia had suffered two disastrous defeats at German hands, and matters deteriorated further after that. The Russian army scored victories over the Austrians, but it was no match for the modern German war machine. Nor was the semi-industrialized Russian economy equal to the demands of modern war. Russia’s generals were inept and its political leadership under Nicholas II incompetent. Things were already falling apart when in 1915 Nicholas, against the advice and even the pleading of his chief advisers, went to the war zone and personally took command of the army. This blunder tied him directly to the army’s defeats. Back in the capital, the unpopular empress Alexandra (like so many czarist wives, she was a German) was officially in charge during her husband’s absence. She in turn was heavily influenced by the self-designated holy man Grigory Rasputin, whose bizarre activities and behavior added layers of scandal to the rapidly deteriorating situation. By 1916 Rasputin controlled most government appointments.

Rasputin’s assassination in December 1916 eliminated him but did nothing to fill Russia’s political vacuum. Nicholas refused to consider the political reforms proposed by leading Duma moderates and liberals, which might have won him some badly needed supporters. Meanwhile, by early 1917 the Russian army had suffered 7 million total losses – dead, wounded, missing, and captured – and was crumbling. Russia’s major cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, were desperately short of food, and during January and February strikes rocked the capital. In March, while Nicholas did nothing, Russia slid into the abyss.

ANNEX ‘A’

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