Late Tsardom and the Russian Revolution

The Russian Empire, particularly under the monarchy of Tsar Nicholas II, is known to be a complete failure, whose terrible economic policies were what caused the Russian Revolution to take place. Nobody denies that Nicholas II was unprepared; he had inherited a semi-feudal nation that was the last to abolish serfdom and industrialise. He had ascended to the throne after the death of his father and was unskilled and untrained. But his rule was not as useless as some may say. Although his country was incredibly backwards at the time, he and the Prime Minister had made many social, political and economic advances that are worthy of recognition. This essay will serve as an explanation of the success made by the Tsarist Empire between 1890 to 1917, and then show how his sovereignty was much greater than that of the Soviets.

Russia was likely the most backwards country in all of Europe at the time; its economic development throughout most of the 19th century was stagnant and little to none. However, after the ascension of Tsar Nicholas II to the throne in 1896, progress was starting to be made.

Since 1885, the rate of industrial growth in Russia was 5–6%, higher than in Germany and on the same level as the USA. This is largely the result of the rapidly developing railway system. Sergei Witte, Russia’s Prime Minister during most of Nicholas II’s reign, had continued the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, which allowed for faster production and better transportation of resources like steel and coal, more mobility for Russian citizens, and the opening up of Siberia to economic and strategic advancements, as it had largely remained isolated until then. Between 1893 and 1902, Witte constructed 22,200 km of railway lines in ten years (almost doubling Russia’s railway capacity), going from 30,600 km in 1890 to 53,200 km in 1900.

Sergei Witte had also increased steel production from 0.9 million tons in 1890 to 4.2 million tons in 1913, coal production from 6.6 million tons in 1880 to 36.2 million tons in 1913, and oil production from 3.8 million tons in 1880 to 9.2 million tons by 1900. Russia’s rapid industrial development consequently led to its urban population nearly doubling during his time in office.

The introduction of the Gold Standard had stabilised the ruble; this incentivised foreign investment from other countries, particularly France, whose investments had “multiplied severalfold in the 1890s”, going from 200 million rubles in 1890 to 900 million in 1900.

Soviet development was largely a continuation of the advancements made by Sergei Witte and Tsar Nicholas II, although faster. The first five-year plan, implemented by Stalin for the purpose of rapid industrialisation and mass collectivisation, had increased capital goods by 158%, consumer goods by 87% and total industrial output by 118%; however, to fund the industrialisation, peasants had to hand in a fixed amount of grain to be exported. Due to the scarcity of resources, the ones who accepted likely would have starved, causing the Soviet Famine of 1930-1933, which killed 3.3 to 7.5 million people, and the ones who refused would have been executed. There were over 400 “Peasant Disturbances” and 44 independent peasant uprisings in Russia between October and November 1918.

From this treatment of Russian peasants arises the question of whether advancements in workers' rights were made under Soviet rule. The mistreatment of workers was the backbone that justified the revolution. It would be difficult to argue that workers were treated well under Tsarist rule. What I will say is that they were treated comparatively better than the Soviets treated them.

Many reforms in workers' rights made in the Russian Empire were a reaction to the social unrest caused by the 1905 revolution, some of them being the legalisation of trade unions, child labour under 12 being prohibited, and labour restrictions imposed between the ages of 12 and 18.

An example of a reform made pre-1905 is when on June 2, 1897, the maximum working day duration was lowered to 11½ hours, and holidays and Saturdays to 10 hours, the previous having been 12-15 hours.

Now compare this to the Soviet advancements of workers' rights. During the period in which the Soviets adopted War Communism (1918–1921), trade unions were banned, and strikes were illegal. Under Stalin, all trade unions allowed were state-owned; however, strikes remained prohibited, even after the war.

As previously mentioned, there were many peasant uprisings due to the collectivisation of grain, which intrinsically is a suppression of workers’ rights; the Cheka had also used terror tactics to force peasants into submission. During the Tambov rebellion, the Red Army engaged in the summary execution of civilian workers. Some villages were burnt to the ground, and the family members of rebels became hostages. 100,000 villagers, including 1,000 children, were sent to concentration camps in July 1921. There, they suffered severely from cholera and typhus. The death rate is estimated to be around 15–20% per month for the Autumn of 1921. Around 15,000 were shot, and mass executions of suspected villagers and prisoners were frequent in the villages.

It wasn’t only the peasants who were affected; industrial workers who went on strike at the Putilov factory in 1919 were stormed by Cheka soldiers, 200 of whom were killed. Numerous strikes took place in the spring of 1919 in the cities of Tula, Oryol, Tver, Ivanovo, and Astrakhan. Starving workers sought to obtain food rations matching those of Red Army soldiers. They also demanded the elimination of privileges for Bolsheviks, freedom of the press, and free elections. The Cheka suppressed all strikes, using arrests and executions.

Torture was also a tactic used by the Red Army against interrogees. At Odessa, the Cheka tied White officers to planks and slowly fed them into furnaces or tanks of boiling water. In Kharkiv, scalpings and hand-flayings were commonplace: the skin was peeled off victims’ hands to produce “gloves”. The Voronezh Cheka rolled naked people around in barrels studded internally with nails. Victims were crucified or stoned to death at Yekaterinoslav. The Cheka at Kremenchuk impaled members of the clergy and buried alive rebelling peasants. In Oryol, water was poured on naked prisoners bound in the winter streets until they became living ice statues. In Kyiv, Chinese Cheka detachments placed rats in iron tubes sealed at one end with wire netting and the other placed against the body of a prisoner, with the tubes being heated until the rats gnawed through the victim’s body in an effort to escape.

Of course, the Tsarist regime was not perfect. For example, 200 peaceful protesters were killed on Bloody Sunday, but this was the result of Tsar Nicholas’ incompetence, rather than malevolence, as he did not order them to shoot.

It wasn’t just the working class who were affected; the clergy suffered similar persecution as the working class. Priests, monks and nuns were crucified, thrown into cauldrons of boiling tar, scalped, strangled, given Communion with melted lead and drowned in holes in the ice. An estimated 3,000 were put to death in 1918 alone. The Communist Party destroyed churches, synagogues, and mosques, ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, under the policy of State Atheism.

Between June 1918 and January 1919, 18 bishops, 102 priests, 154 deacons, 94 monks and nuns were killed, and there were four bishops and 211 priests imprisoned. The state seized 718 parishes and 15 monasteries, it closed 94 churches and 26 monasteries, it desecrated 14 churches and 9 chapels, it forbade 18 religious processions, it dispersed by force 41 religious processions, and it interrupted church services with insults to religious feelings in 22 cities and 96 villages.

I would argue that, whilst the Tsarist empire was an incredibly flawed regime, the continuation of the progress made under Tsar Nicholas II would have led to prosperity, to the likes of Germany or the United Kingdom, had it not been for the revolution. Not only is the claimed success of Soviet economic development the continuation of Tsarist reforms, but it also cost millions of human lives due to its rapid policy-making over slower changes. The Soviets did not benefit the workers for whom the revolution was fought; it had only prejudiced them through mass collectivisation, brutal repressions and desecrating their religion. After 1905, freedom of speech, press, assembly and association were granted in the October Manifesto, whilst their absence in the Soviet Union is well known.

And so, out of fear of the potential return of the White Army, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks had the former Tsar and his family murdered in their home on July 17, 1918, including his 13-year-old son, Alexei Nikolaevich.

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