L-21

Part III Era of Great Reforms

7. Crisis and Counter-Reform, 1879-94

A. Theses

1. Precursors of crisis & counterreform

2. Crisis of Autocracy, 1879-81

3. Restoration: Law and order, 1881-85

4. Dynamic Autocracy, 1885-94

B. Crisis of Autocracy

1. Society in revolt

2. “Dictatorship of the Heart”

3. Assassination and reaction

1. Society in Revolt

A. Elites

B. Workers and Peasants

C. Narodnaia volia

Ivan Petunkevich, Tver zemstvo leader

S.A. Muromtsev, Zemstvo Leader

• “The first and most important of society’s unsatisfied demands is the demand for an opportunity to act. . . . The Russian people are becoming more and more impressed with the conviction that an empire so extensive, and a social life so complicated, as ours cannot be managed exclusively by chinovniki (officials).” 1881 memorandum

Ivan Aksakov (Conservative Publicist)

• Misunderstanding and distrust have spread like a blight . . . Between the nobility and the people, between the government and society, between the educated and uneducated, and even between members of the same classes of society…. Everything is out of joint, everything has lost its foundations; discontent is everywhere.

Konstantin PobedonostsevChief Procurator of the Synod, 1880-1905

• What I hear [in Spb] from highly placed and learned men makes me sick, as if I were in the company of half-wits and perverted apes. I hear everywhere the trite, deceitful, and accursed word “constitution.” This word, I fear, has made its way into high circles and is taking root.

Rural and Urban Unrest, 1877-82

Year Peasant Disorders

Worker Strikes

1877 8 16

1878 20 44

1879 23 54

1880 10 26

1881 10 25

1882 17 22

2. “Dictatorship of the Heart”

Mikhail Loris-Melikov

3. Political Terror

• Ideology: Race against the clock

• Asymmetry of power: terror

Terror and Assassination

Sergei Khalturin

Alexander II: Lying in state3 March 1881

Pervomartovtsy: 1st of March People

Nikolai

Kibal’chich

Aleksandr

Mikhailov

Andrei

Zheliabov

Sofia

Perovskaia

Pervomartovtsy: 1st of March Assassins

Ignatii

Grinevitskii

Nikolai

Sablin

Gesia

Gel’fman

Nikolai

Rysakov

Trial of PervomartovtsyRysakov, Mikhailov, Gel’fman, Kibal’chich, Perovskaia, Zheliabov)

Hanging of the Five Pervomartovtsy (15.04.1881)

4. Defeat of the Liberal Gosudarstvenniki

A. Battle at the top

B. The “pineapple” proclamation of 28.4.81

C. Why Loris-Melikov and the gosudarstvenniki failed

C. Restoring Order

1. Alexander III

2. Repression

3. Zemskii Sobor

4. Social Concessions

5. Counter-Reforms

6. Revolutionary threat

1. Alexander III

Alexander III: Family Man

Alexander III: Office and Meeting with the “People”

2. Repression

3. Zemskii sobor(Nikolai Ignat’ev, Konstantin Pobedonostsev)

Pobedonostsev on Ignatev’s Zemskii Sobor

Even if I believed in the zemskii sobor of ancient Russia, I would still stop in amazement before such a thought [of its reestablishment]. Ancient Russia was all one place in its simplicity of concepts, customs, and state requirements. And now it is proposed that we call together a motley, ill-assorted assemblage from contemporary Russia, which is a universe composed of two parts of the earth! Here are the Caucasus and Siberia, and Central Asia, and the Baltic Germans, and Poland, and Finland! And to this babble of tongues we are supposed to present the question of what to do at the present movement. To my mind, this is the height of absurdity for the state. May God deliver us from such a calamity. (Letter to Alexander III, 4 May 1882)

4. Social Concessions

A. Nobility

B. Peasantry

C. Workers

5. Counter-Reforms

a. Church

b. Education

c. Censorship

d. Judiciary

6. Revolutionary Threat

Aleksandr Ul’ianov

D. Dynamic Autocracy

1. Policy: reactionaries and modernizers

2. Bureaucracy

1. ReactionariesDmitrii A. Tolstoi

“Experience demonstrates that, in peasant administration, corporal punishment is a useful, often the only, way of influencing the people—given the peasantry’s low moral and intellectual level.” (1886 memo in defense of corporal punishment)

1. ReactionariesPrince Vladimir Meshcherskii

“There is in Russia an unquestionable truth, recognized by the people. This is the need for flogging. Yet almost everybody—liberal or conservative—urges that it be abolished. But wherever you go, everywhere among the people, there is but one cry: flog us, flog us, flog us.”

2. ModernizersK.P. Pobedonostsev

2. ModernizersSergei Witte

3. Bureaucracy

A. Elites: incremental change

B. Provincial bureaucracy: rapid expansion, democratization

State Council: Social Origin

Year Noble Non-Noble

1853 54 1

1903 81 2

State Council: Education

Year Higher Secondary Home

1853 10 7 38

1903 59 22 2

State Council: Religion

Year Russian Orthodox

Lutheran Catholic

1853 41 9 5

1903 79 2 2

State Council: Major Estate Ownership (over 5,000 des.)

Year Percent of State Council Members Owning over 5,000 desiatina

1853 69%

1903 22%

Governors: Social Origin

Year Noble Non-Noble

1853 100% 0

1903 100% 0

Governors: Education

Year Higher Secondary Home

1853 9 9 30

1903 29 14 1

E. Modernizing from Above

1. Economy

2. Administrative infrastructure: land captain

3. Zemstvo and Duma

4. Russification

1. Economy

2. Administrative Infrastructure: Land captain

3. Zemstvo and Duma

• 1890 Zemstvo Law

• 1892 Duma Law

5. Autocrat as Linchpin: Alexander III

Return of Alexander III to Kronshtadt (8 November 1894)

F. Conclusion

1. Crisis of Autocracy

2. From Restoration to Dynamic Autocracy

3. Revolutionaries: terror and regrouping