Tsarist Russia 1855-94:

Trying to Preserve Autocracy

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Political Authority and the State of Russia in 1855

The Tsarist Autocracy

Autocracy means ‘rule by one person’. In Russia in 1855 this person was the Tsar (sometimes spelt Czar), which translates into English as ‘Emperor’. The Romanov family had been the Tsars of Russia since 1613. The Tsar was an autocrat because:

Only he had the power to make new laws. There was no parliament or democracy in Russia. The ministers in the government were merely advisers to the Tsar and he was free to ignore

their advice at any time. He was commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He was head of the Russian Orthodox Church and was believed to have been divinely

appointed by God.

Thus, the Tsar’s power was not only political and military but also religious; as a result you would describe the Tsar as having ‘absolute power’ in Russia. In 1855, Tsar Nicholas I died and he was succeeded by his son, Alexander II.

The Tsar was regarded by many Russians as the ‘Little Father’ of the nation. In this role, the Tsar was seen as a parent – protecting and caring for his subjects, whilst administering punishments when necessary. Very few Russians actually got to meet the Tsar and, as a result, he was a distant almost mythical figure. Corruption and abuses of power tended not to be blamed on the Tsar but on the more immediately recognisable misdeeds of local officials and lords. Many Russians believed that if the Tsar found out about these abuses then he would act to correct them. Very few Russians actually challenged the ‘Tsarist System’ itself.

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Nicholas ITsar of Russia 1825-55

Alexander IITsar of Russia 1855-81

Of course, the Tsar could not rule a country the size of Russia by himself alone, therefore the ‘Tsarist System’ relied on the support of the nobility, the Church, the army and the secret police:

The Nobility (or ‘aristocracy’)

This group made up 1-2% of the Russian population. They were wealthy landowners who maintained control of their local area on behalf of the Tsar. They were responsible for collecting taxes, administering justice, and for supplying the Tsar’s army with soldiers. The Tsar’s ministers, who advised him on political matters, were all taken from the ranks of the nobility. The officer class in the Russian army was entirely made up of nobles, many of them incompetent. The Tsarist bureaucracy (e.g. provincial governors, commandants of towns and civil servants) was largely staffed by the sons of noble families. As a result, the nobility provided the backbone of the Tsarist System; as Nicholas I’s Chief of Police remarked, ‘the landowner is the most faithful, the unsleeping watchdog guarding the state.’

Nicholas I wanted to increase the number of educated sons of the nobility to work as his administrative elite running the Tsarist bureaucracy. In order to achieve this he doubled the number of university places available between 1836 and 1848. Inevitably, some of these ‘enlightened bureaucrats’, as they became known, began developing their own ideas about how to reform and modernise Russia. Their ideas were, however, fairly limited in scope as they remained loyal to the Tsar but simply wished to see reforms being introduced from the top down.

The Russian Orthodox Church

The Church taught that conditions on earth were God’s will. Therefore, the social and political system of Russia had been divinely ordained and there was nothing that could be done to change it. This message was repeated through sermons during church services where the priest would remind his congregation that the Tsar was chosen by God. The ancient traditions of the Orthodox Church were well entrenched within Russian society and contributed to the conservatism and backwardness of Russia’s economy and society.

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The coronation of Alexander II in the Cathedral of the Kremlin in Moscow.

The Army

The army had a two-fold purpose: to expand the power of the Russian Empire to new territories and to crush internal opposition. The Russian army was huge and formed an important pillar of the Tsarist System. The army was run by the nobility who were, of course, firm supporters of the Tsar. Ordinary soldiers were conscripts from peasant families, who were obliged to serve in the army if called upon to do so by their local lord on behalf of the Tsar.

The Secret Police

Known as the ‘Third Section’, this organisation was in charge of state security. Their aim was to suppress opposition to the Tsarist System and to limit the influence of alternative ideologies. In order to achieve this the Third Section carried out a range of surveillance activities and censorship including:

Censoring the reporting of events from western Europe, especially concerning political reform.

Censoring any criticism of social conditions within Russia. Checking all literature for dangerous ideas. Shadowing about 2,000 individuals suspected of harbouring anti-Tsarist beliefs. Arresting those opponents of the Tsar thought to be the most radical and potentially

dangerous, leading to imprisonment or exile.

Conclusion – the Tsarist Autocracy in 1855

Nicholas I’s accession to the throne in 1825 had been marred by the Decembrist revolt when some liberals tried to establish a constitutional monarchy. The revolt ultimately failed, but it left a deep impression on Nicholas who sought to suppress any liberal or radical ideas in Russia during his reign. He felt a divine duty to protect not just Russia but the whole of Europe from the radical ideas expressed during the French Revolution and afterwards. There was a sense amongst the ruling Russian elite that their system of government, religion and culture were superior to the rest of Europe and were to be protected by isolating Russia from unwelcome threats from the west. Those who wished to preserve a distinctive Slavic culture in Russia and to spread it throughout the Russian Empire were called ‘Slavophiles’.

However, as the Decembrist revolt had revealed, there were elements within Russia which desired reform and admired the democracy and greater freedoms of western Europe. Such people were termed ‘westernisers’. In 1848-49, there was a wave of revolution across most of Europe, which alarmed Nicholas I a great deal and he was determined that such dangerous ideas were to be excluded from Russia. As a result, after 1849, the activities of the censors were increased; school fees were raised; and the number of university places was reduced. Therefore, in 1855 there were Russians with ideas about how to reform the Tsarist System but their influence was limited and their ideas suppressed. Furthermore, very few Russians were actually considering getting rid of the Tsar altogether.

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The Political, Economic and Social State of Russia in 1855

Peasants and Agriculture

The vast majority of Russians in 1855 were peasants, making up about 85% of the population. Peasants were poor farmers, scratching a living by farming the land using methods which had hardly changed for centuries. There were two main categories of peasant:

a) Serfs (about 50% of the population) – the system of ‘serfdom’ had evolved in the 17 th century. In order to ensure a noble’s income, the peasants working on his land were ‘fixed’ to the land. This involved either working for three days a week on the noble’s land, or paying rent. As the system evolved, serfs effectively became the property of their landowner. In the 18 th century, the nobles could buy and sell serfs, split up families, take a serf into domestic service, arrange marriages and enlist serfs in the army.

Nicholas I banned the splitting up of families in 1833 and the auctioning of serfs in 1841. However, these reforms were very limited and did little to improve the quality of life endured by millions of Russians. As a result, peasant discontent continued to grow – there were over 300 peasant revolts between 1844 and 1854.

The system of serfdom was also coming under pressure economically in the mid-19 th century. Farming techniques continued to be very basic and fell increasingly behind those used in the rest of Europe. Furthermore, the rural population of Russia was rising. As a result, the serfs were struggling to produce enough grain to feed the local population and to provide the nobility with enough to sell to sustain their privileged lifestyles. Many landowners faced increasing debts – by 1860, nearly 60% of serfs had been mortgaged to the state.

However, Tsar Nicholas I was reluctant to introduce serious changes to the system of serfdom. The whole Tsarist System relied on the support of the nobility whose wealth and status depended on how many serfs they owned. Fundamental changes to the nature of serfdom would challenge the very bedrock of the Tsarist autocracy.

b) State peasants (about 35% of the population) – this type of peasant had slightly more freedom than the serfs but not much. State peasants were mainly either those working on the Tsar’s own estates, or non-Russians working in the areas of the Empire outside Russia itself. They were tied to their villages and liable for conscription into the army, just like the serfs, but they could engage in any economic activity as long as they paid their taxes. They could, however, be sold into private ownership at any time.

The ‘mir’ – this was the village commune. A council of the senior, elder peasants was responsible for most aspects of village life. They distributed land and tasks. They also organised the collecting of taxes (overall peasants contributed 90% of the tax revenue to support the Tsarist regime). The mir also decided which young men were to be conscripted into the army when the Tsar required new soldiers.

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Workers and Industry

Whilst the countries of western Europe had been industrialising for decades, Russia had been left behind. The development of modern industry was tiny in Russia and was viewed with suspicion by the Tsar because it was thought that industrialisation would bring with it demands for political reform. As a result, a very small proportion of the Russian population was employed in industry. Examples of Russia’s limited industrial development include:

In 1843 in Russia, there were 350,000 mechanised spindles whereas in Britain there were 11 million.

Between 1830 and 1859, Russia’s share of world iron production fell from 12% to 4% as other countries continued to industrialise.

In 1850, output of coal in Britain was 50.2 million tonnes; in Russia it was 300,000 tonnes. In 1855, the British railway network had 11,744km of track; by contrast, the Russian network

had 1,049 km.

The basis of wealth and status in Russia was tied to the land and to the ownership of serfs. The nobility looked down upon trade and industry as inferior and therefore there was no desire amongst most wealthy Russians to invest in private businesses.

The Middle Class

The limited development of industry meant that, not only was there a very small urban working class, but that there was also a very small middle class. There were serious obstacles for anyone who might have ambitions to develop a business enterprise. Government monopolies controlled trade and industry and imposed complex restrictions preventing changes to how they were run. The government also restricted the sale of shares in companies so that this method of raising capital was largely impossible.

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An impoverished Russian peasant family. Most peasants were illiterate but they were deeply religious and superstitious. Therefore, they were heavily influenced by the teachings of the Church that the structure of Russian society was ordained by God. Consequently, most peasants were very resistant to change and regarded their station in life as divinely appointed.

The Geography of the Russian Empire

Russia had been expanding into both Europe and Asia since 1492. This was one of the reasons why the Tsar had such a large army. This meant that the Tsar took over ruling many different nationalities as Russia expanded the territory under its control. Expanding Russia’s Empire was considered almost a duty of the Tsar. In just the first fifteen years of the 19th century Russia took control of Georgia (1801-06), Azerbaijan (1805-13), Finland (1809), Bessarabia (1812) and Poland (1815). In the 1830s and 1840s, the Empire was extended to include the Caucasus, the Uzbeks and the Kazakhs.

As a result, ethnic Russians actually made up less than half of the population. There were around 170 different languages in the Russian Empire and many different religions. Despite, or because of, this diversity the ruling Russian classes were convinced of the superiority of Russian culture and religion over those of the other nationalities within the Empire who were considered inferior.

Russia also had very diverse geographic regions with differing climates, landscapes and vegetation. Much of Russia was of limited productive use, for example the frozen tundra of the north, the remote coniferous forests of Siberia and the deserts of central Asia. The most densely populated and fertile regions were those in the western third of Russia around the two dominant cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

People from non-Russian nationalities were often dealt with very harshly. Following a Polish revolt in 1831, Nicholas I withdrew the Polish constitution, closed down Polish universities and insisted on the use of Russian for all government business in Poland. Jews in Russia were often subject to oppression with the vast majority forced to live in a specific geographical area called ‘The Pale’.

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Grand Duchy of Moscow, 14921492-16131613-17251725-961796-1914

The Impact of the Crimean War

Between 1854 and 1856, Russia was at war with Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire in the Crimea. Russia had developed a naval base at Sevastopol and wanted to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea for its warships. Britain and France were the two main naval powers in the Mediterranean and did not want a Russian naval presence there. In September 1854, the British and French laid siege to Sevastopol. The Russian army held out for a year, mainly due to the bravery and resilience of the ordinary Russian soldiers. However, due to poor leadership and equipment all attempts by the Russian army to relieve the siege failed and in September 1855, Sevastopol fell. In 1856, a peace treaty was signed in Paris to conclude the conflict. Nicholas I had died in March 1855. As he lay dying he said to his son and successor, Alexander: ‘I hand over my command to you, unfortunately not in as good order as I would have wished.’

Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War had serious implications for the Tsarist regime because it revealed many of the underlying weaknesses that had been overlooked for decades:

i) Russia’s army was not as strong as people had been led to believe.ii) Russia’s lack of a developed railway network seriously limited its ability to transport soldiers to

the frontline. Russia never had more than 60,000 of its 1 million strong army in the Crimea.iii) Russian industry had proved incapable of equipping Russian soldiers effectively. At the start of

the war there was just one musket for every two soldiers. 50% of the British army had the latest percussion rifles whereas just 4% of Russian troops had one.

iv) The supposed superiority of the Russian system of government and way of life was exposed as a sham. Resistance to western influence and economic development had contributed to Russia’s humiliating defeat.

v) The system of conscripting serfs into the Russian army for 25 years before granting them their freedom was clearly inferior to the British and French model of army service. However, it would be dangerous to shorten the length of service of Russian serfs as this would mean a steady build up in the provinces of discontented serfs with military training. Therefore, defeat in the Crimean War strengthened the arguments of those ‘enlightened bureaucrats’ who saw the abolition of serfdom as a necessary step towards the modernisation of Russia. These arguments were to gain greater influence under the new Tsar in 1855 – Alexander II.

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Political Authority and Attempts at Reform 1855-81

Alexander II

The Emancipation of the Serfs

‘Emancipation’ means giving someone freedom. In the context of Russia in the mid-19 th century, emancipation refers to freeing the serfs from the ownership of their lord and giving them rights similar to other ordinary Russians. In bringing about this dramatic reform in Russian society, Alexander II earned himself the nickname, the ‘Tsar Liberator’. A year after becoming Tsar, Alexander made a speech to the nobility of Moscow in which he said:

“The existing order of serfdom cannot remain unchanged. It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below.”

The two main reasons Alexander gave in his speech for his policy were Russia’s failure in the Crimean War and the worrying level of peasant disturbances in the countryside. Historians have debated the true nature of Alexander’s motivation to free the serfs. By some, Alexander has been regarded as an enlightened and visionary ruler, who perceived the need to reform and modernise Russia for the benefit of all Russians. Alternatively, other historians have suggested that in 1856 he had little choice. The defeat in the Crimea and rising peasant unrest forced the Tsar to listen more carefully to the arguments of the liberals within government circles and that freeing the serfs was the only realistic path to pursue if Russia were to maintain its great power status.

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Alexander II came to the throne at the age of 36 on the death of his father, Nicholas I, in the middle of the Crimean War. He was well-prepared for the role of Tsar and had a clear idea of how he wanted Russia to develop under his guidance. He was totally committed to the principle of autocracy but was more open to the arguments of those liberal advisers who were convinced of the need for Russia to modernise and reform. As a result, his policies had a certain fundamental inconsistency – on the one hand he was prepared to contemplate significant change within Russia, but on the other hand he was not prepared to change the nature of Tsarist power and authority at all. It was partly his failure to reconcile these two competing motivations that led to his assassination by the terrorist group, the People’s Will, in 1881.

On coming to the throne, Alexander immediately signalled his intention to rule in a more ‘enlightened’ manner. He released political prisoners and pardoned those who had taken part in the Decembrist revolt against his father. He relaxed censorship as well as restrictions on foreign travel and university entrance. He also restored some of the constitutional rights of Poland and the liberties of the Catholic Church. Most importantly, he started work on a very significant reform – the emancipation of the serfs.

The Edict of Emancipation was eventually issued in February 1861. The fact that it took five years from Alexander’s Moscow speech is an indication of the difficulties that the government encountered in overcoming opposition to the idea of emancipation amongst the nobility. Freeing the serfs would represent a radical change to the structure of Russian society. The power and status of the nobility had, for several centuries, been inextricably tied up with the amount of land and serfs which they owned. It was very difficult for many nobles to come to terms with the fact that the basis of their wealth and influence was going to change so dramatically.

The main issue was land. Emancipation could only work if the peasants were given land to own. To liberate the serfs without land would have created a huge mass of impoverished and angry citizens. To give land to the peasants, however, would mean taking it from the nobility. Such was the resistance to this principle that it took a direct order from the Tsar – the Nazimov Rescript (1857) – to make it clear that the serfs were to receive both liberty and land. In the final edict, the landlords were to be compensated for the loss of their land through a system of ‘redemption payments’.

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The Edict of Emancipation (19th February 1861)

Serfs were granted their personal freedom over a period of two years. From 1863, peasants had the freedom to own land, to marry without interference, travel, set up businesses and to use the law courts.

Freed peasants were granted ownership of the houses in which they lived and the plots of land around those houses.

The government was to compensate landlords for the land transferred to the peasants, paying the lords the purchase price in the form of government bonds.

The government recouped the money paid out to the landowners by charging the peasants ‘redemption payments’ which were annual instalments to be paid over the next 49 years including a 6% interest charge.

Landlords were confirmed as the legal owners of the meadows, pasture, woodland and the land which had been farmed for themselves, but from 1863 onwards some of that land could be purchased by the peasants or the mir.

Communal open fields were held on behalf of the whole village by the mir and could be used by all ex-serfs.

State peasants were to receive the same rights as freed serfs, although the transition was to take five years.

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How successful was the emancipation of the serfs?

Successes

A dramatic break with Russia’s social and economic history was achieved peacefully and with very little open conflict. The demands of the peasants for land and the need to compensate the landlords for their loss of property were delicately balanced. The legal status of 40 million Russians was transformed.

Peasant disturbances became far less of a problem for the rest of the 19th century.

More enterprising peasants, known as kulaks, exploited the opportunities presented by emancipation and expanded the size of their land holdings and produced surplus grain to sell for a profit.

Emancipation stimulated, to a limited degree, some growth of business and industry. Some nobles, now free from debt, invested in new enterprises. The industrial workforce in towns and cities grew as some peasants now sought paid work away from the land.

Some historians have compared the emancipation of the serfs in Russia to the ending of slavery in America, which happened in the same decade. They point out that the American reform was carried out far less peacefully and was far less successful in guaranteeing the personal freedom of those freed.

Limitations

Emancipation could not be implemented without the co-operation of the landlords and the process was often twisted to suit the interests of the nobility not the peasants. This led to some disturbances in the months immediately following the edict.

The areas granted to the peasants were often too small, resulting in an average holding of only nine acres. As a result, most peasants remained impoverished and did not provide sufficient consumer demand to stimulate the growth in industry which was necessary for the modernisation of Russia.

The landlords often inflated the estimated value of their land in order to boost their compensation. As a result, the redemption payments demanded by the government were far higher than the productive value of the land, keeping many peasants in poverty.

Peasants remained tied to the mir (the village commune) which continued to control many aspects of the peasants’ lives including the allocation of land in the communal open fields, restricting travel through internal passports and preventing freedom of enterprise.

Government payments to the landowners were often used to pay off existing debts. One estimate suggests that this absorbed 248 million roubles out of the 543 million roubles paid in total by the government. As a result, the landowning class as a whole lacked the capital to invest in the significant modernisation of industry and agriculture.

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The loss of land and local economic and political influence led some nobles to sell up and move to towns, taking with them their resentment of the government.

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Nikolai Milyutin (1818-72)

One of the best known of the ‘enlightened bureaucrats’ who were educated during Nicholas I’s reign. Loyal to the Tsar, nevertheless he became convinced of the need to reform and modernise Russia. Nicholas I did not listen to views such as these but, under Alexander II, Nikolai Milyutin became Minister of the Interior and was largely responsible for writing the Edict of Emancipation of 1861 (see notes below) giving the serfs their freedom. However, his views were too liberal and radical even for Alexander II and he lost influence in the later 1860s.

Attempts at Domestic and Military Reform

The impact of the emancipation of the serfs was perhaps more significant for the nobility than it was for the peasants. In the second half of the 19th century, the amount of land owned by noble families fell by 50% as many sold up and moved to towns and cities. Since the nobles had formed such an important part of the Tsarist system, especially in local government, the emancipation had to be accompanied by a series of further reforms in order to maintain the effectiveness of Tsarist autocracy in the localities now that the status and authority of the nobility had been somewhat diminished.

The Zemstva (1864)

An imperial decree in 1864 established a series of local government assemblies, at both district and provincial levels, known as zemstva. These were to be elected by the local population and were given powers over education, health, transport and poor relief. Despite the hopes of some of his liberal advisers, Alexander II saw the zemstva as an important prop in the maintenance of Tsarist autocracy rather than the beginning of any genuine democracy in Russia. As a result the nature of the zemstva was restricted in several ways:

The chairman of a zemstvo had to come from a noble family. The system of voting through electoral colleges gave more weight to the votes of the

nobility. The zemstva had no control over state or local taxation. Control of law and order and the police remained outside of the control of the zemstva and

in the hands of the Provincial Governor, who was appointed by the Tsar.

Similar urban assemblies, called dumas, were established in 1870. When representatives of the zemstva approached Alexander II and suggested that delegates from each province should meet in a national assembly they were swiftly dismissed and reminded by the Tsar of the limitations on their powers. Alexander had whetted the appetite of many liberals in Russia for reform but remained committed to autocracy.

Legal Reforms

A further consequence of the emancipation of the serfs was that the judicial rights of the landlord over his serfs no longer applied. Therefore, there needed to be substantial reform of the Russian legal system to replace the old feudal system of justice. From 1865 onwards the Tsar introduced measures to ensure that:

Legal proceedings were conducted in public and could be reported freely in the press Access to the law was uniform for all classes in society All charges were to be assessed by jury trial Judges were independent of the government and were provided with better pay and

training

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The Tsar did retain the right to impose martial law during times of emergency (e.g. in response to the terrorist activity of the 1870s – see later notes), however, these legal reforms marked a substantial improvement in the quality of and access to the legal system for most Russians.

Educational Reforms

Traditionally, the Russian Orthodox Church had been the main organiser of what education existed in Russia. However, the conservative teaching of the Church ran counter to the need in the 1860s to modernise Russia through a more technical and forward-looking curriculum. Furthermore, now that serfdom had been abolished, the peasants needed a greater basic education in literacy and numeracy in order to run their own affairs. As a result, the Tsarist government introduced a number of measures in 1863 and 1864:

Universities were given the freedom to run their own affairs, including the appointment of professors (subject to approval from the Ministry of Education)

Responsibility for local education was transferred from the Church to the zemstva Primary and secondary schools were established across the country Education was made available to all regardless of class or gender

The impact of these reforms was significant. The number of children in primary education increased by three times between 1856 and 1880; and the number of university students increased from 3,600 to 10,000. On the downside for the Tsar, the expansion of university education led to an increase in the number of students attracted to liberal and radical ideas. Consequently, after 1866 the government reasserted its control of universities.

Military Reforms

One of the main catalysts for the wave of reform in the 1860s had been Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War. Therefore, reform of the military was an inevitable aspect of the reform programme. Reform of the Russian army was led by Dmitri Milyutin (brother of Nikolai – see above) who:

Reduced the period of service from 25 years to six (followed by 9 years in the reserves) Introduced universal military service for all males aged 20, closing the loopholes which had

allowed many nobles in the past to avoid serving in the army. Abolished the more brutal forms of punishment. Ended the use of military service as a punishment for criminal offences. Improved the basic living conditions of Russian soldiers. Introduced modern weapons and battleships. Co-ordinated the development of the railway network to improve the movement of troops. Set up military colleges to provide better training for officers (including those of non-noble

backgrounds).

Alexander II gave his seal of approval to the reforms in 1874, however, they did not entirely solve the problems the Russian army had experienced in the Crimean War. It was still essentially a peasant conscript army led predominantly by an aristocratic officer class. Training had improved

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leadership to an extent but the limited development of Russian industry meant that the problem of supply remained significant.

In 1877-78, Russia went to war with the declining Ottoman Empire and, although victory was achieved, it took a lot longer than had been envisaged. In 1904-05, Russia was surprisingly defeated by Japan, and in the First World War was no match for the modern German army. Therefore, the military reforms had improved the quality and efficiency of the Russian army but it remained behind the armed forces of the most advanced nations.

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Dmitri Milyutin (1816-1912)

He had some experience of travelling in western Europe as a young man which influenced his liberal thinking about the need for reform in Russia. Along with his brother, Nikolai, he was one of the leading ‘enlightened bureaucrats’ who strongly influenced the reign of Alexander II. Dmitri was Minister for War from 1861 to 1881 and, although he resigned this position on the death of Alexander, he became Russia’s last Field Marshal in 1898 and remained on the Council of State until 1905.

Government and Opposition 1855-81

Opposition ideas, ideologies and individuals

As described above, the Tsarist autocracy had a very tight hold on Russia in 1855. However, there were Russians who were aware of and who promoted ideas of reform, often inspired by developments in western Europe. Expressions of dissent against the Tsarist system can be found in the literature of mid-19th century Russia. For example, the famous poet Pushkin had his poetry censored by the Tsar himself. Nikolai Gogol exposed provincial corruption in his play The Government Inspector, and criticised serfdom in his novel Dead Souls. 224 new magazines were published in Russia between 1826 and 1854.

Alexander II’s reforms contributed to the growth of intellectual opposition to the Tsarist system. The growth and greater independence of universities led to more reflection on and evaluation of the political system by students and professors. The legal reforms created a larger class of professional lawyers who were skilled in the art of debate and in challenging rules and the law. The zemstva provided a forum for debate and the generation of new ideas amongst like-minded people.

Nikolai Chernyshevsky

Originally part of the literary radicalism of the 1850s and enthusiastic about the emancipation of the serfs, Chernyshevsky came to the conclusion that worthwhile reform could only be achieved through more radical changes to Russia’s political and economic systems. In other words, Russia could not develop into a modern state under a Tsarist autocracy. He wrote about his increasingly radical ideas in his journal The Contemporary and in his novel What is to be done? (1862), however, he distanced himself from the violence of those who claimed to be his supporters. Later generations were inspired by Chernyshevsky’s writings, including Lenin who borrowed the title What is to be done? for one of his most famous works.

Dmitri Pisarev and ‘Nihilism’

Pisarev did not believe a revolution was possible in Russia in the 1850s and 60s, instead he encouraged his followers to completely re-evaluate the nature of Russian society and government in order to generate ideas for a fairer society based on justice and equality. He advised his followers not to ‘accept any single principle on trust, however much respect surrounds that principle’. Because he rejected all current political and religious authority, and aimed to re-imagine society from scratch, his philosophy was termed ‘nihilism’ by the well-known novelist Ivan Turgenev.

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‘Nihilism’ comes from the Latin word nihil, meaning ‘nothing’, and Pisarev accepted nothing of existing society without question. Nihilism became a popular ideological movement amongst young people, especially students, in the 1860s. Some of the more radical elements moved away from Pisarev’s distaste for revolution and began talking about revolutionary action to sweep away Tsarist autocracy.

Mikhail Bakunin and ‘Anarchism’

Bakunin influenced those who believed direct action was necessary to create a more just society in Russia. Bakunin believed that the state crushed individual freedom and should therefore be removed. He believed that private ownership of land, by the Tsar, Church and nobility, should be replaced with collective ownership by the peasants. He did not perceive the need for any form of central government at all, i.e. ‘anarchy’. In 1869, Bakunin published Catechism of a Revolutionary with Sergei Nechaev which encouraged opponents of the Tsarist system to take direct action to achieve a revolution.

Karl Marx and ‘Communism’

Marx was a German thinker and writer. He wrote the Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels in 1848 and Das Kapital in 1867. Marx’s theories were more relevant to the industrialised societies of western Europe than to rural Russia as they envisaged a revolutionary struggle between the working-class proletariat and their capitalist employers leading to a socialist state. Ultimately, this socialist state would evolve into an ideal communist society in which everyone would be equal. Despite living in a predominantly agricultural society, radical thinkers in Russia read a lot that appealed to them in Marx’s works. Mikhail Bakunin published a Russian translation of the Communist Manifesto in 1869.

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The Tsarist Reaction to Increasing Opposition

In 1866, there was an assassination attempt on Alexander II. Although the Tsar was uninjured, he was severely shaken by the incident. He could not understand why, after overseeing the most significant reforms in Russian history, that he should be targeted in this way by one of his people. He began to wonder whether pursuing the path of reform had been the right decision. Those conservative elements at court, who had never approved of the reforms in the first place, now had the perfect ammunition to use in their argument that state control needed to be tightened. As a result, the Tsar was persuaded to make a series of changes replacing liberal ministers with conservative and reactionary figures. There were new ministers in charge of education, the secret police, internal affairs and justice.

Education

Under the new minister, Dmitri Tolstoy, tighter controls over education were introduced. He reduced the zemstva’s control of schools, returning control of rural schools to the Church. The curriculum was returned to a more traditional model with less science, and access to university was restricted. The subjects covered by university courses were restricted with preference being given to Maths, Latin, Greek and Divinity which were all seen as politically ‘safe’. Censorship was tightened and student organisations banned. All of these measures severely undermined the greater access to education which Alexander II’s earlier reforms had introduced and restored the primary role of education as a means to reinforce Tsarist autocracy.

The Police and the Law

The Third Section (secret police) was expanded and strengthened. They even went to the lengths of pursuing opponents of the Tsar in foreign countries such as Switzerland in order to return them to Russia and make an example of them. This ‘example’ took the form of open show trials. These were meant to act as a deterrent by showing the public what happened to those who took action or spoke out against the Tsarist regime. These show trials backfired badly on the government. The juries were often sympathetic to the radicals and many were acquitted. Furthermore, the trials provided the revolutionaries with the opportunity to gain publicity for their views as their defence speeches were often reported in full in newspapers. In 1878, the government decided to move political trials to military courts where they could be heard in secret.

Conclusion

The swing back towards conservative and reactionary policies after 1866 only served to stimulate and inspire more opposition. Alexander II’s rather muddled thinking had created an increasing wave of opposition activity. On the one hand, he had raised people’s hopes of a better future through his reforms and had enabled greater freedom for people to talk about and share ideas on what that future might be like. However, on the other hand, he became increasingly insecure about the level of opposition which this greater freedom revealed and his attempts to suppress this opposition only led to greater levels of activity aimed against the Tsarist regime.

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The Final Years of Alexander II’s Reign

Pyotr Lavrov and ‘Populism’

Inspired to take action by the ideas of Bakunin and Nechaev, and by the growing level of opposition towards the Tsarist autocracy, Pyotr Lavrov aimed to mobilise the peasantry into a revolutionary force by inspiring them with the messages of socialism and anarchism. In 1874, Lavrov led a group of over 2,000 young people, mostly students from noble or well-off families, into the countryside to raise peasants’ awareness of how they were still being exploited and oppressed despite emancipation. The rallying cry of this group was that they should ‘go to the people’ and, as a result, they became known as the narodniks (from the Russian for ‘to the people’) which translates into English as ‘Populists’. This attempt to educate and inspire the peasants was an abject failure. Many peasants did not understand the ideas that the Populists were trying to relate to them. Around 1,600 Populists were arrested by the police, often handed over by the peasants who remained blindly loyal to the Tsar. A second attempt to ‘go to the people’ was made in 1876 but was no more successful.

Those Populists who had avoided arrest by 1877 decided to regroup and set up a new organisation called ‘Land and Liberty’. This was better organised and more radical. Land and Liberty pursued two courses of action. On the one hand, they sought to live alongside the peasants for longer periods to better understand their mentality and therefore be able to influence them more effectively. On the other hand, they sought to advance Bakunin’s anarchist ideas more directly by attempting to assassinate prominent members of the Tsarist autocracy. In 1878, the head of the Third Section (the Tsarist secret police) was killed. Very worrying for the Tsar’s government was the public support which these assassins appeared to enjoy.

The People’s Will

In 1879, Land and Liberty split into two groups:

The ‘Black Partition’, led by Georgi Plekhanov, favoured the longer-term tactics being developed through living and working with the peasants.

The ‘People’s Will’, led by Timofei Mikhailov, favoured the terrorist tactics which aimed to destroy the Tsarist autocracy through violence and assassinations.

In April 1879, Alexander II survived an attempt by the People’s Will to shoot him; in December 1879 there was a failed attempt to blow up the Tsar’s train; and in February 1880 a bomb was detonated under the banqueting hall of the Tsar’s Winter Palace killing 12 people but not the Tsar.

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Alexander II’s Return to Reform

According to the historian W.E. Mosse, by 1880 Alexander II was ‘isolated from the Russian people, unpopular with the educated public and cut off from the bulk of society and the Court. His fate had become a matter of indifference to the majority of his subjects.’ Across Russia at large this was largely the result of his indecision between the two policies of reform and conservatism. At Court he was increasingly unpopular because of his extra-marital relationship with a much younger woman – Princess Dolgoruky. The Princess bore Alexander several illegitimate children and came to be increasingly influential within the Tsarist government. In 1880, the Tsar’s wife died and he married Princess Dolgoruky just 40 days later. This gave the liberal-minded Princess more influence and she managed to manufacture the appointment of the reformist Mikhail Loris-Melikov as the new Minister of Internal Affairs in 1880.

Loris-Melikov set about introducing a new wave of reform in response to the increased level of terrorist activity from the People’s Will and other opposition groups:

He abolished the Third Section He dismissed Dmitri Tolstoy as Minister of Education He drew up plans for a partially-elected national assembly containing representatives of the

zemstva and dumas.

Alexander gave his personal approval to Loris-Melikov’s planned national assembly at the end of February 1881. This could have been the start of a parliamentary system in Russia and a step away from autocracy, however, the luck of the People’s Will was about to change. In March 1881 Alexander was assassinated by a bomb which was thrown at his carriage as he travelled across St. Petersburg. In the reaction which followed all plans for reform were shelved.

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Assessment of Alexander II as Tsar

How far does he deserve the title of ‘Tsar Liberator’?

(a) Positive interpretation:

Since all executive power lay in the hands of the Tsar, Alexander must take the credit for introducing the very significant reforms of the 1860s, most importantly the emancipation of the serfs.

Alexander took his role as the ‘Little Father’ of the Russian nation very seriously and had a genuine desire to improve his country following the disaster of the Crimean War.

The emancipation of the serfs was accompanied by a raft of other reforms which genuinely liberated many Russians from aspects of the oppressive autocracy which they had grown used to. The creation of zemstva and dumas gave Russians some say in the government of their localities. Censorship was eased and access to education at all levels improved.

Towards the end of his reign Alexander appeared to be embracing a renewed period of reform through the appointment of Loris-Melikov and the approval of plans for a national assembly.

(b) Critical interpretation:

Alexander’s reforms were motivated by a desire to strengthen autocracy rather than to replace it. The autocratic power of the Tsar was unaltered by the time of Alexander’s death (although the Loris-Melikov plans may have proved to be a significant change).

The terms of the emancipation were written in response to the demands of the nobility to be compensated for their loss of land, and for them to be in charge of implementing the emancipation decree in their locality. As a result, the peasants often felt aggrieved that the process had been manipulated to suit the nobles’ interests. Russian Marxist historians argued that the Tsar acted to benefit the land-owning class at the expense of the peasants.

Another motivation of the emancipation, as well as the economic and military reforms, was to strengthen the Russian Army. This was a tool of Tsarist autocracy within Russia and a means of expanding Russia’s power over other regions externally. Therefore, some historians have argued that the reforms were not inspired by the welfare of ordinary Russians.

Following the assassination attempt of 1866, Alexander suffered a loss of confidence in the path of reform and was persuaded by his more conservative ministers to introduce a series of reactionary measures designed to limit some of the freedoms his reforms had allowed.

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Conclusion

Alexander II was not a particularly clever man and it seems unlikely that he would have cynically introduced the emancipation of the serfs in order to strengthen the nobility and the autocratic system of government. Nor does it seem likely that he had a grand vision for the future of Russia through a coherent and well-thought out programme of reform. The most satisfactory explanation of his reign may well lie in his personality and the various factors that came to influence him. He possessed a genuine desire to see his country recover from the disaster of the Crimean War and in this context, in the late 1850s and early 1860s, he was most open to the influence of his reformist advisers. However, after the assassination attempt of 1866, and the opposition which flourished as a result of his liberal policies, he became nervous about the unforeseen consequences of his policies and was more easily influenced by the conservative and reactionary advisers within his court. The failure of reaction to stem the growth of opposition and the increasing influence of Princess Dolgoruky led to a final flirtation with reforming ideas between 1879 and 1881.

Overall, Alexander II failed to strengthen the Tsarist regime because he sought an impossible compromise between traditional autocratic government and modern constitutional development. However, Alexander should be given credit for the significance of the reforms he introduced which were wide-ranging with a far-reaching impact. As the historian David Saunders wrote, although they ‘were poorly executed, incomplete, unsustained and insecure, the measures enacted by Alexander II nevertheless transformed the Russian Empire.’

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Alexander III and the Imposition of Autocracy 1881-94

Alexander III as Ruler

Alexander III witnessed the assassination of his father. The horror of this event confirmed in his mind that his father had been wrong to embrace ideas of reform. Alexander III was of the opinion that the Tsarist autocracy was best preserved through traditional policies of reaction and conservatism. His father’s assassination did not initiate these thoughts in his mind but merely served to confirm them.

The greatest influence on Alexander III when he was growing up was his tutor – Konstantin Pobedonostsev – who had a very traditional ‘slavophile’ outlook. In other words, he supported autocracy against reform; Russian Orthodox Christianity against other faiths; and believed in the superiority of Russians over the other nationalities of the Empire.

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Konstantin Pobedonostsev

Pobedonostsev had a huge influence on how Russia was governed from 1881 to 1905. He was originally the Professor of Civil Law at Moscow University. In 1880, he became the Procurator of the Holy Synod, which meant he was the leading government official responsible for the Russian Orthodox Church. He was the tutor of both Alexander III and Nicholas II, and therefore had a great influence on shaping their ideas about how Russia should be governed. As a result of his influence, Pobedonostsev was nicknamed the ‘Black Tsar’.

Some quotes from Pobedonostsev:

On democracy: ‘a fatal error’ and ‘the falsest of political principles’

On the freedom of the press: ‘one of the falsest institutions of our time’

On Judaism: the ‘Hebrew leprosy’

Emergency Powers (1881)

Alexander III’s immediate response to the assassination of his father was to introduce a ‘Statute Concerning Measures for the Protection of State Security and the Social Order’. The measures introduced are better known as the ‘Emergency Powers’:

A new secret police – the Okhrana – was established with wider powers Special courts introduced for the prosecution of suspected terrorists Increased censorship Removal of judges, magistrates and elected officials deemed to be too liberal An individual could be imprisoned without trial for 3 months Any district thought to be a risk could be placed under military rule Public or private gatherings could be dispersed and shops and factories closed down if

there was any suspicion of opposition activities.

In addition, Alexander III forced the resignation of some of his father’s more reforming ministers, including Loris-Melikov (Minister of the Interior) and Dmitrii Milyutin (Minister of War). The Emergency Powers were initially introduced for three years, but were never formally repealed and were therefore used in places until 1917.

Alexander III's repression was carried out by two groups of police:

i) The Gendarmerie - these were the uniformed security police responsible for law enforcement. They would investigate political and criminal cases, control riots and track down fugitives. Under Alexander III's 'Emergency Powers' they could declare any area an 'area of subversion' and arrest anyone though likely to commit a crime or related to people who had committed crimes, not just those suspected of committing crimes themselves. They were provided information by a large number of spies and informers.

ii) The Okhrana - this was the secret police who also operated a network of spies. They could intercept and read mail and often infiltrated the activities of groups suspected of revolutionary activities and beliefs.

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Further Reaction and Repression

Education

In 1884, control of universities was tightened. Alexander II’s liberal University Statue (1863) was replaced. The government took more control over university appointments and student societies were banned.

Fees for primary, secondary and university education were all raised in order to discourage students from humble backgrounds from accessing an education. In the words of a Tsarist decree from 1887: ‘children of coachmen, servants, cooks, washerwomen, small shopkeepers, and persons of a similar type should not be brought out of the social environment to which they belong.’

Parish primary schools run by the Orthodox Church were encouraged to expand and zemstva schools were discouraged.

Zemstva

Laws of 1890 and 1892 revised who had the right to vote in local elections for rural and urban assemblies (dumas). In St. Petersburg the electorate was reduced from 21,000 to 7,000.

The same laws increased the power of the Interior Ministry over the actions and decisions of the assemblies.

Zemstva were encouraged to be active in issues with little political significance such as health and local transport , but were discouraged from ranging beyond these areas.

Meetings of zemstva chairmen were severely restricted.

Land Captains

In 1889, Alexander III introduced a new position of authority – the Land Captain. This government official had to be a member of the nobility and replaced the previous office of Justice of the Peace. The Land Captain had the authority to:

overrule the mir (the peasant commune) as well as the local zemstvo if he felt it had overstepped its area of responsibility.

over-ride zemstvo elections and reverse decisions made by the zemstvo. intervene in judicial cases, imposing punishments if they were not satisfied by the original

outcome of a trial.

The Land Captain was responsible directly to the Minister of the Interior and therefore represented a significant increase in centralised control over local areas. In many ways, Alexander III was aiming to restore the nobility to the position of authority and influence they had had before the emancipation of the serfs.

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Political Authority in Action – Russification

Introduction

‘Russification’ refers to a policy aimed at suppressing the local characteristics of various regions within the Russian Empire, and to spread Russian characteristics to all of the Tsar’s subjects. Areas targeted by Russification included language, religion and education. The belief in the Tsarist government that a policy of Russification was necessary in the later 19th century partly stemmed from the ethnic diversity of the Russian Empire:

Nationalities of the Russian Empire(according to the 1897 Russian census)

Great RussiansUkraniansPolesWhite RussiansJewsTartarsGermansArmeniansGeorgians

55.6 million22.4 million7.9 million5.8 million5.2 million3.4 million1.8 million1.2 million0.8 million

The causes of Russification also included the insecurity of the Tsarist autocracy about the loyalty of many of these ethnic groups. Furthermore, it was fuelled by the ‘slavophile’ belief that the Russian way of life was superior to others.

The Polish Revolt (1863-64)

Poland had fallen under the power of the Tsars in 1815 following the Congress of Vienna which redrew the map of Europe following the defeat of Napoleon. Poland did not become, however, a full part of the Russian Empire but instead retained its nominal independence even though the Tsar was now also King of Poland. In 1831, the Poles rebelled against Nicholas I hoping to gain independence from Russia. Following the suppression of the revolt, the Tsar restricted some of the freedoms which Poland had enjoyed.

When Alexander II became Tsar in 1855, he made conciliatory gestures towards the Poles. However, the Polish ambition for independence was too strong to be appeased by Alexander II’s more liberal approach. In response to nationalist demonstrations in Warsaw in 1861, Alexander II introduced further reforms such as opening a new university in Warsaw. However, Polish nationalism continued to grow and in January 1863 broke out into armed rebellion. The rebellion

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took over a year to suppress. Alexander II was disillusioned that his attempt at reform and conciliation towards the Poles had been met with such retaliation and hostility.

As the rebellion had proved, Tsarist autocracy was incompatible with Polish nationalism. From 1864, Alexander II abandoned attempts at reform and followed his father’s policy of restricting Polish liberties. In 1864, the property of the Polish Roman Catholic Church was seized and the new Warsaw University was closed in 1869. Russian replaced Polish as the language of government and hundreds of Russian officials were drafted in to replace Poles in the civil service.

Russification under Alexander III

Under Alexander III, Russification became an official policy. It linked closely with Alexander's wider attempts to impose Tsarist autocracy and clamp down on any potential opposition.

Religion

The Russian Orthodox Church launched a campaign of mass conversion amongst the Muslim Tartars. By 1900, an estimated 100,000 Tartars had been converted to Christianity. As a result of this persecution, separatism remained a strong ambition amongst the Tartars up to 1917.

The Russian Orthodox Church even went as far as political assassinations in its campaign against the Georgian Church. Resistance to the attacks on their church stimulated Georgian nationalism rather than suppressing it.

The property of the Armenian Church was seized. The reconstruction of the huge Russian Orthodox cathedral in Riga (capital of Latvia) in

1885 was a deliberate symbol of the increasing desire of the Tsarist autocracy to assert the superiority of the Russian Church.

Government and Administration

In addition to the restrictions imposed on Poland after 1864 (see above), similar measures were imposed on the Ukraine by both Alexander II and Alexander III. Both Poland and the Ukraine were viewed with suspicion by the Tsarist government as the nationalist movements in these regions were quite powerful.

Finland had been allowed greater freedoms under Alexander II, including the use of Finnish in government. Under Alexander III, however, disadvantageous trade tariffs were imposed on Finland. Furthermore, Russian officials and the Russian language were increasingly imposed on the government of Finland.

The Armenian language was suppressed.

Impact

Tension between Russia and Poland had always existed and therefore it was not surprising that the only way for the Tsars to impose their authority in Poland was through repression. Other areas, however, had previously been favourably disposed towards Russia. For example, the Armenians were

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grateful for Russian protection in their long-running conflict with the Turks. Likewise, officials from the Baltic states had occupied a number of important roles within Tsarist government due to their well-regarded university education. However, by regarding all national minorities within the Russian empire as essentially disloyal and potentially rebellious, Alexander III only succeeded in creating more opposition to Russian rule. This pattern of increasing persecution stimulating greater opposition was even more significant in the campaign against Jews in Russia.

Persecution of Jews in Russia

Reasons for the persecution of Jews under Alexander III included:

The 'official' anti-semitism of the Russian Orthodox Church which had deep roots going back to the religious prejudices of the Middle Ages.

Popular hostility towards Jews due to their prominent role in money-lending and banking. The wider policy of Russification, which aimed to suppress differences of ethnicity, race and

religion in the Russian Empire. Involvement of Jews in the Polish Uprising of the 1860s, and in ongoing Polish nationalism. Involvement of some Jews in the People's Will group responsible for assassinating Alexander II. Using Jews as a scapegoat for popular discontent with government policies and general

hardship in Russia.

Examples of the persecution of Jews in Russia under Alexander III include:

a) Pogroms - A pogrom is a violent and murderous attack on a particular ethnic group. From 1881, the government turned a blind eye to, and even encouraged, pogroms against Jews. This started in the Ukraine and soon spread across Russia. Between 1881 and 1905, there were 215 pogroms against Jews, which involved murder, rape and the destruction of shops, businesses and synagogues.

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Traditionally, Jews in Russia were only allowed to live in an area called the 'Pale of Settlement'. This incorporated western areas of the Russian Empire such as Poland, Lithuania, Byelorussia ('White Russia'), and the western Ukraine.

Under Alexander II, there had been some relaxation of these restrictions and some Jews had been allowed to settle outside the limits of the Pale. In addition, recruitment of Jews into the army had been put on the same basis as for Russians. Under Alexander III, however, Jews were to experience increasing persecution.

b) Legal measures - the Minister of the Interior, Dmitri Tolstoy, introduced a number of restrictions on Jews:

- No new Jewish settlers were allowed in rural areas, even in the Pale. Jews were not allowed to trade on Christian holy days. Since they did not trade on Jewish holy days either, this put the Jews at a disadvantage to Christian traders.

- Jews could make up no more than 10% of any university or school student population. This also applied within the Pale of Settlement.

- 'Illegal' Jewish settlers were expelled from Kiev (1886) and Moscow (1891).

Impact

Many Jews emigrated from Russia. Others joined the Zionist Movement which was a militant nationalist Jewish organisation which campaigned for the establishment of a Jewish state. Most significantly, many Jews joined revolutionary socialist organisations to oppose Tsarist autocracy. In 1897, the General Union of Jewish Workers in Russia and Poland (the 'Bund') was established and this soon became involved with the wider Marxist Social Democratic Movement aiming to bring down Tsarist rule in Russia. Several prominent revolutionaries in 20th century Russia were Jews, including Martov, Trotsky and Zinoviev. Overall, therefore, the persecution of Jews under Alexander III had a similar impact to his other policies of Russification in that it merely served to stimulate opposition to Tsarist rule. Nicholas II continued in a similar vein to his father, further exacerbating the growing tensions within the Russian Empire.

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Victims of a pogrom in Russia

Opposition to Tsarism under Alexander III

Alexander III's repressive rule, following the assassination of his father in 1881, made it a lot harder for opposition groups to organise themselves and produce materials to publicise their causes. The reach of the secret police - the Okhrana - after 1881 was extensive and liberal use was made of their powers of arrest and imprisonment without trial. However, a number of opposition groups still existed in Russia, and in exile, during this period and these were to form the foundations of the far more extensive network of opposition which confronted Nicholas II in the 20th century.

Georgi Plekhanov

Plekhanov was a member of the populist 'Land and Liberty' movement in the 1870s. When this movement split in 1879, he became the leading figure of the 'Black Partition' which aimed to spread socialist ideas amongst Russian peasants. He was exiled from Russia in 1880 and settled in Geneva where he was exposed to the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He became convinced that the future of Russia lay in industrialisation and, therefore, that Marx's vision of socialism and communism to replace Tsarist autocracy was the way forward. He translated Marx's writings into Russian. Strangely, these were allowed into Russia by the Tsar's censors as they felt that Marx's ideas would distract the peasants from the more dangerous activities of groups such as the People's Will who had assassinated Alexander II.

In 1883, Plekhanov formed the group 'Emancipation of Labour'. This was to later become one of the groups which merged to form the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898 during the reign of Nicholas II. Plekhanov remained in exile until 1917 when he returned briefly to Russia during the revolutionary period, however, he opposed the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and died soon after in Finland in 1918. Plekhanov is significant therefore, as he provided a link between the radical opposition groups of Alexander II's reign and the later Marxist groups which opposed Nicholas II. Despite his later opposition to Lenin and the Bolsheviks, he was still regarded as the 'Father of Russian Marxism' by the Communists in Russia in the 20th century.

Marxism

Plekhanov is a good example of the limitations of Marxist activity within Russia in the reign of Alexander III - he was in exile from 1880 to 1917. Within Russia itself, Marxist activity was limited. There were some small cells in major cities in the late 1880s and early 1890s, mostly involving students. However, they were too small to achieve much in the way of active opposition. In 1893, a young lawyer called Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (later better known as Lenin) joined a St. Petersburg group of Marxists, but not until 1898 was there any wider organisation of Russian Marxists merging the small groups together. In the early 1890s, Marxist groups rejected the use of terror as counter-productive and concentrated on propaganda and industrial agitation.

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The People's Will

This was the group responsible for the assassination of Alexander II in 1881, which was suppressed heavily following Alexander III's accession to the throne. In 1886, the group was reformed by a group of students in St. Petersburg. In 1887, members of the group who had made bombs to assassinate Alexander III were arrested. This group included Alexander Ulyanov, the older brother of Lenin. Ulyanov was hanged along with four others convicted of making the bombs.

Police activity and a lack of enthusiasm amongst peasants reduced the membership and activities of the People's Will significantly after 1887. During the great famine of 1891-92, many radical revolutionaries turned to humanitarian work to help the starving peasants rather than pursuing radical politics. Disillusionment with government action during the famine, which had highlighted the need for significant change to the rural economy, led to a revival of Populist ideas in the mid-1890s. Therefore, although active opposition to Alexander III was limited, there were groups within Russia continuing the cause of the Populists of the 1870s and who were to provide the basis for the much larger and more dangerous Socialist Revolutionary Party which formed in 1901 (see later notes).

Conclusion

Overall, Alexander III's system of repression worked effectively - active opposition to the Tsarist system between 1881 and 1894 was limited. However, Alexander was only able to repress opposition not to eliminate it and some of the other changes and policies in Russia in this period laid the foundations for greater opposition on the future, Alexander's policies of Russification had created much greater potential opposition within Russia's national and ethnic minorities, and the economic transformation of Russia was starting to create a much larger urban proletariat which would be the perfect breeding ground for radical ideas such as Marxism to flourish after 1894.

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Economic and Social Developments

Industrial Developments

In the reign of Alexander II (1855-81)

One of the main underlying motivations for all of Alexander II’s domestic reforms was the strengthening of autocracy and restoring Russia’s status as a great power. To achieve this, Alexander needed to reform the Russian economy in order to generate more income for the government and stimulate greater industrial development. The man in charge of these reforms was Mikhail von Reutern, Minister of Finance 1862-78.

i) The tax system was overhauled. The practice of tax-farming was abolished (this involved a private business paying a fixed amount of money to the government for the right to collect tax in a particular area. This guaranteed the government a certain level of income, although one below the full amount of tax that could be collected in theory. The private business made a profit if it collected more tax than the amount it had paid the government). The government took over responsibility for the collection of taxes, which generated more tax income for the government. The government invested a significant proportion of this income into stimulating the growth of industry.

ii) The government subsidised the development of new industries, especially railways, cotton and coal mining. The railway network increased from 1,049km in 1855 to 19,029km in 1875. In addition, the new railways were planned to link important centres of industrial production to the major cities. For example, Moscow was linked to Kursk, Voronezh and Nizhni Novgorod which were all major industrial centres.

iii) The government encouraged investment in Russian industry by setting up a state bank in 1860 and municipal banks in 1862. These banks leant money to entrepreneurs and businessmen at reasonable rates of interest to encourage them to invest and grow their businesses. The government further encouraged foreign investment through a guaranteed annual dividend. This meant that banks and businesses from other countries who were thinking of investing money into Russia companies would now have more confidence as the government guaranteed a certain level of profit. If the Russian companies did not make enough money themselves, the government would top up the dividend paid out.

iv) Initially, protective tariffs were lowered and more liberal trade policies introduced to stimulate Russia’s exports. This was designed to open Russia up to the benefits of trade with the rest of the world. If the government lowered tariffs on foreign goods being imported into Russia, then other countries would lower their tariffs on Russian goods being exported abroad.

However, it became clear in the 1870s that lower tariffs had stimulated imports much more significantly than Russian exports. This had led to an imbalance of trade - Russia was importing much more than it was exporting therefore overall as a country it was losing money. As a result, between 1877 and 1882, tariffs on foreign goods were raised. The impact of these

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tariffs can be seen in the figures on the next page showing the growth of Russian coal and pig-iron production in these years.

Russian coal and pig-iron productionYears Coal (poods*) Pig-iron (poods)

1860-64 21.8 million 18.1 million1865-69 28.4 million 18.9 million1870-74 61.9 million 22.9 million1875-79 131.3 million 25.9 million1880-84 225.4 million 29.2 million

(*a pood is a Russian measure of weight equivalent to 16.4kg)

The impact of emancipation also contributed to the growth of industry as some nobles sold their land and invested in new industries; and some peasants moved from the countryside to seek work in towns and cities. The economic reforms described above did encourage the development of Russian industry in the 1860s and 1870s, although by comparison with her international competitors Russia was still economically and industrially underdeveloped. In particular, the peasants continued to shoulder the majority of the tax burden (in addition to their redemption payments) and this stifled the strength of the domestic market which provided a limited level of demand for manufactured goods.

In the reign of Alexander III (1881-94)

Alexander III was an intelligent enough ruler to recognise that his policy of increased repression introduced in response to his father's assassination and the growth of opposition groups would not be sufficient on its own to secure the future of the Tsarist autocracy. He was also aware that, despite the economic progress made in his father's reign, Russia was still well behind the great powers of western Europe in terms of industrial and economic development. As a result, Alexander III hoped to stimulate an industrial revolution in Russia which would reduce internal opposition due to increased wealth and prosperity, as well as closing the gap with Russia's foreign rivals. The men responsible for achieving this were the finance ministers:

Nikolai Bunge (1881-87) Ivan Vyshnegradsky (1887-92) Sergei Witte (1892 onwards)

Bunge continued many of the policies from Alexander II's reign:

- state investment in the railways was maintained. In 1883, the Batum-Baku railway was completed linking the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, which greatly stimulated oil production in the region.

- the increase in protective tariffs continued in the early 1880s.

- the consolidation and development of the banking system was promoted, e.g. by the introduction of the Nobles' Land Bank (1883) and the Peasants' Land Bank (1885).

- reforms to the tax system were extended. Bunge ended the unpopular poll tax and instead concentrated on raising money through indirect taxes and inheritance tax.

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i) Vyshnegradsky aimed to improve Russia's finances by building up its gold reserves. This would make Russia more financially secure, and therefore stimulate more investment in industry from both home and abroad, as investors would have more confidence that the country would not go bankrupt and that the government would be able to step in if there were any problems. Vyshnedgardsky achieved this by raising indirect taxation and increasing the amount of grain exported. (An indirect tax is one put on goods which are sold, e.g. food, alcohol, such as VAT).

ii) Vyshnegradsky reduced imports by further raising protective tariffs in the Tariff Act of 1891. This had a particular impact on the production of Russian iron, industrial machinery and cotton which were now heavily protected against foreign competition. Some import duties were now as high as 33%. The impact of these tariffs can be seen in the table below which continues the figures from above about Russian coal and pig-iron production in these years.

Russian coal and pig-iron productionYears Coal (poods) Pig-iron (poods)

1880-84 225.4 million 29.2 million1885-89 302.6 million 37.6 million1890-94 434.3 million 66.9 million1895-99 673.3 million 120.9 million

iii) Vyshnegradsky negotiated loans from France which were used to invest in industry. The government used this money to invest heavily in railways and heavy industry. By the mid-1890s, 60% of the Russian railway network was state-owned. The most famous example was the Trans-Siberian Railway which was started in 1891 and largely completed by 1902.

iv) The development of Russian industry was further stimulated by foreign investment. For example, the Nobel, Rothschild and Vishau families invested heavily in the development of the oil industry in the Caspian Sea centred around the Azerbaijani city of Baku. In 1898, oil production in Azerbaijan exceeded that of the USA.

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Ivan Vyshnegradsky (1832-95)

He was the son of a priest who initially went into teaching. However, his main skill was as an entrepreneur and by the 1880s he had amassed a fortune of over one million roubles through investing in companies which grew rapidly as Russia industrialised. His understanding of economics made him an obvious choice as finance minister in 1887.

v) Russian industry also developed rapidly due to the actions of Russian entrepreneurs. Vyshnedgradsky himself had made a fortune by investing in growing industrial businesses. One of the most famous Russian entrepreneurs was Nikolai Putilov who purchased a state-run iron foundry in St. Petersburg in 1867. The company provided a quarter of all state orders of locomotives, wagons and rails in the 1870s. Following Putilov's death in 1880, the company continued to expand and shifted production into more profitable sectors such as machinery, artillery and steel.

Vyshnedgradsky's Downfall (1892)

Vyshnegradsky had been very successful in stimulating industrial growth in Russia, as well as strengthening the government's finances. However, this had come at the expense of the peasants. Higher indirect taxation hit the peasants the hardest as they could least afford the higher prices it caused. Furthermore, protective tariffs also caused prices to rise as Russian businesses did not face cheaper foreign competition. Vyshnegradsky's export drive meant that peasants were forced to sell their grain to the government and this risked leaving them without sufficient grain reserves to survive difficult periods. In 1891, an early winter followed by a long, dry summer ruined many crops. As a result, the peasants in many areas of Russia did not have enough to eat. In 1891 and 1892, 350,000 peasants died from starvation and disease. Vyshegradsky was blamed and he was dismissed.

Vyshnegradsky's replacement as finance minister was Sergei Witte (see later notes) who was also committed to economic modernisation and continued in the same vein as his predecessor.

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The Land Issue

As described above, the economic policies and developments in Russia in this period concentrated heavily on industry at the expense of the peasants. The emancipation of the serfs had not led to dramatic changes in the Russian countryside:

- peasants farmed small plots of land (average 9 acres) which meant most families remained very poor and were unable to invest in more modern methods of production, e.g. the wooden plough was still widely used.

- peasants had to pay redemption payments to their former landlords as compensation for receiving their emancipation in 1861. This kept most peasant families further in poverty.

- the mir (village commune) remained the strongest influence over the peasants but was essentially a conservative and traditional institution which sought to restrict peasants' freedom of enterprise and movement in an attempt to maintain social cohesion and equality. For example, the medieval rotation system for the whole village, which involved leaving one of the large open fields fallow for a year, was still widespread.

As a result, it has been estimated that in 1878, 50% of peasant households were incapable of producing a surplus beyond their own subsistence requirements. British farms were four times more productive per acre.

To exacerbate these issues, the Russian population doubled in the second half of the 19th century. This was partly the result of the way in which land was allocated by the mir as each male child born had the right to some land. Therefore, this encouraged peasant families to have more children (hopefully boys) so that the family's overall land holding would increase.

Land Banks

To try to encourage modernisation and the development of larger, more modern farms Bunge, the finance minister, introduced a Nobles' Land Bank in 1882, and a Peasants' Land Bank in 1885. The Land Banks would loan money at low rates of interest to more enterprising landowners and farmers to invest in new methods and more land. It was hoped that the more enterprising farmers would then prosper and become more productive at the expense of the inefficient small-scale producers.

The impact of these land banks was limited. High levels of taxation and low grain prices (partly due to foreign competition) meant that the profits made by farmers were restricted. As a result, many who had taken out a loan from a land bank merely fell further into debt. Some inefficient farmers used the cheap loans as a way of continuing in agriculture without making any improvements to their land. Peasant ownership of land did increase but this did not lead to significant growth in overall production as new farming methods were slow to take hold.

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Social Developments and Divisions

Nobles and Landowners

The changes which occurred in Russia between 1855 and 1894 affected the status of the nobility. Before the emancipation of the serfs the land-owning nobility were the bedrock of the Tsarist system controlling local areas for the Tsar. However, the impact of the emancipation of the serfs heightened the financial difficulties which many of the nobility were already experiencing. Much of the compensation received for the loss of land and serfs was spent on repaying existing debts and many noble families did not have the capital to invest in their farms to make them more productive and profitable. As a result, many noble families sold their land and moved to towns and cities - around a third of all nobles' land was sold like this between 1861 and 1905. In some areas, there were no longer enough nobles to manage the zemstva and other important offices of local government.

Despite the financial struggles of many noble families, the nobility as a whole retained its social and political dominance throughout the period. All of the Tsar's minister, advisers and army officers were from noble families. The political authority those nobles who had remained in rural areas was strengthened by Alexander III's introduction of Land Captains in 1889.

The Middle Class

At the start of the period in 1855, the middle class in Russia was a very small group with limited influence. However, the process of industrialisation led to an increase in the size and importance of the middle class. As society urbanised and industrialised there were far more professional people needed such as factory owners, managers, bankers, administrators, doctors and teachers. The introduction of the zemstva, and the urban equivalent (the dumas), gave the growing middle classes the opportunity to play more of a role in local government.

However, by comparison to the advanced countries of western Europe the size of Russia's middle class was still very small - approximately half a million in 1897. This was a fairly insignificant number in the context of the size of the Russian peasantry and had little impact on the traditional division of Russian society into the upper-class of nobility and the peasants. The middle class had no voice in central government at all.

The Urban Working Class

As Russia industrialised so the size of the proletariat (urban working class) inevitably increased. At first, a significant number of factory workers moved to the cities temporarily before returning to their villages to help out at key times such as harvest. As the end of the 19th century approached, however, more and more peasants were moving permanently to Russia's growing industrial towns and cities, most notably Moscow and St. Petersburg both of which had populations of over 1 million by the end of the century. A significant proportion of the new urban working class was female. Women made up 20% of the industrial workforce in 1885, but a third by 1914.

Conditions for the new urban workers were often shocking. Peasants who moved to a town or city often found themselves housed in overcrowded barracks with inadequate sanitation provided for them by their employer. Workers ate in canteens and washed in communal bath-houses. For those who found private housing conditions were little better with 40% lacking running water and sewers. Despite the low quality of housing rents were often expensive because of the high demand.

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The government introduced some legislation to improve workers' conditions but this was limited in scope:

1885 - night-time employment of women and children prohibited1886 - workers had to be employed by contracts approved by factory boards1892 - employment of children under 21 banned and female labour banned in mines

Overall, the government was reluctant to do more to improve workers' lives as they feared that if labour costs rose then this would frighten off foreign investors and Russian businessmen. They were helped by the fact that Russian peasants were used to a hard life and hard work and were reluctant to agitate for better conditions at a time when there many similar people looking for jobs in industry. Between 1886 and 1895 there were 33 strikes per year - a relatively low number.

The Peasants

As a result of emancipation, the gap between richer and poorer peasants grew wider.

i) The Kulaks

Kulaks were better off peasants who had taken advantage of the greater freedom that emancipation had created and who had invested in buying more land and using new methods of production, sometimes with the help of a loan from the Peasant Land Bank. Kulaks often employed other poorer peasants as labourers. They also acted as 'pawnbrokers' by buying grain from a poorer peasant in the autumn, so that they had enough money to survive the winter, and then selling it back to them in the spring at an inflated price (or accepting some land instead).

ii) Poorer Peasants

Weighed down by high taxation and redemption payments, and farming small plots of land, many poorer peasants struggled to survive. Therefore, it is not surprising that increasing numbers were moving to the growing industrial towns and cities in search of alternative work. For those that remained, life was harsh. The forced selling of grain to the government in the late 1880s left many peasant families starving, which culminated in the famine of 1891-92. Average life expectancy was below 30 in the 1890s and a large proportion of peasants were turned down for military service due to poor health. The zemstva endeavoured to provide some healthcare and education to the peasants but these efforts paled into insignificance compared to the economic difficulties faced by many families.

Some areas were worse off than others. In the Russian heartland, between Moscow and St. Petersburg, the problems of over-population and small land holdings were particularly acute. In the Tambov region it was estimated in the 1880s that two-thirds of peasant farmers were unable to feed their families without falling into debt. By contrast, the problems were not so severe in other regions such as the Baltic states, western Ukraine, the northern Caucasus and western Siberia where overpopulation was not such as problem and commercial farming was able to make more progress.

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The Cultural Influence of the Church

Traditionally the Russian Orthodox Church was an important pillar supporting the Tsarist system. The Church taught that the Tsar was appointed by God and that the Russian people should accept the conditions on earth as the will of God. The Tsar and the Church worked closely together - the Patriarch of Moscow (the leading priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, similar to our Archbishop of Canterbury) was a close adviser of the Tsar. The Over-Procurator of the Holy Synod was a government minister appointed by the Tsar to run church affairs (the position held by Pobedonostsev from 1880). Therefore, the Church provided the Tsar with spiritual guidance and support whilst the Tsar had ultimate control over church appointments, finances and administration.

The influence of the Russian Orthodox Church over the peasants was a particularly important aspect of the Tsarist system. With this in mind, Alexander II was worried by a report published in 1858 which criticised the education and quality of rural clergy. In 1862, as a result of this report and the potentially destabilising effect of the emancipation, Alexander II set up an enquiry looking into Church organisation and practice. In the end, however, little was done in a practical sense to improve the quality of local priests in rural areas but the Church remained an important influence in the lives of the peasants.

More significant was the influence of the Church over education. In 1863, Alexander II moved to remove education from Church control and place it under the authority of the zemstva. This was designed to encourage schools to develop a more forward-thinking curriculum based on greater scientific and technical content. Under Alexander III, however, access to education was restricted through higher school fees and the only schools allowed to expand were parish elementary schools controlled by the Church.

By 1894, therefore, the Orthodox Church remained an important influence within Russian society both through education and weekly church services. This cultural pre-eminence was, however, coming under increasing threat as Russian society changed due to industrialisation. The workers in the growing industrial towns and cities were harder for the Church to influence and many workers were increasingly attracted to the atheist ideology being promoted by radical socialist groups.

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The coronation of Nicholas II in 1894 following the death of his father, Alexander III. It shows the significance of the Russian Orthodox Church in the coronation ceremony.