Crisis and decline : the radical right movement in the Russian Empire, 1900-1914

• Main Author: Gilbert, George
• Published: University of East Anglia 2014
• Subjects: 900
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.630130

This thesis examines the radical right movement in the Russian Empire between 1900 and 1914. Eschewing an exclusively ‘high political’ focus, it considers the right-wing interaction with Russian society in what rightist activists widely considered to be an era of crisis. It examines the construction of social and political identities by rightists, and also their practical projects in what was part of a wider effort to renovate and transform Russia, and arrest what were perceived as negative developments in politics and society. In so doing, leaders and activists tested the effectiveness of a developing popular monarchist ideology in the age of mass politics, during and after the 1905 revolution. Examining several major right-wing groups, the Russian Assembly, Russian Monarchist Party, Union of Russian Men, Union of Russian People, and Union of the Archangel Mikhail, this work presents an argument that rightists were becoming increasingly radical in the final years of the Russian Empire, as they enthusiastically engaged with the challenges presented in post-1905 Russia, yet were still drawing on conservative precepts. The creation of a populist appeal was part of a wider process of political mobilization on the part of rightists, yet the construction of both positive and negative images of the people was a complex process. This thesis considers right-wing engagement with diverse bases of social support; an attempt to create a broad based counter-revolutionary social movement. It contributes to an understanding of the right’s place in the wider context of social and political life in late imperial Russia, and examines the inter-action between ideology and practice. The ultimate implication of the rise of a spontaneous right-wing movement that developed away from the regime and even in conflict with it was to deepen the crisis of autocratic power in late imperial Russia.