Introduction: the emergence of a new agenda, 1904–1907

Sergei Witte, the deposed Minister of Finances, argued that the war against Japan proved a turning point in the fortunes of imperial Russia. The war, he said, ‘even if it did not create the revolution, brought revolution forward by decades’. The events in the Far East unleashed a torrent of criticism of the old regime by liberal members of the Russian intelligentsia, the nobility and the merchant estate. These disparate social groups urged the Tsar to concede some form of national assembly that would oblige him to listen to the voice of ‘society’ (obshchestvennos'). Some liberal activists demanded a parliament, elected on the basis of universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage. They were not alone. As news reached St Petersburg in December 1904 of the fall of Port Arthur, workers in the capital took to the streets in protest against living conditions and behind the banner of radical reform. The following year and a half of revolutionary action by workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors affected all realms of political and economic life. In October 1905, the Tsar was obliged to issue a manifesto, conceding a form of parliamentary government. Countrywide elections led to the convocation of the First Duma in May 1906.

The loss of human life in the war against Japan was accompanied by the destruction of capital, notably the loss of military vessels, amounting to three-fifths of the value of the imperial fleet.