Focusing on the role of the landowning gentry in the First Russian
Revolution of 1905-1907, Roberta Manning explores the complex
relationship between this traditional social and political elite and the
imperial Russian government in the period between the abolition of
serfdom and the February Revolution of 1917. In contrast to the commonly
accepted view that the 1905 Revolution significantly expanded the circle
of people involved in government, Professor Manning argues that the
gentry became Russia's dominant political force after the 1907 coup
d'etat. Overwhelmed after Emancipation by economic crisis and a
devastating erosion of their role in government service, the gentry
utilized the revitalized assemblies of the nobility and the newly
founded zemstvos first to agitate for and then to dominate the
representative institutions created by the 1905 Revolution.
Through a vast array of primary sources, Professor Manning considers the
acquisitions and consequences of the gentry's augmented political role
and presents an updated account of the peasant rebellions of 1905-1907
and their impact on the gentry. Included is a brilliant portrayal of
P.A. Stolypin, the period's most gifted gentry statesman, and of the
defeat, accomplished with the aid of gentry pressure groups, of his
reform program, the last comprehensive effort to restructure the
political order of Imperial Russia.
Studies of this period of Russian history have generally focused on the
dramatic confrontation between the Old Regime and its revolutionary
adversaries. Here Professor Manning illuminates the equally fateful
conflicts within the Russian upper classes.
Roberta Thompson Manning is Associate Professor at Boston College.
Studies of the Russian Institute, Columbia University.
Originally published in 1983.
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