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Russia 1855-1894

Progress or Reaction?

Background

When Alexander II succeeded his father Nicholas I as Tsar, on 2 March 1855, Russia faced three major problems:

(i) Restoration of international prestige following the disaster of Crimea

(ii) How to maintain, modernise and prolong the absolutist model of rule

(iii) What to do about serfdom

The Emancipation Edict

The reign of Alexander II will always be judged principally in terms of the Emancipation Decree, 19 February 1861. The main terms were:

-Over two years the Edict of Emancipation would take effect. Serfs owned by the Russian state would be released over five years.

- Former serfs could now own land, marry and have access to the law courts.

-Former serfs now owned their houses and the plots of land immediately surrounding them.

-From 1863 former serfs were now able to buy land. Maximum and minimum prices were laid down, but contracts for sale would have to be negotiated between individual peasants and landowners.

-The government would compensate landlords for land transferred to the military.

-The peasants would be charged redemption dues for 49 years.

-Domestic serfs who had not directly farmed land were no eligible to receive land.

The consequences of the Edict

The most significant consequence of the Edict was to dramatically reduce the short-term threat of mass revolution in the countryside. (There had been several hundred instances of localised uprisings since the 1840s, that had resulted in the repeated deployment of the army.) Around 40 million Russians had gained a form of freedom.

However, there is little consensus beyond this regarding the intentions behind, and consequences of, emancipation. One view of emancipation is that the nobility drove the process because they saw the influx of capital arising from the government compensation and redemption payments as being more valuable than the serf-labour. This interpretation sees Emancipation as more of a bail-out of the nobility than motivated by concern for the peasants, or for a long-term restructuring of the rural economy and society.

Another view of emancipation focuses on the economic implications for Russia as an exporter of grain. Although the Russian Empire had the potential to satisfy a very large proportion of the global export market’s grain needs, its progress had been retarded by the inefficiency of its agricultural system. Emancipation would only be likely to yield significant increases in productivity if the proceeds of redemption were re-invested in agricultural improvement. However, many of the nobility were so profoundly in debt that they used the proceeds to pay down mortgages (or fund their lifestyles) rather than invest in new technology. About 50% of compensation payments received by the nobility were used to pay off debts.

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Finally, the success of Emancipation would depend heavily on the scale of the holdings that the peasants would be allowed – and this proved to be highly variable. In the worst cases, the former serfs were left with less land to farm as rent-paying tenants or owners than they had as serfs. In the most productive regions of Russia, such as the Black Earth region (named after the fertility of its soil) the landlords tended to retain the best land for themselves and only their former serfs to have the inferior. By 1878, only 50% of the peasantry had enough land to produce a surplus rather than be subsistence farmers. Average holdings across Russia varied, but a crude mean was around 9 acres – not enough for efficient cereal production.

A further limitation to the benefits of Emancipation lay in the form of land tenure that resulted. Rather than allowing the peasants to become full hereditary freeholders, the peasants were subject to the jurisdiction of the village committee Mir or Obschina. This body decided which family would be allowed which parcel of land, and there was no automatic right of transmission from father to son.

As a result of this absence of secure tenure, the peasants had little incentive to invest in enhancing productivity. Emancipation failed to deliver the significant improvements to Russia’s position as a grain exporter. Canada, the USA, Germany, Denmark and Britain remained far more productive per hectare.

The Reforms to Local Government

Up until emancipation the nobility had a paternal responsibility for the peasants on their estates. However, one of the key consequences of Emancipation was the necessity for new structures of government (in reality the first ever real intrusion of modern government) into rural Russia.

From 1864 the Zemstva (singular Zemstvo) were regional governments created to address the basic needs of infrastructure:

-Primary education

-public health

-poor relief

-local industry

-highway maintenance

Although mundane and seemingly ordinary, these new responsibilities marked the emergence of a Russian state in the modern sense of the word.

About 74% of the seats in the Zemstva were held by members of the liberal nobility. A notable Zemstvo member was George Lvov, from one of Russia’s oldest noble families, who would later lead the government following the abdication of Nicholas in February 1917.

On the one hand, these were generally liberal and progressive-minded men, but for the more radical critics of the Tsarist system they were merely a means of perpetuating and extending the Tsarist system.

The other reforms of Alexander II

Significant modernisations occurred to many aspects of Russian life. Many of these were influenced by Western models across several areas of life. Legal reforms bore the stamp of western liberal influences.

-Trials were now conducted in public.

-All members of society had access to the courts.

-All cases were eligible for jury trial.

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-The judiciary was to be independent.

Military reforms were also introduced – partially in response to the successes of the Prussians against the Austrians. War Minister Dimitri Milyutin reduced the length of conscription from 25 years (a form of military serfdom) to 6 years. However, the categories of people eligible for conscription were greatly widened, and from 1874 all classes were required to do national service at aged 20.

Education was also modernised; and again this was partially in response to the growth of Prussian power. The Prussian gymnasium system was adopted.

The university system was expanded, allowing greater student numbers; and restrictions were lifted on the importation of books and papers from Western Europe. Censorship of ideas was relaxed in 1857. In 1863 the University Statute allowed autonomy for Higher Education Institutions.

Was Alexander II the Tsar Liberator ?

M. Perrie, Alexander II, Emancipation and Reform in Russia, 1885-1881 (1989), p. 24.

O.Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War, The Volga Countryside in Revolution 1917-1921 (1989), p.15‘The Emancipation decrees of the early 1860s liberated the peasant commune from the local structure of power and integrated it into a new structure of state administration in the volost township. The ‘rural society’, which became the new official term for the village commune, was made collectively responsible before the state for the redemption of payment of the nobles’ land received during Emancipation as well as the other traditional obligations of the commune. The society was to elect representatives who, along with the village elders and the tax collectors, attended the volost assembly. The latter had its own elder, Starshina, and a court, which administered justice according to local customary law. The volost administration stood at a level below the gentry-dominated Zemstva in the district towns. The continued autonomy of the communes in the most important areas of rural administration (e.g. land use, tax collection, military recruitment) created serious problems of political decentralization …’

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The development of politics under Alexander II

While the Emancipation Decree reduced the immediate threat of revolution in the countryside, it did not deliver the enduring stability that the Tsar and the political elite had hoped for. Indeed, dissatisfaction over the terms of emancipation provoked a whole new form of political opposition. Internally, the Tsar’s government was riven between Westernisers who wanted further modernising and liberalising measures, and ‘Slavophiles’ who felt that Russia’s interests were better served by fidelity to the monarchy, the language and the Orthodox Church. A third element of instability came from the mounting dissatisfaction among many of the nationalities of the Tsar’s empire, including the Poles and the Finns.

Intellectual and political opposition to Tsarism

Whereas the exiled Alexander Herzen responded positively to the reforms of the 1860s, Nikolai Chernyshevsky grew ever more radical, and came to reject Tsarism in principle. Chernyshevsky’s What is to be Done ? of 1862 later gave its title to Lenin’s pamphlet of 1902.

Whereas Herzen and Chernyshevsky opposed Tsarism with the pen, others took a more direct approach to their politics. The Populist movement, led by Lavrov and Mikhailovsky, believed that liberal intellectuals could change Russian society by educating the peasants. However, the peasants did not see any value in this offer of education, and between 1873-1877 thousands of idealistic young students and intellectuals were driven from the villages.

The failure of the populist experiment led to a further mutation to the opposition movement – Land and Liberty. This group aimed to engage with the peasants over a longer period of time. It divided in 1870 into two wings.

Black Partition was a peaceful movement for land redistribution, whereas The People’s Will emerged as a terrorist organisation with the stated policy of assassinating the Tsar and other leaders in order to achieve a full scale revolution.

From the late 1870s the People’s Will began a campaign of assassination that claimed increasing numbers of the Tsar’s ministers and advisers. While groups such as People’s Will spread across Russia, they never gained mass popular support, and therefore could not have realistically removed the Tsar from power.

The Tsar’s response to the growth of political opposition

The political dividend that Alexander II may have anticipated as Tsar Liberator was short-lived. The 1870s saw ever growing levels of opposition and terrorism. Alexander II was survived repeated attempts on his life: in 1866, April 1879, December 1879 and February 1880.

In 1880, under the influence of his second wife Catherine Dolgoruky, he appointed the more liberally inclined Loris Melikov. That year, Alexander II considered calling a National Assembly, to comprise nominated members and elected members from the Zemstva. The proposals were still under discussion when Alexander II was assassinated on 13 March 1881.

The Conservative Reaction

The assassination of Alexander II was immediately followed by a period of Emergency Rule, which remained in force until the abdication of February 1917. Loris Melikov was immediately replaced by Dimitry Tolstoy. Another hugely influential figure was Konstantin Pobedonostev, tutor to Alexander III and Procurator of the Holy Synod (government minister for the Orthodox Church).

In the countryside, noble power was reasserted through the appointment of a new office Land Commandants who had authority over the Zemstva. This was a significant re-assertion of central power over the regions.

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Another key manifestation of the reaction was the appointment of Delyanov as Education Minister. His policies included the reversal of autonomy for universities (1884) and the raising of tuition fees (1887). This latter policy was intended to reduce social mobility and the spread of political ideas among the ordinary people.

By the end of Alexander III’s rule, 79% of all Russians were still illiterate.

Economic developments

Emancipation did not deliver immediate improvements to the Russian economy; however, the flow of former Serfs to the cities helped to bolster the growing urban workforce. High tariffs against foreign imports helped to protect domestic production in the extractive and heavy industrial sectors. From 1893 Count Sergei Witte became a leading figure in the royal government. His policy was to encourage further foreign investment in the Russian railways.

1860-4 1865-9 1870-4 1875-9 1880-4 1885-9 1890-40

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21.8 28.4 61.9131.3

225.4302.6

673.3

pRODUCTION OF COAL IN MILLIONS x 16 kG.

1860-4 1865-9 1870-4 1875-9 1880-4 1885-9 1890-40

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18.1 18.922.9 25.9 29.2

37.6

66.9

pRODUCTION OF PIG IRON IN MILLIONS x 16 kG.

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1861-5 1866-70 1871-5 1876-80 1881-5 1886-900

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10001200140016001800

443

1378

1660

767632

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Kilometres of railway line constructed in the Russian Empire

Russification

A further consistent feature of the rules of both Alexander II and his successor was Russification. The idea of promoting Russian language, faith, culture and religion over those of other nationalities was not new. During the reign of Nicholas I, which was dominated by reaction against the ideas of the French Revolution and the more open-minded Alexander I, “Official Nationality” was promoted as a defence of Russian values and of the imperial monarchy.

In 1862 revolt broke out Poland, stimulated by the appointment of the Tsar’s brother Constantine as Viceroy, and also by the threat of conscription it into the Tsar’s Army. The uprising lasted until 1864 and was only put down with the support of the Bismarck and the Prussians. The Catholic Church (seen as a centre of national resistance against Russia) suffered the confiscation of its lands in 1864, and the University of Warsaw was closed in 1869.

Force alone was not enough to pacify the Poles. In 1864 freehold land tenure was allowed to 700,000 Polish peasants. Given the highly agrarian nature of Polish society, this measure did help to restore stability. But, the brutality of the Tsar’s response created bred an enduring resentment that flickered on until the 1917 revolutions, when it was reignited into a full-scale war for national independence.

Three other groups suspected b the Tsarist monarchy were the Armenians, Tartars, Georgians and Jews. In the case of the first two, the Orthodox Church engaged in campaigns of conversion and cultural oppression. Under Alexander III the Armenian Orthodox Church was suppressed and its language outlawed.

Alexander III even provoked opposition among nationalities that had previously been quiescent and accepting of Tsarist rule. In the Baltic States, aggressive Russification was implemented, symbolished through the building of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Riga, Latvia. In Finland, under Alexander III, hostile trade tariffs were imposed that made it harder for the Finns to export products to the rest of the Empire.

The Jews, numbering around 5.2 million (4% of the total) were in a particularly vulnerable position throughout this period. Historically, the Jews had been restricted to the Pale of Settlement in the Ukraine, and had enjoyed the official protection of the monarchy, as they had been integral to the economic development of western Russia. But under Alexander II and Alexander III they were increasingly scapegoated for events such as the Polish uprising, and the assassination of 1881. The soil was fertile for anti-Semitism as the Orthodox Church had long hated the Jews, while the arch-conservative forces saw them as a vehicle for instability and revolution. From the 1880s onwards the government secretly sponsored anti-Semitic groups such as The Black Hundreds that organised pogroms.

Jews were subject to new discrimination. No more than 10% of school and university places were allowed to go to Jews, even in areas where the predominated in the population. In 1886 all Jews who had moved to Kiev (just adjacent to the Pale of Settlement in the Ukraine) and in 1891, all who had moved to Moscow, without the necessary internal passport, were expelled.

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Unsurprisingly, Jewish emigration from the Russian Empire, and especially to the USA, was a significant phenomenon from the 1880s.

Foreign Policy under Alexander II and Alexander III

As a result of Russia’s de facto defeat in the Crimean War, it was forced to sign the Black Sea Clauses, agreed in the Treaty of Paris of 1858. This limited the access of the Russian navy to the Black Sea – a key priority for the British, who feared the Tsar’s ambitions against the declining Ottoman Empire.

Russia profoundly resented the Black Sea Clauses, as they cut across its ambitions to support the Slavic nationalities of the Balkans against the Ottoman Empire. Russia successful war against Turkey (1876-7) enabled the creation of a Bulgarian monarchy under the Tsar’s protection, according to the Treaty of San Stefano of 1878.

Both Alexander II and his successor understood the imperative of avoiding war with Prussia. Bismarck’ support against the Poles was especially welcome. During Bismarck’s wars of 1866 and 1870, Alexander II remained a bystander.

Both Alexander II and Alexander III shared Bismarck’s view that war should be avoided between Russia and Germany. The Re-Insurance Treaty between Germany and Russia in 1887 was an important re-statement of this commitment at a time when rivalry was growing over the Balkans.

While Alexander II and Alexander III avoided war with the European monarchies, they were far more ruthless in central Asia. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s Turkestan, Samarkand and Bokhara were conquered, as part of a stated mission of ‘civilisation.’ In 1892 work began on the Trans-Siberian railway, an expression of imperial ambition as well as an infrastructural project.

Essay Question

‘Compare and contrast the Policies of Alexander II and Alexander III’

Key concept – Should 1881 be seen as a major turning point, in which a liberal and reforming Tsar was followed by a Conservative autocrat, or were the elements of continuity between the two reigns more significant than the differences?

Remember to include some historical interpretations of Alexander II and Alexander III. See the files on Google Drive that include historians’ opinions of both Tsars.

Points of continuity –

Policies to encourage conomic growth, urbanisation and railway investment.

Russification and persecution of nationalities.

Continuity of Absolutism across both reigns. (Debate needed over whether A II was a liberator. Should his plans for a National Assembly in 1881 be seen as the great lost opportunity, or too little too late?)

Efforts to restore Russia’s international prestige following the humiliation of Crimea in 1854-6.

Points of discontinuity –

Emancipation and the Zemstva (A II) versus the Land Commandants (A III).

Legal reforms (A II) versus Emergency Rule (A III).

Educational reforms (A II) versus renewed censorship and control (A III).