Alexander III
- Created by: LamisaAmber
- Created on: 15-05-17 12:37
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- Alexander III 1881-1894
- Counter Reforms
- Emergency Powers 1881
- Courts set up outside legal system, emergency powers for police, arrests for political crimes
- Control
- Secret Police (Okhrana) established
- Education
- 1884 University statute - women can no longer attend, church control primary education
- Local Government
- 1890 Zemsta Act reduced its independence
- Legal
- Court martials to avoid publicity in sensitive cases, crimes against state tried w/out jury, opposition dealt with harshly and secretly
- Repression
- nationwide police offensive - 10,000 arrests
- Emergency Powers 1881
- Russification and Anti-Semitism
- Russification
- forcing Russian culture and language on ethnic minorities
- To help centralise and maintain control - prevents growth of national ID
- To create loyalty to regime
- Georgian Orthodox Church targeted, Russians got top jobs in Poland, made Lutherans in Baltic Provinces convert to ROC
- To unite behind a common goal of modernisation
- But in reality creates anger and resentment
- Anti-Semitism
- Deep-rooted hatred, easy to enforce, to isolate Jews from soc
- Number of Jews admitted to schools regulated by quotas, banned from Dumas
- Pograms 1881-4 encouraged by Okhrana
- Spread to Warsaw, Kiev, Odessa
- Shops burnt, looted, ****, murder - 20,000 deported
- Spread to Warsaw, Kiev, Odessa
- Russification
- Industry
- Supported ministers e.g. Bunge, Vyshnegradsky and Witte
- Policies
- Rail building, foreign investment, tariff protection, building gold reserves, exporting grain
- At the expense of social aspects in case of Vyshnegradsky and Witte
- Rail building, foreign investment, tariff protection, building gold reserves, exporting grain
- Became 4th largest economy by 1897, pig iron tripled to 900,000 tonnes, coal production doubled, growth rate of 8%
- Grain exports increased at expense of peasants who starved
- Witte 1892 - 1903
- State sponsored development of heavy industry, foreign loans, high tariffs on imports, strong rouble, raised taxation costs, exports of grain
- Great industrial spurt 1890s - growth at 9%, coal iron and steel production increased hugely, rail building
- But foreign debt = high interest, 20% of budget used to pay it off, agriculture ignored, welfare ignored, no consumer goods, international recession 1899
- Agriculture
- Peasants could buy and sell land due to Peasants Land Bank 1883
- Agricultural production grew rapidly, production grew by 2.1% a year, despite pop increase
- But geographical variation - central region = weakest. Outskirts = access to capitalist western farming methods
- Upward trend of food supply overall
- Stolypin - reforms = peasants could leave Mir, help create larger more efficient farms and methods but slow progress getting them out of Mir
- Livestock can't keep pace
- Still needs to be modernised!
- Livestock can't keep pace
- Social Change
- Famine 1891-92
- Russian gov dealt with it poorly - continued exporting grain, wouldn't call it a famine
- Zemstvas took action - organised relief = calls for constituent assembly
- Russian gov dealt with it poorly - continued exporting grain, wouldn't call it a famine
- Social and Cultural Change
- By 1914 modernisation and industrialisation = social upheaval, development of working and middle classes, huge pop growth
- Workforce grew rapidly - poor living and working conditions, trade unions popular after 1905, workers organisations grew - no attempt to address grievances
- Standards for peasants mainly rising, increased consumption and income, Kulaks emerge, growth in factories, increased services, progressive young peasants want social betterment
- Increased urban rural migration - 9 million. Central region = poverty, hunger, stuck in Mir, subsistence
- Nobles sold 50% of their land, many opened businesses with help of Land Bank
- Middle class growth = increase in professions, voluntary organisation and associations, industry business and commerce
- Famine 1891-92
- Counter Reforms
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