Talk:Russian Revolution of 1905/Archive 1

In Section 1, I have eliminated the adverb from "Nihilists successfully assassinated..." because an unsuccessful assassination is a contradiction in terms. I have reduced "Socialist" etc. to lower-case adjectives (and throughout the article) because these were not proper names of political parties; likewise I have changed the characterization of the Tsar from "relatively Liberal" to "relatively progressive" (actually on second thought, to "relatively reformist") in order to avoid any such misunderstanding. I recommend that someone research the actual names of the political parties (or movements) concerned -- the ones they used themselves -- and insert these throughout, in preference to imposing non-Russian political categories. For example, Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) for "Liberal." (I also object to "Social Democrat" even though the RSDRP -- Russian Social Democratic Revolutionary Party -- includes that phrase, because it is IMHO better to use the terms "Bolshevik" and "Menshevik", explaining here or elsewhere their common origin in the RSDRP; and the RSDRP did not share much programmatically with Social Democratic parties in Western Europe due to differing political and economic conditions amongst the countries concerned.) I have corrected the misstatement that the Duma had legislative powers; it did not, really, despite any formal appearances. It really was legally nothing more than a talk-shop. "Major general strikes," another contradiction in terms, becomes "Major strikes," since there is no such thing as a minor general strike, which is itself more than a mere major strike. So far I've gotten up to the beginning of "Role of the Workers' Councils in the Revolt" (not "worker's" or "workers"). I'll continue editing when more time allows. Please note that although I have background in Russian and Soviet affairs, I am not an historian of Russia. Therefore I do not guarantee being able to catch all errors of fact, and someone who is an editor in this workgroup or otherwise motivated to precision should pick up fact-checking. Robert M. Cutler 03:14, 27 January 2008 (CST)