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Nikolai Aleksandrovich Rozhkov (1868-1927): Historian and Revolutionary

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Nikolai Aleksandrovich Rozhkov (1868-1927): Historian and Revolutionary University of Wollongong Thesis Collections University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Year Nikolai Aleksandrovich Rozhkov (1868-1927): historian and revolutionary John Antonio Gonzalez Rondan University of Wollongong Rondan, John Antonio Gonzalez, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Rozhkov (1868-1927): histo- rian and revolutionary, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Department of History and Politics, University of Wollongong, 1996. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/1436 This paper is posted at Research Online. Chapter Seven Rozhkov 1905-1927: Menshevik and Historian •CTTapter Seven: Rozhkov 1905-1927 page 300 Rozhkov applied his theoretical ideas not only to Russia's history but also to the contemporary political situation in which he found himself. From his student days, Rozhkov involved himself in socialist politics and the 1905 Revolution filled him with hope that Russia was about to enter the modern era. The defeat of the 1905 Revolution caused Rozhkov to ponder more deeply the implications of his historical research for Russia's political development. It was Rozhkov's positivist view of history that led him first to join the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (R.S.D.L.P.) and to leave this faction for its Menshevik rival. In his last major historical works, Rozhkov attempted to demonstrate how his Menshevik political views were consistent with his positivist interpretation of history. Rozhkov's conclusions would shape his destiny and are the subject of this chapter. Rozhkov's historical writing and political activism exercised a significant influence upon each other. It was not until about 1905 that he began to incorporate Marxist ideas into his historical writing. When Rozhkov made the decision to join a political party he threw in his lot with the Bolshevik faction of the R.S.D.L.P. In 1903, the party had split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions as much because a leadership battle between Lenin and Martov as any differences in policy. By 1905, Lenin offered an analysis of the political situation in Russia along the lines that the Russian bourgeoisie were CTTwpter Seven: Rozhkov 1905-1927 page 301 too weak and conservative to challenge autocratic government. The working class, therefore, would have to exert pressure on the bourgeoisie to force the latter to take a more radical stance against Tsarism and in this way facilitate the development of capitalism. In 1905, Lenin did not have in mind a socialist government in Russia but rather a government in which workers played a role during the bourgeois revolution while, at the same time, beginning the preparations for the future political advancements of the workers. It is not difficult to see why Rozhkov was attracted to Lenin's analysis of the Russian political scene up until 1905. Rozhkov welcomed the 1905 revolution as the democratic revolution that would pull Russia into its capitalist phase of development, in turn paving the way for socialism. Rozhkov recalled how a literary-propagandist group, which was in fact an extension of the intellectual circle formed round Pravda, emerged in the summer of 1905. Besides Rozhkov and Skvortsov-Stepanov, the group consisted of Pokrovskii, V.M. Friche, P.G. Dauge, S.I. Mitskevich, M.G. Lunts, V.la. Kanel', L.M. Mikhailov, P.N. Maliantovich, B.A. Zhdanov, S.la. Tseitlin, K.N. Levin, I.G. Naumov and others. Rozhkov joined the Bolshevik faction as a direct result of his involvement with the literary-propagandist group. 1 He believed that his experience with the group 1 N.A. Rozhkov and A. Sokolov, O 1905 gode: vospominaniia (Moscow: Moskovskii Rabochii, 1925), p. 15. •vTTTopter Seven: Rozhkov 1905-1927 page 302 brought him even closer to the practical problems of politics. Rozhkov recalled that his decision to join the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party came seven years after Struve had warned of the weakness of the bourgeoisie in Russia and at a time when he himself had reached the "conviction that the revolutionary character of the Russian liberal bourgeoisie could not be counted upon".2 Rozhkov accepted the Bolshevik position of this period that the democratic revolution would have to be led by the workers and that there would have to be working-class participation in any revolutionary government that emerged during 1905. At about the same time that Rozhkov joined the Bolshevik Party, all conferences organised by the Pedagogical Society were halted by government decree. The Board of Administration of the History Department together with the Board of Administration of the Society of Russian Technical and Rural Economy [Obshchestvo Russkogo Tekhnicheskogo i Sel'skogo Khoziaistva], "which shared the same fate", drafted a formal protest as a result of which Rozhkov was arrested for "a short period of time".3 On release, Rozhkov continued to educate and lecture in private houses, discussing, he claimed, "contemporary problems from a Social Democratic point Rozhkov, Avtobiografiia, in "Pamiati N.A. Rozhkova", Katorga i Ssylka, No. 3, 1927, p. 163. See also: R. Pipes, Struve: Liberal On the Left 1870-1905 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 121-143. Rozhkov, Avtobiografiia, p. 163. w.apter Seven: Rozhkov 1905-1927 page 303 of view".4 In 1905 and 1906 Rozhkov was an active member of the Moscow Bolshevik Committee and it was at his instigation that, in the autumn of 1905, in accordance with a decision of the Moscow Committee, a general meeting of Moscow University students voted that the university should "open its doors" for the purpose of "public political meetings".5 During the months of September and October 1905, Rozhkov was very active organising rallies and meetings for the Moscow Committee. Rozhkov recalled that in 1905 there were so many meetings during this time that he found it impossible to give details of any one in particular. He did however remember the ludicrous picture of a policeman standing at the entrance of Moscow University, the venue for many political rallies, opening the doors for those attending the meetings and helping socialist revolutionaries and social democrats find their way around the campus.6 Rozhkov's organisational skills and his ability as a speaker took him all over Moscow, as well as to other cities, including laroslav, Tver, Tula, Riazan, Serpukhov, Torzhok, Vladimir and Shuia. He lectured workers not only on political theory but also on matters relating to the political organisation of workers. His extraordinary ability in the field of political journalism made him an 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Rozhkov, O 1905 gode, p. 20. zjter Seven: Rozhkov 1905-1927 page 304 invaluable member of both the literary group and the Moscow committee. In autumn 1905, Rozhkov journeyed briefly to St. Petersburg where he assisted in the setting up of the first legal Bolshevik newspaper Novaia Zhizn'.'^ Returning to Moscow, Rozhkov then played a key role in founding a Bolshevik newspaper there. The decision to establish a Bolshevik newspaper in Moscow was approved at a meeting of the Party Central Committee held in A.M. Peshkov's (Gorky's) apartment at the end of November.8 On the 27 November, the weekly newspaper Bor'ba appeared. It was financed by the publisher S.A. Skirmunt who was so convinced that the revolution was near that, according to Rozhkov, he only took out a two- year deed of purchase on the newspaper. The editorial board consisted of Rozhkov, Skvortsov-Stepanov, Pokrovskii, Lunacharskii, Bogdanov, V. Bazarov, V. Friche, M.A. Sil'vin, M. Ol'minskii, P. Maslov and others.9 Rozhkov attended the conference of the Moscow Bolsheviks on the 5 December. He supported the call for a strike and an armed insurrection. The Moscow uprising was bloodily defeated and along with the earlier Twenty eight issues of Novaia Zhizn' appeared between 27 October- 9 November to 3-16 December, 1905. Its official editor was the poet N.M. Minskii and the publisher was the actress and Bolshevik M.F. Andreeva. See also: N.K. Krupskaya, Reminiscences of Lenin (New York: International Publishers, 1960), p. 135. J.D. White, M.N. Pokrovsky and the Origins of Soviet Historiography (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1971), p. 82. As White pointed out in his doctoral thesis, the members of the editorial board are listed on each front page of Bor'ba. ter Seven: Rozhkov 1905-1927 page 305 suppression of the St. Petersburg Soviet signalled the fact that the Tsarist state had regained control of the situation. Rozhkov survived the brutal suppression of the Moscow insurrection. Like so many other political activists, Rozhkov had to confront the decline in revolutionary fortunes. The guarantees of civil rights and freedoms given under the October Manifesto were short-lived as radical newspapers were suppressed, many political meetings and mass rallies were dispersed and political leaders were savagely persecuted with a large number of them being sentenced to death, shot or hanged without trial or investigation.10 Rozhkov subsequently wrote: "We, the members of the Bolshevik literary-propagandist group, did not at all fall into despair immediately after the December defeat".11 For the present, Rozhkov remained free, undertaking to compile and edit a collection of articles dedicated to the idea of boycotting the Duma elections. This collection of articles was published at the end of January 1906 under the general title of Tekushchii Moment. Rozhkov claimed that the 10,000 copies sold were evidence of the success of the boycott campaign. In fact, this was to be his last major literary work on behalf of the Bolsheviks. From 1907, reflections upon I 0 D. Christian, Power and Privilege (Melbourne: Pitman Publishing Pty. Ltd., 1986), pp. 113-114. See also: S. Harcave, First Blood: The Russian Revolution of 1905 (London: Bodley Head, 1965) and L.
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