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L3: The Russian IntelligentsiaYellow Block

AgendaObjective: To understand…1. The key strains in Russian

political thought post-1860: Populism and Marxism.

2. To understand the key dividing lines between the two theories and their competing views of Russia’s future.

Schedule:1. Whole class discussion.

Opening ActivityNone!

Homework1.Read and mark up

“Leninism” reading. Due Wednesday

Taking the Pulse on Russia• What are the top 3 problems

Russia is facing?• What do you propose as

solution(s) to these problems?

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How do your solutions come down on the issues

of• Industrialization/modernization….• Democratization/Liberalization…• Europeanization…

Russian Intelligentsia• Refers to well-educated, young,

middle class students who held ideas for how to improve Russian society.

• Two main intellectual groups:– Populists– Marxists QuickTime™ and a

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Russian Populism: Beliefs

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• Peasants are the True Leaders of Russia:– Peasants (“the people”) possessed the wisdom and ability to lead Russia– Peasants were an untapped revolutionary class that would overthrow

the Tsar • Opposed Capitalist and Industrial Development:

– Capitalism destroyed rural peasant communities by breaking up communes and forcing people into the cities

• Glorified the Communal Group:– Wanted to maintain the Russian peasant’s traditional communal group

and their belief in the superiority of the community over the individual.

• Overall…– Believed that a uniquely Russian form of socialism would emerge based

on the village commune. All that was needed was leadership to insure that the peasants would rise up against the landowners and the government.

Populism: “To the People”• The Populists believed that all that was required to ignite radical

change in Russia was for students to go peasant villages and start stirring up revolutionary sentiment in the peasants.

• They believed the peasants would spark local uprisings, and these would then spread and would bring down the Tsarist regime.

• “Go to the people…That is our place… Demonstrate…that from among you will emerge not new bureaucrats, but soldiers of the Russian

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Populism: “To the People”• In the spring of 1874 student members of the populist

movement left the cities for the villages in an attempt to teach the peasants about the need for revolution.

• Dressed in old working clothes bought from second-hand stores, they traveled to villages hoping to learn a trade which would enable them to live and work among the peasants undetected by the Tsar’s police.

• Populist found little support among the peasants who viewed them with suspicion and

often turned them over to the authorities.

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People’s Will (Narodnaya Volya)

• The combination of peasant indifference and state repression split the populist movement in two.

• One of the groups to come out of the movement (Peoples Will) adopted a new and more extreme approach: terrorism

• People’s Will killed several prominent government officials.

• In 1881 they made their biggest assassination: Tsar Alexander II

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The Decline of the People’s Will and the Birth of Russian

Marxism• Following the assassination of Alexander II,

the members of the People’s Will involved in the murder were hanged.

• The People’s Will movement began to decline, and a new strand in Russian thought was born: Russian Marxism.

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Marxism Comes to Russia• In 1883, the first Marxist party is formed in

Russia• Marxist ideas spread slowly in Russia• This was largely because Marxism rejected:

– Terrorism– The leading role of the peasantry in the revolution– The belief that Russia could avoid capitalism

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The Growth of Marxism• As the urban class began to grow in Russia as

more and more peasants move to the city in search of work, an increasing number of young people in Russia now looked to Marxism as a means of changing society.

• For these young people, the watchwords were no longer, “Go to the

People,” but “Go to the workers!”• The major Marxist group to emerge was the Social Democrats

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Social Democrats• Strict adherents to Marxist

Doctrine. As such they believed that:– The working class, not

the peasantry, was the source of radical political change

– Russia had to develop capitalism, an industrial proletariat, and class struggle before there could be a revolution.

• “Marxism has forever shaken itself loose from the nonsensical patter of the populists and anarchists to the effect that Russia can escape a capitalist development.”

– Lenin

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Social Democrats Split• In 1903 the Social Democrats split into two groups:

– Bolsheviks• Majority Party• Limited party membership to a small number of hardcore activists• Led by Lenin

– Mensheviks• Minority Party• Welcomed a larger more open party, that was more democratic in organization

• Once he solidified his position as a leader of the Bolsheviks, Lenin began to refine his thinking on Marx and prepare for revolution.

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Discussion• So what is the way forward for Russia?• Do either of these philosophies provide a way forward for

Russia?• “The essential issue that underlay the conflict between

the Populists and the new Marxist tendency was one of historical perspective: Was Russia’s path to socialism to be realized through a peasant revolution, in which traditional communal forms of peasantry property would provide the basis for socialism? Or would the overthrow of Tsarism, the establishment of a democratic republic and the beginning of the transition to socialism proceed on the basis of the growth of Russian capitalism and the emergence of a modern industrial proletariat?