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The Decembrist Revolt of 1825, was a revolutionary action that took place at Senate Square in St. Petersburg. This revolt was a classist demonstration purposed to protest the appointment of Nicholas I as Tsar after the death of his brother Alexander I. The death of Alexander I was the most significant event leading up to the revolt as it set the stage for the revolt that would occur. It was believed that the appointment would go to Konstantin, other brother of Alexander I, but unbeknownst to the public Konstantin had renounced his claim. All the confusion and political noise inspired the Decembrists to protest the appointment of Nicholas I and pledge their allegiance to their own Constitution. The Decembrist Revolt was ultimately a failure as they did not stop the appointment of Nicholas I and many Decembrists were either killed or exiled. This however did set the stage for the Bolsheviks who would have a successful revolution 1917.

The Decembrists as a group is very much so defined as the group that led the revolt at Senate Square. What they stood for however is vague but there are certain key values that they are concluded to have held. They were the first to call for the abolishment of serfdom in Russia. The Decembrists were inspired by the American Revolution and the Constitution very heavily with a key difference being the aforementioned abolishment of slavery. The Decembrists saw the current government system as being tyrannical and they desired to topple it and kill the Tsar. They sought reform and rejected the suppression and censorship people faced under the Tsar. One of the primary idealogues of the Decembrists, Pavel Pestel, wrote about abolishing serfdom, abolishing noble privilege, and allowing the common people to have a say in elections or other government choices. The Decembrists sought to abolish the distinctions between classes and although unsuccessful they lit the spark of revolution in Russia.

Sources:

1. Bokova, Vera. "The Decembrists, 170 years later." Russian Life, vol. 38, no. 6, Dec. 1995, p. 7+. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A18082596/AONE?u=purdue_main&sid=AONE&xid.... Accessed 11 Oct. 2020.1.

2. Watt DC. The “Decembrists”: Russia 1825, Ethiopia 1960: Two Revolutions compared. International Relations. 1963;2(7):459-468. doi:10.1177/004711786300200706

3. Belousov M. S. Political Allusions in the Decembrist Revolt. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 2018, vol. 63, issue 2, pp. 345–360. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu02.2018.202 4. Raeff, Marc. “An American View of the Descembrist Revolt.” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 25, no. 3, 1953, pp. 286–293. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1874745. Accessed 11 Oct. 2020.

5. Offord, Derek. “THE RESPONSE OF THE RUSSIAN DECEMBRISTS TOSPANISH POLITICS IN THE AGE OF FERDINAND VII.” Historia Constitucional: Revista Electrónica De Historia Constitucional , 2012, citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.930.6545&rep=rep1&type=pdf.