Sixty six people attended Ben’s lecture including students from seven schools. Ben’s lecture looked at the arguments around the fall of Tsarism. The optimists argue that the regime could have been saved were it not for the First World War. The pessimists argue that it was doomed. English absolutism was destroyed at the end of the seventeenth century and French absolutism at the end of the eighteenth century. The Russian victory over Napoleon lulled the Tsars into a false sense of security. Rather than looking at the characters of individual Tsars, Ben chose to examine the problems caused by social and economic upheaval, defeat in war, non-Russian nationalism and revolutionary agitation. He examined the role of key ministers such as Witte and Pobedonostsev. The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 had many unforeseen consequences not least the further impoverishment of the peasants and the alienation of the nobility and gentry. Ben suggested the Polish revolt of 1863 was another warning that went unheeded. In the 1905 revolution many of the key areas of unrest were in non-Russian areas of the empire.
Thank you to Ben for putting Tsarist Russia into perspective and for coming all the way from Exeter.