The Russian Revolution

It was in the course of the petition campaign that the liberals created their third and most powerful national organization, the Union of Unions, which was to play a decisive role in the climactic stage of the 1905 Revolution. The Union of Unions (Soiuz Soiuzov) was the most radical of the liberal organizations, standing to the left of both the Zemstvo Congress and the Union of Liberation. The decision to create this body was taken at the October 1904 congress of the Union of Liberation: its mission was to broadcast the liberal message to the mass constituency of professional people as well as white- and blue-collar employees in order to involve them in the political struggle. The intention was for the professional and trade associations formed under the Union’s auspices not to serve their members’ special interests, but to involve them in the campaign for political freedom. V. A. Maklakov, a prominent liberal, recalls that the Union of Lawyers, of which he was a member, did not promote the collective interests of its members or the cause of law, but used the prestige of the legal profession to add to the clamor for a parliament and a constitution.⁷³ The same held true of the other unions. The movement for the formation of such unions accelerated significantly after the publication of the February 18 manifesto. In addition to the Union of Lawyers, unions were formed of Medical Personnel, Engineers and Technicians, Professors, Agronomists and Statisticians, Pharmaceutical Assistants, Clerks and Bookkeepers, Journalists and Writers, Veterinarians, Government, Municipal, and Zemstvo Employees, Zemstvo Activists, and School Teachers. Separate organizations were set up to work for the equality of Jews and of women.

⁷⁴ The Union also organized mass associations: its outstanding success was in setting up the All-Russian Union of Railroad Employees and Workers, the largest labor organization in the country. Later on, it was instrumental in forming the Peasant Union. All the member unions adhered to a minimum program calling for the replacement of autocracy with a constitutional regime and full civil rights for the population. On other issues, such as the Constituent Assembly, they showed considerable divergencies.⁷⁵

On May 8, 1905, a congress of fourteen unions organized by the Union of Liberation in Moscow federated into the Union of Unions under the chairmanship of Paul Miliukov. Miliukov, the leading figure in the liberal movement, by this time was a liberal only in name because he was prepared to use any means, including the general strike, to topple the autocracy. In the next five months, the Union of Unions virtually set the course of the Russian Revolution.

The news from the Far East went from bad to worse. In February 1905, the Russians fought the Japanese for Mukden, a Manchurian city that Kuropatkin had vowed never to surrender. It was a ferocious engagement in which 330,000 Russians battled 270,000 Japanese. After losing 89,000 men (to 71,000 of the enemy), Kuropatkin decided to abandon the city.

As if this humiliation were not enough, in May came news of the worst disaster in Russian naval history. The Baltic Fleet was sailing off the east coast of Africa when it learned of the surrender of Port Arthur. Since his mission was to relieve Port Arthur, the fleet’s commander, Admiral Z. P. Rozhestvenskii, requested permission to return to his home base. The request was denied. Joined by the Black Sea Fleet, which had sailed through the Suez Canal, he reached the China Sea and headed for Vladivostok by way of the Strait of Tsushima between Korea and southern Japan. Here a Japanese fleet under Admiral Togo lay in wait. The Russian vessels were more heavily armed but slower and less maneuverable. Togo also had the benefit of superior intelligence. The engagement fought on May 14/27, 1905, was an unmitigated disaster for the Russians. All their battleships and many auxiliary vessels were sunk and most of the remainder captured; only a few managed to escape under the cover of darkness. Rozhestvenskii himself was taken prisoner. Tsushima ended any hope the Imperial Government may have had of staving off constitutional reforms by a glorious military victory.

8. Paul Miliukov, leader of the Constitutional-Democratic Party.

Nicholas’s immediate reaction to Tsushima was to designate Trepov Deputy Minister of the Interior with extensive police powers, which, according to Witte, made him “unofficial dictator.”⁷⁶ He also resolved to seek peace. The difficult mission was assigned to Witte, who in June left for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the peace talks were to take place under the patronage of the U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.