HIST 236 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Ethnic Nationalism, Saint Petersburg, State-Owned Enterprise
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
A Short and Glorious War
The Russian empire entered the war as a member of the Entente/Allies
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Initially, imperial Russian society supported the war and believed it would be
won quickly
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Military losses were swift and steep
In the first 5 months of the war they lose a quarter of a million soldiers
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Popular support for the war quickly waned
This was a time when people started to become more patriotic and
nationalistic
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Becomes clear that the war will not be short
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Russian Nationalism and Patriotism
There was a huge upsurge in Russian nationalism at the start of WWI
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Melissa Stockdale: the idea of a "sacred union" was used to sell the war
It contained three strands:
The union of the tsar and the people
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Patriotism regardless of ethnicity and belief
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Willingness of all Russians to defend the country
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Wartime propaganda portrayed Germans as evil and barbarous; Russia's
German minority was repressed
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More of a sense of Russian ethno-nationalism, patriotism should involve
everyone in the empire
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Invoke new heroes such as an ethnically Ukrainian peasant who dies trying to
warn them that the Hungarians were coming
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Germans are vilified
This is an issue because there are a lot of ethnic minority Germans
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This is why they rename St. Petersburg, Petrograd
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The front is being pushed inwards and displacing people from the western
borderland regions
This puts a lot of pressure on resources in communities - refugees
counted for about 5% of the population of the Russian Empire
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Population Displacement
By the end of 1915, around 3.3 million refugees had fled the front in the
country's western borderlands
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Many charities were set up to help them
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They put pressure of resources in areas where they settled, exacerbating
social and national tensions
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Many refugees were Jewish; the Pale of Settlement was effectively dissolved
Jews were fleeing and they were forbidden from settling in Moscow,
Petrograd and the Caucus
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Restrictions were placed on Jews going to school
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Russia's economy during the war was horrible
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The Economic Impact of War
The war put a massive strain on the economy
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The government lost indirect sources of revenue (tax on alcohol)
Dependent on commodity taxes on alcohol which was important to the
state budget due to prohibition
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This leaves the population with extra money in hand
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This caused prices to go up
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People start to make their own alcohol and sell it
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Loss of indirect taxes means that they need to replace it with
something else so they need to replace the alcohol tax with income tax
The amount of tax you have to pay has to do with how much
money you make
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This makes the nobility mad because they never had to pay taxes
and because they had a lot of money
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This is not enough money so the government has to borrow from
the allies (Britain, France, US)
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The government borrowed heavily from allies and from war bonds from the
Russian population
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It printed money, causing hyperinflation
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Many ordinary Russians felt the government did not care about their living
standards
Creates more discontent
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Wartime Liberal Politics
Liberals saw an expanded role for themselves and the government during the
war
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The zemstvos became more political
The government did not want them to become political
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Refugees and soldiers were national politics so they didn't want the
zemstvos to deal with
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Peter Holquist: at the same time, Russia saw the development of "parastatal
organizations" that merged public participation with state-sponsored
mobilization
When it came to food supply, care for refugees
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There are groups that emerge and who implement state policy
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This is seen as politically threatening to the people who want
autocracy to remain untouched because they are taking power away
from the tsar and delegating it to government agencies/workers
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Growing Criticism of the Tsar and Tsarina
A chasm opened between the tsar and the people, who grew more openly
critical of him and of the Tsarina
This starts to include even the nobility who were historically the Tsar's
biggest supporters
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In the summer of 1915, he decides to appoint himself commander in
Chief of the military (he liked military style parades, was not involved
in the actual military)
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Surrounds himself with trusted advisors who told him that the people loved
the Tsar, and that they were doing well in the war (people who would just
say yes to him and support him regardless of what happened)
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He took personal command over the military, believing this would boost
morale (it did not)
Loss started to become associated with him, instead of the Generals
who were actually in charge of the war
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When he was at the front, the Tsarina was left in charge
People feared she was a German agent
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The Tsarinas brother is one of the generals in the German army
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She is technically fighting against her own family, and her loyalty is
divided
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The advisors who Nicholas surrounded himself with had ethnically
sounding German last names
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The "Mad Monk" Grigorii Rasputin
The Tsarina was under the sway of a mystic named Grigorii Rasputin who
was brought to help her son
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He was criticized as a charlatan and sexual deviant
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Rumours swirled that he was the Tsarina's lover and that he had corrupted
the royal family
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He becomes a confidant and trusted advisor to Alexandra
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He is hated by the Orthodox church because he belongs to a sect of
Orthodox Christianity that believed in sexual healing and orgies
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He is rumoured to have raped a nun
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Low Morale and Rising Discontent
Home front morale plummeted amid shortages, high prices, etc.
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The government increased surveillance of the popular mood
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Military losses continued to mount and many soldiers simply deserted the
army and returned home
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The government started opening up soldiers mail and confiscating letters
that were writing negative things
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It is becoming undeniable that they are going to lose the war
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Political Unrest
The Tsarina made erratic decisions, hiring and firing people repeatedly, many
believed, as a result of Rasputin's influence over her
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The Tsar prorogued the duma in September 1915, infuriating its members
Proroguing is stopping parliament (doesn't dissolve it)
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In December 1915, a group of nobles murdered Rasputin
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A critical mass of the nobility had withdrawn their support for the Tsar by
early 1917
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Appointed a Prime Minister named Boris Sturmer and he said that there
couldn't be any reforms implemented, they should just focus on winning the
war
People were angry about him being appointed because he had a
German sounding last name
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Stumer lasts for a short time and is replaced by the assistant minister
of the interior (Alexander something) who is a reactionary and then is
replaced by Nicolai idk???
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People are starting to say that maybe it is time for autocracy to go
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Lecture 13 -World War One
Monday, February 5, 2018
11:35 AM
