October – December Tsar struggles to regain control

 Celebrations on the streets of St Petersburg. They waved red flags  General strike called off and talk of a new Russia with many workers returning to their factories  However, the real radicals were not so easily pleased. Lenin and Trotsky tried to get the workers to fight on  They felt, probably quite rightly, that the tsar had no intention of becoming a ‘constitutional monarch’

 The more moderate liberals accepted the promises and were willing to work with the tsar to make the new Dumas a success  This group became known as the ‘Octobrists’ and under Alexander Guchkov they created a new party with its own newspaper

 The left-wing liberals were less convinced.  They became the constitutional Democrats, or Kadets, under Pavel Milyukov.  Although they accepted the tsar’s concessions as a first step they continued to demand the setting up of a constituent assembly to draw up a fresh constitution.  However, they did support the government’s actions in bringing the radical revolution to an end.  Struve commented ‘Thank God for the Tsar who has saved us from the people’.

 Not all workers and peasants were appeased by the Oct and Nov manifestos.  Radical revolutionaries denounced the promise of elections and called for an armed uprising to bring tsarism to an end.  Trotsky publicly declared the tsar’s promises to be worthless.  In Nov Lenin returned to St Petersburg in the hope of winning more support for a revolution.

 Having grown more politicised during the months of 1905 some of the industrial workers continued their strike activity for some months, encouraged by the revolutionary activists.  November saw another General Strike in St Petersburg, although the soviet was not able to keep it going.  December – Bolshevik uprising in Moscow.

 In the countryside some peasants saw the promises as an opportunity to seize land which they believed to be rightfully theirs.  An increase in peasant risings peaking in Nov/Dec.  November – a second Congress of Peasants’ Unions was held – demanded the nationalisation of land.

 Continuing troubles in the army and navy for a short time e.g. more mutinies after October.  In the East, the Trans-Baikal railway fell into the hands of strikers’ committees and demobilised soldiers returning from the Japanese war. The tsar had to send some loyal soldiers on the TSR to restore order.  The tsar could not always find loyal troops, often relying on Cossacks and Black Hundreds to restore order.

 In November many cities in the Empire were out of control.  Repression and concession were used to restore the tsar’s authority.