Russian social and political movements of 1800-1900

Social and political movements in Russia in the 19th century were distinguished by the breadth of content and the variety of methods of action. This largely determined the fate of the country in the future.

At the beginning of the century, as a socio-political trend, conservatism is formed. Karamzin (his theorist) said that the monarchy at that time most fully corresponded to the existing level in the development of human enlightenment and morality.

In the period from the 1830s to the 1840s, the social circles are sharply debating the uniqueness of the Russian historical path. Thus, socio-political movements of "Westerners" and "Slavophiles" are formed.

The main figures of the Westernizers were groups of professors, writers, publicists of Petersburg (Kavelin, Botkin, Granovsky). They stated about the development of the general pattern in all civilized countries. Russia saw its originality only in its backwardness from other countries, both in the political and in the economic sphere. Westerners considered the perception of ready-made advanced forms of social and economic life as the most important task facing society and power. By this, first of all, they meant the abolition of serfdom, class distinctions at the legal level, the provision of entrepreneurial freedom, the development of local governance, and the democratization of the judiciary.

Confronted Westernizers Slavophiles. Among the leading figures of this trend are the brothers Aksakovs, Khomyakov brothers Kireevskys. They believed that the historical movement of Russia is radically different from the way in the Western European countries. Together with this they rejected the theory of the political and economic backwardness of the fatherland, saying that the state is characterized by a lack of similarity to the norms of Europe.

The social and political movements of the 1840s consisted mainly of officer and student youth. Butashevich-Petrashevsky united them around him . The participants of the current engaged in active educational work, organizing the publication of an encyclopaedic dictionary of democratic and social content.

The socio-political movements of the 1860s contributed to the formation of such an independent trend as liberalism. It is based on new journals, newspapers, zemstvo bodies, university professors. Liberalism was multifaceted. His left wing was connected with the revolutionary underground, and the right wing with the guard camp.

In the early 1860s the movement "Land and Freedom" formed by Sleptsov, Chernyshevsky and other figures had enough strength to grow into an all-Russian organization. However, later it split into two camps. So formed socio-political movements, which were called "Black Redistribution" and "People's Will." The second, in fact, became the successor of "Earth and Will".

Russian social and political movements of the 19th century in the 1870s gradually moved on to new types of activity. So, since 1874, a rather massive exit to the people began, in which thousands of young men and women participated.

Between the 1870s and the 1880s, the Russian workers' movement intensified. The first organizations of the proletariat that emerged in Odessa and St. Petersburg, despite their small number, contributed to the revision of their positions by revolutionaries.

The formation of the "Emancipation of Labor", led by Plekhanov, began with the translation and distribution in Russia of the editions of Engels and Marx. The first Marxists argued that capitalism had already begun in the country, and the working class would have to lead the national struggle against tsarism, for socialism and social justice.

In 1895, Plekhanov and his comrades-in-arms created a fairly large organization, which actively participated in individual workers' strikes.