Revolt Sows Seeds for Russian Revolution

“Hurrah for Constantine!” shouted the men aimlessly into the bitter wind. On Dec. 26, 1825, stung by the winter morning, a disorganized group of 3,000 soldiers congregated in St. Petersburg’s Senate Square. Unsure of what to do, they awaited leaders who never came. By midday, another group of 9,000 soldiers had formed, commanded by the new tsar Nicholas I. Unwilling to dispel the rebels with force, Nicholas attempted for many hours to negotiate with them, only to have two of his senior commanders shot dead by the radical Pyotr Kakhovsky.

With dusk approaching, an impatient and cold Nicholas commanded his artillery to open fire. The insurgents fled immediately and after a brief standoff on the frozen Neva River were completely overcome. By nightfall St. Petersburg was once again quiet. Rumors of the revolt spread throughout the Russian Empire and several other cities saw quick and unsuccessful uprisings. By mid-January the last of these were extinguished, the chief perpetrators captured, and Nicholas reigned unquestioned.

The Decembrist revolt was a pitiable failure. It was a botched attempt to establish a parliament and constitution, free and empower the serfs, and limit the tsar’s authority. Its leaders were hanged or exiled; Nicholas’ reign, inaugurated by this feeble uprising, was more autocratic than ever. Yet the Decembrists marked the beginning of a new chapter in Russian history, one that lasted at least a century.

There had been revolts before — Pugachev’s in the 1770s, the Streltsy’s in the 1680s, and the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century — but none had tried to liberalize the Russian government in Western fashion. Two questions arose from the events of 1825: would Russia — could Russia — ever loosen its autocracy? And if it were to do so, would it grow into a limited monarchy or a revolutionary state?

These questions would become the main political undercurrent in Russia for the following century. The Decembrists became a central inspiration for 19th century reformers, both radical and moderate. It is arguable, in fact, that the Decembrist legacy culminated in the successful revolution of 1917 — certainly the Bolsheviks saw it that way.

The origins of the rebellion lie chiefly in the intellectual activity of the Imperial Army officer corps at the turn of the 19th century. During the reign of Catherine II (1762-1796), a Russian intelligentsia, something of an equivalent to French philosophes, began to prosper. Although this intelligentsia was influenced by European ideas, it was geographically far from Enlightenment centers in France, the German states, and the United Kingdom. It was repressed by a conservative empress whose claims to “enlightened absolutism” were superficial.

Despite this, the growing intellectual circles attracted army officers, who began to absorb concepts of limited monarchy and liberalism. During the first half of Alexander I’s reign (1801-1825), these officers and a small group of intellectuals developed vague dreams of sociopolitical change. The nascent thoughts solidified in 1814, when the Imperial Army occupied Paris after defeating Napoleon in the War of the Sixth Coalition. There, Russian officers were exposed to Enlightenment texts unavailable at home. They discovered on their return an autocratic state and oppressed society quite unlike that of their European neighbors. The intelligentsia observed peoples they had liberated, including French, Germans, and even Poles, receive forms of constitutional law after the fall of Napoleon — while Russians did not.

In February 1816, the disillusioned officers formed the Union of Salvation, whose founders would years later organize the failed Decembrist uprising. The organization’s aims were not particularly clear, but most of its members concurred on two points: the tsar’s authority must be curtailed by a representative body, and the serfs must be freed. Beyond these basic points, the Union was a divided group. A slight majority believed that the reform process should be mild and work within the existing system. A sizeable minority favored violent revolution and systemic change.

The Union of Salvation fell apart in mid-1817 and in its place emerged a restructured society called the Union of Welfare, which lasted nearly four years. Like its predecessor, the Union of Welfare experienced divisions between extremists and moderates. By March 1821 the problem resolved itself: the radicals and the liberals split into two different organizations altogether. These were the Northern Society, whose members ultimately became the Decembrists of St. Petersburg, and the Southern Society, a network of militant insurgents who planned to take the revolution a step further. This moment of separation took on historic importance: for the next century, the revolutionary intelligentsia in Russia was defined by this divergence.

The Northern Society was led by Prince Sergei Trubetskoi, Staff Officer Nikita Muraviev, Prince Eugene Obolensky, and the poet Kontraty Ryleyev. Although the society’s meetings occasionally mentioned violence as a possibility, it generally sought to bring about reform peacefully. Muraviev drafted the group’s constitution based on his experiences during the occupation of Paris: “The experience of all nations and of all times has proved that autocratic government is equally fatal to rulers and to society … All the European nations are attaining constitutions and freedom. The Russian nation, more than any of them, deserves one as well as the other … A slave who touches the soil of Russia becomes free.”

Idealistic, but wary of the failures of the French Revolution, the Northern Society was willing to keep the tsar in power, albeit constrained by a parliament elected by landowners. The tsar would function as a powerful executive who implemented laws passed by the legislature. The constitution aimed to provide fair, population-based representation for Russia’s many provinces. Russia’s 45 million serfs were to be freed, and although the landlords were to keep their property, peasants would be independent workers who owned their own tools and who were not bound to the land.