The Six Key Themes: Alexander II

Population of approximately 70 million, with over 90 percent as peasants. Alexander II seemed prepared, though, as he had been given a strong education. The military, the Church, and the nobility were the pillars that held the him as an autocrat. Alexander II had an Imperial Council of noble advisors, and a bureaucracy of civil servants and officials who ran the Empire day to day. The different regions of Russia were controlled by local governers, however poor communication led some to act as independent rulers.

The army was mostly conscripted peasants (who at this time had to serve 25 years - or 15, with a good service record) with nobility serving jobs as officials and generals. Pay was low and soldiers lived off of mainly bread, soup, and tea. Defeat of this army in the Crimean War (1853-56) was a shock to Russia, and caused the Tsar to take reformatory steps.

• The serfs were emancipated in 1861 (though many serfs felt cheated due to redemption taxes)
• Judiciary reform, 1864: introduced salaries for judges and some jury trials - but with a seperate court for peasants
• Military reform, 1861-81: conscription no longer class based, improvement of officer training, conditions for soldiers improved (such as introduction of barracks), slow modernisation of artillery
• Education reform, 1863-64: zemstva took control of many schools, number of students in schools doubled. censorship of university courses relaxed, half of professors replaced (sometimes the new professors were liberals). After the 1866 assassination attempt, however, the Minister of Education took control of some schools, and censorship was tightened in universities.
• Laws formalising the relaxation of newspaper censorship came into effect in 1865, but the Minister of Interior could still withdraw any publication deemed dangerous.

In 1866, a revolutionary known as Karakazov attempted to assassinate Alexander II with a pistol. Also unsettled by the prior Polish Revolt of 1863 (which he crushed militarily), this led to wide scale steps back from his reforms, as Alexander tightened his control over Russia. These are known as reactionary policies, and here are some examples:

• Shuvalov became head of the Third Section, to which he vetted appointments to ensure conservatives were given government posts; tightened censorship, closing some periodicals; brought in tighter controls over students and their organisations; made use of military courts to try serious political criminals in order to prevent the juries from favouring defendants and news media spreading their political messages.
• Tolstoy replaced the formerly liberal minister of education, who believed that revolutionary ideas were related to sciences being taught in schools. He took power from the Zemstvo bodies in charge of primary schools and sent government ministers to monitor teachers, favoured classical subjects (disallowing anyone who had not studied them from entering university, favouring nobles) and had the sciences removed from some schools. He also enstated a crack-down on University discipline, with students who had connections to revolutionary groups being expelled.

However, some reforms still continued past 1866, Local government reforms were extended to towns and cities in 1870, and the first women were admitted to Moscow University in 1872. Later in 1880, Loris-Melikov abolished the Third Section and reallocated their funds to the general police, proposed civil rights for peasants and proposed that the zemstva representatives form a consultative body to aid in making laws. Alexander II gave preliminary approval, but was assassinated before he could enact these things.

Many radical intellectuals believed that the emancipation had been a betrayal of the peasants, kick-starting Russia's revolutionary movements.

The Populists:

• Inspired by Peter Lavrov, they believed in agrarian socialism based around the peasant commune. Many well-off intellectuals gave up their lives to move to a peasant commune, living and working with the people there.
• Most peasants regarded them with suspicion, as many village elders reported them to the authorities, leading to the Trial of 50. Many were given light sentences or aquitted and exiled to Siberia instead.
• Vera Figner, one of these Populists, gave medical advice to the peasants, as she had worked in a zemstvo hospital prior. She and her sister also set up a free school for peasant children to attend.

Land and Liberty was formed after the Populist failure. The case of Vera Zasulich (in which she shot the Governer of St Petersburg, but was declared not guilty) led political trials to be moved to miliary courts. After this, Land and Liberty split into two groups:

• The Black Partition, led by Plekhanov and Zasulich, promoted revolution by peaceful agitation.
• The People's Will, who used terrorist violence and made several unsuccessful attempts on Alexander II's life until March 1st, 1898, in which he was successfully assassinated.

Due to the prevalence of serfdom, the Russian economy had been prevented from growing until 1861. The peasant serfs were socially immobile and in their communes engaged in feudal trading of goods without the need for money. However, after emancipation, internal passports and redemption taxes were introduced that continued to prevent social mobility for over 90% of Russias population. Some peasants did manage under this system, however, becoming known as Kulaks. This was helped by a few reforms put in place by Alexander II:

• 5,147km of railways were built, connecting the towns, villages, and trading markets. They also linked ports on the Black Sea to towns, allowing for economic growth via foreign trade to spread.
• Creation of state-run industries surrounding coal (production tripled over 14 years from 1860 to 1874) and pig-iron. Tariffs were initially lowered to promote foreign trade, but raised again shortly afterwards to protect the economy due to an imbalance of exportation.

Despite this, Russia remained largely behind Europe at this time due to the heavy majority of peasants that were prevented from earning money due to their production rates being lower than the redemption taxes.

John Huges, Nobel Brothers.

The culture of Russia at the time of Alexander II's corination was fractured due to the many different ethnicities and backgrounds in which the empire spanned. There were Poles, Finns, Latvians, etc. and only about 55% of people living in Russia were natively Russian. The rural peasantry were ovewhelmingly controlled by their Local Churches, who were their only source of information, and the Mir: elder peasants who were seen to be wise and trustworthy. Cultural change for many, did not come until later; evidenced by the skeptical nature of the peasants upon the influx of Populists into their villages, they were distrustful of outsiders during Alexander II's reign. Those native to Russia were deeply religious, following the Russian Orthodox Church in which the Tsar was God's representative on Earth. Some peasants did break away form this mould after serfdom was abolished, as evidenced by the Kulaks, who led different lives to the rest of their peasant families - however, these were a tiny minority.

Cultural change in Russia came about via the universities after Alexander II's education reforms. The ability for women to attend courses, and their many liberal professors (such as Pirogov) influenced a generation of children of not only the nobility, but even some lower ranking townspeople and peasants, to become politically engaged and question the regime in which they lived - as seen by the creation of active women and opposition groups such as the Populists. These changes were supressed somewhat via Tolstoy and Shuvalov after the 1866 assassination attempt, however Alexander couldn't undo what he had set in motion, which eventually led to his death.

Socialists:

• Members of the Russian intelligentia were attracted to it due to its basis in science. Due to the size of the peasant population, it wasn't difficult to imagine and egalitarian peasant commune working together the workers such as carpenters and blacksmiths, avoiding capitalism altogether.
• In 1862, "What Is to Be Done?" by Chernyshevsky was published, featuring many articles from political activists. It encouraged many revolutionaries, including the young Lenin.
• Plekanov took a different stance in the 1880s, after the failure of the Populists, maintaining that the revolution did not lie with the commune, but with the workers, as capitalism had already arrived with the industrialisation of railways, factories and mines.

Westernisers:

• Westernisers believed that Russia should adopt the political and economic institutions of the West, such as individual rights and parliamentary democracy. They thought that Russia should urbanise or be left behind.

Slavophiles:

• Slavophiles believed that Russias distinct culture and traditons were superior to the West's, rejecting individualism, parliamentarianism, and atheism. They thought that autocracy conveyed stability. However, they still supported change such as the emancipation of the serfs.

Individuals:

• Lenin was developing his ideas at this time. He read "What Is to Be Done?" and later wrote a book of the same title.
• The Milyutin brothers were a driving force behind military reforms and emancipation, becoming Deputy Minister of the Interior (1858) and War Minister (1861) respectively.
• George Plekhanov developed ideas of Marxism due to the failure of the Populists and led the Black Partiton alongside Vera Zasulich. 

Groups:

• Though development was slow, peasants were effected by the emancipation and industrialisation, some of which became Kulaks.
• Women were impacted by the reforms too, as it became widely accepted that women should be given better educations. Due to education reform, women attended university courses and declined to put up with their traditional role. In St Petersburg during the 1860s, a womens circle emerged that promoted gender equality and education reform, developing to support more radical issues. Many young women also joined the Populist movement of the 1870s.
• National minorities were also impacted by the developements under Alexander II. He strengthened the power of the Finnish Diet (Parliament) in 1869. For the Poles, it was a different story, as they rebelled in 1863. Though the rebellion spread and had a lot of support, they were crushed by the comparitive power of the Russian military..