Decembrist Revolt

The Decembrists Revolt happened in St. Petersburg on December 14, 1825.  This revolt was led by army officers with around 3,000 people with them.  It is not for sure, but many believe that this group that revolted was formed during the reign of Alexander I (The Blessed).  However, the real question is not when this group was formed but why?

            This group truly formed while they were pursuing Napoleon in Western Europe.  While pursuing Napoleon they say what Europe had to offer, and I don’t mean seeing the sights.  I mean they learned about human rights, representative governments, and about democracy.  When these people returned from Europe they brought back with them seeds of revolution.

            Now this group did not just come right out when they got back to Russia and say, “it’s time to revolt.”  This actually took a great amount of time to develop.  The idea of revolution started to grow when Alexander went ahead and gave Poland, a country the Russia really did not like, a constitution.  This was a real blow to these people because Russia did not even have its own constitution.  This was one of the problems that started this revolt.

            However, this was not the only thing that started this revolt.  The next thing that made these people revolt was the crowning of the next Tsar, Nicholas I.  This was a major problem because when Alexander died in 1825 he did not have a direct heir to his throne.  So according to the house law, which are rules that govern a dynastic family matters of the order of succession, said that Alexander’s brother Constantine Pavlovich should become the new Tsar.  However, Constantine did not take the crown and gave it to his younger brother Nicholas.  The other problem with the appointment of Nicholas was that before Alexander died he signed a document that said that Nicholas could not take the crown after Alexander died.  However, not many people knew of this document before Nicholas took the crown.  So as you could guess this did not go over very well with many living in Russia.

            Now this is where things get really interesting.  Many people did not want Nicholas as their Tsar and really wanted Constantine to be their Tsar.  There were also problems with Alexander’s document that prevented Nicholas from taking the crown.  There were problems because they really did not know how legal this document actually was.

            The next thing that brought on this revolt was that the rebels were now active in a new liberal movement coming out of Europe.  Bottom-line these rebels wanted Russia to be a free state with a government and a constitution instead of a Tsar.  So in actuality this group wanted a government similar to the United States government.  Nicholas did not like these ideas and would not listen to them.  He also did not like these ideas because he was extremely conservative.  This is when the rebels decided to revolt against the Tsar of Russia, Nicholas.

            On December 14, 1825 the military was to swear loyalty to the new Tsar, Nicholas.  This was usually a grand ceremony that took place in Senate Square, outside the Winter Palace, in St. Petersburg.  When the military was to swear to Nicholas the military refused and several officers started a mutiny.  These officers and around 3,000 other men began the revolt against the Tsar.  Nicholas did not want to start his reign with a bloodbath so he and his advisors decided to start peace talks.  However, these talks really never started because these people did not want piece, they wanted Russia to be free.  Reluctantly the Tsar ordered the first shots of this battle.

              This battle did not last very long because the rebels were unorganized and were overwhelmed by the Tsar’s military and easily put down.  I mean lets put it this way.  During the battle the officers running this revolt had the group chant "Constantine and Constitution."  The funny thing about this is that most of the people thought that "constitution" was Constantine's wife.  During the battle around sixty men were killed and the rest tried to flee.  Some were able to flee; however, most of them were caught by the Tsar’s military.  Each one captured was either hung or sent to Siberia to die.

            After this battle Nicholas saw liberalism as a major threat and he felt he needed to stop it.  As a result of this revolt Nicholas started nation-wide censorship, which placed tightened restrictions on all aspects of Russia’s public life.  He sent out what he called “The Third Section,” to enforce this censorship.  Nicholas also put another restriction that forced the people’s loyalty to the Tsar and the Russian Orthodox Church.  This in time will also lead to racist suppression of minority groups.  Even though this was a very small part of Russian history, however, these events would start far-reaching consequences for the Tsar and the rest of Russia’s people.