Far East; and Nicholas II himself sided cheerfully with the adventurers, apparently because he believed in some sort of Russian mission in Asia and, in common with almost everyone else, grossly underestimated Japan. Russian policy could hardly be defended in terms of either justice or wisdom, in spite of the efforts of such able scholars as Malozemoff.
Japan proved to be the more skillful aggressor. Offering partition, which would give the Russians northern Manchuria and the Japanese southern Manchuria and Korea, the Japanese gauged the futility of negotiating, chose their time well, and on February 8, 1904, attacked successfully the unsuspecting Russian fleet in the outer harbor of Port Arthur - thus accomplishing the original Pearl Harbor. What followed turned out to be a humiliating war for the Russians. The Russian colossus suffered defeat after
defeat from the Japanese pigmy. This outcome, so surprising at the time, resulted from ample causes: Japan was ready, well-organized, and in effect more modern than Russia, while Russia was unprepared, disorganized, troubled at home, and handicapped by a lack of popular support and even by some defeatism; Japan enjoyed an alliance with Great Britain and the favor of world public opinion, Russia found itself diplomatically isolated; Japan used short lines of communication, Russian forces had to rely on the enormously long single-track Trans-Siberian railroad, with the section around Lake Baikal still unfinished. In any case, although Russian soldiers and sailors fought with their usual courage and tenacity, the Japanese destroyed the Russian navy in the Far East, besieged and eventually captured Port Arthur, and gradually, in spite of bitter engagements near Mukden and elsewhere, pushed the main Russian army north in Manchuria. Finally, on May 27-29, 1905, in the battle of Tsushima Strait, they annihilated Admiral Zinovii Rozhdestvensky's antique fleet which had been sent to the Far East all the way from the Baltic. That fleet, it might be added, had caused a serious international incident when on its journey to the Far East it had fired by mistake at some English fishing vessels on the Dogger Bank, inflicting casualties.
An armistice followed soon after Tsushima. The Russians had suffered numerous defeats, and the government had to cope with revolutionary unrest at home. The Japanese had exhausted their finances and, despite their victories, could not destroy the main Russian army or force a conclusion. In response to a secret Japanese request, President Theodore Roosevelt arranged a peace conference at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in August 1905. The provisions of the Treaty of Portsmouth reflected the skillful diplomacy of Witte, who headed the Russian delegation, and represented, everything considered, a rather satisfactory settlement for Russia: Russia acknowledged a paramount Japanese interest in Korea and ceded to Japan its lease of the Liaotung Peninsula, the southern part of the railroad up to Chang-chun, and the half of the island of Sakhalin south of the fiftieth degree of latitude; both countries agreed to restore Manchuria to China; in spite of strong Japanese insistence, there was no indemnity.
The Russian government ended the war against Japan none too soon, for, as fighting ceased, the country was already in the grip of what came to be known as the Revolution of 1905.
XXXI
THE LAST PART OF THE REIGN OF NICHOLAS II: THE REVOLUTION OF 1905 AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL PERIOD, 1905-17
Russia at the dawn of the twentieth century knew no more magic word than 'revolution.' The idea of revolution was viewed with fear and hatred by the propertied classes of the population, and was loved and revered by all who dreamed of liberty. To the Russians who longed for a new life, there was enchantment in the very sound of the word. Even as they conceived it, even as they pronounced the sacred words, 'Long Live the Revolution,' Russians felt obscurely that they were already halfway to liberation.
There is an easier and more convincing explanation for the failure of the constitutional monarchy: it puts the blame primarily on the king himself. Although Louis was well-meaning and showed occasional flashes of insight, his narrow mind had a stubborn and devious quality about it, too. The king did little to consolidate the new system, even though it left him a role of real importance…
… The explanation may lie in the constant pressure of the queen and her advisers, which weakened Louis's resolution and changed his flabby mind. Or it may be that this pious king had serious pangs of conscience at some of the reforms built into the new system… Or again, perhaps the course of events brought out his own true character as an irritable, small-minded, stubborn man who built up a neurotic resentment at his loss of initiative after 1789. It is true that even if Louis XVI had been ideally suited to his new role, the system might have broken down nevertheless.
Whereas actually the main weakness of the Russian monarchy of the imperial period consisted not at all in representing the interests of a
M. Kovalevsky and many other Russians hoped that the period of blind reaction, 'the time out of joint,' which descended upon Russia in the second half of Alexander II's reign and was certainly present in the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II, would give way to a new wave of sweeping liberal reforms. But the government refused to change its course. Instead the country finally exploded into the Revolution of 1905. * Italics in the original.
The Revolution of 1905 could occur because of the social transformation that had been going on in the empire of the tsars and because of the concomitant growth of opposition to the regime. In the decades that followed the 'great reforms,' capitalism at last became prominent in Russia. In fact, the 1880's and 1890's witnessed rapid industrialization of the country with resulting social changes and tensions. While the Russian society of that period will be discussed in a later chapter, no special exposition is needed to make the point that the growth of capitalism led to the rise of two social groups, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The middle class, traditionally weak in Russia at least after the times of Kiev and Novgorod, began finally to come into its own. Even though the Russian commercial and industrial bourgeoisie remained still relatively underdeveloped and inarticulate, professional people seemed eager and ready to participate in politics. These professional groups - whether they should be classified as part of the middle class or as a separate adjoining stratum is of no consequence here - had profited especially from the 'great reforms': thus, the judicial reform of 1864 had virtually created the lawyers, while the introduction of the zemstvo system provided numerous openings for doctors, veterinarians, teachers, statisticians, and many other specialists, the so-called 'third element' of the zemstva. Liberalism found particularly propitious circumstances for development among the professionals, as well as among some gentry landlords of the zemstva. The rise of the proletariat and the emergence of a labor movement pointed in their turn to a more radical trend in Russian opposition. And, of course, behind dissatisfied bourgeois, critical intellectuals, and bitter workers there spread the human ocean of destitute and desperate peasants - an ocean that had risen in uncounted storms through centuries of Russian history.
The opposition began to organize. The frightful famine of 1891-92 marked the end of a certain lull in Russia and the resumption of social and political activity with emphatic criticism of the regime. The liberals, who could boast of many prominent names in their ranks and who represented at that time the elite of the opposition, eventually formed the Union of Liberation in 1903, with its organ,
