Alexander II’s Domestic Reforms Flashcards
The effects of the Crimean War
The poor showing of the Russian military during the war, coupled with the stipulations of the Treaty of Paris, led to public discussions about the future of the Russian Empire: doubts, especially among Slavophiles, spread about how great Russia really was as its position as a great power was seen as being severely damaged.
The Crimean War involved far heavier casualties than any other European war fought between 1815 and 1914, with between 650-750,000 thought to have died, 450,000 of those Russian, most dying of disease.
The Treaty of Paris resulted in:
Russia, giving up its claim to act as the protector of the principalities, and handing a substantial chunk of Bessarabia to Moldavia.
Russia was prohibited from maintaining a fleet in the Black Sea, and had to remove all naval fortifications along the Black Sea coastline. Given the logistical importance of this to Russia, such a measure was humiliating, thus highlighting the weak position they were in, although the harsh measures reflected the European’s fear of Russian Power.
The Crimean War revealed Russia to be backward and have developed, especially when it came to transport, communications, and the use of technology. Industrialisation was slow compared to Britain and France, and for many, the root cause of this stagnation was the continued existence of Serfdom. The Serfs were emancipated, though the edict was sometime after the war, making some wonder whether it would have occurred without the war. however, the saw had considered the idea, but rejected it previously, as it would’ve led to “an even more ruinous evil”, that is, the loss of authority and land by the nobility.
This led to a reduced political role for the nobility at a local level. The creation of the Zemstva filled the gap and members were elected. Although this element of democracy was watered down by the fact that there were property qualifications attached to voting, it gave some indication that tsars might be prepared to lessen their autocratic grip.
The military was also reformed. At the start of the war, it consisted of about 1 million men, mostly peasants. To instil order, harsh discipline was enforced, including the notorious ‘running of the gauntlet’. Accommodation was poor, which caused disease; it’s estimated between 1833 and 1855, about 1 million soldiers died as a result. Coupled with lack of decent clothing in equipment, including weapons, the morale of Russian troops is low, described by Tolstoy as ‘ a horde of slaves cowed by discipline’. Under the guidance of Dmitrii Milyutin, using the Prussian Military
One economic development of note was that the expansion of the railway system was stimulated as the war had revealed how slowly Russia was mobilising resources. Thus, this became a priority, with 2 billion roubles of foreign loans spent to construct over 20,000 km of track from 1861 to 1878. This boosted Russia’s ability to deal with the logistical problems of expanding, protecting and maintaining an empire.
The aims of Alexander II’s domestic policies
The tsar implemented a package of reforms, the majority of which naturally stemmed from the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Changes were made to local government, the military, the legal system, education and the economy which seemed to constitute the start of a more liberal age. But this did not prevent Alexander II from resorting to repression to keep opponents in line. One of the ironies of this period was that as the people became more liberated, they showed an inclination to threaten the security of the ruling elite and were subsequently clamped down on again.
The nature of his government
He didn’t waver from an autocratic sentiment despite showing reformist tendencies which appeared to represent a dilution of autocracy. After an assassination attempt in 1866, he adhered to autocracy very strongly. Alexander II hoped that by freeing the serfs they would be happier and less likely to riot. He introduced the Zemstva, but they were proven to be unrepresentative of the population as a whole.
Changes in central administration
From 1855 to 1905, the format and institutions of central government remained largely the same. In 1861, the Committee of Ministers was established, replacing The Personal Chancellery of his Imperial Majesty, a significant but temporary addition.
The extent and impact of domestic reform
How great a reform was the emancipation?
No European government in the 19th century broke with its social and economic past so emphatically as Russia did in 1861. Yet, the political system that initiated these reforms, supposedly to strengthen its own position, had collapsed within 60 years of their introduction. It is hardly surprising that historians have found it difficult to agree about the success of the emancipation. Many have felt constrained to dismiss it as a fraud, and to show the Tsar embarking on a course of false liberalism, only to recoil from the true implications of his actions. The historian Hugh Seton-Watson, in The Russian Empire, 1801-1917 (1988), makes a valuable comparison when he set the Tsar’s reforms alongside the emancipation of the black American slaves at the same time. He stresses that the American reform was carried out less peacefully and was far less successful in guaranteeing the personal freedom of those that it supposedly liberated. A more recent authority on the Russian peasantry, David Moon (The Russian Peasantry 1600–1930, published in 1999) echoes this judgement, adding that the guarantee of land was a major benefit that was not shared by the American slaves. David Christian, in his book Imperial and Soviet Russia (1997), supports such views by emphasising that the emancipation of the serfs was in fact wholly successful in achieving its immediate objectives. The peasant disturbances which had continued for so long, like approaching thunder, died away to a distant rumble for 40 years after 1862. The government had succeeded in the complex task of abolishing serfdom without provoking an immediate rebellion. That was a considerable achievement.’ Much depends upon the criteria that one uses to evaluate the emancipation. If one judges it in terms of rights and liberties, it is difficult to remain unimpressed, for the legal status of some 40 million Russians was transformed at a stroke. If one considers, as most of the peasants probably did, the impact of the reform upon the wealth and the living standards of the former serfs, the short-term effects do not appear so positive. Although the reform ended an era of Russian social history, its immediate impact was lessened by a host of practical problems in its implementation. Above all, it could not be implemented in the localities without the co-operation of the landlords and was thus often applied in ways that served their interests. The process was always slow, and the land settlement made upon the ex-serfs was usually unsatisfactory. The areas granted were often too small, resulting in an average holding of about nine acres (four hectares), and the landlords rarely hesitated to compensate themselves for the loss of free serf labour by inflating the estimated value of the land. Many peasants found themselves saddled with redemption payments far greater than the actual productive value of the land that they farmed. David Moon estimates that peasants may have been overcharged by as much as 20% in the more fertile ‘black earth’ regions, and by as much as 90% in less productive regions. Besides, many peasants were convinced that the land was really theirs in the first place, and thus greatly resented the purchase by redemption payments of their own ‘property’. Lastly, although freed from the landowner, the peasant often remained bound to the mir, which continued to exercise many restrictions upon travel and freedom of enterprise.
In the shorter run, too, emancipation did not seem to solve the problem of industrial backwardness. The inadequacy of peasant land holdings ruled out the rapid rise of a prosperous class of peasant consumers. As late as 1878 it was estimated that only 50% of the peasantry farmed allotments large enough to produce surplus goods. This proportion failed to increase largely because of a dramatic 50% rise in the rural population of Russia between 1860 and 1897. Nor did the government’s reforms help to create a landowning class with the funds for substantial agricultural or industrial investment. The majority of the landowners before emancipation were so deeply in debt that it has been estimated that 248 million of the 543 million roubles paid to them by the government by 1871was sued to pay off existing debts and mortgages.
In some respects, the landowning nobility found it harder than the serfs did to adjust to the new economic world created by the emancipation. Many simply abandoned that world by selling their landholdings. Thus, whereas in 1863 the nobility owned 94.8 million hectares of land in Russia, their landed property in 1911 amounted to only 46.9 million hectares. It could be argued that, by undermining the landed interests, and the role of nobility in local government, the emancipation stuck a serious blow to the effectiveness of the Tsarist government. It was inevitable, therefore that the emancipation should be followed by a wider programme of reforms aimed at repairing the damage that had been done in this respect.
The extent and effectiveness of opposition
> GROUPS
PEASANTS AND WORKERS
The populists (Narodniks), led by Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Pyotr Lavrov and inspired by Karl Marx, consisted of Russian intellectuals, who were given greater freedom to criticise tsarist rule following Alexander II’s reforms.Chernyshevsky’s ‘What is to be Done?’ had a profound impact on Lenin in its messages about socialism. Lavrov organised a ‘Going to the People’ campaign, 1873-74, where 4000 university students went into the Russian countryside to educate the peasants politically. This became more organised when Land and liberty was formed, 1876, but the scheme nonetheless failed.
The People’s will was a terrorist group that emerged from the Land and Liberty movement, formed in 1879. They used ‘the propaganda of the deed’, i.e. violence, as a means to spark revolution. Their primary objective was to assassinate the star: four attempts were made on Alexander II’s life before he was killed in 1881. In this sense populist popotin was successful although the assissination did not prompt a complete overthrow of tsarism, or even more liberalism.
Worker Strikes before the 1880s tended to be localised and small scale affair. HOWEVER…
Worker opposition over the time grew and was effective in the sense that:
- Average working day was reduced from eleven and a half hours in 1897 to seven hours in the 1960s.
- Official inspection and administration of working conditions were established
- A change in the political system in 1917 promised a dictatorship of the proletariat that would lead to full worker control of the country.
BUT living standards continually fell + were often repressed!
The 1861 emancipation edict unleashed a number of disturbances among peasants.
Limitations on personal / political / religious freedom
Across the period, people were generally allowed to exercise their free will if it did not conflict with the interests of the autocracy and totalitarian rule. Orthodox and non-orthodox religion remained under state control across the period. The Orthodox church was important to the tsars as it acted as a useful form of social control. May of the Clergy such as the highly regarded Father John of Kronstadt, were happy to support autocracy even though they championed the plight of the poor. The church relied on governments for money and the encouragement given to the people to attend services.
Industrialisation
Industrialisation is the term given to the manufacture of goods in workshops and factories. Throughout the period from 1855 to 1964, Russian leaders were keen to accelerate the industrialising process, although there was a consistent emphasis on heavy (iron, steel, coal and engineering) as opposed to light industry. This was connected to the main motive for industrialising, which was to ‘catch up with the West’, the great Western powers, especially Britain,
France and Germany (especially after 1871) had seemingly based their economic progress on the development of the iron and coal industries. Russian leaders sought to emulate the industrial revolutions that had occurred in these countries as they believed that this was the obvious way to increase and maintain world power status. However, the methods used to achieve this varied from leader to leader according to the circumstances they found themselves in.
Russian industrialisation proceeded through different phases due to differences in political leadership but also because of a changing world context. However, a common thread that affected development was the relationship with agricultural activity and the peculiar nature of Russian society. This needs to be borne in mind when analysing and evaluating the following stages of growth.
Before Alexander II (1855-81), there had been a reluctance to engage in industrialisation as this was associated with the rise of an urban proletariat, which, in other countries, had displayed a propensity to revolt. However, Alexander II recognised that the threat of peasant unrest was just as great and that this could be dealt with to an extent by moving rural workers off the land and into industry. Factories warranted a ‘new work discipline’, from which evolved a way of controlling the activities of the bulk of the population. The rule of Alexander II marked a more committed move towards state involvement in industry with the appointment of Mikhail Reutern as minister of finance (1862-78). He adopted a sensible approach that revolved around continued railway construction, the attraction of foreign technical expertise and the employment of foreign investment capital. As a result, modernisation and expansion occurred within the ‘staples’ (iron, coal, textiles) as well as the newer industries (such as oil). For example, Ludwig Loop from Manchester helped to develop the Russian textile industry and the Nobel brothers were responsible for the growth of the modern oil industry around
Baku in the Caucasus. Equally impressive was the work of the Welshman J.J. Hughes, who transformed iron and steel production at Ekaterinoslav. He was employed in 1871 by the Russian government as an expert in the manufacture of armour plate. By 1884, his New Russian Coal, Iron and Rail making Company was the largest producer of pig iron in the whole of the empire. By the start of the twentieth century, Hughes and his associates were also responsible for about half of the steel production of Russia. This was accompanied by social investment; Hughes constructed a new town, Yuzovo, replete with English schools, public houses and, by 1904, 32,000 Welsh Russians! This was a clear demonstration of the a trend that continued throughout the period.
Proto-Management of the Economy
Railway Construction
The use of foreign expertise was not entirely new, and this was well illustrated in the field of railway construction. The first railway in Russia was completed in 1837 during the reign of Nicholas I and was the work of Gerstner, an Austrian. This was followed by the more ambitious St Petersburg to Moscow line, which opened in 1851. The project was stimulated by the success of the Manchester to Liverpool railway, although the final design and construction were mainly influenced by the American engineer George Washington Whistler. It was built to a very high technical standard and illustrated that where there was a will there was also a way for Russia to keep up with its Western counterparts. Reutern built on this foundation so that there was a seven-fold increase in the amount of railway track opened, from 2194 miles in 1862 to 13,979 miles in 1878. Through the capacity of railways to ‘break bulk’ at speed, this expansion gave a significant boost to the industrial sector. It was undoubtedly a major reason for the doubling of industrial output and an average annual growth rate of six per cent during Reutern’s term of office. In fact, Clive Trebilcock (1982) has claimed that this was ‘the country’s first respectable performance in manufacturing’ and so impressive that it allowed Russia to cushion itself against the European economic depression from 1873 to 1882.
Railway construction further illustrated the importance of attracting foreign investment capital. Reutern secured foreign monies and investment through a variety of novel approaches including the issuing of government bonds, taxation exemptions and monopoly concessions. Some of the money that went straight to the Russian government was used to protect railway projects against failure. Wherever possible, construction was placed in the hands of private contractors (as was the norm in the West) and, to secure their services, the government made guarantees to bail out projects if they encountered financial difficulties. This inevitably resulted in a certain amount of corruption (for example, financial help was given to certain companies when it was not really needed) as well as an expensive transport system. Due to the very high costs of construction and operation, about 94 per cent of railway lines were in private hands by 1880.
Agriculture
Emancipation of the Serfs
In the midst of the crisis of the Crimean War Tsar Nicholas I died on 2nd March 1855, apologising to his son for the state in which he left the Empire. Alexander II was less of a disciplinarian than his father, more open to the arguments of others, and was convinced, by the experience of the war and by the more liberal group of ministers that he chose to consult, that fundamental changes had to be made. The Crimean War supposedly revealed Russia, in comparison to the other combatants, to be backward and underdeveloped. This was especially true when it came to transport, communications, and the use of technology in general. Industrialisation had taken root in Russia, but it was progressing at a much slower rate than in Britain and France. For many Slavophiles and Westerners, the root cause of this stagnation was the continued existence of serfdom. The Slavophile Yuri Samarin claimed that:
‘We are defeated not by the external forces of the Western alliance, but by our own internal weaknesses… stagnation of thought, depression of productive forces, the rift between government and people, disunity between the social classes, and the enslavement of one of them to another… prevent the government from deploying all the means available to it… and mobilising the strength of the nation.’
This was a sentiment that Alexander II sympathised with and it encouraged him to ‘reform from above’. Whether the tsar would have abolished serfdom regardless of the war is open to conjecture, but it is worth noting that Nicholas I had considered the idea but rejected it as it would have led to ‘an even more ruinous evil’ (that is the loss of authority and land by the nobility). Alexander II said that ‘the existing order of serfdom cannot remain unchanged. It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below.’ At this time, the peasantry was also in a state of unusual agitation. Under this pressure, Alexander may appear less a far-sighted reformer than as a dutiful ruler forced to confront challenges of great complexity.
The Terms of the Edict of Emancipation
The Edict of Emancipation was issued on 19 February 1861 and constituted a fundamental break with Russia’s past.
- The serfs were granted their personal freedom over a period of two years.
- They now possessed the same legal freedoms enjoyed by other Russians, such as the freedom to own land, to
marry without interference, and to use the law courts.
- The freed peasants were granted ownership of the houses in which they lived, and the plots around those houses,
which they had previously worked.
- The Edict confirmed the landlords’ legal ownership of the land on their estates but provided (from 1863 onwards)
for the purchase of some of that land by the peasants. Maximum and minimum prices were laid down based upon the productivity of the land in different regions, but the precise details were to be negotiated between peasant and landlord.
- The government was to compensate landlords for land transferred to the peasantry, paying them the purchase price in the form of government bonds.
- To recoup its losses, the government charged the peasants ‘redemption dues’ in the form of regular repayments over a period of 49 years.
- The same terms applied to state peasants, although in their case the period of transition to freedom was five years.
- Domestic serfs who had not previously worked the land did not receive land under the terms of the Edict.
It was some time after the war that the edict was made, suggesting that the other considerations had to be made before the reform could be enacted. As serfdom had underpinned the way in which Russian society was structured, organised, and administered, it was natural that its abolition would lead to some changes in the way Russia was to be governed. Although historian David Saunders (1992) believes that it the greatest problem was land. Land could only be granted to the peasants at the expense of the landlords, and such a step would come dangerously close to accepting the radical doctrine that the land truly belonged to those who worked it. To liberate the serfs without land, on the other hand, would merely have served to create a vast and dangerous mass of destitute third-class citizens.
Education
Before 1864, provision of elementary schools was through wealthy, benevolent individuals, or the church. Parents paid fees for their children to attend, and the curriculum centred around the three R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic) with some religious instruction. Pupil attendance was erratic, and achievement was poor, as witnessed by the relatively low literacy rates. Thus, by the mid 1860’s, only 7 percent of army recruits (who were mainly peasants and therefore representative of the whole pupilyation0 were considered literate.
The first reform of 1861 started a process of building up a primary education system all over Russia. New schools were placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of education, and this started a separation of the older Church education and more modern government-controlled education system. Following Golvonin’s appointment as Minster of Education, the University regulations act was implemented:
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University were given certain autonomy in administrative matters and in the choice of curriculums. Rectors were appointed four years by a council of Professors.
Deans were elected by faculties for three years.
The teaching of Law was upgraded, and the teaching of constitutional law was reinstated. Interested ‘outsiders’ could attend lectures
Poor students could receive reductions on the tuition.
Foreigners were let into Russian Universities.
the universities could import duty free any kind of scholarly texts from abroad – and they were not subject to the examination by censorship.
an assassination attempt against Alexander II led to changes. Dmitri Tolstoy (reactionary and close to the
In 1866
Orthodox church) replaced Golvonin who was accused of attributing to the radical ideas allowed in the liberal education policies.
- Secondary education improved. A new Gymnasia with a classical curriculum (Greek, Latin, Math) and a modern technical Real Schule were introduced. There was also an increase in the number of secondary schools. Between 1861-1881 the number of primary and secondary school increased fourfold.
- Women’s education was established. Moscow university organised the first courses for women in 1872; women were admitted to the medical academy in St Petersburg; Five universities set up degree courses for women in 1876. By 1881 there were approximately 2000 women studying at universities in Russia.
It should be noted that a number of historians emphasise that Tolstoy manipulated the secondary school curriculum so that middle-class children were virtually excluded from progressing to tertiary education.
Military Reform
1859 – Reduction of the length of the military service (from 25 to 16 years)
1862 – Regional Commands set up in four areas
1863 – Military code revised, and the more brutal forms of corporal punishment banned 1864 – Regional Commands set up in another six areas
1864 – Set up special Junker schools – open to all
1874 – Manifesto and Statute on Universal Military Service published
1875 – Manifesto and Statute on Universal Military Service became law
Alexander II appointed Dmitri Miliutin as Minister of War 1861 and he had the explicit task of reforming the military (he held this office for 20 years – until Alexander II died).
Why:
- The Russian defeat in the Crimean War showed the necessity to reform the army.
- The army cost a lot of money (1/3 of the total Russian income during the Crimean War)
- Military service was used as a punishment for criminals.
- If you had a position and money, it was possible to hire a substitute to serve.
- The command structure of the army was inflexible and inefficient.
- The administration within the army was also inflexible and inefficient.
- Thepunishmentwithinthearmywasoftensevereandbarbaric.
- The period for conscripts was very long (25 years)
- Those who could avoid military service did.
The reforms that suggested a reduction of the active military service was a way to reduce the enormous costs and at the same time make the army more efficient (and attractive). The 15 years (after 1874)
was usually seven years in active service. The rest (eight years) was served as trained reserve.
University graduates only had to serve six months in active service. Recruits with a primary education got their active service reduced to four years.
- The regional commands should decentralize administration and supply.
- The regional commands should also improve efficiency.
- The Junker schools were open to all. They prepared low-rank military for officer rank (in 1871 12 %
- of the Junker students were not from the nobility).
- According to the new law 1874/1875 all males upon reaching 21 years of age, from all classes in the
- Russian society, had to register. Around 1⁄4 of all males in this age group came to serve.
- The Prussian Army was a role model for Miliutin – their success against the French Army 1870-71 helped him in his
strive for reforms (especially for the acceptance of the Law 1875)
It’s mentioned as Alexander II’s most democratic reform, and it did change the military system. The military performance of Russia improved (victory in the Russo-Turkish War 1878). Still – the General Staff was very burdened by with a huge number of regulations and diverse tasks; army doctors could be bribed to declare people unfit for service; the quality training and leadership still lagged behind more efficient nations (like Germany).
Changes in urban and rural living and working conditions
Food and Famine
The staple food for all Russians throughout the period was grain, especially rye. Buckwheat was also popular, being used to make dumplings and pancakes. a scarcity of animals. Fish was consumed in large quantities in regions that Cereals were often eaten with meat dishes, although in many areas there was had a coastline or where there were bountiful lakes. More significant than the consumption of meat was that of vegetables. Potatoes, turnips, beetroot, cabbage, garlic and onions were grown and eaten all over Russia. Fruit was also produced, especially apples, pears and plums, and cherries were a speciality in the area of Vladimir (about 150 miles east of Moscow). People living close to woodlands had the added bonus of being able to gather mushrooms and berries. In terms of drink, ale, mead, tea and, of course, vodka were preferred. Overall, it would appear that the Russian diet was relatively rich and varied and that, given the emphasis placed on agriculture, there was little need for the Russian people to go short of food.
The reality was that the whole of the period was characterised by intermittent food shortages and full-blown famines. This was due to a number of reasons:
a tendency towards monoculture (in this case, an overreliance on grain)
the restrictive practices of the mir, for example, the insistence of the mir on the growing of certain crops
severe weather conditions in particular years.
government policies.
Even before 1855, food shortages had consistently caused government concern. When Alexander II came to the throne, he was worried that if shortages would continue there would be widespread social unrest. To this end in 1864 he placed the Zemstva in charge of drawing up emergency measures to deal with famines. Although this still did not prevent people from starving and dying from hunger.
Working Conditions
Rural Work
In general, work on the land was dictated by ‘natures clock’. Specific tasks had to be completed at certain times of the year. Success of peasant farms was determined more by the quality of soil, the weather and their innate ability to farm rather than by government policies. Before the Bolshevik takeover, peasants were able to control the pace at which they worked and how much they produced. The only restrictions outside those provided by nature were the village mir. For most peasants, the main aim was to produce as much as possible so that they could feed their families, pay off debts and save a little for bad years.
Urban Work
Those who worked in towns and cities were employed in either the service industry or manufacturing. The worst conditions were present in factories, although most of these, along with other heavy industry (for example, mines, steel plants and engineering works, were located on the edges of conurbations. As there was no factory inspectorate until 1882, working conditions for many industrial workers, especially those employed in textiles, were dangerous and unhealthy.
Housing
Urban Housing
Rural Housing
For the majority of the period, housing for the average peasant remained the same. It consisted of a single-room wooden hut (izba) heated by an oven, which also served as a sleeping platform. Such accommodation was invariably overcrowded, especially given that animals were also housed in the hut. The nature of hut building varied from region to region but generally such accommodation was poor by modern standards. It was cold, damp and grubby and added to the misery of the peasants. However, it was cheap to construct and, once it was erected, peasant families had control over how the accommodation could be used.
