With the outbreak of revolution in 1905 thousands of members of the working classes of industrial Russia combined together to provide their own unique contribution to Russian history and politics - the soviet movement. This movement was not a spontaneous outburst of semi-anarchistic and inchoate political and emotional attitudes. Nor was it a movement controlled and manipulated by revolutionary Social Democracy. In terms of its organisations, ideology, and political base the soviet movement of 1905 was controlled and directed by the working class itself and the experiences of past industrial struggle. This thesis examines in detail the extent and nature of the soviet movement in 1905. Part 1 introduces some of the methodological and theoretical issues associated with our study and provides the reader with the narrative detail of the movement. Part 2 contains a thematic exploration of the movement in terms of its organisation, social composition, political and economic demands and forms of protest. It also examines the nature of the relationship between revolutionary social democracy and the Soviets. It finds, that, given the right circumstances, the working classes were capable not only of forming a broad based opposition to the Tsarist autocracy but were also able to draw up their own political agenda with their own forms of revolutionary protest.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:602345 |
| Date | January 1987 |
| Creators | Sutton, Katharine A. |
| Publisher | University of Birmingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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