Tsarist Russia from a great power to a declining country, a turning point in Eurasia
In 1905, Tsar Nicholas II realized that victory in the Russo-Japanese War could not be used to quell the unrest in the country. Although Japan had the upper hand in the war, due to the huge consumption of manpower and material resources, a peace truce was the best option for Japan.
In this case, Theodore Roosevelt, the United States, coordinated the negotiators of the two sides, who traveled to Portsmouth on September 5 of that year to sign the agreement.
On that day, the Delegation of Japan appeared confident and satisfied, while the Delegation of ** appeared frustrated and listless.
The moment the contract was signed, a milestone in history, marking the first victory of the yellow race over the white man in a modern war. Since then, the positions of Japan, China, and North Korea in international politics have changed dramatically.
However, the political and economic situation in Russia is also in trouble, with frequent strikes by workers, frequent student strikes, and nationwide revolutions.
The Tsar** was once a powerful empire that straddled the Eurasian continent, but over time it gradually declined. Tsarist Russia swept across Europe and Asia, even destroying the Mongol Golden Horde, but now it has been defeated by the small East Asian states that have just emerged.
The roots of all this lie in the internal structure of the tsarist ** - aristocracy and serfdom. In the 8th century, a force called the Normans emerged on the Great Plains of Eastern Europe, and they fought valiantly and quickly established the first Rus' principality, Kievan Rus'.
Although the rulers of the dynasty were Normans, over time they were eventually assimilated by Slavic culture, and subsequent princes all used Slavic names.
Kievan Rus' began to expand at the beginning of the 10th century, extending from the mouth of the Volga River in the east, through the Crimean Peninsula to the mouth of the Danube, from Lake Ladoga in the north, along the coast of the Baltic Sea, and in the south to the steppe, laying the foundation for the territorial size of the modern Russian Federation.
Top right: Map of Kievan Rus) Around 980 AD, Grand Duke Vladimir I married Princess Anna of Byzantium, thus converting the entire country to Orthodox Christianity.
The Rus' principality reached its peak and became a powerful state in Eastern Europe. However, in the 11th century, the contradictions within the Rus' Empire intensified, ** into eighteen principalities, entered the era of feudal separation, and frequent civil wars broke out between large and small forces.
In the chaotic 13th century, Genghis Khan's descendant Batu marched on the Rus' with a powerful iron cavalry and established the Kipchak Khanate, bringing many of the Rus' principalities under Mongol rule.
The Mongol army was militarily powerful, but it was inadequate in terms of administration and taxation. Therefore, they must choose one of the dozen large and small principalities to collect taxes for them.
The opportunity finally fell to the "Muscovy", the predecessor of the tsar **. As a ** person, the Grand Duke of Moscow naturally received many preferential conditions and secretly accumulated strength for himself.
As expected, 200 years later, civil strife broke out in the Kipchak Khanate.
The old feudal lordship was pursued by other principalities, but Muscovy could not accept this model. Thus, the "civil war" broke out again. Although Muscovy had a military advantage, in the vast land of Rus' this advantage was insignificant.
In order to inspire the loyalty of his generals, Ivan III promised that anyone with military merits would be crowned a nobleman and enjoy a fief. In this way, he created a new class of "service nobles" in addition to the "blood nobility".
Driven by both honor and profit, Muscovy's army was invincible and gradually annexed neighboring countries.
In 1480, Ivan III succeeded in unifying the entire territory of Russia with his bravery and skill, and was honored as the "All-Russian Monarch". In gratitude for the contributions of his courtiers, he fulfilled his promise to give all the land and peasants to the nobles.
However, the land in the hands of the nobles suddenly became more owner-owned, which caused the peasants, who had been longing for freedom, to leave their homes in search of a better life. To solve this dilemma, Ivan III issued a code in 1497 that forced the peasants to stay on their original land to serve the nobility.
Since then, the rudiments of serfdom have taken shape here.
02 The iron-fisted rule of the Russian Tsar In Russia in the 16th century, the nobles fought each other for their power, and the country was in chaos. It was against this background that Ivan IV became the first tsar of Russia.
He remembered fondly the atrocities of the aristocracy. In 1547, Ivan IV himself took power, changing the name of the country to Tsar** and setting the capital in Moscow.
He began a harsh repression of the nobility, which eventually eliminated the aristocratic lordship and established the Tsar**. In order to prevent the nobles from rebelling again, he retained the fiefs of the nobles and strengthened the control of serfs, prohibiting the peasants from moving at will.
As long as the peasants fled, no matter how far away, he would send people to hunt them down and return them, their families and property to their original owners.
However, unlike in the time of Ivan III, the land and peasants no longer belonged to the nobility, but to the property of the tsar. The aristocracy only had the right to use the land, not the ownership of it.
Ivan IV stipulated that the land owned by the nobility could not be transferred or **. The peasants were only temporarily "loaned" to the nobility. They were jointly governed by local village communities and nobles.
For the nobility, Ivan IV also imposed strict restrictions, requiring them to live in the same area as the serfs and not to freely choose their place of residence. Thus, serfdom did not actually give the peasants ownership of the land, but made the peasants appendages of the land.
The inner world of the serfs was full of contradictions and helplessness. In their eyes, the nobility was the villain who oppressed them, and the tsar was their patron saint. Their dependence on the tsar was like the dependence of children on their father, and although they knew that the tsar was their "master", they still looked forward to his protection and care.
This ambivalence is precisely where the sorrow of the Russian serfs lies.
Although the serfs were the private property of the tsar, he cared about the peasants and introduced a series of protective policies. For example, it was stipulated that serfs could not work on the land of the nobility for more than three days a week.
The tsar also stipulated that serfs who made mistakes could only be punished with a maximum of 15 strokes of the cane, and insulting serfs was punished with a fine. The tsar encouraged the serfs to appeal directly to him, and as a result, the number of nobles who were exiled for mistreatment of the serfs was very large.
The power of the aristocracy was relatively small, but their obligations were heavy.
After Ivan IV came to power, he introduced a new legal provision, the Military Service Law. This law stipulates that all nobles must be incorporated into the military from the age of 15 and must begin their service.
In addition, if the fief of the nobles reached 150 Russian acres, then they needed to provide a fully armed cavalryman, and the nobles themselves had to personally participate in the battle.
In other words, the aristocracy was required to manage the peasants for the tsar in peacetime, and to serve in the military in wartime. In addition, each peasant household was required to pay a tax to the tsar 001 ruble.
If the peasants were unable to pay, then the responsibility for paying the tax fell on the nobles.
Tsarist Russia often suffered from famine years in its history, which was a great burden for the aristocracy. In wartime, the nobles also needed to bring their own horses, **, grain and grass, arm themselves and serfs, and serve the tsar.
Likhachev, the master of Soviet literature, once said: "In **, only the tsar is free, and the nobles and peasants are his slaves." Therefore, the nobles who were originally strong in combat power gradually became incapacitated, and the combat effectiveness of the Tsarist army was also declining day by day.
Tsarist Russia 03 Military Reform and the Liberation of the Aristocrats: In order to improve combat effectiveness, the Tsar carried out military reforms many times in an attempt to restore the strength of the army. The reforms were harsh or mild, but they did not solve the problem, but instead planted deeper hidden dangers.
The first hidden danger: military reform has caused contradictions at the top. In 1682, after Peter the Great succeeded to the throne, he carried out military reforms in order to strengthen military power and centralize power.
Before the reform, the aristocracy brought serfs into the war on their own, but after the reform, the serfs were rearranged and the command was centralized. At the same time, Peter the Great forced the children of the nobility to receive education, stipulating that the illiterate nobles could not marry, the children of the nobility must enter the military academy for further study, and those who did not obtain a graduation certificate were not allowed to marry.
In addition, harsh punishments were imposed on the nobility. These reforms gave Tsarist Russia a brief period of glory.
After the coronation of Peter I as Emperor of Tsarist Russia, the pace of Russian expansion accelerated, and his reforms made Tsarist Russia a military power and laid the foundation for subsequent expansion.
However, while his reforms were successful in the short term, there were many contradictions. The Russian aristocracy was not motivated to serve the state because of its lack of ability, but was mainly suppressed by the tsar.
If we want to increase the motivation of the nobility and the military power of the army, it is important to improve the professional quality of the nobility and not just suppress them. And in order to strengthen the power of the ** and weaken the rule of the aristocracy, the nobility should be free-ranged and their abilities should be weakened.
However, Peter I improved the abilities of the nobility through various educations, which is undoubtedly the opposite of the opposite. You must know that in feudal society, there are many people who have the ability but cannot display their talents, which is a great hidden danger for the ** itself.
Therefore, Peter the Great's reforms did not solve the real problems of the political structure, but instead exacerbated the contradictions between the imperial power and the nobility.
The second hidden danger: the Declaration of Freedom of the Aristocracy and the exiled eliteBefore Peter III, the Tsar had not been able to resolve the contradictions with the nobility. In order to gain the support of the nobility and consolidate his rule, in 1762 he issued the Declaration of Freedom of the Nobility, which preserved the nobility's obligation to serve while promising not to deprive the nobility of their land fiefdoms.
During the reign of Empress Catherine the Great, in order to increase the legitimacy of her rule, the Declaration of Freedom of the Nobility further strengthened the provisions of the Declaration of Freedom in favor of the nobility, including that the land of the nobility could be inherited, the nobility could freely choose the place of residence, and no longer had to live with serfs as before.
In order to strengthen the rule of the state, Empress Catherine exchanged 800,000 serfs and 50 million Russian acres of land for the freedom of the nobility at the expense of her political status, and issued a decree in 1785 that the nobility did not have any obligations to the state.
This undoubtedly invalidated the aristocracy politically.
* Society was severely divided into classes during Catherine's time, with the common people with extremely low literacy rates contrasting sharply with the elite nobility. Faced with complex national governance issues, the empress had to hire a "guest secretary" to participate in decision-making.
However, these expatriates are often more concerned about the immediate political achievements and indifferent to the long-term development of the country, which may even lead to future development overdrafts. As the ancients said, learning is like sailing against the current, and if you don't advance, you will retreat.
Although Catherine's reforms promoted the deepening of serfdom and feudalism to a certain extent, and exacerbated the internal contradictions of the ruling class, even after a hundred years of Westernization, Tsarist Russia could not get rid of its status as an agrarian power.
More seriously, the reforms caused Tsarist Russia to miss out on the major development opportunities of the first industrial revolution.
From the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century, serfdom collapsed among the European powers, and the Industrial Revolution promoted the modernization of Western European countries. At this time, science and technology became the primary productive force, and as one of the European powers, the disadvantages of serfdom became increasingly obvious and urgently needed to be reformed.
* Since the 30s of the 19th century, the industrial revolution has been carried out one after another, but it is too eager for quick success, blindly imitating Britain, and serfdom is too deep-rooted, which makes it difficult to carry out the industrial revolution in the first place, and finally ends in failure.
It is hard to imagine that there are so many "temporary workers" and "illiterates" among the state administrators that it will be difficult to implement the policy. When reforms stagnate, ignorant ** naturally cannot keep up with the pace of European countries.
And this gap was laid bare in the Crimean War of 1854. In 1854, the Crimean War broke out with the Anglo-French forces for control of the Black Sea outlets.
At that time, ** still called itself the "gendarme of Europe" and did not care about an already powerful opponent, just as the Qing Dynasty looked at the Western powers. Although the people of the fighting nation showed unprecedented bravery and fortitude, due to the large gap between the military equipment of the two armies, they were unfortunately defeated in the battle with real swords and guns.
The Crimean War was a life-and-death struggle between a nation of primitive modes of production and a nation of modern productive forces, and this assessment comes from Engels and can be described as extremely pertinent.
At that time, the strength of the ** people was insufficient, and the outcome of defeat had long been predicted. The defeat in the war triggered strong domestic dissatisfaction with the tsar, the tsar's prestige plummeted, peasant uprisings and riots were frequent, and social contradictions became increasingly acute.
According to statistics, in just two years, nearly 300 peasant uprisings and riots broke out, which had a huge impact on the rule of the tsar.
Tsar Nicholas I was unacceptable to the defeat in the foreign war and died of illness soon after. The defeat in the Crimean War clearly revealed the backward reality of ** and provoked the awakening of ** people.
Thus, the tsar finally realized that reform was necessary. In fact, the reform of ** was not active and conscious, but began to seek change after the defeat. This time, however, the sense of urgency for reform is even stronger.
In 1861, Tsar Alexander II officially signed the Emancipation Act of Serfs, which brought freedom of movement and employment to serfs. According to the bill, every peasant family had the right to acquire a piece of land priced by the state and to redeem it from the nobility.
If the peasants could not afford to buy the land, they could pay 15% to the nobility first, and the rest was loaned by the state, which the peasants had to pay off within 50 years.
This act not only gave the peasants access to land, but also liquid money in the hands of the aristocracy. In the two decades following the enactment of the Serf Emancipation Act, Russia quickly became the world's largest grain exporter.
The aristocracy turned into entrepreneurs and took an active part in the process of industrialization, which made Russia complete the first industrial revolution in a short period of time and become a world power. However, by the time it became clear that the European powers had entered the second industrial revolution, it was too late, creating an ironic contrast.
The new Tsar Nicholas II insisted on **centralization**, social contradictions became increasingly acute, and only war could expose the hypocrisy of its prosperity. In 1905, the Russo-Japanese War ended, the political and economic situation deteriorated, workers went on strike, students went on strike, and national revolutions broke out frequently.
It was a year when a man who claimed to save Russia came to the fore and stepped into the spotlight of the political arena. Where the northern lion will go is still unknown.
Only a few figures quietly emerged from the darkness, shuttling and ...... the vast land of RussiaStay tuned for the next episode, "The Road to Redemption: The Frustration and Hope of Stolypin's Land Reform."