Not everyone knows about the December 14, 1825 uprising. And not every person knows about the nature of this uprising. Who are the Decembrists? Why did they come to Senate Square? Until now, the answer to the first question among historians remains controversial. No scientist can find a definite answer to it.
Who are the Decembrists? Socialist revolutionaries? Followers (or founders) of Marxism? Liberals who fought for the freedom and independence of their country? Or are they the usual brainless fanatics? For two centuries, this dispute has haunted professional historians. Why?
For this it is necessary to look into the history of the historiography of the armed uprising. It can be divided into three stages: pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet. Each stage has its own features and characteristics. And you should pay close attention to them.
Pre-Soviet period. This stage is characterized by 2 features, when historians "fought" for the rights of the Decembrists. In the first decades, after the Decembrist movement, most scholars and ideologists of the Enlightenment condemned the rebels. So, for example, the famous Baron Korf wrote about the Decembrists as "a bunch of regicides who adopted ideas from the West." Most historians blamed all these troubles on the predecessor of Emperor Alexander the First, who, with obvious enthusiasm in the early years of his reign, carried out reforms to please pro-Western politicians. Of course, this point of view is only an ideological background. In the second half of the 19th century, the famous revolutionary historian Alexander Ivanovich Herzen considered it necessary to "justify" the December armed uprising. In spite of everything, his work is the first reliable study of an armed uprising. Herzen not only justified the Decembrists, but also called their views socialist, the Decembrists themselves - the servants of the Fatherland.
But was Herzen right? Was his statement a mistake? At the beginning of the 20th century, in the works of Vladimir Lenin, the December armed uprising enters a certain stage in the development of the revolution. Lenin specially subdivided the history of the revolution into three stages: 1) noble, 2) raznochin, 3) proletarian. It was to the first group that he attributed the armed uprising of the Decembrists, pointing to their noble origins and the noble program. In fact, according to Lenin, if the Decembrists managed to win, then one bourgeois power would be replaced by another. And it wouldn't make it easier. The same is affirmed by Herzen, saying "the Decembrists on the square did not have enough people." This concept is firmly entrenched in the heads and minds of 20th century historians. The well-known Soviet historian Nechkina also adhered to this opinion and added that the Decembrist uprising from the point of view of the formational approach (also made by Lenin) was commonplace. Her work permanently established the dominance of this theory in the history of the uprising.
In modern historiography, notes of the "golden mean" are increasingly heard. Most historians believe that it is impossible to adhere to the conclusions of certain groups of historians, that the December movement did not have a single character, in fact, as well as a single program. Therefore, modern historians are not ready to support any point of view.
And yet this uprising will remain for a long time in the history of the development of the Russian state. It marked the beginning of the development of revolutionary ideas in Russia and a new, hitherto unprecedented movement.
