Alexander III 1881-1894

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  • Alexander III
    • brought very conservative
      • tutored by Konstann Pobedonstev
    • counter reforms
      • law on exceptional measures commander-in-chief could control locality with military police courts and powers of imprisonment
      • local government
        • Land captains 1889
          • override zemstva elections and decisions
          • overturn court judgements
        • 1890 changes in election votes for zemstvas
          • reduction on peasant votes
          • zemtva placed under central government control
        • june 1892 zemstva electoral reduced to only owners of property above a certain value
          • mayor and members of town council were state employees
        • changes made to have more efficient tax collection
      • policing
        • led by Vyacheslav Von Plehve 1881-1884 and Pyotr Durnovo 1884
        • number of police increased and as did braches of criminal investigation departments
        • recruitment of spies and counter-spies as well as 'agent provocateurs'
        • okhrana - offices in Warsaw St Petersburg and Moscow they read mail, checked activities at factories and detained, tortured and executed suspects
        • 1882 statute of police surveillance so areas were deemed 'areas of subversion'
      • judicial system
        • 1885 minister of justice gained greater control and could dismiss judges
        • 1887 closed court sessions were allows and ministry was responsible for appointment of town judges
        • 1889 volost courts wre controlled by the land captains
      • education
        • chancellors, deans and professors were screened based on religion, moral and patriotic orientation
        • university for women were closed and no separate university court
        • students forbidden to huddle in groups of more than 5
        • children in lowest class didn't get primary education 'be taken out of the social environment to which they belong'
        • 21% of population literate in 1897
      • censorship
        • 1882 life ban on publishers and editors as well newspaper closed down
        • censorship enforced in theatres, art and culture when russification was introduced
    • first act was hanging of the people's will conspirators
      • 1881 'manifesto of unshakeable autocracy'
    • Russification
      • over 100 different ethnic groups - slavs in Russia Ukraine and Belorussia made up 2/3 of population
      • wanted to get rid of 'national ideaology'
      • Poles
        • rebellion in 1863
        • more than 200,000 poles created the underground national government of Poland
          • conducted Guerrilla warfare until crushed in 1864
        • polish national bank closed down in 1885
        • teaching must be in Russian except for polish language and religion
        • catholic monasteries closed doown
      • Finns
        • allowed to have a parliament 'diet' but was reorganised in 1892
      • Baltic Germans
        • 1885-1889 enforced use of Russian in all state offices, schools, police and judiciary
        • german university of Dorpor was renamed Iurev university 1889-93
        • 37000 lutherens converted to orthodox church
      • use of Russian language demanded in all places and Russian coinage
      • Ukrainian slavs
        • 1884 all theatres closed down
        • business conducted in russian
      • uprisings
        • Guriya Georgia 1892
        • Armenia 1886
        • Tashkent 1892
      • all-Russian orthodox missionary society converted 'heathens and muslims' through forced baptism in Asia
      • 332 disturbances in 61/92 of Russia's provinces
    • Anti-semitism
      • the Pale (1791) was the only place Jews could legal live
      • Pobedonostsev said 'one third should emigrate, one third die and one third assimilate
      • 1881-18884 jewish pogroms
        • start April and cause was unknown
        • the government was slow to act and the'holy league' organisation supported by pobedonostsev coordinated early attacks till 1882
      • the May laws 1882
        • cant live outside the pale or cities with fewer than 10,000 people
        • all contracts of rent or mortgage outside towns or cities had no effect
        • forbidden to do business on Sundays and Christian holidays
    • opposition groups
      • moderate liberals
        • liberal intelligentsia had benefitted from education, wealth and travel.
        • sought truth in nihilism and anarchism
        • Westerniser
          • Ivan Turgenev
          • started socialism
            • Some joined Marxism movements
        • Slavophiles
          • Leo Tolstoy
          • died out after Alexander's death
        • Zemstvas were their platform
        • Helped in 1891-1892 famine
      • Radical opposition
        • young liberals children
        • june 1862 fires in St Petersburg destroyed 2000+ shops
        • 1863 'the organisation formed in Moscow university called for more reforms
        • Nikolai Chernyshevsky 'what is to be done?'
        • Aleksandr Herzen 'the bell'
        • Karl Marx 'communist manifesto' 1869 and 'das capital' 1872
          • the Tchaikovsky circle 1868-69 and published and translated many books
      • populists
        • 'going to the people' came from populism and in 1874 2000 men and women went to persuade the peasants to be resentful
          • peasants were very loyal and around 1600 were arrested
        • land and liberty 1877 professionals would go to help them people and even assassinated the head of the third section
          • 1879 black repartition
            • aim to share the black soil provinces among peasants without using violence but suffered many arrests in 1880-81
          • 1879 the people's will
            • violent and assassinated alexander II in 1881 they also put a spy in the third section
    • economic and social changes
      • Mikhail von Reutern  minister of finance 1862-78
        • treasury reforms , taxes abolished and state banks put in place
        • trade promoted and joint-stock companies set up
        • new developments started in oil extraction, naphtha extraction and ironworks
      • Ivan Vyshnegradsky 1887-92
        • import tariffs increase and grain export increased by 18% which meant peasants had no reserves for winter and resulted in 1891 -92 famine
        • ' we ourselves shall not eat, but we shall export'
      • Sergei Witte 1892-1903
        • Investment on heavy investment
        • railway network development
      • high grain taxes and land banks started in 1885
      • kulak class developed but the famine brought down the economic developments made by the elite
      • more than 700 nobles owned their own business in 1882
      • the working class were attracted to the factories but the reforms did very little and there were strikes (33) between 1886-1894
        • regulation of child labour, reductions in working hours reduction of payment in kind and fine s and appointment of inspectors
      • Ecclesiastical commission was set up to look over church in 1862 and the education of the priests was improved in 1868under russification more than 8500 Muslims were enforced Baptist and 50000 pagans.

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