Revolutionary Agitation among the Russian Prisoners of War in Japan, 1904-1906

Abstract

The article analyzes the revolutionary propaganda among the Russian prisoners of war in Japan in 1904-1906. As a result of the Russo-Japanese War, extremely unsuccessful for the Russian Empire, more than 70 thousand Russian soldiers were captured by the enemy. A very active revolutionary agitation by the opponents of tsarism was carried out among the prisoners of war. The Russian revolutionaries and their supporters also made plans for the military invasion of Russia from the territory of Japan with the aim of overthrowing tsarism. In the Russian historiography, this issue has not been adequately analyzed yet. In the article, the author uses the methods of a concrete historical analysis. Based on the previously unused sources, the research aims at the study of the impact of 1904-1906 revolutionary propaganda on the change of the political views of the Russian prisoners of war. The author comes to the conclusion that the documentary sources do not allow the researcher to definitely determine the effectiveness of the revolutionary propaganda impact on the political views of the imprisoned Russian soldiers and officers in Japan. Nevertheless, the military defeat of tsarism in the war with the weaker enemy and the acquaintance with the achievements of the Japanese culture and the economy made many of the prisoners of war think about the necessity of the democratic reforms in autocratic Russia.