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Russia: The Wild East

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Factual: History

A history of Russia, written and presented by Martin Sixsmith

Russia: The Wild East: Series 1

Russia: The Wild East: Series 1: Episode 18: Seeds of Revolution

Series 1

Episode 18

Episode 18: Seeds of Revolution

Seeds of Revolution

BBC Radio 4 - Russia: The Wild East, Series 1, Seeds of Revolution

Martin Sixsmith charts the course towards revolution as the 19th century draws to a close.

Socialism is on the rise in Russia as Martin Sixsmith identifies emerging revolutionaries, divided between western and orthodox values. New angry radicals replace cautious liberals.

In 1881 an assassin's bomb, thrown into the carriage carrying Tsar Alexander II, ended his life with an act of extreme violence. Despite Alexander's good intentions of reform, anger over the power of the ruling class had blazed into the open. The punishment for the assassins was unsparing.

Following on from the assassination, Martin Sixsmith looks at the origins of the revolutionary movement in Russia - and where it would lead. He begins with Camus' description of the execution of Alexander II's assassins in St Petersburg. The perpetrators belonged to the People's Will Movement, which had declared a merciless, bloody war to the death. 

Sixsmith looks at the rise of socialism through the writers of the time, such as Chaadayev and Herzen. Their diagnosis of Russia's social and political backwardness crystallized a deep-seated ideological schism. By the 1840s both Westernisers and Orthodox Slavophiles agreed change was needed .... it was just that they had very different ideas of the form it should take, and they missed their chance. 

In a few turbulent years, the cautious liberals were swept away by a new generation of angry radicals - Men of the Sixties - "much less squeamish and much readier to use violence to impose their views". Nikolai Chernyshevsky's book What Is To Be Done? published in 1864 determined the future of the whole revolutionary movement. The plot glorifies the 'new men', disgusted by tsarist society and selflessly dedicated to socialist ideals. The love affair of the two principal characters climaxes not in bed, but in the founding of a women's cooperative. Its glorification of 'cold blooded practicality and calculating activity' set the tone for the violence of the coming years and Lenin himself regarded it as a pivotal precursor of Bolshevism. 

Historical Consultant: Professor Geoffrey Hosking


Producers: Adam Fowler & Anna Scott-Brown
A Ladbroke Production for BBC Radio 4.

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Episode 18: Seeds of Revolution

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