Echo of 1905

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The Guardian quoted Putin as saying at a press conference that Theresa May must "fulfill the will of the people" after the historic vote. And about Russia, Putin said: "The restoration of socialism is impossible."

It is appropriate here to recall the 1905 revolution, which arose from the agrarian movement of the peasants. This was a powerful movement of the peasants, to which the monarch of Russia was forced to appease the peasants with the "Manifesto of October 17".

The essence of the Manifesto is set out in the following paragraphs:

“It is the responsibility of the government that we impose the fulfillment of Our unyielding will:

1. To grant to the population the unshakable foundations of civil, freedom on the basis of the real inviolability of the person, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and unions;

2. Without stopping the intended elections to the State Duma, to attract now to participate in the Duma … those classes of the population that are now completely deprived of electoral rights, thus allowing the further development of the beginning of the general electoral right to the newly established legislative order, and 3. Establish, as an unshakable rule, that no law can take force without the approval of the State Duma and that the elected representatives of the people be provided with the possibility of real participation in the supervision of the lawfulness of the actions of the authorities appointed by us."

A week later, on October 24, a large meeting (more than 400 people) took place in the village of Bekov, Serdobsky district, Saratov province, which passed the following resolution:

“The Russian country, brought into complete frustration by the arbitrariness of officials, crushed by lawlessness, a mass of burdensome taxes, can no longer remain under the old police-state regime, which is not eliminated by the latest manifesto. Having discussed the plight of Russia and the peasantry in particular, we, citizens of s. With. Naryshkin, Bekov and others, we believe that the main reasons for the disorder that need to be immediately eliminated are the following:

1) improper land ownership;

2) the people are not educated;

3) taxes are distributed disproportionately to income, the poor pays disproportionately, the rich disproportionately little;

4) subjects have no rights, only duties;

5) not everyone is equal before the law and the court;

6) arbitrariness of officials reigns in the administration of the country;

7) the court is not quick, unjust and unmerciful;

8) the people do not know what and how the money collected in the treasury is spent;

9) the costs of the army, navy, officials and the police are prohibitively high, while crumbs are left to meet the needs of the people;

10) the population does not have any ways to declare their displeasure with the bureaucracy, because any such displeasure is considered a state crime, and its manifestations are suppressed by military force.

To eliminate the above, we have unanimously decided that it is necessary to establish the following:

1) Since the earth is not the creation of human hands and should therefore not be anyone's private property, as well as air, water and heat, then it should be used by the one who needs it, and in such an amount as is necessary to feed himself and his family, subject to personal labor. For this, all the land that is, must become common property, the property of the state without any redemption in favor of the current owners.

2) Primary education for children of both sexes should be universal, compulsory, free (at public expense). For adults, if desired, evening courses should be arranged, also at the expense of the state. All students have free access to all secondary and higher educational institutions, where, in addition to education, the maintenance of students should also be at the expense of the state, if the family is not able to support them. Also, at the request of the population, all kinds of professional schools should be opened everywhere.

3) Abolish immediately the redemption payments; abolish indirect taxes and duties on those items of production that are consumed by the peasantry (chintz, sugar, kerosene, iron, tobacco, vodka, etc.), in general on basic necessities; to keep indirect taxes on luxury goods. Abolish the current system of direct taxes. To replace all this with a progressive income tax, and a certain amount of income (established by the Duma) should be completely exempted from all taxes.

4) The elimination of government officials and the police and the replacement of all officials by persons at the choice of the population, and the highest government positions - ministers, governors - are replaced by the State Duma, the rest by local self-governing units.

5) The destruction of all estates and estates. Hence the abolition of all tutelage over the peasants and, in particular, the abolition of the institution of zemstvo chiefs.

6) Destruction of passports.

7) The establishment of a certain salary for the clergy, in addition to which they have no right to demand anything.

8) The establishment of free medical care.

9) Free trial.

10) Abolition of the death penalty.

11) Reduction of the term of military service to 2 years with the obligation to train recruits more expediently than at this time. Recruits must serve their duties within, at least, their province.

12) Only such a State Duma can carry out our demands, to which real people's representatives will be sent, why should immediately universal suffrage be introduced with equal, direct and secret voting by all citizens of the Russian state without distinction of faith, nationality and gender.

13) At the moment we have gathered freely and speak freely - this is our right. Since many Russian people suffered in the struggle for this right, we consider it necessary to immediately release all those who suffered for their convictions and fought for our rights, about which to send a telegram to the chairman of the committee of ministers, Count Witte.

14) Immediate removal of the Cossack detachments, as contributing to a large extent to disorder and by no means helping to maintain order.

15) Taking into account the manifesto, as such, and stating that police intervention has never contributed to order, we ourselves undertake the obligation to maintain order.

16) All our decisions should be published in the newspaper."

With this resolution, illiterate, bastard Russia expressed the centuries-old dream of the Russian people for the social arrangement of their lives, based on communality, which the three-hundred-year rule of the Romanov monarchy could not eradicate. The people are not at all as simple as many think. In 1905, he had not yet absorbed any ideology, any socialist and communist ideas. He has a whole thousand-year history behind him, and the secret of his soul must be sought in the past. It is more likely to be found in ancient epics than in Marx's Capital. The people have their own etiquette, about which it was said in the epics: "He even lays the cross according to what was written, he bows according to the scientist."

Democracy in its direct, immediate form was possible only in the old days. Then all full-fledged citizens of the state came together and discussed the most important matters: they elected officials, appointed taxes and worked out laws. So it was more than a thousand years ago among our ancestors of the Slavs, about which there are instructions from foreign writers of that time.

For example, the 6th century Byzantine writer Procopius, who observed the life of the Slavs of his day, says that they “are not ruled by one person, but have long lived under the rule of the people,” and at the same time mentions public assemblies. Another writer of the same time, the Byzantine emperor Mauritius, notes in the Slavic character a love for freedom, and a hostile feeling for unlimited power; they are difficult to persuade into slavery or obedience, he said. Later writers also testify that the Slavs do not tolerate a lord or ruler in their midst, but consult about their affairs and decide them unanimously. Such are the testimonies of Byzantine and other writers, depicting for us our ancestors of the Slavs as a freedom-loving and self-governing people!..

So it was in ancient Russia. According to the chronicler, "the residents of Novgorod, Smolensk, Kiev and Polotsk and all regions, as, in the thought, in the veche converge." Russian sources already speak directly of the veche (the so-called popular assembly in ancient Russia) as a political institution and also note its antiquity and prevalence.

Not knowing history is the scourge of our time.

The peasant movement of 1905 assumed the character of a mass demonstration by entire villages and more extensive areas, by conspiracy, in an organized manner, with the drawing up of "sentences", and the movement was a direct threat to the very foundations of the autocratic-serf state.

Therefore, the tsar appeased the people with the Manifesto of October 17 in one hand and Cossack whips in the other. And the Western European imperialists helped the tsarist autocracy in suppressing the 1905 revolution. Foreign capitalists feared for their capital invested in Russia and huge profits. In addition, they feared that in the event of the victory of the Russian revolution, the workers of other countries would rise up against the revolution.

Therefore, the West European imperialists helped the executioner tsar. The French bankers gave a large loan to the tsar to suppress the revolution. The German tsar kept in readiness an army of many thousands to intervene to help the Russian tsar.

So the countryside made a huge step forward in terms of its revolutionary and political education and development, it was still able to take the position of the main driving force of the Russian revolution, and play the main role of the de facto ally of the proletariat and the Bolshevik party in building socialism in Russia.

The thoughts set forth in the resolution of the peasants are saturated with the blood of their ancestors, and they are probably the main reason for the Russophobia of the entire Western world.