The 19th century was a century of sweeping political changes. What are some of the political and social ideologies (-isms) espoused during this time? Make sure you define them. Why were people thinking in new terms about their societies and governments and each other?
It should be a minimum of one page, single-spaced, in 10 pt. Times Roman font. Do not use a header and do not use outside sources.
Please at least 1 page and half.
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The Modernization of Russia
Nation building became a strong and determinative factor in
Russia during the mid to late nineteenth century as well as
it had in Italy and Germany, but in a different direction. The
gargantuan size of the country and its plethora of
nationalities, ethnicities and languages meant that Russia
was faced with the challenge of holding the state together,
either by political compromise or by force. The problem was
not unlike that faced by the United States as it grappled
with the issues of territorial expansion and the extension of
slavery, which ultimately resulted in a civil war and the
strengthening of the national government in Washington.
Russian rulers saw national self determination, the factors
which had helped to unify Italy and Germany, as a
subversive ideology which they intended to suppress. Even
so, its rulers knew that the country must modernize if it
were to survive.
The Crimean War and the Great Reforms: Russia at the
middle of the nineteenth century was primarily an agrarian
society. There was little industry, and 90 per cent of the
population lived on the land. Serfdom was still practiced,
although it had been abolished in the rest of Europe over
200 years before. Serf families were tied to the land,
although they could be bought and sold by landlords; were
required to furnish labor for him or pay money rents as he
saw fit. He could choose which of his serfs should serve in
the military for up to twenty five years. If a serf were guilty
of insubordination, he might be exiled to Siberia, literally the
end of the world. Landlords frequently exploited female
serfs sexually. Although it was a moral and political issue for
the Russian government, there was no impetus to end it
prior to the Crimean war.
The Crimean War lasted from 1853 until 1856. In 1853,
Russia sent troops to defend Christians within the Ottoman
Empire. Within months, Russian troops had occupied parts
of the Ottoman Empire and the Turks declared war. Britain
and France were both concerned that Russia would use the
war as an excuse to occupy the Crimea and other Ottoman
territory. On 28 March 1854, looking to prevent Russian
expansion, Britain and France (with Austrian backing)
declared war on Russia. The war was fought almost
exclusively on the Crimean peninsula off the Black Sea. In
September 1854, Allied troops invaded the Crimea and
within a month were besieging the Russian held city of
Sebastopol. Russia’s transportation network of rivers and
wagons was not sufficient to supply troops adequately, and
the Russian Army suffered a humiliating defeat.
The Crimean War was at first unpopular in Great Britain, as
Turkey was Islamic and Russia was Christian; however the
success of British troops gave rise to an overwhelming surge
of nationalism. Political cartoons of the day showed Queen
Victoria “taming” the Russian Bear. Although the War did not
result in significant diplomatic or geographic changes, a
charge of British light horsemen into Russian cannon due to
a mistaken order was the basis of Tennyson’s famous poem,
“The Charge of the Light Brigade.” “There’s not to reason
why; theirs but to do and die.” A lesson all AP students
should learn and heed.
The loss of the Crimean War was both a blow and a wakeup
call to the Russian government. It had not lost a major war
in over 150 years, and the defeat exemplified how far Russia
was behind the industrialized world. The country needed
better armaments, a reorganization of the military and most
importantly, railroads. Also, the war had caused tremendous
hardships and serf rebellions were possible. Reform was
desperately needed and the new Czar, Alexander II (r. 1855-
1881), in true Russian fashion, felt that the reforms must
come from above.
The first great reform was to free the serfs. In 1861, serfdom
was permanently abolished, and the peasants received
about half the land. They still had to pay fairly high prices
for their land, and it was owned collectively (the peasants of
each village were jointly responsible for payments of all
families in the village). The governments plan was to
prevent the development of a class of landless peasants;
everyone would have an interest in the land in common. The
plan backfired, however, as the peasants had no incentive
to improve their agricultural methods of leave their villages.
Old habits and attitudes remained, and there was little, if
any, improvement.
Later, in his efforts to force the Soviet Union out of the Great
Depression, Josef Stalin forced peasants into collective
farms. The plan was a colossal failure, and many people
starved while crops rotted in the fields.
In 1864 the government instituted the Zemstvo, a local
government institution in which members were elected by a
three class system of towns, peasant villages and land
owners. An executive council dealt with local problems. This
establishment of the Zemstvos marked a step towards
popular participation in government, and many Russian
liberals hoped it would lead to an elected National
parliament. It didn’t happen, however, as the local councils
were subordinate to the bureaucracy and the local nobility.
The only significant reforms were in education and the legal
system. Censorship, which had long been practiced in
Russia, was relaxed, but not completely removed.
Industrialization: Two great surges of industrialization
improved the Russian economy. The first, after 1860,
involved government subsidies to build railroads. In 1860,
Russia had only about 1,250 miles of track; by 1880 it had
15,500 miles. Railroads allowed Russia to export grain and
urn money for further industrialization. By 1879, Russia had
developed a railway equipment industry, and industrial
suburbs grew around Moscow and St. Petersburg. Industrial
development strengthened Russia’s military and gave rise
to territorial expansion to the south and east. This
expansion caused many nationalists and super patriots to
become very excited, and they became the government’s
most enthusiastic supporters. Industrialization also led to
the spread of Marxist thinking and the transformation of the
Russian revolutionary movement after 1890.
Sadly, political reforms ended with the assassination of
Alexander II in 1881 by a group of Nihilists who called
themselves the “People’s Will.”. Alexander knew his life was
in danger from Nihilists, and rode in an iron clad carriage. A
group of terrorists, who planned on killing him, through a
bomb underneath his carriage. The bomb did little damage
to the carriage and Alexander was unhurt, but a number of
his escorts were wounded. The bomber was arrested on the
spot. Although his driver begged him to stay in the coach,
Alexander, ever the consummate military man, thought it
his duty to provide comfort to the wounded members of his
escort and stepped into the street. When he did, a second
terrorist threw a bomb between himself and Alexander, and
both were mortally wounded. Everyone fled the scene,
leaving Alexander bleeding alone in the snow. A group of
military cadets hurried to the scene and lifted him into a
coach for medical attention, with the help of one of the
terrorists, who remained undetected. Alexander died from
his injuries, as did the bomber, several hours later.
Alexander was succeeded by his son, Alexander III, who felt
that the reform had gone too far. All political reforms were
suspended, and Alexander instituted a program of
Russification. Only the Russian language was to be used in
schools, businesses, and government, regardless of the
language his subjects might otherwise have spoken. The
same group who assassinated his father also planned to
assassinate Alexander, but the ring leader, one Aleksander
Ulyanov, who was sentenced to death and hanged. He was
the brother of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who later adopted the
surname Lenin, and was responsible for the overthrow of the
government of Alexander’s son and the last Russian Czar,
Nicholas II.
Industrial modernization nevertheless continued in Russia.
Under the leadership of Sergei Witte, Alexander’s finance
minister, the railroad network doubled to over 35,000 miles,
including the famous trans-Siberian railway, which runs from
Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean to Moscow, five thousand
miles away. He also established a series of high protective
tariffs that protected Russian industry; and he also put the
country on the gold standard to strengthen Russian
finances.
Witte ingeniously devised a plan to employ Western capital
to build factories in Russia. He once told Alexander, “The
inflow of foreign capital is …the only way by which our
industry will be able to supply our country quickly with
abundant and cheap goods.” Within ten years, on the
strength of foreign investment, a huge steel industry was
developed, so much so that only the U.S. Germany and
Great Britain produced more steel. Russian refineries were
producing half the world’s petroleum by 1900.
Although Witte was a businessman, he was ever the
autocrat and acted that way when dealing with foreign
businessmen. Once when a foreign businessman came to
see him and demanded angrily that the government fulfill a
contract and pay him for it immediately, Witt calmly asked
to see the contract. When he had it in his hands, he read it
carefully, then slowly tore it to shreds and threw it in the
waste basket without a word. He was not one to be bullied.
The Revolution of 1905: Territorial expansion seemed to
be the next step for Russia to take, as this was during the
age of Western Imperialism (as if the country were not large
enough already.) Russia first established influence in
Manchuria (Northern China) and then began casting greedy
eyes upon Korea, much to the dismay of the Japanese, who
were equally imperialistic. When Japan’s diplomatic protests
were ignored, the Japanese launched a surprise attack in
1904, the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. The typical
European sense of superiority of the day indicated that
Russia would win an easy victory over the Japanese; but the
end result was stunningly opposite. Incompetence more
than anything else doomed the Russians, and although the
Japanese were financially exhausted, Russia collapsed first,
and by the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 1905,
mediated by President Theodore Roosevelt, Japan gained
substantial territorial rights in Manchuria and Korea. The war
marked the first major victory of an Asian power over a
European power.
Military disaster brought political upheaval at home.
Business and professional people had wanted political
reforms, primarily to turn Europe’s last absolutist monarchy
into a liberal representative government. Factory workers
exhibited all the grievances and complaints that their
counterparts in Western Europe had exhibited years earlier.
The peasants were suffering from poverty and
overpopulation, and nationalist movements among the
internal minorities were growing, particularly among the
Poles and Ukrainians. (It is significant to note that ethnic
Russians were only 45 per cent of the population of the
entire country.) The Russian Army was pinned down in the
war in Manchuria, and all the various sources of disorder
congealed to bring about the Revolution of 1905.
On a January Sunday, 1905, a massive group of workers and
families converged peacefully on the Winter Palace in St.
Petersburg to present a petition to the Czar. They were led
by a priest named Father Gapon, whom the secret police
had supported, as they considered his method of reform
more favorable than some of the radical unionist demands.
The crowds carried icons (a common Russian custom) and
sand “God Save the Czar,” the Russian national anthem.
They did not know that the Czar, Nicholas II (son of
Alexander III and a good man but a complete and hopeless
pinhead) had left the city. The palace guard suddenly
opened fire on the crowd without provocation, and hundreds
were killed or wounded. The “Bloody Sunday” massacre
forced those who were noncommittal into the camps of
those who opposed the czar and a wave of general
indignation resulted.
Compare this to Herbert Hoover’s inept handling of the
Bonus Expeditionary Force in Washington after World War I.
Amazing how one can at times snatch defeat from the jaws
of victory.
Revolution was in the air. Outlawed political parties came
out in the open, minority nationalities revolted and troops
mutinied. In October, 1905, a general strike was called
which paralyzed the entire country, and Nicholas was forced
to capitulate. He issued the October Manifestowhich
promised full civil rights, and promised the election of a
Russian Parliament, known as the Duma. The Manifesto did
not go as far as many had hoped, and had the effect of
splitting the opposition to the government. Most moderates
and liberals were satisfied, but the Social Democrats did not
think it went far enough. A bloody workers uprising broke
out in December, 1905 in Moscow. Middle class leaders were
frightened, and helped the government repress the uprising
and survive as a constitutional monarchy.
The government issued a new constitution on the eve of the
convening of the first Duma known as the Fundamental
Laws, and its provisions were disappointing. The Duma was
to be elected indirectly by universal male suffrage and also
consist of an appointive upper house. The Duma could
debate and pass legislation, but the Czar held absolute veto
power. Ministers would be appointed by the Czar without the
need to consult with the Duma.
Things went from bad to worse. When the members of the
Duma tried to work with the Czar’s ministers, there was no
cooperation, and Nicholas dismissed the Duma. The new
Duma, elected in 1907, was even more radical and hostile,
and Nicholas dismissed it after three months. He then
rewrote the electoral law so as to concentrate more power
in the propertied classes at the expense of the workers,
peasants, and national minorities.
The new Duma actually promotes some land reforms.
Agricultural reforms were instituted to break down the
collective village ownership of land and encourage the more
enterprising peasants, a program known as the “wager on
the strong.” On the eve of World War One, Russia was
partially modernized, had a conservative constitutional
monarchy, and a peasant based industrial economy.
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The Bismarckian Empire, 1871-1890
The constitutional order:
Bismarckian Germany represented many compromises.
First, it was a mixture of Prussian-dominated and
confederate state. Prussia, with about two thirds of its
territory and people, was by far the most powerful state in it
(especially with the territories annexed in 1866), but the
others had ways to make their interests felt. Second, the
German Empire was not fully German. It had foreign
minorites and it did not include many Germans outside it.
Bismarck wanted to preserve Austria-Hungary (since 1867 a
dual state under joint rule of the Austrian emperor, who was
also Hungarian king), where most Germans outside his
empire lived. He feared that the disintegration of Austria-
Hungary would bring its Slavic population into the Russian
orbit. On the other hand, including its Germans in the
Second Empire would increase the weight of the Catholic
population and thus increase religious conflict and
strengthen the centrifugal tendencies in the Second Empire.
This would have seemed to Bismarck too much like re-
creating the German Confederation.
The Constitution of 1871, although it granted universal and
equal manhood suffrage for the Reichstag and gave the
Reichstag the right to approve or reject the budget,
contained many conservative safeguards. Most important
was the Bundesrat, the assembly of fifty-one
representatives from the twenty-five single states. With its
seventeen delegates, three more than were necessary for a
veto, the Prussian Bundestag delegation alone could abort
all legislation coming from a potentially more democratically
inclined Reichstag. The representatives to the Bundesrat
were appointed by their governments, and none of these
governments was democratically constituted. In most
states, parliaments continued to be elected by a restricted
franchise that privileged property owners and excluded
large segments of the population. The Prussian lower diet,
for example, was elected by a property-based three-class
suffrage, which allowed the richest men of the state to elect
two thirds of the representatives. Most states also had an
upper chamber, whose members were appointed by the
kings or owed their seat to the privileges of old aristocratic
families. These upper chambers, usually loyal to the rulers,
were able to check the influence of the lower (popular)
chambers.
In addition to this, the selection of mostly conservative
people to work in the bureaucracy, the army, and the
educational system was meant to ensure stability. The state
discriminated against socialists, democrats, and (partly)
Jews. The army, in Prussia as well as in the other states, had
an almost extra-constitutional position and, subject to the
emperor, could largely defy parliaments if necessary.
The conservative attitude of the army was of predominant
importance. Universities and schools — like the
administration — worked efficiently but aspired to remain as
“non-political” as possible, with their non-political attitude
usually clouding an authoritarian and conservative bias.
In short, the German constitutional order after 1871 differed
significantly from American and French political culture in
which constitutions were directed “by the will of the
people.” Bismarck saw the German constitution and the
Reichstag as granted by the German princes, a “gift” they
could always take back. Whenever the Reichstag majority
failed to support his policies he toyed with the idea of a
coup d’état. This happened increasingly often in the years
before 1890, as the social changes associated with the rise
of a large industrial working class made a durable
containment of the democratic forces appear increasingly
difficult.
How united was the new empire?
Did Germans give up their former state loyalty for the sake
of a new adherence to the empire? After all, the war of 1866
can be seen as a German civil war with Bavarians, Saxons
and many others fighting Prussians. How much did things
change with the foundation of the Second Reich?
Apart from the long-term developments in support of
unification (economic and cultural), the empire was founded
during a war with France. As Germans were fighting next to
each other against the same enemy as in the wars of
liberation in 1813-14, they felt a sense of common destiny
forged in war. Prussia’s military effectiveness and economic
prowess to many non-Prussians dwarfed the appeal of
Austria, Prussia’s former rival in Germany. Although regional
identities mattered (and to some extent still matter in
Germany today), strong separate nationalisms never came
into existence. If Germans expressed nationalist feelings,
they usually displayed a German rather than Prussian,
Hessian, or Württembergian nationalism. This sense of
unity, however, proved more fragile than wartime
enthusiasm and the joy of victory suggested.
The Junkers:
One group critical of the new settlement was the Prussian
landed aristocracy (to which Bismarck belonged). Although
the Junkers, who dominated Prussia itself, had strong
influence on national politics as well, they only gradually
reconciled themselves with Bismarck’s foundation of the
new state; they always considered universal suffrage for the
Reichstag a dangerous precedent for further
democratization and — at least initially — saw their power
threatened by the South Germans. Their Prussian loyalty,
moreover, blended only reluctantly with German nationalism
and never lost its distinctive flavor even when many Junkers
adopted German chauvinism after the turn of the century.
The South Germans:
Another potential division in the new Reich came from the
more liberal and democratic South of Germany. Bavaria,
Baden, and Württemberg had all adopted more liberal
constitutions than Prussia, and the democratic movement
held a far stronger position south of the Main River than
north of it. Universal suffrage, however, gave Southern
democrats an opportunity to vent their anti-authoritarian
feeling by sending democratic deputies to the Reichstag.
The Catholics:
Religious division posed another problem to national unity.
The south German states were predominantly Catholic, as
were the Rhineland and Ruhr provinces that only recently
(1815) had become part of Lutheran Prussia. Many Catholics
felt uneasy about living in a state whose highest
administration was so clearly dominated by Prussian
Protestants. The Vatican increased their difficulties by
condemning the encroachment of states on educational and
church affairs. Challenged by growing anti-clericalism
(hostility to the political role of the Church), the Vatican also
issued a dogma of Papal infallibility. In order to defend the
Church and its influence over education, Catholic politicians
in Germany formed a new party, the Center Party.
Bismarck, in turn, saw Catholicism as a threat to the Reich’s
unity and started to impose legal restrictions on Catholic
education and worship (Kulturkampf). He expelled the
Jesuit order and refractory bishops. The liberals, who
considered the papacy backward and unenlightened,
supported Bismarck’s legislation, thus completing a
remarkable rapprochement with the politician the liberals
had hated when he became Prussian prime minister in
1862. By the end of the 1870s, however, repressive
measures seemed incommensurate to the threat
Catholicism posed to the Reich. The fight against
Catholicism also appeared to become counterproductive
because it strengthened the Center Party. Apart from church
issues, Bismarck and the Center Party agreed on many
questions, so Bismarck abandoned the Kulturkampf and
tried to win parliamentary support from the Center Party.
The liberals:
As Geoff Eley argues, national unification fulfilled the main
political vision of the German liberals. Given the reluctance
of the Junkers to support the new Reich, Bismarck, though a
conservative Junker himself, sought support from the
liberals and some moderate conservatives throughout most
of the 1870s. Liberal majorities in the Reichstag helped pass
his anti-Catholic legislation and welcomed his free trade
policy. In 1879, however, big business and Junkers together
demanded protective tariffs to ward off the effects of a
global depression. Frenetic industrialization in Germany and
elsewhere had made industrial production outgrow demand.
Cheaper transportation, moreover, made grain from Russia
and the United States competitive on the German market,
thus threatening the precarious economic position of the
slightly backward Junker domains. The tariff question and
the issue of long-term military spending split the liberals
into an outspokenly nationalist wing dominated by heavy
industry and a democratic left.
The workers:
Another group not easily integrated into the empire were
the workers. Intensive industrialization since the 1850s had
increased the size of Germany’s industrial proletariat. In
1869 workers started to organize a socialist party and trade
unions. Although the Socialist Party remained small and —
to Karl Marx’s dismay — moderate during the 1870s,
Bismarck and the state administration felt threatened by a
potentially revolutionary force that was likely to grow with
industrial progress. In opposition to many liberals, but with
the support of the Center Party and the Conservatives,
Bismarck issued repressive laws against socialist
organizations from 1878 to 1890 (Anti-Socialist Laws).
Socialist meetings and propaganda were forbidden, but the
Socialist Party was still allowed to participate in elections
and to keep its Reichstag group.
At the same time, Bismarck tried to woo the workers away
from socialism by introducing social legislation. As he had
tried to win over the poor masses by an almost
revolutionary concession — universal and equal manhood
suffrage — he now offered them health, old age, and
accident insurance by the state. The German social welfare
system became the most advanced in the world, but the
workers had no interest in alms from the state. They wanted
to be equal partners of the employers and to dictate social
progress themselves. Bismarck’s patriarchal tutelage only
radicalized socialist rhetoric, if not practice. Driven into
partial illegality, the Socialist Party gained more and more
support from the workers.
The national minorities:
One group never reconciled to the Reich were the non-
Germans within its borders. They had the same political and
civil rights as Germans, but administrative pressure tried to
force them to minimize the importance of their non-German
culture. These repressive policies often strengthened group
cohesion among the minorities. Some inhabitants of Alsace
and Lorraine spoke French, and many of those who spoke
German as a first language considered themselves French
rather than German. As a province administered by the
Reich government and — until 1911 — without
representation in the Federal Council, Alsace-Lorraine
remained only half integrated. When the area became
French again in 1918 the local population drove out the
German troops in triumph. The national administration in
Berlin as well as the civilian and — worst of all — the
military authorities on the spot proved insensitive to the
identity of Alsatians and Lorrains, particularly when they
discovered that the German-speakers there were not happy
about being reunited with their German relatives from
across the Rhine.
A non-German minority existed also in the north of
Schleswig, the province Prussia had occupied in 1864. The
Danish population there formed its own party in the
Reichstag but resented being governed by Berlin.
The Poles constituted by far the largest non-German
minority in the Reich. Through the partitions of independent
Poland in the 18th century, Prussia had acquired some
provinces populated mostly by people who spoke Polish and
increasingly felt some common bonds with each other and
their relatives under Russian and Austrian rule. An
independent Polish national state, however, would have
claimed many Prussian, ergo German, territories and made
Germans living there a foreign minority. Bismarck and even
the German liberals, who had once considered Polish
nationalism an admirable cause, therefore felt that strivings
for a free Poland had to be repressed. Bismarck and his
successors at times tried to “Germanize” the Poles in
Prussia by declaring German the only language that could
be spoken in offices and classrooms. (For a document on
this, see H-German: Bismarck and the “Polish Question.”).
Repression tightened in the 1880s when the ratio between
Poles and Germans changed in favor of the Poles because
more Germans than Poles moved westward to Berlin and the
industrial areas of the Ruhr. In spite of the national tensions,
however, eastern Germany remained peaceful. Many
Germans, mainly in the towns, disliked the Germanization
policy of the central government in Berlin, and many Poles
remained lukewarm toward Polish nationalism.
The Jews in Germany, about one percent of the population,
can hardly be considered a national minority, as the great
majority of them was assimilated. Having received full
emancipation right before the foundation of the Reich, the
Jews became a successful intellectual and academic elite.
Anti-Semitic prejudice made careers more difficult but did
not prevented them. Social problems arose when increasing
numbers of mostly orthodox Jews from the Russian Empire
migrated into Germany after 1880. The newcomers were
unwelcome to many Germans and assimilated Jews alike.
Philanthropy toward the mostly poor immigrants often
consisted of a ship ticket to the United States or another
European country.
Living in the Empire:
Although Wehler sees the Bismarckian Reich as a rather
repressive country dominated and held together by the
shrewd intrigues of Bismarck and the preindustrial elites,
most contemporaries considered it a moderately tolerant,
safe, and livable place. Everywhere one could count on
justice and a capable, if often somewhat pedantic,
administration. Although Germany was …
