Movement of the Decembrists

The movement of the Decembrists, their uprising are considered one of the most remarkable pages of Russian history in the first half of the 19th century.

In 1825, on December 14, Guards regiments were withdrawn to the Senate Square . The first was the Moscow regiment. The first revolutionary forces were led by the brothers Alexander and Mikhail Bestuzhev, Dmitry Shchepin-Rostovsky.

The rebels were built up with a battle square (quadrangle). Thus, they could repel attacks from all sides.

At the hour of decisive action, the aristocratic revolutionism of the leader of the Trubetskoi uprising was broken. Without going to the soldiers on the square, he betrayed them, and ideas, all the movement of the Decembrists.

New regiments approached the insurgents. In general, about 2350 people arrived. However, the collection began to occur after more than two hours after the beginning of the uprising. An hour before its end, the Decembrists chose Prince Obolensky as their new leader.

Nicholas 1 was afraid of the onset of darkness and the activity of the accumulated people. An order was given to fire a grape shot. At the same time, surrounded by rebel soldiers.

The first volley of grapeshot was given above the soldiers - along the roof of the neighboring houses of the mob. The soldiers answered him with rifle shots. But then, under the hail of carteche, ranks began to waver, the soldiers began to flee. The shooting of running soldiers began from the royal guns. Mikhail Bestuzhev tried to build troops on the ice of the Neva. The soldiers were built. However, the cannonballs smashed the ice - people fell and sank.

By the night of December 14, the uprising was crushed. The investigation was attracted to more than 600 people. Many of the insurgents were interrogated by Nicholas himself. Five (Pestel, Murav'ev-Apostol, Rileyev, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Kakhovsky) were sentenced to quartering. Then the punishment was replaced by a hanging.

The causes of the Decembrists' movement, which grew into an insurrection, are the thirst for struggle against serfdom and autocracy. Revolutionary officers believed that slavery for a Russian person is evil, that only being free, a person will indeed be a person.

The nobility's revolutionaries lacked coherence, determination, necessary revolutionary activity. Despite the fact that the plan of the coup in the country was worked out in great detail, there was no the most necessary effective force of any revolutionary undertaking - the people. The movement of the Decembrists was not supported by the masses of the people - the nobles were afraid of their activity. At the same time, the people were on the side of the revolutionaries.

The movement of the Decembrists was defeated. Thus, the victory of the autocracy over the revolutionary forces was completed.

The significance of the Decembrists movement in the history of Russia is very great. Despite the defeat of the uprising, revolutionary ideas have not faded away. The activities of the Decembrists had a tremendous impact on the development of the advanced socio-political position in Russia.

The role of the movement in the development of the cultural and public life of the people is undoubted. The ideas of the Decembrists brought up generations of writers, artists, poets, public figures, scientists. Undisputed is the high appreciation of the human image of noble revolutionaries: disinterestedness, culture, humanism.

Ideas of the Decembrists were picked up by the next generation. Thus, the foundations of the movement towards the revolution in Russia were laid precisely on the Senate Square. The feat of the nobles awakened the people. The slogans of the Decembrists against serfdom and the autocracy became slogans of future revolutionaries who participated in the liberation movement in Russia.

Almost all the revolutionary nobles who took part in the uprising on the Senate Square were young. Their patriotism, love of the Motherland contributed to decisive action. After the suppression of the movement, many went to penal servitude. Thirty years later, the survivors returned to die at home. Through all these decades the Decembrists carried unquenchable hatred of autocracy and serfdom.