Who is in the 20th century. Russia at the beginning of the 20th century

1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Chronological table

There is a common misconception that the 20th century began on January 1 1900 year, and ended on December 31 1999 th year.

Main events and concepts:

• The collapse of empires
• October Revolution, the creation of the USSR, the building of socialism and an attempt to build communism
• The formation of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes
• Creation of revolutionary drugs: sulfonamides and penicillin, synthetic analgesics, mass vaccination
• Holocaust, Stalinist repressions, "cultural revolution"
• Creation of the UN
• Beginning of the atomic era: nuclear weapons (atomic bomb), atomic energy, Chernobyl
• Space breakthrough: spacewalk, flights to the Moon, Mars, Venus
• Development of transport: jet civil aviation, mass motorization
• Mass use of birth control pills and antidepressants
• Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact
• Development of information and communication technologies: telephone, radio, television, Internet

Main events

The 20th century brought a major shift in worldview as a result of changes in economics, politics, ideology, culture, science, technology and medicine.

The main economic result of the century was the transition to mass machine production of goods from natural and synthetic materials, the creation of conveyor production lines and automatic factories. In parallel, a scientific and technological revolution took place, which transferred the economy of the whole world to the post-industrial stage of capitalism and passed through three main phases:

• the first (transport and communication) phase of the scientific and technological revolution (motor transport, aviation, radio, television), the creation of an arms industry (machine guns, tanks, chemical weapons);
• the second (chemical) phase of the scientific and technological revolution: the creation of a chemical and medical industry (fertilizers, synthetic materials and medicines, plastics, thermonuclear weapons).
• the third (information-cybernetic) phase of the scientific and technological revolution: (cosmonautics, electronic computers), the creation of the entertainment industry (cinema and sports shows), the growth of the service sector.

The cyclicity of world social production that arose in the previous century was preserved in the twentieth century: global financial and economic crises (recessions, recessions) overtook industrialized countries in 1907, 1914, 1920-1921, 1929-1933 (great depression), 1937-1938, 1948-1949 1953-1954 1957-1958 1960-1961 1969-1971 1973-1975 1979-1982 , an increase in the number of bankruptcies of firms, a fall in stock prices and other economic shocks. At the same time, in the USSR, which emerged from the system of capitalist production, a planned economy was created, which ensured a crisis-free growth of economic indicators for seventy years.

In the political realm, the world has moved from the colonial agrarian empires of the nineteenth century to industrial republican states. The military-revolutionary era of the first half of the 20th century became a global political catastrophe - a period of revolutionary changes in the largest world powers and related civil, interstate and inter-coalition wars of 1904-1949 (includes the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the Russian Revolution of 1905-1907, the Iranian the revolution of 1905-1911, the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917, the Xinhai Revolution and the Chinese Civil War of 1911-1949, the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, the intercoalition First World War of 1914-1918, the Great Russian revolution and civil war in Russia 1917-1923, revolutions in the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires of 1918, interwar period in Europe 1918-1939, Spanish revolution and civil war in Spain 1931-1939, Japanese-Chinese 1931-1945 and intercoalition Second World War 1939-1945). Rapid technological advances have allowed the means of warfare to reach an unprecedented level of destruction. The Second World War led to mass deaths of the civilian population as a result of aerial bombardments and the genocide of "non-Aryan" peoples. In 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atomically bombed. The wars claimed the lives of about 90 million people (World War I - more than 20 million, civil wars and famine in China and Russia - more than 10 million, World War II - about 60 million). The main political events of the century were:

1. The collapse of the Ottoman, Chinese, Austro-Hungarian, Second German and Russian empires during the First World War.
2. Creation of the League of Nations, the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Third German, Japanese empires; Great Depression during the interwar period.
3. The death of the Third German and Japanese empires and the creation of the United Nations as a means of preventing future world wars during the Second World War.
4. The cold war of the two superpowers of the USA and the USSR after the Second World War.
5. The emergence of divided nations in Germany, China, Korea and Vietnam and their struggle for reunification.
6. Reconstruction of the Jewish state in Palestine and the related long-term conflict in the Middle East.
7. Creation of the socialist People's Republic of China.
8. The collapse of the British, French and Portuguese colonial empires and the end of colonialism, which led to the declaration of independence of many African and Asian countries.
9. European integration that began in the 1950s and led to the European Union, which at the end of the century included 15 countries.
10. Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the USSR.

As a result of these events, almost all the great powers of the beginning of the century ceased to exist, only the United States acquired and retained its status of a superpower until the end of the century.

The economic and political upheavals of Europe in the first half of the century led to the emergence of several types of totalitarian ideologies: fascism in Europe, communism in Russia, and Nazism in Germany after the Great Depression in the 1930s. After the victory of the Soviet Union in World War II, communism became one of the main world ideologies, which received the status of a state ideology in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba and some countries in Asia and Africa. The development of communist ideology has led to an unprecedented growth of atheism and agnosticism in the world, as well as a decline in the authority of traditional religions. At the end of the century, this revived the political activity of Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, the Roman Pontiff and the Dalai Lama.

In the social field, during the twentieth century, ideas about the equality of rights of all people of the earth, regardless of their gender, height, age, nationality, race, language or religion, became widespread. The eight-hour working day has become the legal norm in most developed countries. With the advent of new means of birth control, women have become more independent. After decades of struggle, all Western countries gave them the right to vote.

Mass social movements of the twentieth century were:

• communist organizations in Russia and China;
• civil disobedience movement in India;
• the civil rights movement in the United States;
• the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa;

The twentieth century brought into the consciousness of mankind such terms as world war, genocide, nuclear war. Rocket thermonuclear weapons that arose during the Cold War provided mankind with a means of complete self-destruction. The mass media, telecommunications and information technology (radio, television, paperback pocketbooks, personal computers and the Internet) have made knowledge more accessible to people. Cinema, literature, popular music have become available anywhere in the world. At the same time, the mass media became in the 20th century a means of unrestrained propaganda and a weapon in the struggle against the ideological adversary.

As a result of the achievement of political and cultural hegemony by the United States of America, American culture has spread around the world, carried by Hollywood films and Broadway musical productions. At the beginning of the century, blues and jazz became popular in the United States, which maintained their dominance in music until the advent of rock and roll in the 1950s. In the second half of the century, rock became the leading direction in popular music - a conglomeration of various styles and directions (heavy metal, punk rock, pop music). Synthesizers and electronic instruments began to be widely used as musical instruments. After the First World War, the detective genre gained unprecedented popularity in literature, after the Second World War - science fiction and fantasy. Visual culture has become dominant not only in film and television, but has penetrated into literature in the form of comics. Animation has become of great importance in cinema, in particular in its computer versions. In the visual arts, expressionism, Dadaism, cubism, abstractionism and surrealism were developed. The architects of the 20th century, who began their activity in the style of modernism, after numerous upheavals and destructions of world wars, as well as in view of the development of the construction industry, which arose on the basis of the use of standard reinforced concrete products, were forced to abandon decoration and move on to simplifying forms. However, in the USA, in interwar Germany and the USSR, architecture and monumental art continued to develop. The popularity of sports increased significantly in the 20th century, turning into a mass spectacle thanks to the development of the international Olympic movement and the support of the governments of totalitarian states. Computer games and internet surfing became a new and popular form of entertainment during the last quarter of the 20th century. By the end of the century, the American lifestyle dominated everywhere: English, rock and roll, pop music, fast food, supermarkets. Increasing public awareness led to widespread discussions about the impact on humanity of the environment and about global climate change, which began in the 1980s.

Enormous changes in the 20th century took place in science, which turned from the entertainment of loners into the main productive force of society. In the interwar period, Godel's incompleteness theorems were formulated and proved in mathematics, and the invention of the Turing machine made it possible to lay the foundations for the creation and application of computer technology. The very use of computer technology in the second half of the 20th century changed the nature of mathematical calculations, forcing mathematicians to abandon the methods of classical mathematical analysis and move on to methods of discrete applied mathematics. During the first half of the 20th century, new fields of physics were created: special relativity, general relativity and quantum mechanics, which radically changed the worldview of scientists, making them understand that the universe is fantastically more complex than it seemed at the end of the 19th century. It was found that all known forces can be explained in terms of four fundamental interactions, two of which - electromagnetism and the weak interaction - can theoretically be combined into an electroweak interaction, leaving only three fundamental interactions. The discovery of nuclear reactions and nuclear fusion made it possible to solve the problems of astronomy about the source of solar energy. The Big Bang theory was proposed and the age of the Universe and the Solar System, including the Earth, was determined. Spacecraft that flew to the orbit of Neptune made it possible to study the solar system more deeply and prove the absence of intelligent life on its planets and their satellites. In geology, a powerful method for determining the age of ancient animals and plants, as well as historical objects, has given the isotope method of analysis. The theory of global tectonics revolutionized geology by proving the mobility of the earth's continents. In biology, genetics has gained recognition. In 1953, the structure of DNA was determined, and in 1996 the first experience of cloning mammals was carried out. The selection of new varieties of plants and the development of the mineral fertilizer industry have led to a significant increase in agricultural crop yields. In addition to agricultural fertilizers, thanks to the unprecedented development of chemistry, new materials have come into life: stainless steels, plastics, polyethylene film, Velcro and synthetic fabrics. Thousands of chemicals have been developed for industrial processing and home use.

The most significant inventions that entered life in the 20th century were light bulbs, the automobile and telephone, supertankers, airplanes, highways, radio, television, antibiotics, refrigerators and frozen foods, computers and microcomputers, the Internet and mobile phones. The improvement of the internal combustion engine made it possible to create the first aircraft in 1903, and the creation of a conveyor assembly line made it possible to make mass production of automobiles profitable. Transport, based on horse-drawn power for thousands of years, was replaced during the 20th century by trucks and buses, made possible by the large-scale exploitation of fossil fuels. After the development of jet aircraft engines in the middle of the century, the possibility of commercially profitable mass air transportation was created. Mankind conquered the air ocean and got the opportunity to study outer space. The competition for space between the United States and the Soviet Union led to the first human spaceflight and the landing of a man on the moon. Unmanned space probes have become a practical and relatively inexpensive form of intelligence and telecommunications. They visited Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, various asteroids and comets. The space telescope, launched in 1990, has greatly expanded our understanding of the universe. Aluminum in the twentieth century fell sharply in price and became the second most common after iron. The invention of the transistor and integrated circuits revolutionized the world of computers, leading to the proliferation of personal computers and cell phones. In the twentieth century, a large number of types of household appliances appeared and spread, which was facilitated by the growth in electricity production and the well-being of the population. Already in the first half of the century, washing machines, refrigerators, freezers, radios, electric ovens and vacuum cleaners became popular. In the middle of the twentieth century, television receivers and audio recorders appeared, and at the end - video recorders, microwave ovens, personal computers, music and video players, cable and digital television appeared. The spread of the Internet has made it possible to digitize music and video recordings.

Infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, viral epidemics of influenza, killed millions of people during the twentieth century, and at the end of the century a new viral disease, AIDS, was discovered, which originated in Africa. Nevertheless, in the twentieth century, infectious diseases for the first time in the history of mankind gave way to primacy as causes of death to cardiovascular diseases and malignant neoplasms. Medical science and revolutionary advances in science in agriculture have increased the world population from one and a half to six billion people, although contraceptives have reduced the rate of population growth in industrialized countries. In the twentieth century, vaccines were developed against polio, which threatened a world epidemic, influenza, diphtheria, whooping cough (convulsive cough), tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella (German measles), chickenpox, hepatitis. The successful application of epidemiology and vaccination led to the eradication of the smallpox virus in humans. However, in low-income countries, people still die predominantly from infectious diseases, and less than a quarter of the population lives past age 70. At the beginning of the century, the use of X-rays became a powerful diagnostic tool for a wide range of diseases, from fractures to cancer. In 1960, the method of computed tomography was invented. Ultrasonic devices and the method of magnetic resonance imaging have become an important diagnostic tool. After the creation of blood banks, the method of blood transfusion received significant development, and after the invention of immunosuppressive drugs, doctors began to transplant organs and tissues. As a result, new fields of surgery emerged, including organ transplants and heart surgery, for which pacemakers and artificial hearts were developed. The development of vitamin production has virtually eliminated scurvy and other vitamin deficiencies in industrialized societies. Created in the middle of the twentieth century, antibiotics have dramatically reduced mortality from bacterial diseases. For the treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases, psychotropic drugs and antidepressants have been developed. The synthesis of insulin contributed to a three-fold increase in the average life expectancy of diabetics. Advances in medical technology and improvements in the well-being of many people have increased the average life expectancy in the 20th century from 35 to 65 years.

Major inventions

Use of the combination "XX century" in titles

• In the Russian Empire, before the revolution, the weekly magazine "20th century" was published.
• In the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation, until 1995, the magazine “XX Century and the World” was published.
• In the US, one of the largest film studios is called 20th Century Fox.
• The name of the popular Soviet action movie is Pirates of the 20th century.
• The Twentieth Century (film) is a 1976 Italian film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.

Twentieth century in art

Here it is worth mentioning the following works:

• In the film "Warlock 2: Armageddon", tied by an agent of the devil (once in every thousand years trying to invade the Earth) to a tree, the main character, turning on the headlights of cars with a telekinetic effort, mockingly and furiously shouted to the devil who was defeated by their light, crawling out of the ground: " Welcome to the twentieth century!».
• The action of Isaac Asimov's novel "The End of Eternity" - about time travel of people of the distant future - ends in the 20th century, where the main characters decided to stay forever.
• Fifth and final installment in a television feature film series based on the stories

The absolute prerogatives of the king were limited to only two conditions, indicated in the main legal document of the empire; he was charged with:

1) strictly observe the law of succession to the throne; and 2) profess the Orthodox faith.

As the successor and heir of the Byzantine emperor, the autocratic king, according to the SZRI, received power directly from God. Therefore, any attempt on the supreme power of the emperor or his renunciation of at least part of his prerogatives was considered sacrilege. Of course, the autocracy could carry out reforms from above, but its intentions never included the creation of any constitutional body, because. it would inevitably become a stronghold of organized opposition. In governing the country, the tsar relied on a centralized and strictly hierarchized bureaucracy. The State Council was a legislative body, and its members, high-ranking officials, were appointed for life. The opinions expressed by the members of the Council when considering laws did not in any way limit the sovereign's freedom of decision. The executive body of the autocratic state - the Council of Ministers - also had advisory functions. As for the Senate, by the period under review, it actually turned into a body that performs the functions of the Supreme Court. Senators, appointed almost always for life by the sovereign himself, had to promulgate laws, explain them, monitor their implementation and control the legality of the actions of local authorities. As in the past, the highest government officials were overwhelmingly hereditary nobles. The noble aristocracy also occupied key positions in the province, and above all the post of governor. The nobility's assemblies also retained their influence locally, representing at the same time an elected body of the nobility's self-government and the main link in the administrative system.

The only significant change in this institution affected its composition, the proportion of representatives of the landlords was steadily falling and, in parallel, the representation of the nobility, who chose the path of public service or entrepreneurship, increased. The landowners remained a very conservative and still influential (although steadily losing influence) force. Mutual hostility was observed between them and the top officials. In the opinion of the landowners, the bureaucracy (most of whose representatives belonged to the nobility) degenerated "into a class of non-class intellectuals", becoming "an insurmountable wall that separated the monarch and his people." Even the timid attempts of the top bureaucracy to carry out the necessary modernization of Russia (not least for the purpose of self-preservation of the nobility as a class) were invariably met with a sharp rebuff from the conservative and short-sighted landlord environment. The Russian bourgeoisie, which was gaining strength, was completely removed from political power. The death of the hardline conservative Alexander III and the accession to the throne of Nicholas II (1894-1917) awakened the hopes of those who still sought reforms such as the separation of religion from the state, guarantees of fundamental freedoms, and the existence of elected governments. Petitions were sent to the tsar, in which the zemstvos expressed their hope for the resumption and continuation of the reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. However, on January 29, 1895, Nicholas II, in his speech to representatives of the zemstvos, categorically refused to make any concessions and, calling them "meaningless dreams", declared: "Let everyone know that I, devoting all My strength to the good of the people, I will guard the beginning of autocracy as firmly and unswervingly as My unforgettable, late Parent guarded it. At the turn of the century, the tsarist government had only one urgent political task - to preserve autocracy at all costs. The social base of the autocracy was slowly but steadily declining. However, Nicholas II did not understand this.

Features of economic development. Activities of S.Yu. Witte

Just as the political system of the Russian Empire differed significantly from the Western one, the development of capitalism also had its own specifics. Realizing that the development of industry is necessary to maintain the proper level of combat readiness of the army, the government looked with great apprehension at the social consequences of industrialization - the growing role of the bourgeoisie and the emergence of the proletariat. Rivalry with the European powers forced the Russian autocracy to create a wide network of railways and finance heavy industry. Thus, railway construction (in the period from 1861 to 1900 alone, 51,600 km of railways were built and put into operation, and 22 thousand of them were put into operation within one decade, from 1890 to 1900) gave a significant the impetus to the development of the entire economy as a whole and has become the driving force behind the industrialization of Russia. However, during the three decades that followed the emancipation of the peasants, the growth of industry remained on the whole relatively modest (2.5 - 3% per year). The economic backwardness of the country was a serious obstacle to industrialization. Until 1880, the country had to import raw materials and equipment for the construction of railways. Two main obstacles stood in the way of real change: first, the weakness and instability of the internal market, due to the extremely low purchasing power of the masses, especially the peasantry; the second was the instability of the financial market and the weakness of the banking system, which ruled out the possibility of serious capital investments. To overcome these obstacles, significant and consistent assistance from the state was required. It took concrete forms in the 1880s, and fully manifested itself in the 1890s. Continuing the work begun by his predecessors Mikhail H. Reitern, Nikolai H. Bunge and Ivan A. Vyshnegradsky, Sergei Yulievich Witte, Minister of Finance from 1892 to 1901, managed to convince Nicholas II of the need for a consistent industrial development program. This program assumed a sharp increase in the role of the state in the economy, significant support for national industry (both state-owned and, above all, private) and consisted of four main points:

1) a tough tax policy, which, being very favorable for industry, required significant sacrifices from the urban, and especially the rural population. The heavy taxation of the peasantry, the ever-increasing indirect taxes on consumer goods (primarily the state wine monopoly - 1894) and other measures guaranteed budget surpluses for 12 years and made it possible to release the necessary capital for investing in industrial production and placing state orders for industrial enterprises (thus, the main payers of taxes were not entrepreneurs, but the population);

2) strict protectionism, which protected the sectors of domestic industry that had begun to develop from foreign competition;

3) monetary reform (1897), which guaranteed the stability of the financial system and the solvency of the ruble. A system of unified backing of the ruble with gold was introduced, its free convertibility, strict ordering of the issue right - as a result, the gold ruble at the turn of the century turned into one of the most stable European currencies. The reform also influenced the expansion of foreign investment, which was greatly facilitated by the development of banking, with some banks becoming of paramount importance (for example, the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade, the Northern Bank, the Russian-Asiatic Bank).

4) attraction of foreign capital. It was made either in the form of direct capital investments in enterprises (foreign firms in Russia, mixed enterprises, placement of Russian securities on European stock exchanges, etc.), or in the form of state op! loans distributed in the British, German, Belgian, but mainly in the French securities markets. The share of foreign capital in joint-stock companies, according to various sources, varies from 15 to 29% of the total capital. In fact, the amounts of capital investments by industry and country for the decade from 1890 to 1900 seem to be more revealing. how the Germans owned only 24% and the British 15%. By the end of the XX century. the influx of foreign capital has become a mass phenomenon.

This situation naturally led to serious political controversy, especially in 1898-1899, between Witte and those business circles that successfully cooperated with foreign firms, on the one hand, and on the other hand, such ministers as Mikhail N. Muravyov (Ministry of Foreign Affairs ) and Aleksey N. Kuropatkin (Ministry of War), supported by the landowners. Witte sought to accelerate the process of industrialization, which would allow the Russian Empire to catch up with the West. Witte's opponents believed that reliance on foreign countries inevitably placed Russia in a subordinate position to foreign investors, and this, in turn, created a threat to national security. In March 1899, Nicholas II decided the dispute in favor of Witte. The latter convinced the tsar that the stability of political power in Russia guaranteed its economic independence. ("Only decaying nations can fear being enslaved by incoming foreigners. Russia is not China!").

The influx of foreign capital played a significant role in the industrial development of the 1890s. However, problems associated with it were soon discovered: in the last months of 1899 it cost. there was a curtailment of foreign investment in connection with the global economic crisis, as immediately there were difficulties in obtaining new loans in Russian banks and their rise in price. As a result, a crisis occurred in the mining, metallurgical and machine-building industries, which are controlled to a large extent by foreign capital or fulfill state orders. Yet the results of Witte's economic policy were impressive. For thirteen years (1887 - 1900), employment in industry increased by an average of 4.6% per year. The total length of the railway network doubled over a twelve-year period (1892-1904). During these years, the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway was completed, which greatly simplified the further development of the region, new railway lines were laid, which were of more strategic than economic importance. For example, the construction of the Orenburg-Tashkent branch, planned by agreement with the French government at a time when relations between France and Britain deteriorated as a result of the incident in Fashoda (Sudan), had the sole purpose of providing a connection between the European part of Russia and Central Asia in anticipation of possible joint military action against the British colonies.

"Railway fever" contributed to the development of a reliable modern metallurgical industry with a high concentration of production (13 industrial workers were employed by 2% of enterprises). For 10 years, the production of pig iron, rolled products and steel has tripled. Oil production increased five times, and the Baku region, the development of which began in 1880, by the end of 1900 provided half of the world's oil production. Industrial takeoff in the 1890s completely transformed many areas of the empire, causing the development of urban centers and the emergence of new large modern factories. He determined the face of the industrial map of Russia for thirty years ahead. The central region around Moscow assumed even greater importance, as did the area around St. Petersburg, where such industrial giants as the Putilov Works, with more than 12,000 workers, metallurgical and chemical enterprises, were concentrated. The Urals, on the contrary, had by that time fallen into final decline due to its social and technological backwardness. The place of the Urals was taken by Novorossiya. The development of the iron ore reserves of Krivoy Rog and coal in the Donbass allowed her to take one of the first places in the empire in terms of economic development. In the Łódź region (Poland), heavy and processing industries were represented in approximately equal proportions. In the port cities of the Baltic (Riga, Revel, St. Petersburg), industries developed that required a labor force of higher qualification, such as precision mechanics, electrical equipment, and the military industry. In the ports of the Black Sea region, the chemical and especially the food industry developed. The industry of Moscow has become diversified. As before, textile production in the region of the upper reaches of the Volga remained the leading one. An unprecedented rise in the economy at the end of the XIX century. contributed to the accumulation of capital, but at the same time, the emergence of new social strata with their problems and demands, alien to the autocratic society. He thus gave rise to a serious destabilizing factor in this rigid and immobile political system.

The further development of the country was hampered by the low level of industrial consumption of the rural population, and the undeveloped consumer market in the city. The development of industry largely depended on state orders and was not sufficiently stimulated by the domestic market. The main contradiction in the development of the country's economy was the colossal gap between agriculture, with its archaic methods of production, and industry, based on advanced technology. Russia has become a country with a diversified economy. One of the consequences of the economic development of the 1890s. was the formation of an industrial proletariat. Lenin believed that the proletarian and semi-proletarian population of the city and countryside reached 63.7 million people, but this is a clear exaggeration. In reality, the number of workers employed in various branches of agriculture, industry and trade did not exceed 9 million. As for workers in the strict (European) sense of the word,! they numbered only 3 million. Nevertheless, the extremely high level of industrial concentration contributed to the emergence of a genuine working class. The Russian proletariat was young, with a pronounced division between a small core of skilled workers and the vast majority of recent immigrants from the countryside, who did not have high professional skills and had not lost touch with their native village. This division was clearly felt by the workers themselves and prevented them from uniting to fight for their rights. A distinctive feature of the Russian proletariat was the low proportion of the so-called. "working aristocracy", set up quite moderately. About a third of the workers lived outside the traditional industrial centers: around isolated factories, along communication lines, or close to sources of energy supply.

As is known, even in the reign of Alexander III in Russia, the beginnings of labor legislation appeared, but in general, the working and living conditions of the workers remained extremely difficult. The unresolved and urgency of the labor issue was manifested in a series of strikes, the most significant of which was a strike in May-June 1896 by 35,000 workers in the textile industry of St. Petersburg. They put forward purely economic and social demands. The government, frightened by the scope and duration of the strike, made concessions, in June 1897 the working day was limited to 11.5 hours, Sunday was declared a mandatory day off. However, like the previous ones, this law was poorly observed, and the government did not have sufficient forces and opportunities to control entrepreneurs who categorically opposed any interference of the authorities in their relations with the workers. In principle, all types of workers' associations and trade unions were banned. However, in order to prevent possible contacts between workers and agitators, the authorities decided to create official trade unions, which were called Zubatov's by the name of Sergei V. Zubatov, who, like many former revolutionaries, went to the service of the tsar! Okhrana, and from 1896 headed the Moscow Security Department. Zubatov's idea was simple and fully consistent with the autocratic ideology, according to which the tsar-father was the natural defender of the working people. Since strikes and all other forms of labor movement were not permitted, the government itself had to take care of the "legitimate" (ie economic) interests of the working people.

Thus, the authorities sought to strengthen the traditional loyalist sentiments in the working environment and avoid the gradual development of the workers' struggle for their rights into a revolutionary struggle against the existing system, directing their discontent against private entrepreneurs. The existence of the Zubatov trade unions (especially influential in Moscow, where they almost completely monopolized influence on the workers) became the cause of an acute conflict between the Ministry of Finance (S.Yu. Witte) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (V.K. Plehve). Based on the desire to ensure high rates of economic growth, Witte categorically protested against state support for workers' organizations in any form. Plehve, in turn, seeing his task primarily in the eradication of revolutionary sentiments, for a long time saw in "Zubatovism" almost a panacea. In fact, organizations of this kind turned out to be a double-edged weapon, because on the one hand they set the industrialists against the government, and on the other, they instilled in the working class the rudiments of organization, so that in a critical situation, the workers united in the "Zubatov" trade union could get out of control of the authorities and use the organizational form of the official trade union to fight the authorities. Such cases were noted, in particular in Ukraine in 1903. The insufficient effectiveness of the Zubatov organizations caused a conflict between their founder and the Minister of the Interior Plehve, and in the same 1903 Zubatov resigned. However, his organizations were not dissolved. In the working environment by the beginning of the 20th century. a huge potential for dissatisfaction with the status quo has accumulated.

However, until 1905, contacts between the working environment and professional revolutionaries were very limited. The reform of 1861 freed the peasants only from a legal point of view, without giving them economic independence. Legal measures of subordination disappeared, but the economic dependence of the peasants on the landowner remained and even intensified. Due to a significant increase in the peasant population (by 65% ​​over 40 years), the lack of land became more and more acute (although even at that time the land allotments of Russian peasants were larger than those of their counterparts in Europe!). 30% of the peasants constituted the "surplus" of the population, economically unnecessary and deprived of employment. By 1900, the average allotment of a peasant family had dropped to two acres, which was much less than what it had in 1861 (then it was almost the minimum possible allotment). The situation was aggravated by the backwardness of agricultural machinery. 13 peasant households were horseless, another 13 had only one horse. It is not surprising that the Russian peasant received the lowest grain yields in Europe (5-6 centners per hectare, while in Western Europe the average is 20-25 centners). The impoverishment of the peasant population was exacerbated by increased tax oppression. Taxes, which largely contributed to the development of industry, were a heavy burden on the peasantry. With grain prices falling (halving between 1851 and 1900) and land and rent prices rising, the need for cash to pay taxes forced the peasant to sell part of the agricultural produce needed for his own consumption. "We will eat less, but we will export more," Vyshnegradsky, Minister of Finance, declared in 1887.

Four years later, a terrible famine broke out in the overpopulated black earth provinces of the country, claiming tens of thousands of lives. He revealed the full depth of the agrarian crisis. The famine aroused the indignation of the intelligentsia, contributed to the mobilization of public opinion, shocked by the inability of the authorities to prevent this catastrophe, while the country annually exported the fifth! part of giving birth to cereals. Being dependent on outdated agricultural machinery, on the power of the landowners, to whom they continued to pay high rents and were forced to sell their labor cheaply, the peasants for the most part also endured the petty care of the community. The community established the rules and conditions for the periodic redistribution of land (in strict dependence on the number of eaters in each family), the calendar dates for rural work and the rotation of crops, assumed collective responsibility (until 1903, abolished at the initiative of Witte) for the payment of taxes and redemption payments from each of its members. The community decided whether or not to issue a passport to the peasant so that he could leave his village permanently or temporarily and look for work elsewhere. In order to become a full owner, a peasant had not only to fully pay for the land, but also to obtain the consent of at least two-thirds of the members of his community. The existence of the community almost completely slowed down the economic development of the village, however, it persisted, since it was considered the guarantor of political stability among the peasantry.

The preservation of communal traditions also had other consequences - it delayed the process of social stratification in the countryside. The feeling of solidarity, of belonging to a community, prevented the emergence of class consciousness among the peasants, thereby hindering the process of proletarianization of the most disadvantaged. Even after moving to the city, the poor peasants who became workers did not completely lose their connection with the countryside, at least for one generation. The communal allotment was kept behind them and they could return to the village for the time of field work. (However, starting from 1900, this practice was noticeably reduced, especially among St. Petersburg and Moscow workers, who managed to transport their families to the city.) In contrast, communal traditions slowed down the economic emancipation of the richest rural population, the kulaks, although, of course, the kulaks began to buy land, take inventory to the arena, use farm laborers for seasonal work,! lend them money.

The expansion of the railway network was supposed to intensify the exchange of goods, which would lead to a significant increase in the urban consumer market. However, most Russian cities were still too underdeveloped economically and, as a result, poor. Therefore, rural producers (kulaks) often simply had no one to sell their products to. At the turn of the century in Russia, in essence, there was no stratum of society that could be called the rural bourgeoisie. In the village there was a very special attitude to land ownership, which was explained by the communal way of life. They were firmly convinced that the earth should not belong to anyone, being not a property, but rather a primordial given of their environment, like, for example, the sun. Such ideas pushed the peasants to seize the master's lands, forests, landowners' pastures, etc. The legacy of the past was also felt in the conservative thinking of the landowners. The landowner did not seek to introduce technical improvements that would increase labor productivity: labor was available in abundance and almost free, since the peasant population was constantly growing; in addition, the landowner could use the primitive inventory of the peasants themselves, accustomed to corvee. There were, of course, some exceptions, mainly in the outskirts - in the Baltic, the Black Sea, in the steppe regions of the southeast, in those areas where the pressure of the communal way of life and the remnants of serfdom were weaker. The landed nobility gradually declined due to unproductive spending, which eventually led to the transfer of land into the hands of other social strata. However, the process was rather slow and did not solve the most acute problem of peasant land shortages.

To better understand what Russia was like at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, I want to quote the words of Leo Tolstoy from his letter to Nicholas 2 dated January 16, 1906. None of the historians described the situation in Russia of that era better.

Russia is in a position of increased protection, that is, outside the law. The army and police (explicit and covert) are increasing. The prisons are overcrowded. Even workers are now equated with political prisoners. Censorship has reached the absurdity of prohibitions, which it has never reached. Religious persecution has never been so strong. As a result, those 100 million, on which the power of Russia is based, are impoverished. So impoverished that hunger has now become a normal phenomenon. Even 50 years ago, under Nicholas 1, the prestige of tsarist power was very high. Now it has fallen so that even representatives of the lower classes criticize not only the government, but even the king.

Lev Tolstoy

Population

The first official census (without economic overtones) in the Russian Empire took place in 1897 and counted 125 million people in the country. The second census of 1914 recorded 178.1 million people (an increase of 53.1 million over 17 years). The population growth rate was high and it was calculated that if Russia manages to pass without external and internal shocks until the middle of the 20th century, then the population in the country will be about 350 million inhabitants.

Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was a multinational country. The same 1914 census recorded the following composition of the population:

• Russians - 44.6%
• Ukrainians - 18.1%
• Poles - 6.5%
• Jews - 4.2%
• Belarusians - 4.0%
• Kazakhs - 2.7%
• Other nations - each no more than 2%

The official language of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century is Russian. At the same time, there was no harassment on the basis of language, and other peoples could use their language for communication.

Estates

An important characteristic of the Russian population at the beginning of the 20th century is the preservation of estates. The bulk of the population are peasants, whose estate made up just over 80% of the country's population. The nobility in Russia was about 1.5%, but it was the leading estate that held power together. The nobility was not united, they were divided into hereditary and personal.

The problem of the nobility was acute in Russia, since, under the reform of 1861, the nobles were formally deprived of all exclusive land use rights. This was the starting point, after which the positions of the nobility began to deteriorate, and with them the power of the Emperor became less and less strong. As a result, the events of 1917 happened.

A separate important estate in Russia is the clergy. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was divided into categories:

• Black (monastic). Monks who have taken a vow of celibacy.
• White (parish). Priests who are allowed to have a family.

Despite the important status of the clergy, the church continued to be under the control of the state.

autonomy

Autonomy is a characteristic feature of the development of the Russian state. The empire, adding new lands to its composition, in most cases granted autonomy to these lands, preserving their national traditions, religion, and so on. The most complete autonomy was in Finland, which had its own parliament, legislation and money. I specifically emphasized this system of preserving autonomy, which was relevant at the beginning of the 20th century, so that you can compare how Russia annexed regions and how Western countries did it. Suffice it to recall that as a result of the colonization of North America by Europeans, Indians (the indigenous population was almost completely exterminated, and the part that remained alive was placed in special reservations - cattle pens, it is impossible to get out of.

Autonomy was also granted to the peoples of the Baltics and Poland in the west. The autonomy of these regions was curtailed in terms of political freedoms, since, for example, the Polish population always advocated the restoration of the Polish state, and therefore actively fought underground against Russia.

The best indicator of the preservation of the cultural integrity of the autonomies was religion. Despite the dominance of the Orthodox Church (76% of the population), other religions also persisted: Islam (11.9%), Judaism (3.1%), Protestantism (2.0%), Catholicism (1.2%).

Territory

At the beginning of the last century, Russia was geographically at its peak, and naturally it was the largest country in the world. The western borders of the state passed with Norway, Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

The Russian state included: modern Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, partly Poland. I want to note that the current capital of Poland, Warsaw, at the beginning of the 20th century was part of Russia.

We considered the territory of Russia in Europe, since it was the theater where the main actions of that era took place. If we talk about Asia - there, as part of Russia, all the states that later joined the USSR were also completely included.

Governance and laws

Russia at the beginning of the 20th century continued to be a monarchy, when in the 1st article of the code of laws of the country it was written that "the emperor is an autocrat with unlimited power." Power in the country was inherited, the eldest in the family. In this case, preference was given to males.

Control system

The main figure in the country was the Emperor. He owned the main functions in the government of the country. The Romanov dynasty itself and all the persons who belonged to it had influence on the emperor and influenced the policy of Russia. According to the laws of that time, only Orthodox could be a member of the ruling dynasty, so when representatives of other countries joined the dynasty, they were immediately baptized into the Orthodox faith.

Since 1810, the State Council functioned in Russia - an advisory body that provided legislative ideas to the Emperor, but the adoption of a law was a function exclusively of the Emperor.

Executive power was concentrated in the hands of the Ministries. Above the ministries there was no government and prime ministers. Each minister reported directly to the ruler (this is a feature of the imperial regime). The most important ministries of the Russian Empire in the late 19th - early 20th centuries: internal affairs, military, foreign affairs, finance and public education. Ministries created a huge number of officials. According to official statistics in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, there was 1 official for every 3 thousand people. It was the largest bureaucracy in the world. A typical problem of tsarist officials was corruption and bribery. This was largely due to low salaries. The obvious problem of the large apparatus of officials was the inability to make important decisions quickly.

Judicial functions

The highest judicial power in the country, since the time of Peter the Great, belonged to the Senate. He performed the functions of the judiciary, supervisory authorities and the interpretation of laws. The judiciary itself was based on the judicial reform of the 60s of the 19th century. Equality, jury trials and glasnost were practiced in Russia. In practice, inequality still persisted, since the numerous laws of the Russian Empire left many loopholes for lawyers. Who could hire them - he won in the courts.

Regarding the judicial system of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, it is important to note that a special method of litigation was applied to political criminals (any one could be classified as such if desired). After the assassination of Alexander 2, the law "On the Preservation of Order and Public Peace" was adopted. According to him - in relation to political prisoners, the verdict was passed not by the court, but by officials.

Local government

the system of local self-government functioned on the basis of the laws of the 60s of the 19th century. On the ground, zemstvos were created, which resolved exclusively local issues (building roads, schools, and so on. By the beginning of the 20th century, the functions of the zemstvos had changed somewhat. Now a bureaucratic apparatus was built over them, fully controlling all the functions of local authorities.

Self-government bodies were divided into:

• Urban. City Dumas were formed, in which only owners of houses in the city could be elected.
• Rural. Rural gatherings or "worlds" were formed.

Every year the role of local bodies became lower and lower, and more and more control organizations appeared over them.

Army and security

Internal security issues were dealt with by the Police Department (an analogue of the current Ministry of Internal Affairs). The police network was ramified and, on the whole, did not cope well enough with its functions. It is enough to recall only the numerous assassination attempts on members of the imperial house to be convinced of this.

The number of the army at the beginning of the 20th century exceeded 900 thousand people. The army continued to be regular, formed on the basis of conscription. Duty was universal, but benefits were granted. The only sons in the family, breadwinners, teachers and doctors were exempted from military service. Today they say a lot that the army of the Russian Empire was the best in the world. This is definitely debatable. It is enough to recall the Russo-Japanese War to understand that the problems in the army and in its management were significant. The limited command is also emphasized by the First World War, which Russia entered with virtually no artillery (the command was convinced that this was a hopeless type of weapon). In reality, 75% of all losses of that war were from artillery.

Economy

The problems that were characteristic of Russia at the end of the 19th century were reflected in the economic development of the country at the beginning of the 20th century. After all, it is no coincidence that at this stage there are 2 revolutions and significant discontent of the population. There are 3 points of view on the economy of that era:

If we single out the main features of the Russian economy of that period, we can distinguish: the formation of monopolies, the preservation of a largely serf economic system, the complete dependence of the economy on the state, and the uneven economic development of the regions.

The state made attempts to solve the problem that had accumulated in the economy. For this, Witte's reforms and Stolypin's agrarian reform were undertaken. These reforms did not radically change the situation, and at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia there was a drop in production and the standard of living of the majority of the population. It is here that lies the social dynamite that exploded in 1917.

The situation in the village

The events of 1893 are very important for understanding the situation in the Russian village in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this year, a law was passed restricting the right of the community to redistribute land. Now the land was divided once every 12 years. What does it mean? Every 12 years the land was divided anew. That is, the community took the land from one peasant and gave it to another. Some historians speak of the small significance of these events, but this is not so. The land issue has always been very acute in Russia, and most of the riots, uprisings and revolutions happened precisely because of the land issue. The significance of the law of 1893 is best represented by subsequent events. It is enough to add 12 years to convince of this. The following dates are obtained:

• 1905 (1893 + 12) - first revolution
• 1917 (1905 + 12) - February and October revolution
• 1929 (1917 + 12) - start of collectivization

Due to the peculiarities of the redistribution, agriculture suffered greatly. There was no point in investing in land. Anyway, in 12 years this site will be given to another. Therefore, it was necessary to squeeze out the maximum in 12 years, and then let the other owner think about restoring the productivity of the land. And such a point of view was massive!

Once again I want to emphasize the years of land redistribution: 1905, 1917, 1929. These are the most important years of Russian history, and if they are considered without taking into account the specifics of land redistribution, it is impossible to understand the real events in the Russian village in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. After all, the vast majority of the population were peasants, and the land feeds them. Therefore, in the literal sense of the word, the peasants were ready to kill for the land.

International relationships

After the reign of Alexander 3, Russia was very often characterized by a powerful country, but too distant from European political processes. This fully corresponded to the interests of the Empire, and Nicholas 2 promised to continue this policy. This was not possible. as a result, Russia was drawn into the world war.

The beginning of the 20th century saw the rise of the German Empire, which grew stronger every year and showed signs of subjugating Europe. If we consider this process objectively, Germany did not threaten Russia in any way, but Nicholas 2, who verbally guaranteed the Empire's path to isolation from European intrigues, was actually afraid of Germany and began to look for allies. Thus began a rapprochement with France, and after the signing of the Franco-English treaty, the Entente was formed. I will not now describe in detail the idiocy of the behavior of Nicholas 2 (this topic is well analyzed in the material about the First World War), but it was his fear of Germany that allowed Russia to be drawn into the war, where its allies in the Entente (France and England) did not help at all and more interfered.

Russia's traditional rival, the Ottoman Empire, was in a clear decline, and more and more often Russian society raised questions that Constantinople should be taken away from Turkey. It is noteworthy that this should have happened (all documents were signed) after the First World War. It is here that lies one of the reasons why Western countries were so quick to recognize the Russian revolution as legitimate.

The history of the 20th century was full of events of a very different nature - there were great discoveries and great catastrophes in it. States were created and destroyed, and revolutions and civil wars forced people to leave their native places in order to go to foreign lands, but at the same time save their lives. In art, the twentieth century also left an indelible mark, completely renewing it and creating completely new trends and schools. There were great achievements in science as well.

World history of the 20th century

The 20th century began for Europe with very sad events - the Russo-Japanese war broke out, and in Russia in 1905 the first, albeit ended in failure, revolution took place. This was the first war in the history of the 20th century, during which such weapons as destroyers, battleships and heavy long-range artillery were used.

The Russian Empire lost this war and suffered colossal human, financial and territorial losses. However, the Russian government decided to enter into peace negotiations only when more than two billion gold rubles were spent from the treasury for the war - an amount that is fantastic today, but simply unthinkable in those days.

In the context of world history, this war was just another clash of colonial powers in the struggle for the territory of a weakened neighbor, and the role of the victim fell to the weakening Chinese empire.

Russian Revolution and its aftermath

One of the most significant events of the 20th century, of course, was the February and October revolutions. The fall of the monarchy in Russia caused a whole series of unexpected and incredibly powerful events. The liquidation of the empire was followed by the defeat of Russia in the First World War, the separation from it of such countries as Poland, Finland, Ukraine and the countries of the Caucasus.

For Europe, the revolution and the civil war that followed it also left their mark. The Ottoman Empire, liquidated in 1922, and the German Empire in 1918 also ceased to exist. The Austro-Hungarian Empire lasted until 1918 and broke up into several independent states.

However, even within Russia, calm after the revolution did not come immediately. The civil war continued until 1922 and ended with the creation of the USSR, the collapse of which in 1991 will be another important event.

World War I

This war was the first so-called trench war, in which a huge amount of time was spent not so much on moving troops forward and capturing cities, but on pointless waiting in the trenches.

In addition, artillery was used en masse, chemical weapons were used for the first time, and gas masks were invented. Another important feature was the use of combat aviation, the formation of which actually took place during the hostilities, although aviator schools were created a few years before it began. Together with aviation, forces were created that were supposed to fight it. This is how the air defense forces appeared.

The development of information and communication technologies has also been reflected on the battlefield. Information began to be transmitted from headquarters to the front ten times faster thanks to the construction of telegraph lines.

But this terrible war affected not only the development of material culture and technology. She found a place in art. The 20th century was a turning point for culture, when many old forms were rejected and replaced by new ones.

Art and literature

Culture on the eve of the First World War experienced an unprecedented rise, which resulted in the creation of a variety of trends in literature, as well as in painting, sculpture and cinema.

Perhaps the most striking and one of the most well-known artistic trends in art was futurism. Under this name, it is customary to unite a number of movements in literature, painting, sculpture and cinema, which trace their genealogy to the famous manifesto of futurism, written by the Italian poet Marinetti.

Along with Italy, futurism received the greatest distribution in Russia, where such literary communities of futurists as Gilea and OBERIU appeared, the largest representatives of which were Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky, Kharms, Severyanin and Zabolotsky.

As for the visual arts, pictorial Futurism had Fauvism as its foundation, while borrowing a lot from the then popular Cubism, which was born in France at the beginning of the century. In the 20th century, the history of art and politics are inextricably linked, as many avant-garde writers, painters and filmmakers drew up their own plans for the reconstruction of the society of the future.

The Second World War

The history of the 20th century cannot be complete without a story about the most catastrophic event - World War II, which began a year and lasted until September 2, 1945. All the horrors that accompanied the war left an indelible mark on the memory of mankind.

Russia in the 20th century, like other European countries, experienced many terrible events, but none of them can be compared in its consequences with the Great Patriotic War, which was part of the Second World War. According to various sources, the number of victims of the war in the USSR reached twenty million people. This number includes both military and civilian residents of the country, as well as numerous victims of the blockade of Leningrad.

Cold war with former allies

Sixty-two sovereign states out of the seventy-three that existed at that time were drawn into the fighting on the fronts of the World War. The fighting was fought in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the Caucasus and the Atlantic Ocean, as well as beyond the Arctic Circle.

World War II and the Cold War followed one after the other. Yesterday's allies became first rivals, and later enemies. Crises and conflicts followed one after another for several decades, until the Soviet Union ceased to exist, thereby putting an end to the competition between the two systems - capitalist and socialist.

Cultural Revolution in China

If one were to tell the history of the twentieth century in terms of state history, it might sound like a long list of wars, revolutions, and unending violence, often against completely random people.

By the mid-sixties, when the world had not yet fully comprehended the consequences of the October Revolution and the civil war in Russia, another revolution unfolded on the other side of the continent, which went down in history under the name of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

The cause of the Cultural Revolution in the PRC is considered to be an intra-party split and Mao's fears of losing his dominant position within the party hierarchy. As a result, it was decided to start an active struggle against those representatives of the party who were supporters of small property and private initiative. All of them were accused of counter-revolutionary propaganda and either shot or sent to prison. Thus began the mass terror, which lasted more than ten years, and the cult of personality of Mao Zedong.

space race

Space exploration was one of the most popular areas in the twentieth century. Although today people have already become accustomed to international cooperation in the field of high technologies and space exploration, at that time space was an arena of intense confrontation and fierce competition.

The first frontier for which the two superpowers fought was near-Earth orbit. By the beginning of the fifties, both the USA and the USSR had samples of rocket technology, which served as prototypes for launch vehicles of a later time.

Despite all the speed with which American scientists worked, Soviet rocket scientists were the first to put the cargo into orbit, and on October 4, 1957, the first man-made satellite was in Earth orbit, which made 1440 turns around the planet, and then burned out in dense layers of the atmosphere.

Also, Soviet engineers were the first to launch the first living creature into orbit - a dog, and later a man. In April 1961, a rocket was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in the cargo compartment of which was the Vostok-1 spacecraft, in which Yuri Gagarin was. Taking the first man into space was risky.

In the conditions of the race, space exploration could cost the cosmonaut his life, as in a hurry to get ahead of the Americans, Russian engineers made a number of rather risky decisions from a technical point of view. However, both takeoff and landing were successful. So the USSR won the next stage of the competition, called the Space Race.

Flights to the Moon

Having lost the first few stages in space exploration, American politicians and scientists decided to set themselves a more ambitious and difficult task, for which the Soviet Union could simply not have enough resources and technical developments.

The next frontier that had to be taken was the flight to the Moon, the natural satellite of the Earth. The project, called "Apollo", was initiated in 1961 and aimed at carrying out a manned expedition to the moon and landing a man on its surface.

As ambitious as this task may have seemed by the time the project began, it was accomplished in 1969 with the landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In total, within the framework of the program, six manned flights to the Earth's satellite were made.

Defeat of the socialist camp

The Cold War, as is known, ended with the defeat of the socialist countries not only in the arms race, but also in the economic competition. There is a consensus among most leading economists that the main reasons for the collapse of the USSR and the entire socialist camp were economic.

Despite the fact that in some countries there is widespread resentment regarding the events of the late eighties and early nineties, for most countries of Eastern and Central Europe, liberation from Soviet domination turned out to be extremely favorable.

The list of the most important events of the 20th century invariably contains a line mentioning the fall of the Berlin Wall, which served as a physical symbol of the division of the world into two hostile camps. November 9, 1989 is considered the date of the collapse of this symbol of totalitarianism.

Technological progress in the 20th century

The 20th century was rich in inventions, never before had technological progress progressed at such a speed. Hundreds of very significant inventions and discoveries have been made over a hundred years, but some of them deserve special mention because of their extreme importance for the development of human civilization.

The aircraft is certainly one of the inventions without which modern life is unthinkable. Despite the fact that people have dreamed of flying for many millennia, the first flight in the history of mankind was only possible in 1903. This achievement, fantastic in its consequences, belongs to the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Another important invention related to aviation was the backpack parachute, designed by the St. Petersburg engineer Gleb Kotelnikov. It was Kotelnikov who received a patent for his invention in 1912. Also in 1910, the first seaplane was designed.

But perhaps the most terrible invention of the twentieth century was the nuclear bomb, a single use of which plunged mankind into a horror that has not passed to this day.

Medicine in the 20th century

One of the main inventions of the 20th century is also considered the technology of artificial production of penicillin, thanks to which mankind was able to get rid of many infectious diseases. The scientist who discovered the bactericidal properties of the fungus was Alexander Fleming.

All the achievements of medicine in the twentieth century were inextricably linked with the development of such fields of knowledge as physics and chemistry. Indeed, without the achievements of fundamental physics, chemistry or biology, the invention of the X-ray machine, chemotherapy, radiation and vitamin therapy would have been impossible.

In the 21st century, medicine is even more closely connected with high-tech branches of science and industry, which opens up truly fascinating prospects in the fight against diseases such as cancer, HIV and many other intractable diseases. It is worth noting that the discovery of the DNA helix and its subsequent decoding also give hope for the possibility of curing inherited diseases.

After the USSR

Russia in the 20th century experienced many catastrophes, among which were wars, including civil wars, the collapse of the country and revolutions. At the end of the century, another extremely important event happened - the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and sovereign states were formed in its place, some of which plunged into civil war or into a war with their neighbors, and some, like the Baltic countries, quickly joined the European Union and started building an effective democratic state.

Wars, revolutions, reforms

Plan:

1. Russia in the late 90s - early 900s.

2. The first revolution in Russia. The experience of Russian parliamentarism.

3. Stolypin and his reforms.

Literature:

Russian history. Ed. M.N. Zueva. - M., 1998

Russian history. Ed. Samygina P.S. - Rostov-on-Don, 2002.

Russia and the world. Ed. Danilova A.A. - M., 1999.

Semennikova L.I. Russia in the world community of civilizations. - M., 2002.

Sources:

Avrekh A.P. Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin and the fate of reforms in Russia. - M., 1991.

Airapetov O.R. Russian army on the hills of Manchuria. //Questions of history. - No. 1, 2002.

State Duma of the first and second convocations (from autocracy to a constitutional-parliamentary monarchy). - M., 2001. _

Konovalov O.V. Chernov V.M. and the agrarian program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. //National history. - No. 2, 2002.

Kravets I.A. Constitutionalism and Russian statehood at the beginning of the 20th century. - M., 2000.

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. We need a great Russia. - M., 1991.

1. The Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century was an absolute autocratic monarchy, in which all power belonged to the tsar-emperor. The coat of arms is a double-headed eagle with royal regalia, the flag is a white-blue-red cloth, the national anthem is "God Save the Tsar." The king must be Orthodox.

The main advisory body under the king was the State Council, all members of which were appointed by the emperor. Governing bodies - the Holy Synod (church affairs) and ministries: foreign affairs, communications, public education, justice, military, maritime, internal affairs, state property, court. They were led by the Committee (since 1905 - the Council) of Ministers. The highest government positions were occupied by representatives of the local nobility. The provinces were led by governors endowed with enormous powers. The police were in charge of law and order. The political investigation was carried out by the gendarmerie. At the beginning of the XX century. there were search departments ("Okhranka"), which consisted of surveillance agents, covert agents, provocateurs. Russia was divided into 97 provinces, 10-15 counties each. Local self-government bodies were zemstvos, which arose in the 70s of the 19th century. Zemstvos were in charge of road repair, medicine, education, statistics, etc. Zemstvos were an important public institution of the country, through which society influenced the country's governance system.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Empire occupied the second place in the world in terms of territory, second only to the British Empire. The population of Russia in 1897 was 125 million people, but the population density was very low and uneven: 72% of the inhabitants lived in the European part of the country, and 5% in the vast territory of Siberia. 14% of the population lived in cities, while in England - 78%, and in Germany 57%. Only Moscow and St. Petersburg had more than 1 million inhabitants. The mortality rate in Russia was one of the highest in Europe. Per capita income in 1900 was 63 rubles a year, for comparison: in the Balkan countries - 101 rubles, in Germany - 184, in England - 273, in the USA -346 rubles. According to the 1897 census, the country's population was divided into classes as follows: nobles, officials - 1 million. 8.50 thousand people; merchants - 280 thousand people; clergy - 590 thousand people; petty bourgeois - 13.5 million people; peasants - 97 million people; Cossacks - 3 million people; foreigners - 8 million people.

The economic development of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century had its own characteristics:

> firstly, the rapid development of capitalism began in Russia only after the abolition of serfdom in 1861;

> secondly, Russia was a moderately developed country of the "second echelon" of capitalism. The countries of the "first echelon" entered the era of capitalism in the 17th - 18th centuries, and Russia - in the middle of the 19th century. The desire to catch up with the advanced countries led to higher rates of its economic development;

> thirdly, an important difference between the Russian economy was the preservation of its diversity: from subsistence farming to large monopolies;

> fourthly, the Russian bourgeoisie had no political power, was in opposition to the autocracy, which hindered the country's economic progress;

> fifthly, the public sector (state-owned factories that were excluded from the sphere of market relations) and foreign capital played a huge role in the Russian economy;

> sixth, uneven economic development both by region and by industry.

At the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. in Russia there is a formation of socialist parties. Their formation and development was facilitated by the dissemination of the ideas of K. Marx among the intelligentsia and advanced workers. The first circles for the study and dissemination of the works of K. Marx and F. Engels appeared in Russia already in the 80s of the XIX century. Russian Marxists dreamed of a revolution and linked the future of Russia only with socialism. As the labor movement grew, Social Democratic circles sprang up in dozens of cities. In 1898, the first congress of the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party) took place in Minsk. The congress was attended by 9 delegates. Soon they were arrested, and the congress could not accept the program. The formation of the party and the adoption of the program took place at the second congress of the RSDLP in 1903. The program consisted of two parts:

> the minimum program provided for the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution: the overthrow of the autocracy and the establishment of a republic, political freedoms, the right of nations to self-determination, the abolition of redemption payments, an 8-hour working day, the abolition of fines, etc.;

> maximum program set goals: the victory of the socialist revolution, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the construction of a socialist society.

At the congress, disputes unfolded when discussing the paragraph of the Charter on membership in the party, as a result of which a split occurred. After the elections to the central bodies, Lenin's supporters received the majority of votes and began to be called Bolsheviks, while their opponents (Martov, Plekhanov) - Mensheviks. The Bolshevik Party was built on the basis of democratic centralism (the subordination of the minority to the majority), was irreconcilable to all other socialist trends, and recognized the dominance of Marxist ideology and the one-party system in a socialist society. The Mensheviks counted on an alliance between the proletariat and the liberal parties and stood for a multi-party system.

In 1901 - 1902. The revolutionary-democratic party of "Socialist-Revolutionaries" (AKP) - Socialist-Revolutionaries - took shape. The social base of the Socialist-Revolutionaries is the wealthy sections of the city and countryside, the intelligentsia, and youth. Their social ideal is the destruction of capitalist property and the creation of communal socialism. They proposed to achieve this through the transfer of land to peasant communities and its division among consumers. The leader of the party was V.M. Chernov. The Socialist-Revolutionaries chose individual terror as a tactic of struggle, since they believed that it had an agitational effect on the masses, pushing them to active actions. In 1901, the terrorist "Combat Organization of the AKP" was created, headed by an agent of the tsarist secret police Yevno Azef. Socialist-Revolutionary terrorists killed the Ministers of the Interior D.S. Sipyagin and V.K. Pleve.

One of the most important and tragic events of this period is the Russo-Japanese War. The situation that arose in the Far East required active actions from Russia. China, weakened by a protracted crisis, attracted the selfish attention of all major participants in world politics: Great Britain, France, Germany, the USA, Japan, and Russia. There was a fierce struggle for the division of spheres of influence in China. Japan in 1894 sent troops to Korea, entered the war with China, imposed humiliating peace conditions on it (they were partially revised under pressure from Russia, France and Germany). Russia in 1891 began the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, considering it as the beginning of the vigorous development of its Siberian and Far Eastern outskirts. In 1896, China granted Russia a concession for the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER). In 1898, Russia won the right to lease the southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula with the fortress-port of Port Arthur and the port of Dalniy. The Boxer Rebellion in China provided an excuse for foreign powers to openly intervene in internal Chinese affairs. Russia sent troops into Manchuria and, despite the protests of Japan, which enlisted the support of Germany and Great Britain, refused to withdraw them (although the Russian-Japanese treaty provided for the withdrawal of troops by the autumn of 1904). Japan, in turn, imposed on Russia unacceptable terms of the agreement on Korea. Things were heading for an open confrontation. Two groups have formed in the leading circles of Russia. The first, headed by A.M. Bezobrazov, Secretary of State of Nicholas II, advocated the annexation of Manchuria and Korea in favor of Russia. Minister of the Interior V. K. Plehve also spoke out for the war, believing that “a small victorious war” would distract society from revolutionary moods. The second group, headed by Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte, considered the war with Japan an adventure and put forward plans for peaceful economic penetration into the Far East. The “bezobrazovskaya clique” took over.

The course of hostilities. On land, Russian troops led by the mediocre Kuropatkin were defeated in battles near Laoyang (August 1904), near the Shahe River (October 1904), and near Mukden (February 1905). In all battles, the numerical superiority was behind the Russian armies. The Japanese turned out to be stronger in military-technical terms, their generals had a better command of the art of modern warfare. In December, Port Arthur fell, besieged in July - it was treacherously surrendered by the ignorant and cowardly General A. M. Stessel. During its siege, the talented General Kondratenko died. At sea, the military situation was just as tragic for Russia. On March 31, 1904, the flagship of the Russian fleet "Petropavlovsk" was blown up by a mine. The outstanding naval commander S. O. Makarov died. In the Battle of Tsushima (May 1905), the second Russian squadron sent from the Baltic Sea perished. The Japanese fleet surpassed the Russian one in the number of ships, armament, speed, and maneuverability.

The reasons for the defeat of Russia: the unpreparedness of the top leadership for war, military-technical backwardness, mediocre command, stretched communications, remoteness of the theater of military operations; foreign policy isolation (Russia was not supported by more than one large state, which feared its strengthening in the Far East).

Results and consequences of the war. The peace treaty was signed in Portsmouth, in the United States, which acted as mediators in the negotiations. Russia ceded South Sakhalin and Port Arthur to Japan, recognized Korea as a zone of Japanese interests, but thanks to the personal merits of S. Yu. Witte, she avoided paying indemnity. The authority of the authorities in the eyes of the public was catastrophically undermined. Opposition and revolutionary sentiments intensified. The war, perceived as a national disgrace, which claimed tens of thousands of human lives, played a role in the development of the revolution of 1905-1907.

2. The revolution of 1905 matured for a long time, it was based on deep economic and socio-political reasons. The main of these reasons was the preservation of feudal-serf remnants, which hampered the rapid development of the country. Concretely, this was expressed in the following contradictions: between the need for the development of capitalism and feudal survivals; between peasants and landlords; between tsarism and the peoples of Russia; between the autocracy and the emerging civil society. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia remained the only major capitalist country that did not have a parliament, legal political parties, political and civil liberties.

The revolution of 1905 was bourgeois-democratic in character. Its main tasks were: the overthrow of the autocracy or, in extreme cases, the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, the solution of agrarian and national issues, the elimination of feudal-serf remnants.

The main social forces of the revolution were the workers, peasants, and the petty bourgeoisie. The leading force was the working class, which in its struggle used various means - demonstrations, strikes, developing into armed uprisings.

The main stages and events of the revolution of 1905 - 1907

January 9, 1905 - "Bloody Sunday" (more than a thousand people were shot, about five thousand were injured);

Spring - summer 1905 - strengthening of the labor movement (up to 600 thousand people took part in May Day strikes), the creation of Soviets of Workers' Deputies, the creation of the All-Russian Peasant Union, unrest in the army, the uprising on the battleship Potemkin (June), the "Manifesto" of the tsar about the establishment of a legislative (without the right to pass laws) State Duma;

Autumn 1905 - the revolutionary movement reached its highest point; On October 17, the Manifesto “On the Improvement of the State Order” was published, according to which it was promised: to convene a legislative State Duma, to provide the population with democratic freedoms (speech, assembly, press, conscience), to introduce universal suffrage;

In early December 1905, by decision of the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP, a strike began, which by December 10 grew into an armed uprising; Krasnaya Presnya became the center of the struggle; the Semyonov Guards Regiment was summoned from Petersburg; On December 19, the uprising was terminated by decision of the Moscow Soviet;

In 1906 - 1907. there were only isolated outbreaks of workers, peasants and soldiers, but they were very quickly suppressed; the revolution was defeated.

During the revolution of 1905, several parties of liberal and monarchist orientation were formed. On October 12, 1905, the founding congress of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets), the first legal political liberal party, opened. The political ideal of the Cadets is the constitutional arrangement of the country on the basis of universal suffrage. The program of the Cadets contained the following basic requirements: separation of powers (legislative, executive and judicial); equality of all before the law; abolition of the death penalty; freedom of trade unions; the right to strike; 8-hour working day; presentation of part of the landowners' lands to landless peasants; fundamental reforms of local self-government. Party leader - P. Milyukov. The social support of the Cadets is the intelligentsia and the liberal-minded nobility.

At the end of October 1905, the right-wing party "Union of October 17" was created; it included large industrialists, merchants, bankers. Leader - A. Guchkov. The Octobrist program contained the following demands: a constitutional monarchy, a united and indivisible Russia; universal suffrage, civil and political rights, personal immunity; sale of state lands to peasants; classless independent labor; the rise of the country's productive forces.

In the autumn of 1905, the monarchist party "Union of the Russian People" was formed. A. I. Dubrovin and V. Purishkevich were at the head. The main goal of the party was to protect the autocratic monarchy from revolutionary and other encroachments. The monarchists chose pogroms as the methods of achieving their goals. The "Union of the Russian People" created Black Hundred organizations such as the "Union of Michael the Archangel", "The Brotherhood of Fighting Sedition".

Thus, all political parties of the beginning of the 20th century, in accordance with their vision of the future of Russia, can be divided into three largest groups:

Socialist - RSDLP, AKP;

Liberal - Cadets, Octobrists;

Monarchist - "Union of the Russian people", "Union of Michael the Archangel", etc.

After the defeat of the December 1905 uprising, many in the country believed that problems could be solved through the State Duma - the first representative body in history, the parliament, the highest legislative body, which was also entitled to approve the executive power - the government. Suffrage was not universal and equal, there were multistage elections, the age limit was 25 years. The State Council was transformed into the highest legislative chamber of the Duma; half of its members were appointed by the king. According to the new edition of the "Basic State Laws of the Russian Empire" dated April 24, 1906, the definition of imperial power as unlimited was eliminated.

The First State Duma opened at the end of April 1906 in the Winter Palace. Of the 448 seats in the Duma, 179 belonged to the Cadets, 105 to non-party deputies, and 107 to the "Trudoviks" (a faction of deputies - peasants and populist intelligentsia). The Black Hundreds did not get into the Duma. The Bolsheviks and Social Revolutionaries boycotted the Duma, but Lenin later recognized the boycott tactics as erroneous. Cadet S. A. Muromtsev was elected chairman. The First State Duma, having begun its work on April 27, worked for 72 days.

From the very first days, sharp contradictions on the agrarian question were revealed between it and the tsarist government. Using the Duma appeal to the people, which spoke of disagreements between the Duma and the government on the peasant issue, the emperor dismissed it with a manifesto of July 9, accusing him of "inciting unrest." P. A. Stolypin was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The ruling circles hoped that he would be able to "calm down" the country. In August 1906 courts-martial were introduced. Trade unions were closed, revolutionary parties were persecuted. But the tsar did not abandon the Manifesto on October 17, so the convocation of the Second State Duma was announced on the basis of the old electoral law.

On February 20, 1907, the II State Duma began its work. She was to the left of the first. Although the Cadets continued to dominate, they lost 80 seats. The Octobrists held 42 deputies. The Social Democrats won 65 seats, while the left-wing parties won 222 seats (43%). The "Black Hundreds" were also elected to the Duma - 30 deputies. A Cadet, F. A. Golovin, was elected Chairman of the Duma. In April 1907, a fierce debate unfolded in the Duma on two issues: agrarian policy and the adoption of emergency measures against the revolutionaries. The Duma refused to publicly condemn revolutionary terrorism and, moreover, on May 17 voted against the "illegal actions" of the police. It became clear that the Second Duma would not follow the program outlined by Stolypin. On June 1, Stolypin demanded that the Duma expel 55 deputies (Social Democrats) and deprive 16 of them of their parliamentary immunity, accusing them of plotting a coup. Without waiting for the Duma's decision, Nicholas II announced on June 3 the dissolution of the Duma and appointed the next convocation for November 1, 1907. The manifesto also talked about changing the electoral law. This act marked the end of the revolution.

The revolution of 1905-1907 had important consequences for the further development of Russia. Despite the period of conservatism in domestic politics that followed the dissolution of the Second Duma, the revolution was a serious step towards turning Russia into a bourgeois power: the revolution pushed the tsarist government towards a liberal policy on the peasant question; the first and second State Dumas born in the course of the revolution gave the first lessons of bourgeois parliamentarism; the revolution contributed to the formation of a multi-party system; the revolution showed a new rising social force - the proletariat. However, the revolution of 1905-1907 did not eliminate, but softened the disproportions in the socio-economic and political development of Russia. Moreover, new contradictions were added: the first parliamentary experiments were stifled by authoritarianism, and the following Dumas found themselves in the wake of the policy of the tsar and his government; the party system of the Russian Empire suffered from the presence of populist-terrorist organizations both from the right and from the left, in the absence of a clearly organized center, which testified to its imperfection.

3. Simultaneously with the dissolution of the Second State Duma, a new regulation on elections was adopted. The total number of voters remained the same, but the peasant representation was halved, the number of deputies from the national outskirts was significantly reduced, and some regions were completely deprived of representation. The acts of June 3, 1907 were a flagrant violation of the manifesto of October 17, but it is not entirely accurate to call them a coup d'état. One way or another, this was not a restoration of the old order: representative institutions were preserved, voting rights were not abolished, the activities of political parties, the opposition press, freedom of speech were allowed. The main architect of the "Third of June" political system was P. A. Stolypin, a representative of an old noble family. The energetic Saratov governor was noticed in April 1906 and received the portfolio of the Minister of the Interior, and after the dissolution of the First State Duma in July of the same year, he became Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He advocated carrying out social and political reforms aimed at ensuring that Russia took its rightful place among the most developed countries in the world. But Stolypin concentrated his main efforts on changing the communal way of life in the Russian countryside. The main goals of the Stolypin reform were the following:

Creation of a solid social base of autocracy in the person of a strong prosperous peasant;

The development of capitalist relations in the countryside, the destruction of the community, the transfer of land to the peasants in private ownership, the creation of farms and farms;

Formation of a broad market for industry;

The resettlement of revolutionary-minded, land-poor peasants from the center to the outskirts.

The reform was carried out in three directions:

The destruction of the community, the consolidation of the land in the private property of the peasants, their complete equalization with other estates;

Assistance to peasants through the Peasant Bank for the purchase of state or noble lands; creation of farms and cuts; the emergence of a farmer's highly productive, free economy;

Resettlement of landless or landless peasants from the center to the outskirts (Siberia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Far East).

On November 9, 1906, a decree was issued on the transfer to the peasant of his allotment in private ownership. This decree became law in 1910, when it was approved by the III State Duma. Stolypin said that "the government did not rely on the poor and drunk, but on the strong and strong." The reform, of course, was beneficial to wealthy peasants who had the money to create a large farm. The majority of the peasants had no obvious benefits from the reform. Even the help of the Peasants' Bank, which gave a large loan for the purchase of land, did not level the situation. The peasant who took out a loan often went bankrupt and lost his land. In total, during the period from 1907 to 1914, 26% of peasant households left the community and took the land. 10.5% of the households went to cuts and farms, and 11.7% of the peasants sold their land and left for the city.

An integral part of the agrarian reform was the resettlement policy. The government was not interested in the ruin of the peasants, as it represented a great social danger. Therefore, the government has established numerous benefits for those wishing to move to new places: the forgiveness of all arrears, low prices for railway tickets, tax exemption for 5 years, interest-free loans. For 1907 - 1914 3.3 million people moved to Siberia. The sown area beyond the Urals has doubled.

The agrarian reform was not fully implemented, as it was carried out by a bureaucratic apparatus that proved its ability to ruin any idea in the bud. The reform strengthened the position of the wealthy peasantry, which began to use hired labor more widely. But she did not solve the main contradictions in the village. Landownership was preserved, the rural community was not destroyed, most of the peasants cultivated the land with primitive tools. About 500 thousand migrants returned to their former place of residence. The Stolypin reform marked the beginning of private ownership of land by a huge mass of peasants. The influx of ruined peasants into the city increased the influx of labor, and the demand for agricultural products increased. This contributed to the development of industry and trade. In general, the reform contributed to the development of capitalism in Russia.

Stolypin attached no less importance to the reform of local government and the courts. The demand for such a reform logically followed from his agrarian reforms. Peasant proprietors needed proper legal protection. Hence, the main thing in the proposed reform was the equalization of the rights of the peasants with other estates and the creation of non-estate bodies of local government. The program of the Stolypin reforms provided for the adoption of a number of laws ensuring the inviolability of the individual, the transition from one religion to another, and the reform of criminal law. The government also intended to make primary education accessible and then compulsory. However, almost all reforms met with sharp opposition from the right both in the Duma and the State Council, and Stolypin himself, intelligent, powerful, independent, turned into an objectionable object of criticism from both the right and the left. September 1, 1911 Stolypin was killed in Kyiv during a performance at the opera house

III. Characteristics of the early stage of the writer's work (lecture with elements of conversation)

V2: Topic 1.5 Bones of the hand, their connections. Structural features of the human hand. Pelvic bone. Taz in general. X-ray anatomy and development of the skeleton of the upper limb and pelvis.

V2: Topic 1.6 Bones of the free lower limb, their connections. Structural features of the human foot. X-ray anatomy and development of the skeleton of the lower limb.