Features of Tsarist Autocracy Flashcards
What was still a criminal offence?
1894 to oppose the Tsar and his gov
Was there censorship?
No parliament
Political parties had no legal right to exist
censorship on books and journals
How did Liberal ideas enter Russia?
Circulated underground
secret organisations that held liberal ideas targeted or infiltrated by Okhrana (SECRET POLICE)
What did Russia use their army as?
To keep peasants in check
Conscription used as a from of punishment
Experience of Russian Army
Brutalising experience
notorious in Europe for severity of there grimness of conditions
Even death of over a mil of soldiers in peacetime during reign of Nicholas 1
Why Russia wanted large army?
Large Empire = large army (forces kept at around 1 and a half million men)
put down national risings
frequent border clashes with turkey
Cost of maintaining army
45% of gov annual expenditure
4% on education
UNBALANCED GOV PRIORITIES
What happened to higher places of the army + result
Higher ranks were the preserve of aristocracy, commissions bought and sold
weekend army as a fighting force
What was Peter 1’s attempt at
modernise Russia by establishing a full scale civil service
what was the civil service later seen as?
Corrupt with nepotism( gain through family) and incompetence
1868 what did Alexander Herzer claim?
bureaucracy become a ‘civilian priesthood’, money grasping elite whom used their power to tax people
REMEMBER he was revolutionary propagandist
