The second striking aspect of Russia's history in this period is the political dilemma inevitably accompanying modernisation, given that the Empire remained an autocracy. All the tsars took their role as autocrat seriously. Even the reforming Alexander II had no intention of relaxing control and saw the zemstvos or local assemblies essentially as talking shops, charged with implementing decisions made in St Petersburg. Alexander III and Nicholas II (1894—1917) were reactionaries as well as unimaginative mediocrities, whose natural preferences were even tighter control. They regarded the landowning nobility as unreliable and relied instead on an ever-expanding bureaucracy and police apparatus. The result was a regime inherently inefficient and unresponsive to the pressures building within Russian society.
The lack of any meaningful political space, and the sidelining of even the educated and public-spirited, had already radicalised Russia's intelligentsia, and this trend intensified in the late nineteenth century. In their attempts to effect change, young Russians turned first to well-meaning but impractical proselytising among the common people, and finally to revolutionary socialism and political violence. Government in response resorted to ever greater repression, especially in the wake of Alexander II's assassination in 1881. For the remainder of the imperial period revolutionary movements committed to the destruction of tsarism formed a constant backdrop of tension, and however tiny the numbers involved, their appeal could only increase once industrialisation took off. The displacement of population from countryside to town, the miserable living conditions of the new proletariat, and the continuing pressure on those still farming the land constituted the ideal matrix for revolution.
Nicholas II's government compounded these problems by its imperialist ambitions in the Far East, which were in turn driven by Witte's vision of opening up Siberia, while muscling in on territories and markets, such as China and Korea, which Russia could plausibly hope to dominate. The resulting clash with imperial Japan lies outside this story, but the catastrophic consequences of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904—5 are highly relevant. Defeat at the hands of an Asiatic power which had modernised more effectively seemed the ultimate indictment of Russian backwardness, its military unpreparedness and above all its incompetent leadership. The economic privations of the war, and the outrage at impending defeat, sparked strikes and revolutionary unrest throughout 1905, which in October finally forced the tsar to issue a manifesto, in effect Russia's first constitution, which legitimised political parties and promised a representative assembly or Duma.
This creation of a political arena, however, unleashed fresh tensions. Not only were the limitations placed by the October Manifesto and the Duma on the tsar's power — in particular his ability to appoint ministers and decide policy — minimal, but the very emergence of political parties, even ones elected through a restricted and indirect suffrage, ensured that economic and social grievances were voiced with even greater vehemence. It also meant that the Pandora's box of Russia's nationality problems was now opened; in fact, the mere existence of the Duma was 'a formative experience' for nationalist leaders, especially in the East European provinces of the empire.5
World History
