Liberalization in Tsarist Russia:

Alexander II

Section 13.67

Tsarist Russia after 1856• Outcomes of the Crimean War

showed the strength of the western nations and the backwardness of the “enormous village”

• Huge empire (Poland to Pacific) was unable to repel the limited but efficient attacks of the west

• Alexander II (1855-1881)• Assumed tsardom during the war• Not a born liberal but knew he had

to act• The European examples again

become the model for Russian reforms

• Two major perspectives of what Russia was:

• Westernizers: Russia is destined to become more like Europe

• Slavophiles: Russia is destined to be unique (Just not sure what!)

Autocracy of the Tsar• Russia’s 1st fundamental institution was tsar’s

autocratic rule• But it wasn’t exactly like absolutism (Louis XIV fashion)• European conceptions were missing

– Like that spiritual authority is independent of state authority (separation of Church and State)

– People have certain rights or claims for justice (English Bill of Rights, Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen)

• Rule by law was substituted with ukase (arbitrary laws created by tsar), police action, and the army

• Developing technology was replaced with importing technology and forcing reforms onto the population

• “the Russian empire was a machine superimposed upon its people without organic connection (bureaucracy pure and simple)”

• Those within Russia that were exposed to western ideals objected to the pure bureaucracy– ‘poisoned’ with foreign ideas (liberty, fraternity, just

and classless society, value of the individual, freedom of consciousness

• Huge government was actually afraid of its own people• Press and universities were censored

The Severity of Russian Serfdom• 2nd fundamental institution was serfdom• Majority of population were serfs• Resembled American slavery• Serfs were owned, could be bought and sold,

used in occupation other than agriculture (factories, mechanics, evening migrating city workers)

• Serfs that had some mobility had to pay fees to the lord

• Serfs lot depended on the personality or economic circumstances of their owners (paternalistic)

• Gentry served as local government of sorts• Law did little to interfere with gentry privilege

over his serfs• Many conservatives and liberal Russian began to

feel that serfdom must end (mid 1800s)• Wasn’t profitable anymore• Made the muzhiks into “illiterate and stolid

drudges, without incentive, initiative, self-respect, or pride of workmanship

• Made for very poor soldiers

Western Ideas and Education• 3rd fundamental institution (arose in mid 1800s

was the intelligentsia• Educated Russians were full of Western Ideas• Estranged from the government, from the

Church, from the uneducated peasants• And felt some guilt for the condition of the

peasants• Became the “intelligentsia: felt themselves a

class apart• Free to think, not free to do much• Made up of students, university graduates,

people who had time to read• They tended to adopt sweeping and all-

embracing philosophies• Believed that intellectuals should play a large

role in society• Had an exaggerated view of the influence

thinkers have had on historical events• Some turned to revolution and terrorism• Government responded with more repression

The Emancipation Act of 1861 & Other Reforms• 1855 Alexander II became tsar and sought the

support of intelligentsia• He eased the controls on the universities• Censorship was reduced and followed by a great

outburst of public opinion• Polar Star of Alexander Herzen (a revolutionary) in

London gained wider audience• Resulted in outburst of public opinion• One point of agreement was the emancipation of the

serfs• Even reactionary Nicholas I (who hated liberalism

and used the “Third Section” (secret political police) wanted to alleviate serfdom

• How to achieve the goal of emancipation was unclear• Alexander II set up a special branch of gov to figure

this out• Needed to avoid throwing the labor system into

chaos• Did not want to ruin the gentry class• Serfdom was abolished by an imperial ukase of

1861decree• Subjects of the government not of their owners• No longer could forced or unpaid labor be demanded

Act of Emancipation of 1861• It did:• Allocated about 50%

of cultivated land to gentry and 50% to former serfs

• Serf had to pay redemption to gentry

• It did not:• Weaken the gentry• Now had possession of

½ arable land, received redemption $, free of serf responsibility

Land allocation• Peasants did not own property in

western sense (private individual)• Peasant land became mir or village

(collective) property• Village was responsible to the gov for

payment of the redemption– Could demand forced labor from

members that defaulted on their portion of the redemption

– Could prevent peasants form moving away (would leave them with burden of paying redemption)

• Mir periodically reassigned lands to village members (depending of family size) & supervised cultivation

• Land could not be sold outside the village

– Discouraged the investment of outside capital

• Agriculture in Russia would lag behind the technical advancements of the west

Inequality Among Peasants• Some had right to work more land

than others while others were lowly day laborers

• Some had inheritance rights to land (not all land was controlled by the mir

• Some rented gentry land• Some peasants leveraged their

position by renting land from the gentry and hiring other peasants to work (kulaks)

• Others ended up displaced from the land and destitute

• None possessed full individual freedom of action in the western sense

Legal Reforms• Void of the gentry was replaced

with westernized legal system• Edict of 1864 sought to alleviate

the evils associated with arbitrary lord serf relationship

• Public trials• Right to representation (with

lawyers of their own choosing)• Class distinctions in judicial

matters were abolished• A clear sequence of lower and

higher courts was established• Training for judges on state

salaries• Jury trials

A System of Self-Government• Alexander II hoped to win over liberals and to

give upper and middle classes some public responsibility

• Another edict of 1864 established a system of provincial and district councils (IE. Regional governments)

• Called Zemstvos• Members were elected by peasants and other

elements• Took care of education, medical relief, public

welfare, food supply and road maintenance• Developed a sense of civic responsibility

among its members• Some liberal members wanted a Zemsky Sobor

(a Duma)– A representative body for all Russia

• Alexander II would not allow it– Rebellion in Poland led by liberals caused

Alexander II to pull in the reigns of reform

Zemstvo having a dinner by Grigoriy Myasoyedov.

1872

Revolutionism in Russia• Several assassination attempts were made against

Alexander II– 1866, shot at in 1873, 1880 missed explosion by

½ hr• 1881 Alexander was killed in a bombing• Revolutionaries were not pleased with the reforms

– Reforms only strengthened the existing order• These dissatisfied intelligentsia began to call

themselves nihilists (said they believed in nothing, except science

• Took a cynical view of the reforms of Alexander II• Peasants were saddled with heavy redemption

payments• Intellectuals fanned the peasant discontent • They had a mystic belief in the role the peasant

would play in a future revolution• Socialists came to believe that the future of

socialism was with Russia– Weakness of capitalism in Russia– Kind of collectivism was already established in

the village communes

Bakunin and anarchism• Ultra radicals Bakunin and Nechaiev• Promoted terrorism (assassination) to remove the

existing government• Pamphlet called People’s Justice called for terrorism

against tsarist officials and liberals too!• Catechism of a Revolutionist stated

– that true revolutionary is “devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion—the revolution.”

– “Every that promotes the success of the revolution is moral, everything which hinders it is immoral.”

• Marxism rejects terrorism because socialism needed no prodding (it was inevitable)

• In order to stem the rise of radical socialist the Czar turned to the liberalism 1880

– Liberals demanded follow through with earlier reforms

• Czar abolished the secret police (Third Section) of Nicholas I

• Allowed more freedom of the press• Agreed to a pseudo-parliamentary system on March

13, 1881• March 13, 1881 Alexander II was assassinated by the

People’s Will

Alexander III• Alexander III (1881 to 1894)• Abandoned his father’s

idea of parliamentary-like gov

• Brutally resisted liberal and revolutionary interests

• He did allow peasant emancipation, judicial reform and zemstvos to continue

• Even Russia (with autocracy on the right & revolutionaries on the left) was caught up in the liberalism of the times