1905 REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA THAT FAILED

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1905 THAT FAILED

from

Glimpses of World History

by

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

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The Russian Marxists-------the Social Democratic Party---------had to face a crisis in 1903, when they had to consider and answer a question which every party based on certain principles and definite ideals has some time or other,to face and answer.Indeed,all men and women who have such principles and beliefs have to face such crises many times in the lives.The question was whether they should stick to their principles completely and prepare for a revolution of the working class,or whether they should compromise a little with existing conditions and thus prepare the ground for the ultimate revolution.

The question had arisen in all the western European countries and everywhere,more or less,there had been a weakening of the Social Democratic or similar parties and internal conflicts.In Germany the Marxists had bravely declared for the full loaf,the revolutionary view,but in effect they had toned down and adopted the milder attitude.In France many leading socialists deserted their parties and became Cabinet Ministers.So also in Italy,Belgium, and elsewhere.In Britain Marxism was weak and the question did not rise,but even there a Labour member became a Cabinet Minister.

In Russia the position was different,as there was no room for parliamentary action.There was no parliament.Even so,there were possibilities of giving up what where called the "illegal" methods of struggle against Tsarism and carrying on for a while with quiet theoretical propaganda,but Lenin had clear and definite views on the subject. He would countenence no weakening,no compromise because he was afraid that otherwise opportunists would flood the party.He had seen the methods adopted by Western socialist parties,and he had not been impressed by them.As he wrote later,in another connection,"the tactics of parliamentarism,as practised by Western socialists,were incomparably more demoralizing,having gradually converted each socialist party into a little Tammany Hall with its climbers and job-hunters".(Tammany Hall is in New York.It has become a symbol of politicsl corruption).

Lenin did not care how many people he had with him ----he even threatened at one period to stand alone-----but he insisted that only those should be taken who were "whole-hoggers",who were prepared to give everything for the cause,and even without the applause of the multitude.He wanted to build up a body of experts in revolution who could develop the movement efficiently.He had no use for just sympathizers and fair-weather friends.

This was a hard line to take up,and many thought it was unwise.On the whole,however the victory lay with Lenin, and the Social Democratic Party split up into two,and two names,which have since become famous,came into existence----Bolsheviki and Mensheviki. Bolshevik is now a terrible word for some people;

but all it means is the majority. Menshevik means minority.Lenin's group in the party,after this split in 1903,being in the majority,was called Bolshevik------that is,the majority party.It is interesting to note that at that time Trotsky,then a young man of twenty-four,who was to be Lenin's great colleague in the 1917 revolution,was on the side of the mensheviks.

All these discussions and debates took place far away from Russia,in London.A Russian party meeting had to be held in London because there was no room in Tsarist Russia for it,and most of its members were exiles,or escaped convicts from Siberia.

Meanwhile,in Russia itself trouble was brewing.Political strikes were signs of this.A political strike of workers means a srrike not for economic betterment such as higher wages,but to protest against some political action of the government.It means some political consciousness on the part of the workers.

Thus if Indian factory-workers strike because gandhiji has been arrested,or some extraordinary bit of oppression has occurred,it is a political strike.

Strangely enough,these political strikes were rare in Western Europe,in spite of its powerful trade unions and workers' organisations.Or perhaps they were rare because the workers' leaders had toned down on account of their vested interests.

In Russia the continuous tyranny of Tsarism kept the political side always in forefront. As early as 1903 ther were many spontaneous political strikes in South Russia.The movement was on a big mass scale,but,lacking leaders,it faded away.

The next year brought trouble in the far East.I have told you in another letter of the long line of the Serbian Railway being built,across the northern Asiatic steppes,right up to the Pacific Ocean; of clashes with Japan from 1894 onwards;and of the russo-Japanese war of 1904-5.I have also told you of 'Red Sunday"----January 22,1906-----when the Tsar's troops shot down a peaceful demonstration,led by a priest,which had done to the "Little Father" to beg for bread.A thrill of horror ran through the country,and there were many political srrikes.Ultimately there was a general strike throughot Russia.The new type of Marxist revolution had begun.

The workers who had struck,especially in big centres like Petersburg and Moscow,created a new organisation----the "Soviet"----in each such centre.This was at first just a committee

to run the general srtike.Trotsky became the leader of the Petursburg Soviet.The Tsar's government was completely taken aback,and it surrended to some extent,making promises about a constitutional assembly and a democratic franchise.The great citadel of autocracy seemed to have fallen.What the peasent revolts of the past had failed to do,what the terrorists with their bombs had not succeeded in doing,and what the moderate liberal constitutionalists with their cautious pleadings could not do,that the workers had done with their general strike.

Tsardom,for the first time in its history,had to bow down to the common people,it turned out later to be an empty victory.but still the memory of it was a beacon of light for the workers.

The Tsar had promised a constitutional assembly,a Duma,as it was called,which means a thinking-place and not a talking-shop like a parliament(from the French parler).This promise cooled the ardour of the moderate liberals,who were satisfied.They are always easily satisfied.

The landlords,frightened by the revolution,agreed to some reforms which benefited the richer peasents.The Tsar's government then faced the real revolutionaries and,realizing their weakness,played up to it.On the one side were the hungry workers,more interested in bread and higher wages than in political constitutions and the poorer peasentry raising the dangerous slogan:"Give us land";on the other were revoiutionaries chiefly concerned with the political aspect and hoping to get a parliament after the Western European model,and not thinking of the real demands or feelings of the masses.Many of the better-class skilled workers who were organised in trade unions joined the revolution because they appreciated the political aspect.but the masses generally in the cities and the villages were apathetic.Thereupon the Tsarist government and police tried the time-honoured method of all despotisms:they created divisions and incited these hungry masses against some of the revolutionary groups.The unhappy Jews were massacred by the Russians,the Armenians by the Tartars,and there were even clashes between the revolutionary students and the poorer workers.Having broken the back of the revolution in this way in various parts of the country,the government attacked the two strom-centres----Petersburg and Moscow.The petersburg Soviet was easily crushed.In Moscow the military helped the revolutionaries and there was a five-day battle before the soviet was finally crushed.Then followed revenge.In Moscow it is said that the government put to death 1000 persons without trail and imprisoned 70,000.In the whole country about 14,000 died as a result of the various risings.

So ended,in defeat and disaster,the russian revolution of 1905.It has been called the prologue to the 1917 revolution,which succeeded."the masses need the schooling of big events"before their consciousness can be roused and they can act on a big scale.The events of 1905 provided them,at a heavy cost,with this schooling.

The Duma was elected,and met in may 1906.It was far from being a revolutionary body,but it was too liberal for the Tsar's liking,and he sent itheret home after two and half months.Having crushed the revolution,he cared little for the wrath of the Duma.The dismissed deputies of the Duma,who were middle-class liberal constitutionalists,took themselves to Finland (which was quite near Petersburg and which was then a semi-independent country under theTsar's suzerainty),and called upon the Russian people to refuse to pay taxes and to resist recruitment to the army and navy as a mark of protest against the dismissal of the Duma.The deputies were out of touch with the masses,and there was no response to their appeal.

Next year,in 1907,a second Duma was elected.The police tried to prevent radical candiadates from getting elected by putting all manner of difficulties in their way,and sometimes by the simple expedient of arresting them.Still the Duma was not to the Tsar's liking,and he dismissed it after three months.The Tsar's government now took steps to prevent all undesirablea from getting elected by changing the electoral law.It succeeded,and the third Duma was a highly respectable and conservative body,and it had a long life.

You may wonder why the Tsar took the trouble to have these feeble Dumas when he was strong enough to carry on as he liked,after having crushed the 1905 revolution.The reason was partly to satisfy some small groups in Russia,chiefly the rich landlords and merchants.The situation in the country was bad.The people had,no doubt,been crushed,but they were sullen and angry.So it was thought worthwhile to keep at least the rich people at top in hand.But a more important reason was to impress upon European countries that the Tsar was a liberal monarch.Tsarist misgovernment and tyranny were becoming bywords in Western Europe.when the first Duma was dismissed,a leader of the British liberal Party shouted out,in the House of Commons,I think,"The Duma is dead!Long live the Duma!"This showed how much sympathy there was for the Duma.And then the Tsar wanted money,and a great deal of it.The thrifty French had been lending it to him;it was,indeed,with the help of a French loan that the Tsar crushed the 1905 revolution.It was a strange contrast----republican France helping autocratic Russia to crush her radicals and revolutionaries.But republican France meant French bankers.Anyhow,appearances had to be kept up,and the Duma helped in this.

Meanwhile the European and the world situation was changing rapidly.After Russia's defeat byJapan,England had ceased to fesr Russia as she used to.A new fear had arisen for England,that of Germany,both in induatry and on the sea,which for so long had been England's preserve.It was fear of Germany also that had made France so generous with her loans to Russia.This German menance,as it was called,drove two ancient enemies to embrace each other.In 1907 an Anglo-Russian treaty was signed which settled all their outstanding points of dispute,in Afghanistan,Persia, and elsewhere.Later,a triple entente developed between England,France,and Russia.In the Balkans,Austria was Russia's rival,and Austria was Germany's ally,and so was Italy on paper.So the triple entente of England,France,and Russia faced the triple allaince of Germany,Austria, and Italy.And the hosts prepared for action while peaceful people slumbered,not knowing the terrors that were in store for them.

These years in Russia,after 1905 were years of reaction.Bolshevism and the other revolutionary elements had been completely crushed.In foreign countries some of the Bolsheviks in exile,like Lenin,were carrying on patiently,writing books,and pamphlets,and trying to adopt the Marxist theory to changing conditions.

The gulf between Menshevism(the more moderate minority party of the Marxists) and Bolshevism grew.Menshevism became more prominent during these years oe reaction.Indeed,although it was called the minority party,it had far more people on its side then.From 1912 onwards again a change crept into the Russian world,and revolutionary activity grew,and with it grew Bolshevism.By the middle of 1914 the air of Petrograd was thick with talk of revolution,as in 1905,large numbers of political strikes took place.And yet---such stuff are revolutions made of!----of the Petersburg Bolshevik Committee of seven,it was discovered later that three were in the Tsarist secret service!the bolsheviks had a small group in the Duma,and the leader of this was Malinowsky.He also was found to be a police agent!And Lenin trusted him.

The world war began in August 1914,and this suddenly turned attention to the warring fronts,and conscription took away the cheif workers,and the revolutionary movement died down.The Bolsheviks who raised their voices against thw war were few,and they became extremely unpopular.

We have arrived at our appointed post---the World War----and we must stop here.But before I end this letter I should like to draw your attention to Russian art and literature.Tsarist Russia,with all its faults,managed to keep up,as most people know,wonderful dancing.It produced also series of master-writers in the nineteenth centuary who built up a great literary tradition.In both the long novel and the short story they showed an amazing mastery.At the beginning of the centuary there Pushkin,the contemporary of Byron and Shelley and Keats,who is said to be the greatest of Russian poets.Of the novelists the famous writers of the nineteenh centuary are Gogol,Turgeniev,Dostoievsky,and Tchekhov.Then there is perhaps the greatest of them,Leo Tolstoy,who not only was a genius at writing novels,but became a religious and spiritual leader whose influence was far-reaching.Indeed,it reached Gandhiji,who was then in South Africa,and the two appreciated each other and corresponded with each other.The bond of union was the firm faith of both in non-resistance or non-violence.According to Tolstoy,this was the basic teaching of Christ,and Gandhiji drew the same conclusion from the old Hindu writings.While Tolstoy remained a prophet,living up to his convictions,but rather cut off from the world,Gandhiji applied this seemingly negative thing in an active way to mass problems in South Africa and India.One of the great nineteenth-centuary Russian writera is still living.He is Maxim Gorki.

March 17,1933