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113-899: Millions of Poles lived within the Russian Empire (along with Austria-Hungary and the Prussian Kingdom ) following the military Partitions of Poland throughout the 19th century, which resulted in the extinction of the Polish state. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 , followed by the Russian Civil War , the majority of the Polish population saw cooperation with the Bolshevik forces as betrayal and treachery to Polish national interests. Polish writer and philosopher Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz lived through

226-733: A German prison during the Russian Revolution , but was released in June 1918 as part of a prisoner exchange that followed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and was deported to Russia, where he joined the Bolsheviks. He was named as a Soviet diplomatic representative first in Vienna, and in October his name was put forward as the first soviet ambassador in Poland, but never took up either post, because neither

339-798: A Gladstone bag", but again the talks broke down in December. In July 1920, during the Polish-Soviet War , Marchlewski was appointed Chairman of the Polish Provisional Revolutionary Committee ( Tymczasowy Komitet Rewolucyjny Polski ) in Białystok , implying that he would have been head of the Polish government had the Red Army won the war, though real power would probably have bene exercised by Dzerzhinsky, nominally his deputy. In autumn 1921, Marchlewski

452-544: A Western model. Alexander I ( r.  1801–1825 ) helped defeat the militaristic ambitions of Napoleon and subsequently constituted the Holy Alliance , which aimed to restrain the rise of secularism and liberalism across Europe. Russia further expanded to the west, south, and east, strengthening its position as a European power. Its victories in the Russo-Turkish Wars were later checked by defeat in

565-518: A few were introduced , no major changes were attempted. The liberal Alexander I was replaced by his younger brother Nicholas I (1825–1855), who at the beginning of his reign was confronted with an uprising. The background of this revolt lay in the Napoleonic Wars , when a number of well-educated Russian officers travelled in Europe in the course of military campaigns, where their exposure to

678-424: A gift, the freed peasants had to pay a special lifetime tax to the government, which in turn paid the landlords a generous price for the land that they had lost. In numerous cases the peasants ended up with relatively small amounts of the least productive land. All the property turned over to the peasants was owned collectively by the mir , the village community, which divided the land among the peasants and supervised

791-574: A group of agricultural workers who were heading home to Galicia, which was now in Poland. Arriving there in March, he made contact with Józef Piłsudski , Commander in Chief of the Polish army. By pointing that the heads of the White Army , who were seeking to overthrow the Bolsheviks, had no intention of recognising Poland's independence, he persuaded Piłsudski to recognise him as a go-between to negotiate

904-583: A journalist writing for newspapers run by the German Social Democratic Party until September 1913 when, as acting editor of Leipziger Volkszeitung , he was barred by the party from publishing an article by Rosa Luxemburg. He broke off relations with the SDP leadership, which he believed had become ' revisionist ' - i.e. no longer revolutionary. In December 1913, he launched a new journal, Sozialdemokratische Korrespondenz , using his flat as

1017-560: A major domestic factor with its support for liberating Balkan Christians from Ottoman rule and making Bulgaria and Serbia independent. In early 1877, Russia intervened on behalf of Serbian and Russian volunteer forces, leading to the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) . Within one year, Russian troops were nearing Constantinople and the Ottomans surrendered. Russia's nationalist diplomats and generals persuaded Alexander II to force

1130-726: A population of 125.6 million with considerable ethnic, linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of its rivals: the Swedish Empire , the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , Qajar Iran , the Ottoman Empire , and Qing China . From the 10th to 17th centuries, the Russians had been ruled by a noble class known as the boyars , above whom

1243-671: A publishing venture. Marchlewski returned to Russian-occupied Poland, after 13 years abroad, during the Russian Revolution of 1905 in the Polish territories. Early in 1906, the SDPKiL sent him to Belgium to buy weapons. In June, he and Dzerzhinsky presided over the Fifth SDPKiL congress, in Zakopane , where they decided to affiliate with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), which

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1356-407: A result, there was a slow improvement in the living standards of Russian peasants in the empire's last two decades before 1914. Recent research into the physical stature of Army recruits shows they were bigger and stronger. There were regional variations, with more poverty in the heavily populated central black earth region ; and there were temporary downturns in 1891–93 and 1905–1908. By the end of

1469-604: A settlement between Poland the Soviet Union. Returning to Moscow in June, he secured Lenin's support, but ran up against angry opposition from exiled leaders of the Polish communist party. His first attempt to conduct negotiations, in July 1919, was a failure, and included his being roughed by Polish soldiers at the border. He crossed the border again in August, as head of a Soviet Red Cross mission, with "bowler hat, wing-collar and

1582-610: A vacation. His body was returned to Poland, where he was interred at Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw . His daughter Sonja was the second wife of the artist Heinrich Vogeler and his younger brother was the chemist Leon Marchlewski . In 1926, he was the namesake for the Polish National Raion in Ukraine ( Marchlewszczyzna ), with the capital at Marchlewsk (known before and after as Dovbysh and Shchorsk ;

1695-503: A very large and complex bureaucracy, and a court that rivaled those of Versailles and London . But the government was living far beyond its means, and 18th-century Russia remained "a poor, backward, overwhelmingly agricultural, and illiterate country". In 1801, over four years after Paul became the emperor of Russia, he was killed in Saint Michael's Castle in a coup. Paul was succeeded by his 23-year-old son, Alexander . Russia

1808-878: A wasteland and useless, and saw the government wasting money, but later, much gold and petroleum were discovered. In the late 1870s, Russia and the Ottoman Empire again clashed in the Balkans. From 1875 to 1877, the Balkan crisis intensified, with rebellions against Ottoman rule by various Slavic nationalities, which the Ottoman Turks had dominated since the 15th century. This was seen as a political risk in Russia, which similarly suppressed its Muslims in Central Asia and Caucasia. Russian nationalist opinion became

1921-635: A weaver or dyer, in factories in Poland and Germany. He returned to Poland, and in 1889, he co-founded the Polish Workers' Union, with Adolf Warski and Bronislaw Wesolowski , which focused on the immediate needs of Polish workers, such as pay and working conditions. Arrested in 1891, after the government moved in to end a wave of strikes by Polish workers, he spent a year in prison, in Warsaw. After his release in 1892, he emigrated to Switzerland and joined Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches in co-founding

2034-629: Is also known for Russia's involvement in the Seven Years' War , where it was successful militarily, but gained little politically. Catherine the Great was a German princess who married Peter III , the German heir to the Russian crown. After the death of Empress Elizabeth, Catherine came to power after she effected a coup d'état against her very unpopular husband. She contributed to the resurgence of

2147-523: Is between 50,000 and 100,000. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the following post-Soviet countries have significant Polish minorities: The Polish population in the Soviet Union peaked in 1959, decreased by about 20% by 1970, and then decreased extremely slowly between 1970 and 1989. Russian Empire The Russian Empire was a vast empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its proclamation in November 1721 until

2260-416: Is usually seen as the beginning of the "imperial" period of Russia. Following the reforms, the governance of Russia by an absolute monarch was enshrined. The Military Regulations made a note of the autocratic nature of the regime. During the reign of Peter I, the last vestiges of the independence of the boyars were lost. He transformed them into the new nobility , who were obedient nobles that served

2373-511: The 1828–1829 Russo-Turkish War , Russia invaded northeastern Anatolia and occupied the strategic Ottoman towns of Karin and Gümüşhane (Argiroupoli) and, posing as protector of the Greek Orthodox population , received extensive support from the region's Pontic Greeks . Following a brief occupation, the Russian imperial army withdrew back into Georgia. Russian emperors quelled two uprisings in their newly acquired Polish territories:

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2486-544: The Boxer Rebellion . Japan strongly opposed Russian expansion, and defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Japan took over Korea, and Manchuria remained a contested area. Meanwhile, France , looking for allies against Germany after 1871, formed a military alliance in 1894, with large-scale loans to Russia, sales of arms, and warships, as well as diplomatic support. Once Afghanistan

2599-591: The British domination. Peter I ( r.  1682–1725 ), also known as Peter the Great, played a major role in introducing the European state system into Russia. While the empire's vast lands had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those in the West. Nearly the entire population was devoted to agriculture, with only a small percentage living in towns. The class of kholops , whose status

2712-696: The Coalition and joined the Continental System . By 1812, Russia had occupied many territories in Eastern Europe, holding some of Eastern Galicia from Austria and Bessarabia from the Ottoman Empire ; from Northern Europe, it had gained Finland from the war against a weakened Sweden ; it also gained some territory in the Caucasus. Following a dispute with Emperor Alexander I, in 1812, Napoleon launched an invasion of Russia . It

2825-559: The Crimean War (1853–1856), leading to a period of reform and intensified expansion into Central Asia . Alexander II ( r.  1855–1881 ) initiated numerous reforms , most notably the 1861 emancipation of all 23 million serfs. From 1721 until 1762, the Russian Empire was ruled by the House of Romanov ; its matrilineal branch of patrilineal German descent, the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov , ruled from 1762 until 1917. By

2938-563: The Crimean War , which Russia lost. The war was fought primarily in the Crimean peninsula , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic during the related Åland War . Since playing a major role in the defeat of Napoleon, Russia had been regarded as militarily invincible, but against a coalition of the great powers of Europe, the reverses it suffered on land and sea exposed the weakness of Emperor Nicholas I's regime. When Emperor Alexander II ascended

3051-506: The Enlightenment , the specter of revolution and disorder continued to haunt her and her successors. Indeed, her son Paul introduced a number of increasingly erratic decrees in his short reign aimed directly against the spread of French culture in response to their revolution . In order to ensure the continued support of the nobility, which was essential to her reign, Catherine was obliged to strengthen their authority and power at

3164-623: The Franco-Russian Alliance , to contain the growing power of Germany; completed the conquest of Central Asia ; and demanded important territorial and commercial concessions from China. The emperor's most influential adviser was Konstantin Pobedonostsev , tutor to Alexander III and his son Nicholas, and procurator of the Holy Synod from 1880 to 1895. Pobedonostsev taught his imperial pupils to fear freedom of speech and

3277-621: The Great Northern War , which ended in 1721 when an exhausted Sweden asked for peace with Russia. As a result, Peter acquired four provinces situated south and east of the Gulf of Finland , securing access to the sea. There he built Russia's new capital, Saint Petersburg , on the Neva river, to replace Moscow, which had long been Russia's cultural center. This relocation expressed his intent to adopt European elements for his empire. Many of

3390-633: The Great Purge in 1937–1938 (see Polish operation of the NKVD ). The Communist Party of Poland was also decimated in the Great Purge and was disbanded in 1938. Another decimated group of Poles was the Roman Catholic clergy, who opposed the forced atheization. A number of Poles fled to Poland during this time, among them Igor Newerly and Tadeusz Borowski . During World War II , after

3503-478: The Industrial Revolution , Russia began to lag ever farther behind, creating new weaknesses for the empire seeking to play a role as a great power. Russia's status as a great power concealed the inefficiency of its government, the isolation of its people, and its economic and social backwardness. Following the defeat of Napoleon, Alexander I had been ready to discuss constitutional reforms, but though

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3616-675: The Italian and Swiss expedition ,—he inflicted a series of defeats on the French; in particular, the Battle of the Trebbia in 1799. Nicholas II Nicholas II, also known as Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, was the final Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland, and Grand duke of Finland. His reign started on 1 November 1894 and ended with his abdication on 15 March 1917. Born on 18 May 1868 at Alexander Palace , Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire, he

3729-553: The November Uprising in 1830 and the January Uprising in 1863. In 1863, the Russian autocracy had given the Polish artisans and gentry reason to rebel, by assailing national core values of language, religion, and culture. France , Britain , and Austria tried to intervene in the crisis but were unable to do so. The Russian press and state propaganda used the Polish uprising to justify the need for unity in

3842-493: The Ottoman Empire . The foundations of a Russian national state were laid in the late 15th century during the reign of Ivan III . By the early 16th century, all of the semi-independent and petty princedoms in Russia had been unified with Moscow. During the reign of Ivan IV , the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan were conquered by Russia in the mid-16th century, leading to the development of an increasingly multinational state. Much of Russia's expansion occurred in

3955-601: The Ottoman Empire . His attention then turned to the north. Russia lacked a secure northern seaport, except at Arkhangelsk on the White Sea , where the harbor was frozen for nine months a year. Access to the Baltic Sea was blocked by Sweden, whose territory enclosed it on three sides. Peter's ambitions for a "window to the sea" led him, in 1699, to make a secret alliance with Saxony , the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , and Denmark-Norway against Sweden ; they conducted

4068-473: The Partitions of Poland , Russia became the most populous state in Europe, ahead of France . The foundations of the Russian Empire were laid during Peter I 's reforms , which significantly altered Russia's political and social structure, and as a result of the Great Northern War which strengthened Russia's standing on the world stage. Internal transformations and military victories contributed to

4181-783: The Russian Provisional Government , and the proclamation of the first Russian Republic . Political dysfunction, continued involvement in the widely unpopular war, and widespread food shortages resulted in mass demonstrations against the government in July . The republic was overthrown in the October Revolution by the Bolsheviks , who proclaimed the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and whose Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended Russia's involvement in

4294-637: The Russian Revolution while in St. Petersburg . What he saw, had a profound effect on his works, many of which display themes of the horrors of the Civil War he witnessed. Among the many Polish victims of the revolution was the father of Polish eminent composer Witold Lutosławski , Marian Lutosławski and his brother Józef , murdered in Moscow in 1918 as alleged "counter-revolutionaries". There were also some Poles (or those of partial Polish descent) associated with

4407-606: The Russian nobility that began after the death of Peter the Great, abolishing State service and granting them control of most state functions in the provinces. She also removed the Beard tax instituted by Peter the Great. Catherine extended Russian political control over the lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , supporting the Targowica Confederation . However, the cost of these campaigns further burdened

4520-413: The Russo-Persian War (1804–1813) , they clashed with Persia over control and consolidation of Georgia, and also became involved in the Caucasian War against the Caucasian Imamate . At the conclusion of the war, Persia irrevocably ceded what is now Dagestan , eastern Georgia, and most of Azerbaijan to Russia, under the Treaty of Gulistan . Russia attempted to expand to the southwest, at the expense of

4633-466: The Soviet invasion of Poland the Soviet Union occupied vast areas of eastern Poland (referred to in Poland as Kresy wschodnie or "eastern Borderlands"), and another 5.2–6.5 million ethnic Poles (from the total population of about 13.5 million residents of these territories) were added, followed by further large-scale forcible deportations to Siberia, Kazakhstan and other remote areas of the Soviet Union. The number of Poland's citizens held captive in

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4746-402: The State Duma , although he still retained absolute political power. When Russia entered the First World War on the side of the Allies , it suffered a series of defeats that further galvanized the population against the emperor. In 1917, mass unrest among the population and mutinies in the army culminated in the February Revolution , which led to the abdication of Nicholas II, the formation of

4859-424: The collectivism of the medieval Russian obshchina or mir over the individualism of the West. More extreme social doctrines were elaborated by such Russian radicals on the left, such as Alexander Herzen , Mikhail Bakunin , and Peter Kropotkin . After Russian armies liberated the Eastern Georgian Kingdom (allied since the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk ) from the Qajar dynasty 's occupation of 1802, during

4972-405: The collectivization of agriculture under Joseph Stalin , both autonomies were abolished and their populations were subsequently deported to Kazakhstan in 1934–1938. In 1936 the Poles were deported from the territories of Belarus and Ukraine adjacent to the state border (the first recorded deportation of a whole ethnic group in the USSR). Tens of thousands of ethnic Poles became victims of

5085-430: The liberalism of Western Europe encouraged them to seek change on their return to autocratic Russia . The result was the Decembrist revolt (December 1825), which was the work of a small circle of liberal nobles and army officers who wanted to install Nicholas' brother Constantine as a constitutional monarch. The revolt was easily crushed, but it caused Nicholas to turn away from the modernization program begun by Peter

5198-462: The 17th century, culminating in the first Russian colonization of the Pacific , the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667) which led to the incorporation of left-bank Ukraine , and the Russian conquest of Siberia . Poland was partitioned by its rivals in 1772–1815;most of its land and population being taken under Russian rule. Most of the empire's growth in the 19th century came from gaining territory in central and eastern Asia south of Siberia. By 1795, after

5311-403: The 1939–1941 occupation: After World War II most Poles from Kresy were expelled into Poland , but officially 1.3 million stayed in the USSR. Some of them were motivated by the traditional Polish belief that one day they would become again lawful owners of the land they lived on. Some of them were kept forcefully in. Some simply stayed, without force or ideological reasons. Wanda Wasilewska

5424-413: The 19th century, the Russian Empire dominated its territorial extent, covering a surface area of 22,800,000 km , making it become the world's third-largest empire. Julian Marchlewski Julian Baltazar Józef Marchlewski (17 May 1866 – 22 March 1925) was a Polish communist politician, revolutionary activist and publicist who served as chairman of the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee . He

5537-420: The Austrians nor the Poles recognsied the soviet regime, and instead stayed in Russia organising Polish communists. In January 1919, he returned to Berlin illegally, after being refused entry at the German border, to help found the German Communist Party, and was dispatched to the Ruhr. After Liebknecht and Luxemburg had been murdered, in Berlin, he noticed that police were trailing him, and in disguise he joined

5650-684: The Great Northern War, served as the state's capital. This concept of the triune Russian people, composed of the Great Russians , the Little Russians , and the White Russians , was introduced during the reign of Peter I, and it was associated with the name of Archimandrite Zacharias Kopystensky (1621), the Archimandrite of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and expanded upon in the writings of an associate of Peter I, Archbishop Professor Theophan Prokopovich . Several of Peter I's associates are well-known, including François Le Fort , Boris Sheremetev , Alexander Menshikov , Jacob Bruce , Mikhail Golitsyn , Anikita Repnin , and Alexey Kelin. During Peter's reign,

5763-445: The Great and champion the doctrine of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality . In order to repress further revolts, censorship was intensified, including the constant surveillance of schools and universities. Textbooks were strictly regulated by the government. Police spies were planted everywhere. Under Nicholas I, would-be revolutionaries were sent off to Siberia, with hundreds of thousands sent to katorga camps. The retaliation for

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5876-511: The Ottoman Empire . This resulted in a significant weakening of the Crimean Khanate , an Ottoman vassal and long-term Russian adversary. The discontent over the dominant positions of Baltic Germans in Russian politics resulted in Peter I's daughter Elizabeth being put on the Russian throne. Elizabeth supported the arts, architecture, and the sciences (for example, the founding of Moscow University ). But she did not carry out significant structural reforms. Her reign, which lasted nearly 20 years,

5989-406: The Ottoman Empire, respectively. As a result, Pan-Slavists were left with a legacy of bitterness against Austria-Hungary and Germany for failing to back Russia. Disappointment at the results of the war stimulated revolutionary tensions, and helped Serbia, Romania , and Montenegro gain independence from, and strengthen themselves against, the Ottomans. Another significant result of the war

6102-453: The Ottoman Empire, using recently acquired Georgia at its base for its Caucasus and Anatolian front. The late 1820s were successful years militarily. Despite losing almost all recently consolidated territories in the first year of the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828 , Russia managed to favorably bring an end to the war with the Treaty of Turkmenchay , including the formal acquisition of what are now Armenia , Azerbaijan, and Iğdır Province . In

6215-430: The Ottomans to sign the Treaty of San Stefano in March 1878, creating an enlarged, independent Bulgaria that stretched into the southwestern Balkans. When Britain threatened to declare war over the terms of the treaty, an exhausted Russia backed down. At the Congress of Berlin in July 1878, Russia agreed to the creation of a smaller Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia , as a vassal state and an autonomous principality inside

6328-490: The Poles were en masse opposed to communist ideology, seeing it as hostile to Polish identity and their predominant Roman Catholic religion. The policy of religious discrimination, plunder and terror further strengthened Polish resistance to Soviet rule. As a result, the Soviet authorities started to imprison and forcefully remove all those seen as an obstacle to their policies. Two Polish Autonomous Districts were created, with one in Belarus and one in Ukraine . The first one

6441-399: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Partitions of Poland , alongside Austria and Prussia . As part of the Treaty of Georgievsk , signed with the Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti , and her own political aspirations, Catherine waged a new war against Persia in 1796 after they had invaded eastern Georgia . Upon achieving victory, she established Russian rule over it and expelled

6554-434: The Russian capital from Moscow to the new model city of Saint Petersburg , which marked the birth of the imperial era, and led a cultural revolution that introduced a modern, scientific, rationalist, and Western-oriented system. Catherine the Great ( r.  1762–1796 ) presided over further expansion of the Russian state by conquest, colonization , and diplomacy, while continuing Peter's policy of modernization towards

6667-418: The Russian state grew by an average of 35,000 km (14,000 sq mi) per year. Major events during this period include the transition from the Rurik to the Romanov dynasties, the conquest of Siberia , and the reign of Peter the Great ( r.  1682–1725 ). Peter transformed the tsardom into an empire, and fought numerous wars that turned a vast realm into a major European power. He moved

6780-422: The Senate that its mission was to collect taxes, and tax revenues tripled over the course of his reign. Meanwhile, all vestiges of local self-government were removed. Peter continued and intensified his predecessors' requirement of state service from all nobles, in the Table of Ranks . As part of Peter's reorganization, he also enacted a church reform . The Russian Orthodox Church was partially incorporated into

6893-479: The Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP) (later renamed the SDPKiL after a merger with a small Lithuanian Marxist party led by Felix Dzerzhinsky ). In 1896, he received a doctorate from Zurich University, after which he settled in Dresden , in Germany, where he and Alexander Parvus launched a newspaper, Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung , which they edited until they were both expelled from Saxony, in September 1898. They moved to Munich , where they ran

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7006-480: The Soviet Union is a matter of dispute, and ranges from over 300,000 up to nearly 2 million, according to various sources. On March 30, 2004, the head of the Archival Service of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service , General Vasili Khristoforov gave alleged exact numbers of deported Poles. According to him, in 1940 exactly 297,280 Poles were deported, in June 1941 another 40,000. These numbers do not include POWs , prisoners, small groups, people arrested trying to cross

7119-611: The USSR were finalized by the Peace of Riga in 1921 at the end of the Polish-Soviet War , which left significant territories populated by Poles near or within the confines of the Soviet Union. According to the 1926 Soviet census, there were a total of 782,334 Poles in the USSR. The largest concentration of Poles was in what was then Soviet Ukraine , where according to the Soviet census in 1926 476,435 Poles lived. Those estimates are considered to have been lowered by Soviet officials. Church and independent estimates show estimates of 650,000 to 700,000 Poles living in that area. This suggests that

7232-438: The already oppressive social system, under which serfs were required to spend almost all of their time laboring on their owners' land. A major peasant uprising took place in 1773, after Catherine legalized the selling of serfs separate from land. Inspired by a Cossack named Yemelyan Pugachev and proclaiming "Hang all the landlords!", the rebels threatened to take Moscow before they were ruthlessly suppressed. Instead of imposing

7345-410: The building of the Trans-Siberian Railway , 1890 to 1904. This opened up East Asia ; and Russian interests focused on Mongolia, Manchuria , and Korea . China was too weak to resist, and was pulled increasingly into the Russian sphere. Russia obtained treaty ports such as Dalian / Port Arthur . In 1900, the Russian Empire invaded Manchuria as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance 's intervention against

7458-451: The communist movement. Famous revolutionaries include Konstantin Rokossovsky , Vyacheslav Menzhinsky , Julian Marchlewski , Stanislaw Kosior , Karol Świerczewski and Felix Dzerzhinsky , founder of the Cheka secret police which would later turn into the NKVD . The Soviet Union also organized Polish units in the Red Army and a Polish Communist government-in-exile, however the former were persecuted and subject to mock trials following

7571-418: The country's administrative structure, in effect making it a tool of the state. Peter abolished the patriarchate and replaced it with a collective body, the Most Holy Synod , which was led by a government official . Peter died in 1725, leaving an unsettled succession. After a short reign by his widow, Catherine I , the crown passed to Empress Anna . She slowed the reforms and led a successful war against

7684-449: The death of Peter were returned in the 1732 Treaty of Resht and 1735 Treaty of Ganja as a deal to oppose the Ottomans. Peter reorganized his government based on the latest political models of the time, molding Russia into an absolutist state. He replaced the old Boyar Duma (council of nobles) with a nine-member Senate , in effect a supreme council of state. The countryside was divided into new provinces and districts . Peter told

7797-400: The editorial office, with himself, Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring as the regular contributors. On the outbreak of war in 1914, he joined the small anti-war group within the SDP, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht , originally known as Gruppe Internationale , later as Spartakusbund , the forerunner of the German Communist Party . Marchlewski was arrested in January 1916, and was in

7910-416: The empire entered the 20th century in a perilous state. A devastating famine in 1891–1892 killed hundreds of thousands and led to popular discontent. As the last remaining absolute monarchy in Europe, the empire saw rapid political radicalization and the growing popularity of revolutionary ideas such as communism . After the 1905 revolution , Nicholas II authorized the creation of a national parliament,

8023-414: The empire. The semi-autonomous polity of Congress Poland subsequently lost its distinctive political and judicial rights, with Russification being imposed on its schools and courts. However, Russification policies in Poland, Finland and among the Germans in the Baltics largely failed and only strengthened political opposition. In 1854–1855, Russia fought Britain , France and the Ottoman Empire in

8136-429: The end his dynasty was overthrown by the Russian Revolution . The Industrial Revolution began to show significant influence in Russia, but the country remained rural and poor. Economic conditions steadily improved after 1890, thanks to new crops such as sugar beets, and new access to railway transportation. Total grain production increased, as well as exports, even with rising domestic demand from population growth. As

8249-630: The end of the Second World War and the latter being appointed and installed by the Soviet regime as opposed to the legitimate government-in-exile based in London . Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee was created in 1920 but failed to control Poland. Polish communities were inherited from Imperial Russia after the creation of the Soviet Union. After World War I , Poland reestablished itself as an independent country, and its borders with

8362-504: The expense of the serfs and other lower classes. Nevertheless, Catherine realized that serfdom must eventually be ended, going so far in her Nakaz ("Instruction") to say that serfs were "just as good as we are" – a comment received with disgust by the nobility. Catherine advanced Russia's southern and western frontiers, successfully waging war against the Ottoman Empire for territory near the Black Sea , and incorporating territories of

8475-571: The government and other major buildings were designed under Italianate influence. In 1722, he turned his aspirations toward increasing Russian influence in the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea at the expense of the weakened Safavid Persians . He made Astrakhan the base of military efforts against Persia, and waged the first full-scale war against them in 1722–23 . Peter the Great temporarily annexed several areas of Iran to Russia, which after

8588-553: The implicit threat to India ; and decades of diplomatic maneuvering resulted, called the Great Game . That rivalry between the two empires has been considered to have included far-flung territories such as Outer Mongolia and Tibet . The maneuvering largely ended with the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Expansion into the vast stretches of Siberia was slow and expensive, but finally became possible with

8701-598: The military, 20 percent to government economic activities, 12 percent to administration, and nine percent for the Imperial Court in St. Petersburg. The deficit required borrowing, primarily from bankers in Amsterdam ; five percent of the budget was allocated to debt payments. Paper money was issued to pay for expensive wars, thus causing inflation. As a result of its spending, Russia developed a large and well-equipped army,

8814-803: The new borders, people who voluntarily moved into the USSR, and men drafted into the Red Army and into construction battalions or stroybats . In August 1941, following the German attack on the USSR and the dramatic change in Soviet/Polish relations, according to a January 15, 1943, note from Beria to Stalin, 389,041 Polish citizens (including 200,828 ethnic Poles, 90,662 Jews, 31,392 Ukrainians, 27,418 Belarusians, 3,421 Russians, and 2,291 persons of other nationalities) held in special settlements and prisoner of war camps were granted 'amnesty' and allowed to enroll in Polish army units. The location of reception centres

8927-736: The new parliament (the Duma). He signed the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 to counter Germany's influence in the Middle East, ending the Great Game between Russia and the British Empire . However, his reign was marked by criticism for the government's suppression of political dissent and perceived failures or inaction during events like the Khodynka Tragedy , anti-Jewish pogroms, Bloody Sunday (1905) , and

9040-481: The newly established Persian garrisons in the Caucasus. Catherine's expansionist policy caused Russia to develop into a major European power, as did the Enlightenment era and the Golden age in Russia. But after Catherine died in 1796, she was succeeded by her son, Paul . He brought Russia into a major coalition war against the new-revolutionary French Republic in 1798. Russian commander Field Marshal Suvorov led

9153-401: The obligation of the nobility to serve was reinforced, and serf labor played a significant role in the growth of the industry, reinforcing traditional socioeconomic structures. The volume of the country's international trade turnover increased as a result of Peter I's industrial reforms. However, imports of goods overtook exports, strengthening the role of foreigners in Russian trade, particularly

9266-446: The press, as well as dislike democracy, constitutions, and the parliamentary system. Under Pobedonostsev, revolutionaries were persecuted—by the imperial secret police , with thousands being exiled to Siberia —and a policy of Russification was carried out throughout the empire. Russia had little difficulty expanding to the south, including conquering Turkestan , until Britain became alarmed when Russia threatened Afghanistan , with

9379-548: The proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about 22,800,000 km (8,800,000 sq mi), roughly one-sixth of the world's landmass, making it the third-largest empire in history , behind only the British and Mongol empires. It also colonized North America between 1799 and 1867. The empire's 1897 census, the only one it conducted, found

9492-568: The redrawing of the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna (1815), which ultimately made Alexander the monarch of Congress Poland . The " Holy Alliance " was proclaimed, linking the monarchist great powers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Although the Russian Empire played a leading political role in the next century, thanks to its role in defeating Napoleonic France, its retention of serfdom precluded economic progress to any significant degree. As Western European economic growth accelerated during

9605-488: The revolt made "December Fourteenth" a day long remembered by later revolutionary movements. The question of Russia's direction had been gaining attention ever since Peter the Great's program of modernization. Some favored imitating Western Europe while others were against this and called for a return to the traditions of the past. The latter path was advocated by Slavophiles , who held the "decadent" West in contempt. The Slavophiles were opponents of bureaucracy, who preferred

9718-461: The serfs, was the single most important event in 19th-century Russian history, and the beginning of the end of the landed aristocracy's monopoly on power. The 1860s saw further socioeconomic reforms to clarify the position of the Russian government with regard to property rights. Emancipation brought a supply of free labor to the cities, stimulating industry, while the middle class grew in number and influence. However, instead of receiving their lands as

9831-485: The start of the 19th century, Russian territory extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, and from the Baltic Sea in the west to Alaska, Hawaii, and California in the east. By the end of the 19th century, Russia had expanded its control over the Caucasus , most of Central Asia and parts of Northeast Asia . Notwithstanding its extensive territorial gains and great power status,

9944-552: The state for the rest of their lives. He also introduced the Table of Ranks and equated the votchina with an estate . Russia's modern fleet was built by Peter the Great, along with an army that was reformed in the manner of European style and educational institutions (the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences ). Civil lettering was adopted during Peter I's reign, and the first Russian newspaper, Vedomosti ,

10057-422: The throne in 1855, the desire for reform was widespread. A growing humanitarian movement attacked serfdom as inefficient. In 1859, there were more than 23 million serfs in usually poor living conditions. Alexander II decided to abolish serfdom from above, with ample provision for the landowners, rather than wait for it to be abolished from below by revolution. The Emancipation Reform of 1861 , which freed

10170-529: The total Polish population of the USSR was in excess of 1,000,000. Initially the Soviets pursued a policy where the local national language was used as a tool for eradication of national identity in favour of "communist education of masses". In the case of the Poles this meant a goal of Sovietisation of the Polish population. However this proved extremely difficult as the Soviet communists themselves realised that

10283-489: The traditional punishment of drawing and quartering, Catherine issued secret instructions that the executioners should execute death sentences quickly and with minimal suffering, as part of her effort to introduce compassion into the law. She furthered these efforts by ordering the public trial of Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova , a high-ranking noblewoman, on charges of torturing and murdering serfs. Whilst these gestures garnered Catherine much positive attention from Europe during

10396-552: The transformation of Russia into a great power, playing a major role in European politics. On 2 November [ O.S. 22 October] 1721, the day of the announcement of the Treaty of Nystad, the Governing Senate and Synod invested the tsar with the titles of Peter the Great, Pater Patriae (father of the fatherland), and Imperator of all Russia . The adoption of the title of imperator by Peter I

10509-449: The various holdings. Although serfdom was abolished, its abolition was achieved on terms unfavorable to peasants; thus, revolutionary tensions remained. Revolutionaries believed that the newly freed serfs were merely being sold into wage slavery in the onset of the industrial revolution, and that the urban bourgeoisie had effectively replaced the landowners. Seeking more territories, Russia obtained Priamurye ( Russian Manchuria ) from

10622-733: The violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution. The Russo-Japanese War , which resulted in the destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima , further eroded his popularity. By March 1917, public support for Nicholas II had dwindled, leading to his forced abdication and the end of the 304-year rule of the Romanov (dynasty) in Russia (1613–1917). Nicholas II was deeply devoted to his wife, Alexandra, whom he married on 26 November 1894. They had five children: Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Tsesarevich Alexei. The Russian Imperial Romanov family

10735-587: The war, but who nevertheless were opposed by various factions known collectively as the Whites . During the resulting Russian Civil War , the Bolsheviks conducted the Red Terror . After emerging victorious, they established the Soviet Union across most of the Russian territory; it would be one of four continental empires to collapse as a result of World War I , along with Germany , Austria–Hungary , and

10848-699: The weakened Manchu-ruled Qing China , which was occupied fighting against the Taiping Rebellion . In 1858, the Treaty of Aigun ceded much of the Manchu Homeland, and in 1860, the Treaty of Peking ceded the modern Primorsky Krai , also founded the outpost of future Vladivostok . Meanwhile, Russia decided to sell the indefensible Russian America to the United States for 11 million rubles (7.2 million dollars) in 1867. Initially, many Americans considered this newly gained territory to be

10961-433: The youth was indoctrinated towards hatred against the Polish state, all contacts with relatives within Poland were dangerous and could result in imprisonment. Newspapers printed out in the Polish language were de facto used to print anti-Polish propaganda. Following attacks on the Polish minority, from 18 February 1930 till 19 March 1930 over 100,000 people from Polish areas were expelled by the Soviet authorities. Following

11074-490: Was also known under the aliases Karski and Kujawiak . Julian Marchlewski was born in Włocławek , which was then under Russian rule, to a Polish Catholic father and a German Protestant mother, both of whom were of noble origin. There was no tradition of political dissent in his family. As a student in Warsaw he joined a Marxist group called The Proletariat . After completing high education in 1885, he sought employment as

11187-466: Was an absolute monarch titled the tsar . The groundwork of the Russian Empire was laid by Ivan III ( r.  1462–1505 ), who greatly expanded his domain, established a centralized Russian national state , and secured independence against the Tatars . His grandson, Ivan IV ( r.  1533–1584 ), became in 1547 the first Russian monarch to be crowned " tsar of all Russia ". Between 1550 and 1700,

11300-496: Was an exceptional case – she became a Soviet citizen and did not return after the war. The Polish minority was one of the few whose numbers decreased over time, according to official statistics. There was also the repatriation of Poles (1955–1959) . After 1989, Poles who survived in Kazakhstan started to emigrate due to national tensions, mainly to Russia and, supported by an immigration society, to Poland. The number remaining

11413-486: Was assassinated by the Narodnaya Volya , a Nihilist terrorist organization . The throne passed to Alexander III (1881–1894), a reactionary who revived the maxim of "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality" of Nicholas I. A committed Slavophile, Alexander III believed that Russia could be saved from turmoil only by shutting itself off from the subversive influences of Western Europe. During his reign, Russia formed

11526-427: Was catastrophic for France, whose army was decimated during the Russian winter . Although Napoleon's Grande Armée reached Moscow, the Russians' scorched earth strategy prevented the invaders from living off the country. In the harsh and bitter winter, thousands of French troops were ambushed and killed by peasant guerrilla fighters. Russian troops then pursued Napoleon's troops to the gates of Paris, presiding over

11639-402: Was close to that of slaves , remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter converted household kholops into house serfs , thus counting them for poll taxation. Russian agricultural kholops had been formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679. They were largely tied to the land, in a feudal sense, until the late 19th century. Peter's first military efforts were directed against

11752-620: Was executed by who were believed to be drunken Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky, as ordered by the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918. This marked the end of the Russian Empire and Imperial Russia. Russia was in a continuous state of financial crisis. While revenue rose from 9 million rubles in 1724 to 40 million in 1794, expenses grew more rapidly, reaching 49 million in 1794. The budget allocated 46 percent to

11865-703: Was in a state of war with the French Republic under the leadership of the Corsica -born First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte . After he became the emperor , Napoleon defeated Russia at Austerlitz in 1805, Eylau and Friedland in 1807. After Alexander was defeated in Friedland, he agreed to negotiate and sued for peace with France; the Treaties of Tilsit led to the Franco-Russian alliance against

11978-583: Was informally partitioned by the Anglo-Russian Convention in 1907, Britain, France, and Russia came increasingly close together in opposition to Germany and Austria-Hungary. The three would later comprise the Triple Entente alliance in the First World War . In 1894, Alexander III was succeeded by his son, Nicholas II , who was committed to retaining the autocracy that his father had left him. Nicholas II proved as an ineffective ruler, and in

12091-636: Was kept secret and no travel facilities provided. Nevertheless, 119,855 Poles were evacuated to Iran with General Anders' army , which subsequently fought alongside the Allies in Iran and Italy; 36,150 were transferred to the Polish Army which fought with the Red Army on the Eastern Front and 11,516 are reported to have died in 1941–1943. The following are cases of direct executions of Poles during

12204-571: Was named Dzierzynszczyzna , after Felix Dzierżyński ; the second was named Marchlewszczyzna after Julian Marchlewski . Following the failure of the Sovietisation of the USSR's Polish minority, the Soviet rulers decided to portray Poles as enemies of the state and use them to fuel Ukrainian nationalism in order to direct Ukrainian anger away from the Soviet government. After 1928 Soviet policies turned to outright eradication of Polish national identity. Special centers were established where

12317-496: Was published. Peter I promoted the advancement of science, particularly geography and geology , trade, and industry, including shipbuilding, as well as the growth of the Russian educational system. Every tenth Russian acquired an education during Peter I's reign, when there were 15 million people in the country. The city of Saint Petersburg , which was built in 1703 on territory along the Baltic coast that had been conquered during

12430-564: Was sent on a long diplomatic mission to China. He returned in June 1922. He was the first rector of the Communist University of the National Minorities of the West . As an economist, he was an expert in agriculture and took part in the preparation of the Bolshevik program with respect to the peasantry. He also wrote scientific and ideological works on history and culture. He died near Nervi , Italy in 1925 during

12543-794: Was split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks , and to align with Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Late in 1906, he was arrested, but the police could not establish who he was, and he was released early in 1907. In May 1907, he part of the SDPKiL delegation at the London Congress of the RSDLP, and was elected an alternate member of the Central Committee. After the failure of the 1905 revolution, Marchlewski returned to Germany, where he lived semi-illegally for nine years. His partnership with Parvus as it emerged that Parvus's management had bankrupted their publishing venture. He worked as

12656-701: Was the acquisition from the Ottomans of the provinces of Batumi , Ardahan , and Kars in Transcaucasia , which were transformed into the militarily administered regions of Batum Oblast and Kars Oblast . To replace Muslim refugees who had fled across the new frontier into Ottoman territory, the Russian authorities settled large numbers of Christians from ethnically diverse communities in Kars Oblast, particularly Georgians , Caucasus Greeks , and Armenians , each of whom hoped to achieve protection and advance their own regional ambitions. In 1881, Alexander II

12769-433: Was the eldest son and successor of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (later known as Alexander III of Russia ) and his wife Maria Fyodorovna (formerly Dagmar of Denmark ). During his rule, Nicholas II supported the economic and political reforms proposed by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin . He favored modernization through foreign loans and strong ties with France, but was reluctant to give significant roles to

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