O. KODEDOVA. Lidové hnuti a ohlas prvni ruské revoluce v ceskych zemich v letech 1905 - 1907. Praha. Academia. 1980. 160 sir.
O. KODEDOVA. Popular movement and response to the first Russian Revolution in the Czech Lands in 1905-1907
To the 80th anniversary of the revolution of 1905-1907.
Czechoslovak historians have made a significant contribution to the study of the first Russian Revolution of 1905 - 1907 and its impact on the workers ' and national liberation movements in the Czech Republic and Slovakia . 1 O. Kodedova, a researcher at the Institute of Czechoslovak and World History of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech SSR, is known to specialists for her research in this field. Her new monograph-the fruit of many years of work on archival and statistical materials, as well as press data-is devoted to the impact of the revolution of 1905 - 1907 on the political, socio-economic and cultural development of the Czech lands that were part of the Habsburg Empire at that time.
Noting that "the wave of mass movement in the Czech lands in 1905 - 1907 grew and grew stronger with the development of the revolutionary battles in Russia" and that many events in the Czech lands were "a direct response to the events of the Russian revolution" (pp. 35, 42), O. Kodedova points out that this is the most important event in the history of the Czech Republic. The largest mass popular movement in the Czech Republic (after the revolution of 1848 and before the outbreak of the First World War) had its own deep roots, as well as "its own stages and waves that followed from the internal impulses of its development" (p.41).
Therefore, the pages of the monograph are read with interest, which compare the socio-economic development of Russia and Austria-Hungary in the late XIX - early XX centuries. O. Kodedova notes that the intense and strong response that the events of the first Russian revolution in the two-pronged monarchy received was based on the significant similarity of the socio-economic development of both countries (p. 34). The author shows how, from the very beginning of the revolutionary events in Russia, the working class of the Czech lands gradually became more and more aware of the inseparable unity of its struggle for democratic rights and freedoms in Austria-Hungary with the struggle of Russian workers, moving from expressions of sympathy and solidarity to understanding the need to use the experience of the Russians
1 Dоlеjsi A. Bolsevici a mensevici v prvni ruske revoluce. Praha. 1973; Коdedоva O. Prvni ruska revoluce a jeji ohlas v ceskych zemich. Praha. 1955; Pisch M. Ohlas ruskej burzoaznodemokratickej revo-lucie na Slovensku (1905 - 1907). Bratislava. 1966, etc.
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class brothers in their political struggle (pp. 49-50),
Already at the first rallies and meetings of solidarity with the people of Russia, the workers of the Czech lands demanded to strengthen the struggle against the Habsburg monarchy and the arbitrariness of the absolutist government (the first solidarity resolution was adopted by the workers of Brno on January 23 - the day after "Bloody Sunday" (p. 35). A characteristic feature of meetings and rallies in support of the revolution in Russia was their mass character. The Czech social-democratic press, especially in 1905, played a positive role in spreading the call to "act in the Russian way", which at that time" generally truthfully and in detail informed the population of the Czech lands about the progress of the Russian revolution " (pp. 37-38).
In the movement for universal suffrage, which took on a particularly large scale with the beginning of the revolution in Russia2, the working class of the Czech lands used various forms of struggle: both traditional gatherings, mass people's meetings, protest rallies, etc., and new ones that have not been used before. But even the old, traditional means of struggle-and this is clearly shown in the book-at that time were filled with new content and were characterized by ever-increasing power and intensity. The economic strikes that prevailed in the first half of 1905 (which already had a political dimension at that time) They became increasingly political, and in November 1905 a popular movement led by the working class in the Czech lands developed into a general political strike demanding universal suffrage. In 1905, the Czech proletariat applied for the first time in its practice this purely proletarian means of struggle. In the autumn of 1905, the construction of barricades began in Prague, which V. I. Lenin specifically drew attention to in his Report on the 1905 Revolution .3
Considering strikes in various parts of the Czech lands, O. Kodedova comes to the conclusion that strike waves in the Czech Republic, Moravia and Silesia are not synchronous. Thus, in Moravia, the strike movement reached its peak on May 10, 1905, and subsequently declined; in Silesia, it took off on November 10, 1905, and in the Czech Republic on May 1, 1905 (pp. 42-43). It is characteristic that strikes in the Czech lands in 1905 - 1907 affected not only large factories, but also a significant number of small and medium-sized enterprises, which indicated a far-reaching radicalization of the movement of the Czech proletariat (p. 43). O. Kodedova's calculations of the number of strikes in 1905 significantly correct the data of official Austrian statistics. In addition, the latter did not take into account the so-called short-term strikes (work stoppages) at all, and they were a common form of political protest of Czech workers at that time.
The author pays considerable attention to the peasant movement in the Czech lands during the revolutionary upsurge of 1905-1907. The discontent of the peasantry (especially the small ones) and the rural proletariat was greatly aggravated by national oppression, which manifested itself not only in the intensification of all forms of exploitation, but also in the refusal of the ruling circles of the Habsburg Empire to meet the just democratic demands of the broad strata of the rural population, in particular the demands for universal suffrage.
The author identifies three periods in the development of the peasant movement in the Czech lands in 1905 - 1907. The first was from January to October 1905; when the echoes of events in Russia gradually penetrated the Czech countryside, the struggle of the Czech working class for universal suffrage had the greatest impact on the small and middle peasantry, while the rural proletariat was relatively inactive (p.55). The next period is from November 1905. The activity of the rural workers at that time increased enormously, and the small peasantry and the rural proletariat began to play a prominent role; the struggle for universal suffrage in a number of places where the oppression of the landlords was particularly unbearable was joined by demonstrations against the nobility. The middle peasantry, fearing the radicalization of the demands of the fighters, gradually begins to withdraw from the movement. During the third period-1906-1907-despite the fact that after the struggle for universal suffrage reached its peak in the autumn of 1905
2 The Czech social-democrats decided to hold a general political strike demanding universal suffrage as early as 1904. 3 See Lenin V. I. PSS. Vol. 30, p. 326.
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The reformist leaders of the Austrian and Czech social democrats are trying to stifle the offensive spirit of the working class, trying to direct its struggle in a "peaceful", "legal" direction, and the movement in rural areas continues to grow. According to O. Kddedova, the development of peasant revolts in Russia played a decisive role here. Strikes by rural proletarians were multiplying in the Czech lands, and they were increasingly supporting the workers; the struggle for land waged by the small peasantry and the rural proletariat was becoming very acute; a large part of the middle peasantry was moving away from radical slogans (p.55).
Much space is devoted to the analysis of the positions of Czech social-democracy during the period of the revolutionary upsurge of 1905-1907. (the importance of continuing research in this area in relation to the Czech Republic was emphasized by Academician A.M. Pankratova as early as in 1955.4 . Showing that the year 1905 brought considerable success to Czech social-democracy (it was then that the number of party members increased significantly, especially thanks to the influx of young people and women), and noting that at the beginning of the revolutionary upsurge, social-democracy showed the ability to mobilize the masses and develop their political initiative, the author at the same time states that As the revolutionary struggle grew, the social-democratic leadership, corroded by reformism and nationalism, increasingly sought to restrain the activity of the masses and limit it to the struggle for universal suffrage (pp. 97-110). The opportunist leadership did not heed the appeals of the revolutionary Social Democrats (in particular B. Schmeral and I. Gibesch) to make better use of the experience of the Russian revolution and was unable to solve, either theoretically or practically, a number of issues that were on the agenda of the social development of the Czech lands (agrarian and national issues). As Schmeral later pointed out, the social-democratic leadership did not even attempt to lead the movement's development to a new, higher level. This was one of the main reasons for the stagnation of the working-class movement in the Czech lands after 1907. 110).
Almost for the first time in Czechoslovak historiography, O. Kodedova examines the issue of the struggle of the social-democratic youth of the Czech lands in 1905 - 1907 in such detail; here the author fills with new archival data the vivid memoir narration of an active participant in the revolutionary upsurge in the Czech lands, and later the president of the People's democratic Czechoslovakia A. Zapototsky, well known to the Soviet reader based on his chronicle novel "Stormy 1905" (Moscow, 1954), translated into Russian.
An important feature of the monograph is to show the diversity of the influence of the first Russian revolution on the Czech lands, traces of which were evident not only in the political and economic fields, but also in education, culture, and art. Therefore, many pages of the study are devoted to the impact of the first revolution in Russia on the broad strata of the democratic intelligentsia of the Czech Republic (in particular, on teachers and students), as well as on the cultural development of the Czech lands during that period. The author continues here the line that was started almost 40 years ago by a prominent Czechoslovak historian and public figure of the Zd. Needly5 .
Naturally, not all the issues raised in the study could be covered with sufficient completeness. In the future, it is advisable to consider the cooperation of the Czech and Slovak working classes in 1905-1907, as well as to continue studying the Czech-Russian and Slovak-Russian revolutionary relations; K. Herman rightly drew attention to the importance of these problems .6 The monograph does not contain a critical source analysis of the Austro-Hungarian statistics of the strike movement of 1905-1907. In the section on the peasant movement in the Czech Republic, we would like to see more detailed coverage of the peasant demonstrations in the industrial districts of Kladno and Plzen (in November 1905), where the peasants were particularly active in supporting the industrial workers.
4 See Sovetská historie, 1955, N 6, s. 834.
5 Needlyzd. Responses in the Czech Republic to the Russian Revolution of 1905-Voprosy Istorii, 1945, No. 1.
6 See Herman K. Tficetpet let prace ceskoslovenske historicke slavistiky (1945-1980). - Ceskoslovensky casopis historicky, 1982, N 2.
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