The Russian Empire did not collapse overnight. Her downfall is a multi-act drama, where each action brings the inevitable end closer.

The State Duma

With a manifesto of August 6, 1905, Emperor Nicholas II established the State Duma. This legislative body, designed to serve as a pillar of power, only brought confusion into the already troubled Russian society. It was difficult to expect any help in stabilizing the state from the meetings, which were accompanied by constant squabbles and disruptions of order.
The Duma undoubtedly contributed to the collapse of the empire, if only because, with its liberal activities and incitement, it essentially gave a free hand to the left forces, which successfully took advantage of the difficult situation in the country.
On the eve of February 1917, when a turning point was brewing on the fronts of the First World War that could lead to victory for the Russian army, when the country needed unity, members of a number of factions in the State Duma only intensified their course towards confrontation between the tsar, the government and society.
One of the Duma leaders, Alexander Kerensky, called for solving the problem of destroying the ruling regime “immediately, at any cost.” At the same time, he recommended not to stop at using “legal means”, but to move on to the “physical elimination” of government officials. It was on the sidelines of the Duma that a conspiracy was brewing, which set itself the task of overthrowing the sovereign, and, if necessary, regicide.
Duma deputies, with the help of the Socialist Revolutionaries, socialists and workers' organizations, launched agitation among Petrograd workers and soldiers of the reserve battalions. They fanned street protests over food shortages into the fire of the February Revolution, but were unable to control it.

First World War

Russia's entry into the First World War did not yet imply a tragic outcome. According to historians, if Nicholas II had taken into account the mistakes of the Russo-Japanese War, then one would have expected a different development of events. Unfortunately, both in managing the defense-industrial complex and in supplying the army, the government stepped on the same rake.
General Anton Denikin recalled: “The great tragedy of the Russian army was the retreat from Galicia. No cartridges, no shells... Eleven days of the terrible roar of German heavy artillery, literally tearing down entire rows of trenches along with their defenders. We almost didn’t answer - there was nothing.”
“Fate has never been as cruel to any country as to Russia. Her ship sank while the harbor was in sight. She had already weathered the storm when everything collapsed. All the sacrifices have already been made, all the work has been completed,” Winston Churchill said about the First World War.
They decided to rectify the situation by turning to domestic breeders and manufacturers. But what came of it? As Yevgeny Barsukov, a member of the Artillery Committee, testified: “At the very first news of the extreme lack of combat supplies at the front and the opportunity as a result of this to “make good money” on items of such urgent need, Russian industrialists were seized by an unprecedented excitement.”

Later, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich admitted: “The Romanov throne fell not under the pressure of the forerunners of the Soviets or young bombers, but of bearers of aristocratic families and courtiers, nobility, bankers, publishers, lawyers, professors and other public figures who lived on the bounty of the empire.”

February Revolution

As British historian Richard Pipes wrote, by the end of 1916 all political parties and groups united in opposition to the monarchy. They believed that it was not the regime itself that was to blame for the Russian crisis, but the people at the helm of power - the German Empress and Rasputin. And as soon as they were removed from the political arena, they believed, “everything would go well.” A spark was enough for all the indignant people to fall upon the government and the tsar.
The reason for the mass unrest in Petrograd was the dismissal of about 1,000 workers at the Putilov plant. The workers' strike, which began on February 23 (March 8 according to the new calendar), coincided with a women's demonstration of many thousands organized by the Russian League for Women's Equality. “Bread!”, “Down with war!”, “Down with autocracy!” – these were the demands of the action participants.
By the evening of February 27, virtually the entire composition of the Petrograd garrison - about 160 thousand people - went over to the side of the rebels. The commander of the Petrograd Military District, General Sergei Khabalov, was forced to report: “Please report to His Imperial Majesty that I could not fulfill the order to restore order in the capital. Most of the units, one after another, betrayed their duty, refusing to fight against the rebels."
The February Revolution turned out to be the point of no return, after which Russia embarked on the path of self-destruction. “The decisive elimination of the autocratic regime and the complete democratization of the country” (which the liberals dreamed of) ultimately resulted not only in the collapse of liberal ideas, but, worst of all, incalculable disasters for the country.

Renunciation

The events of February 1917 forced Nicholas II, who was at Headquarters, to take urgent measures. “The situation is serious. There is anarchy in the capital. The government is paralyzed. General discontent is growing. Troop units shoot at each other. It is necessary to immediately entrust a person with confidence to form a new government. “We must not hesitate,” the Chairman of the State Duma, Mikhail Rodzianko, reported on February 26 in a telegram to the Emperor.
However, Nikolai refuses to react in any way to this message: “Again this fat man Rodzianko wrote to me all sorts of nonsense, to which I will not even answer him.” He also does not react to subsequent panicky telegrams from Rodzianko, who predicts that in case of inaction, “the collapse of Russia, and with it the dynasty, is inevitable.”
Who knows how history would have turned out if the emperor had decided to immediately leave for Petrograd. According to historian Georgy Katkov, the emperor’s inner circle at Headquarters expected two things from him: clear instructions on how to act in connection with the rebellion, and a policy statement that would calm the country and at least temporarily satisfy the liberals.
Instead of acting on his own, the tsar asks Prince Golitsyn to come to the capital, to whom he grants all the necessary powers for civil administration. On February 28, Nikolai still decides to go, but not to rebellious Petrograd, but to his family in Tsarskoe Selo. However, it was not possible to reach the final goal; the emperor was no longer in power in his country. The abdication of the throne only put an end to the hopelessness of the situation.
Historian Pyotr Cherkasov, avoiding extreme assessments of the reign of Nicholas II, notes the tragedy of the personality of the last Russian Tsar - “a deeply decent and delicate man to the point of shyness, faithful to his duty and at the same time an unremarkable statesman, a captive of once and for all acquired convictions in the inviolability of the order bequeathed to him by his ancestors of things".

October Revolution

If the inspirers of the February Revolution were representatives of the Duma opposition and bourgeois elites, then the October Revolution was planned by the Bolshevik Party, which had gained strength and popularity. All this was done right next to the completely careless Provisional Government, which, instead of taking urgent measures to normalize the situation in the country, continued to conduct political debates.
In October 1917, the agonizing and disintegrating Russia, declared a Republic by Kerensky, barely held back the onslaught of German troops approaching Petrograd. In this situation, a military revolt broke out in Petrograd, led by the Bolshevik leaders Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) and Lev Bronstein (Trotsky). As a result of decisive and carefully planned actions, the most radical of Russian parties seized power almost without a struggle in a paralyzed and decaying country.
The Bolsheviks adopted the course for an armed uprising back in August 1917. But only at the end of September, when the Bolsheviks headed the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, did the new revolution take real shape. Nevertheless, a participant in the events of 1917, historian Sergei Melgunov, believed that the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks was not inevitable. It was made inevitable by specific mistakes of the Provisional Government, which had every opportunity to prevent the coup.
The uprising that took place on the night of October 24-25 came as a surprise to many. The Provisional Government was preparing for an armed uprising by the garrison regiments, but instead, detachments of the workers' Red Guard and sailors of the Baltic Fleet methodically completed the work begun long ago by the Petrograd Soviet to transform dual power into autocracy.
By the end of 1917, Soviet power was established in the Central Industrial Region of the country. However, at the same time, the Bolsheviks were unable to do anything with the separatist movements that had gained strength, breaking off one piece after another from the former empire - Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, Transcaucasia. Only years later will this process be reversed.

As part of the Russian Empire, Finland, which had neither natural resources nor fertile lands, was a rather poor province. However, today this country is prospering, and the standard of living there is many times higher than the standard of living in regions of Russia that are similar in terms of basic initial indicators.

According to statistics from the International Labor Organization, the average salary in Finland is close to 250,000 rubles, and the average pension is more than 100,000 rubles. This is more than similar indicators not only in Russia, but also in many Western European countries. And Finland’s GDP per capita is 4 times greater than Russia’s. In the official ranking of the quality of life index, Finland is in 12th place. between Hong Kong and Ireland and Russia - on 72, between Indonesia and Syria. So why did this cold and inhospitable country turn into a paradise on earth for its citizens in less than 100 years?

Ability to work with what you have

As part of the Russian Empire, Finland was a “state within a state.” The country had its own laws, parliament and government. There was no serfdom in the country. Finns were guaranteed freedom of religion. Since 1865, the country had its own currency. In terms of taxes and duties, Russia perceived Finland as a foreign country - Finnish goods were subject to import duties, but not as high as goods from Europe. Therefore, the Finns sometimes traded with the West even more than with the Russian metropolis.

This state of affairs has made the Finnish economy more competitive than the Russian one, and the Finnish market more open. However, the Finnish economy itself was not innovative: more than 70% of exports were timber and forest products. Most of the country's inhabitants were peasants and lumberjacks. Moreover, the Finnish peasant had a hard time. Although he had to bear fewer costs associated with the unfair system of land use than the Russian peasant, the natural conditions themselves forced him to work hard to obtain small harvests.

In general, according to the 1897 census, Finns lived somewhat richer than Russians. But in 1917 the country gained independence and broke all ties with Bolshevik Russia. The right-wing government feared the communists like fire, and, perhaps, the majority of the inhabitants of the agrarian country did not want the triumph of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The border was closed and all economic ties were severed. Before the revolution, Finland purchased bread from Russia - during the Empire, up to 40% of the bread consumed in Finland was purchased in Russia, and the share of Russian grain exports to Finland was 3%. Therefore, after the severance of relations with Bolshevik Russia, things became difficult for the Finns.

There is a very urgent need to modernize the economy. But the Finns did not reinvent the wheel, did not improve the economy by violent means, as happened in Russia. On the contrary, they began to invest in what they had been doing best in Europe for several centuries - woodworking. The free market did its job - which is typical, the state did not participate at all in the development of wood processing, and soon Finnish paper and pulp filled the European markets.

Ability to survive crises

Finnish paper was at first of relatively low quality, but there was a lot of it and it was very cheap. In the low-quality paper sector, Finland, with its endless forests and undemanding lumberjacks by European standards, was very competitive. Profits were invested in innovation, in improving production, and soon Finland became capable of producing good white paper. Thanks to this sector, the country developed steadily until the Second World War.

Another important factor in the stability of the country's development is its commitment to democracy and the free market. The Finnish people did not follow the lead of the radicals; they preferred a peaceful and quiet life to great ideas, both left and right. According to Finnish historians O. Jussil, S. Hentil and J. Nevakivi, 1932 was a fateful year for the country, when three very important events for the further development of the country happened.

Firstly. Finland restored diplomatic relations with the USSR. Secondly, the pro-Moscow Communist Party was banned in Finland. Thirdly, the fascist rebellion of the Lapua movement was suppressed. Using rather harsh methods, the democratic government defended the constitutional order from threats from the right and left. Thus, Finland avoided the totalitarian fate of most European countries from Spain to Hungary. And although the Finns had to fight on the side of the Nazis in World War II, the democratic regime steadfastly survived the war.

Perhaps it was the rejection of totalitarian ideologies and loyalty to democracy and the free market that helped Finland continue its development after the war. Having lost about 10% of the most developed territories and being forced to pay reparations to the USSR, it continued its stable economic development.

Ability to make friends and ability to manage

After the war, Finland began to move closer to the Soviet Union, without quarreling with the West. The country received subsidies and benefits from both CMEA and democratic European organizations. The Finns did not get involved in big politics, they simply traded and improved their country. After the war, economic restructuring began: state participation in it began to increase. This was a major mistake for Finland: the economy became less competitive, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia, which again became the main trading partner, dragged Finland into a deep economic crisis. Finland was able to get out of it only at the beginning of the third millennium, when a new economic model was born - the so-called Finnish knowledge economy.

As researchers K.A. wrote. Dalman, J.O. Routti and others in their article “Finland as a knowledge economy. Elements of success and lessons for other countries,” this concept involves mutually beneficial cooperation between the state and business, the main goal of which is to attract long-term investments in higher education and the information sector of the economy.

The Finns came to the realization that command methods of managing the economy do not work, that they need to be stimulated, not forced. In addition, Finland has begun to invest in its citizens. in their health, welfare and education. And it worked. Finland has developed a very developed information economy sector. The most striking example is Nokia Corporation. At the same time, the country does not abandon traditional forms of production: each of us is familiar with dairy products from Valio, and the UPM-Kymmene corporation is the largest manufacturer of magazine paper in the world.

I'LL START WITH THE TERRITORIES.
The Russian Empire was significantly larger than Bolshevik Russia, remained larger even after all Stalin’s acquisitions, at the cost of millions of lives, and of course incomparably larger compared to the Russian Federation.
But the main thing, of course, is not the territory - there is a difference between a kilometer and a kilometer.
The Russian Empire was not just larger than the USSR and the Russian Federation, it surpassed the USSR and the Russian Federation in the quality of many, then lost, lands: Poland, Finland, and later Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states.
So - the USSR and the Russian Federation are smaller than the Russian Empire, and these empires have become more Asian and less European.

LEVEL OF FREEDOM.
In the Russian Empire there was free sale of all types of weapons. Before the 1917 revolution, weapons were sold freely and free carrying was allowed. Which indicates the level of freedom and trust, the authorities did not allow this either in the USSR or in the Russian Federation.
In the Russian Empire there was a free sale of all types of weapons, including models for concealed carry.
Moreover, anticipating the cries of the Soviets about the favorite cliches of Soviet propaganda “serfdom”, I will add that in 1861 serfdom was abolished in Russia by the Emperor, not Lenin, and the serfs also had weapons; a hut without at least a hunting rifle is a poor hut.
If Questions arose, the serfs could easily assemble an armed detachment.
Now answer, were serfs slaves?
Or are today’s peasants more likely to be slaves and pay much more than the “tithe”?
Under the Soviet Union, peasants were completely driven into the bondage of collective farms with the confiscation of private property, where they worked for sticks (workdays), often starving and receiving up to 10 years for stealing spikelets.
During the years of Bolshevik paradise, in some families, most of the children died of hunger. Surplus appropriations, terror and decossackization with dispossession of kulaks completed the whole tragedy.

The favorite myth of the Bolsheviks is that Russian peasants were always the poorest in Europe.
This is a very common idea in our society, while the Europeans themselves, who have lived in Russia for a long time and had the opportunity to compare the standard of living of Russians with the peoples of Europe, give completely different information about the life of the Russian people. Croatian and Catholic Yuri Krizhanich (1618 - 1683), who lived in Russia for more than 15 years and studied Russian life well at that time, noted the greater wealth and higher standard of living of the population of Muscovite Rus' in the 17th century. in comparison with its closest neighbors - “Russian land is richer and better than Lithuanian, Polish and Swedish.”
At the same time, according to sources, the states of Western and Southern Europe - Spain, Italy, France, England - at that time surpassed Rus' in wealth and the standard of living of the upper classes.
However, at the same time, the lower classes - peasants and townspeople, “live in Rus' much better and more conveniently than in those rich countries.” It is interesting that even peasants and serfs in Rus' at that time wore shirts decorated with gold and pearls. Krizhanich, being critical of many Russian traditions, at the same time writes that both poor and rich people in Rus', unlike Western Europe, differ little in their table “they eat rye bread, fish and meat.” As a result, Krizanich concludes that “in no other kingdom do ordinary people live so well, and nowhere do they have such rights as here.”

It is also a myth that serfs had no rights; landowners tortured and killed peasants with impunity.
The rights of serfs were limited compared to other groups of the population, but the serf could be a plaintiff and witness in court, swore allegiance to the tsar, and had the right, with the consent of the landowner, to move to other classes. According to one of the largest modern historians B.N. Mironov, “contrary to popular opinion in the literature, peasants, both legally and in fact, until 1861, had the right to complain about their landowners and actively used it” (1). In 1767, Catherine II forbade filing complaints to her personally, “past the governments established for that purpose.”
Unlike many European states (for example, Poland, where the murder of a serf was not considered a state crime at all and was subject only to church punishment), the laws of Russia protected the lives and property of peasants from landowners. “The murder of a serf was considered a serious criminal offense.” The Council Code of 1649 divides the measure of responsibility of the landowner for the unintentional and premeditated murder of a peasant. In case of unintentional murder (in a fight), the nobleman was subject to imprisonment until a special order from the king. In the case of premeditated murder of a peasant, the perpetrator was executed, regardless of social origin. During the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, when the death penalty in Russia was actually abolished, nobles guilty of the death of their peasants were usually sent to hard labor.

All the current bans on weapons are a purely Soviet invention; under the Tsar-Father there was no such garbage. Even after the revolution of 1905, with street fighting, only military and especially powerful pistols were confiscated from the population, and most of the arsenal (quite suitable for making a hole in the forehead of a forgotten worker) remained in their hands.
Hunting weapons were not limited at all and were sold almost by weight. The right of a citizen to have a trunk was considered natural and inalienable.

At the same time, the armament of certain groups of the population (for example, coachmen) reached 100%. In other words, if today’s especially violent people from the Caucasus had fallen into Imperial Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and started doing what they are doing now, passers-by would simply shoot them without further ado, and that’s all.
Moreover, the concept of “exceeding the limits of self-defense” did not exist then, so they would not even try the firing squad.
Total: in 100 years, Russians have gone from free armed people ("tsar's slaves" with entire household arsenals? Seriously?) to downtrodden unarmed slaves, forced to hold rallies against the next bloody rapist, whom the old Russians would simply shoot.
Progress! It goes without saying that the discussion “is it possible to allow the population to have weapons?” is possible only in the Soviet world among Soviet people. For Russians from Historical Russia, such a question did not arise in principle.

DEGRADATION AND ALCOHOL.
Before the revolution, Russia (Russian Empire) was the most teetotal country in Europe. Russia has traditionally been one of the most sober countries in Europe. In Europe, only Norway drank less than us. We were in second to last place in the world in per capita alcohol consumption for three centuries from the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century.
Not the USSR, let alone the Russian Federation, cannot boast of this, as well as moral principles, family values ​​and traditions. All this is flushed down the toilet and forgotten.
For that Russian Empire, the Russian Federation is much worse than today's Gay Europe for us.
And I almost forgot, the Russian Federation ranks 4th in the world in devouring honey, after Moldova...

INDUSTRY AND INCOME.
The Russian Empire entered the 20th century with the world's largest and best oil production and refining industry: 94% of all oil was refined domestically.
In 1904, there were 21 million horses in Russia (around 75 million worldwide): 60% of Russian peasant farms had 3 or more horses!
By 1914, the Russian Empire took first place in terms of industrial production rates.
In 1913, Russia earned as much from the sale of butter abroad as from gold mining.
The largest class in the Russian Empire was the peasantry.
Before the First World War, Russia provided approximately the same amount of grain as the United States, Canada and Argentina combined, and they themselves were leaders in this industry.
THE BOLSHEVIKS DIDN'T HAVE TO DREAM ABOUT THIS, JUST LIKE THE RUSSIA OF TODAY.
Where a poor village lies in ruins, under the widespread alcoholism of the population of the middle zone, and agriculture suddenly died.
Especially soviet myths collapse when you read the memoirs of some prominent figures of the USSR.

For example, from the memoirs of First Secretary N.S. Khrushchev....

By the 20th century A fairly high standard of living was also characteristic of the working-class provinces. N. S. Khrushchev recalled that until 1917, working as a mechanic at a Donetsk mine, he lived financially better than in the 1930s, when he was a high-ranking party official in Moscow “... working as a simple mechanic, he earned 45 rubles. with prices for black bread at 2 kopecks, for white bread - 4 kopecks, a pound of lard - 22 kopecks, an egg cost a penny, boots, the best "Skorokhodovskie" - 7 rubles. What's there to compare? When I conducted party work in Moscow, I didn’t have even half of this, although I occupied a fairly high position.” Then Khrushchev honestly admits that in the 1930s. “Other people were even worse off than I was.” It is clear that ordinary workers and employees received much less than the secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee.
But maybe N.S. Khrushchev belonged to a highly skilled labor aristocracy and his standard of living was sharply different from the majority of workers? By 1917, Khrushchev was only 22 years old and he simply did not have time to obtain such qualifications. In 1909, a contemporary, demanding an increase in the salary of young scientists, reported: “Only a bad mechanic receives 50 rubles. per month - the salary of a candidate for professor - and a good mechanic receives 80 - 90 rubles. per month". Consequently, young N.S. Khrushchev received money not as a representative of the labor aristocracy, but as a “bad mechanic.” His standard of living was typical.
In 1917, there was a rupture in national identity. The main task of the cultural policy of the Bolsheviks was the creation of the Soviet myth, part of which was the formation of a negative image of pre-revolutionary Russia.

Unlike the scientific world, the mass public consciousness lives in myths. Every society has its own national historical myth, which plays a central role in national identity. A society that has lost this national myth is sooner or later doomed to collapse. Everywhere in the world, national myth tends to see the history of its people as better than it is - to remember heroic eras and forget about facts that are unpleasant for society. The peculiarity of modern Russia is that here, on the contrary, the historical myth represents the past of our country in many ways worse than it was in reality.

P.S. By the way, the first head of state who officially announced the idea of ​​global disarmament was the Russian Emperor Nicholas II: he proposed this to the heads of state of Europe in 1898 in The Hague.

Today we have access to unbiased data on the state of affairs in the Russian Empire before the revolution. From them we see that our country developed at a rapid pace, never achieved before or since. That the development of science and production made the most ambitious projects accessible - what’s worth Trans-Siberian Railway and the first in the world heavy aircraft - “Ilya Muromets” by Sikorsky(cosmic level for that period!).

That class barriers became increasingly permeable, that education, social elevators became available to representatives of all social classes- just study and work. That is, the welfare of the people, including workers and peasants, steadily increased. What's most important - the number of subjects of the Russian Tsar grew at an explosive pace. And this is the most objective indicator. Neither people nor animals reproduce willingly in captivity.

Modern history will help us understand why exactly at this moment the state was destroyed. Experience what we saw with our own eyes.

In Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century there was a transition to a mass society. To control mass society, they use mass propaganda. It just arose in the first half of the twentieth century. Mass propaganda must be aggressive, primitive, cynical and arrogant. “Give me the media, and I’ll turn any nation into a herd of pigs.” - said one of the most powerful propagandists of the century, Joseph Goebbels.

Modernity fully confirms his words. It was not economic reasons that destroyed Yanukovych’s Ukraine. Life in this state until 2014 was not ideal, but quite bearable, people had the opportunity to earn money, and their well-being gradually increased. Why did people come to the Maidan? The state did not broadcast any ideology, any values. The authorities did not pay attention to the fact that the media are in the hands of the new Goebbels, moreover, even on state channels, small Goebbels worked as managers, editors and presenters, in a targeted manner, monopolistically, brought up by Western programs and structures, the same teachers for twenty years . A familiar picture across all Ukrainian Maidans - even supporters of the government get information about what is happening from opposition channels!

The Russian example is also an excellent illustration. Everyone remembers the omnipotence of the media of Berezovsky and Gusinsky during the Yeltsin rule. The Russian army was fighting terrorism, and TV presenters in the rear were pouring slop on it. Putin, who replaced Yeltsin, first of all rebuilt the media for himself and eliminated the press that was hostile to himself. And today TV presenters, bringing into the studio, including oppositionists, demonstrably “butcher” them, convincing the masses that stability is better than revolution.

Russian society at the beginning of the twentieth century was calm and traditional. The authorities allowed people to profess any ideology; parties and an opposition press operated in the country. Freedom of speech and belief! What can we say if anyone could go to a store and buy a revolver. And under these conditions, when a mass of peasants moved to the cities to work in factories and factories, Only the most extremist, most revolutionary parties worked with them. The authorities did not have a mechanism for social work, propaganda and processing of the working masses. That's why the revolutionaries won.

Reading the novels of Kuprin and Krasnov, literature about the life of the Imperial Army, military schools, you constantly come across examples. Junker, brought up in the spirit of devotion to the Tsar and the Fatherland, coming to a party among commoners and students, comes across the nihilistic, revolutionary views that are fashionable in this environment. Russia's rivals - Japan in the Russo-Japanese War, Britain, Turkey, Germany and Austria closer to the First World War - generously financed any opposition leaflets. And the imperial censorship closed only the most odious of them, and then only with great delay. After which they came out again, only under a different name.

The Bolsheviks admit that by February 1917 they had distributed more than 700 different leaflets, with a total circulation of several million copies. And these are only the Bolsheviks and only leaflets, not counting newspapers! The empire suffocated under a wave of the dirtiest lies about everything - about Russian politics, the life of the royal family, what was happening in the country and in the world. Needless to say, the Extraordinary Commission of the Provisional Government, created “hot on the heels,” which was supposed to establish what the tsarist government was accused of, had no facts, either about “German spies in power,” or about “Rasputinism,” or much else. I couldn’t find it... But what was the point? “The spoons were found, but the sediment remained”...

Twilight of the Russian Empire Lyskov Dmitry Yurievich

Chapter 4. Demography. Why did the Russian people die out in the Orthodox empire?

[In the original version, the title of the chapter was “Why did the Russian people die out in the Orthodox Empire?” Readers correctly pointed out that talking about “extinction” in this case is not correct - there was a change in the proportion of Russian and non-Russian peoples of European Russia.]

The rapid growth of the population of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century is usually presented as an unambiguously positive fact, evidence of an improvement in the quality of life against the backdrop of general economic growth in the country. A closer look at the problem, however, leads to disappointing conclusions: along with the overall growth, the share of the Russian, and more broadly, the Orthodox population of Russia was declining.

For a country whose state ideology was the triad “Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality”, one of the important aspects of foreign policy is the protection of Slavs and Orthodox Christians around the world, this state of affairs seems unthinkable. However, the data shows: in Russia itself, the Orthodox were the most disadvantaged part of society; the share of the Russian population, in comparison with other peoples, did not grow, but decreased.

A.H. Benkendorf, head of the III department of the imperial chancellery, in a report on the mood of the peasants (1839) noted: “People constantly interpret that all foreigners in Russia, Chukhnas, Mordovians, Chuvashs, Samoyeds, Tatars, etc. are free , and some Russians, Orthodox Christians, are slaves, contrary to the Holy Scriptures.”

The abolition of serfdom in 1861 improved the situation only formally. “By the end of the 70s, the peasants were driven to despair,” notes historian N.A. Troitsky. They suffered from landlessness, extortions and duties. Land was then distributed in such a way that one landowner’s farm accounted for an average of 4,666 dessiatines in the country, and peasant - 5.2 tithes, and the amount of taxes from peasants was more than twice the profitability of peasant farms. To the permanent disasters were added temporary ones: the crop failure of 1879 and the famine of 1880, the devastating consequences of the Russian-Turkish war. This is how the hopelessness of the fate of the post-reform Russian was depicted. peasant poet... P.F. Yakubovich:

And the plowman, lost in spirit,

He stands over the dead nag with tears in his eyes.

And he sees a bent hut in the distance,

Sick faces of half-naked children

And he knows every day promises him loss,

A new insult, the poison of silent tears."

Data from a study of the level of infant mortality in Russia among representatives of different religions are indicative: “... in the Saratov province, the mortality rate of children in the first year of life (per 1000 births) was 270.2 cases, among Orthodox Christians - 286.8, among schismatics - 241, 8, among Lutherans and Catholics - 163.5, among Mohammedans - 118.4".

A statistical analysis of the question is given by B.N. Mironov: “The 1897 census contains information on the distribution of the population by age and native language, which allows us to answer the question: did the proportion of people who considered “Russian” their native language change during the post-reform period (Russian was also considered Ukrainian and Belarusian languages)".

Using a mathematical model to analyze statistical data from the 1897 census, he comes to the following conclusions:

“The percentage of the Russian population [in European Russia] from 1857 to 1897 not only did not increase, but even decreased from 83.6 to 79.8... Perhaps the decrease in the share of Russians in the European part of the country was due to their migration to Siberia and Central Asia and other regions of Russia? A similar calculation of the dynamics of the share of “Russians” in the entire population of the country for 1857 - 1897 showed that here their share decreased from 69.4 to 66.1%."

Thus, due to the over-exploitation to which the predominantly Russian, Orthodox population of European Russia was subjected (serfdom and its vestiges did not apply to other peoples), in the Russian Empire there was a process of reducing the share of Russians (which also included Ukrainians and Belarusians) - against the backdrop of a rapid population growth at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries.

Chapter 6. Why Lenin and Trotsky sank the Russian fleet Russia has only two allies: its army and navy. Everyone else will turn against us at the first opportunity. Emperor Alexander III It’s scary to look at the agony of the ship. He is like a wounded man, bending over in agony, beating in