Trying to Preserve Autocracy, 1855-94

Question 1

What was the significance of the two following terms of the Emancipation Edict:

1) Serfs were declared ‘free’ and could marry who they chose, own property, set up businesses, travel and enjoy legal rights.
2) Serfs were given their own cottage and an allotment of land.

Answer 1

1) Enterprising peasants could buy up land, increase output and make money from the sale of surplus grain.
2) Those prepared to sell land could move to an industrialising city and obtain regular wages.
3) Land allocations varied; for some, these were insufficient to live on.
4) Peasant ‘rights’ often remained theoretical because of the other terms of the Edict.

Question 2

What was the significance of the following term of the Emancipation Edict:

1) Landlords were granted government bonds as compensation.

Answer 2

1) Landowners could use compensation to redeem debts and invest in industrial enterprises.
2) Some could only just pay off debts and were forced to sell off their remaining land.

Question 3

What was the significance of the following term of the Emancipation Edict:

1) Serfs were required to make 49 annual ‘redemption payments’ for the land they were given.

Answer 3

1) Redemption payments provoked unrest.
2) Land prices were sometimes fixed above market value, leaving freed serfs in considerable debt.
3) Some peasants had to work for their old masters or rent land from them (paid back with crops) to survive.
4) The ‘purchasing power’ of the peasants remained low; some became drifting landless labourers.

Question 4

What was the significance of the following term of the Emancipation Edict:

1) The mir was responsible for the collection of taxes, including redemption dues.
2) Freed serfs had to remain within the mir until the redemption payments were complete.
3) The mir supervised the farming of allocated land.

Answer 4

1) Mirs constrained the peasants, preventing them from leaving the countryside.
2) Mirs tended to promote restrictive and backward farming practices.

Question 5

What was the significance of the following term of the Emancipation Edict:

1) Landowners were allowed to retain meadows, pasture, woodland and personal land.
2) Communal open fields were controlled by the mir for use by everyone.

Answer 5

1) Some former serfs struggled to make a living without the use of additional land.
2) Serfs lost their landlords ‘protection.’

Question 6

What was the significance of the following term of the Emancipation Edict:

1) The obruk (labour service) remained for a two-year period of ‘temporary obligation.’

Answer 6

1) Peasants were resentful; there were 647 peasant riots in four months after the decree.

Question 7

Please give me five military reforms of 1874.

Answer 7

1) Conscription (for those over 20 years old) was made compulsory for all classes.
2) Length of service was reduced from 25 to 15 years, nine years of which were spent in ‘reserve.’
3) Welfare improvements, e.g. the abolition of corporal punishment and army service was no longer to be given as a punishment.
4) Military colleges were established to train officers.
5) Modern weaponry was introduced.

Question 8

How successful were the military reforms of 1874?

Answer 8

1) A smaller but better-trained army was created.
2) Costs of the military to the government were reduced.
3) Literacy was improved through army education campaigns.
4) Officers were still mainly aristocrats and the upper classes served less time, or ‘bought’ their way out of service.
5) In the war against Turkey from 1877 to 1878, victory took longer than expected; in 1914, Russia suffered defeat.

Question 9

Please give me three local government reforms of 1864 and 1870.

Answer 9

1) Rural councils (known as Zemstva) were established at district and provincial levels (1864).
2) Councils were to be elected through an indirect system giving an initial vote to the nobles, townspeople, Church and peasants but weighted in favour of the nobility.
3) Zemstva were given power to improve public services, including relief for the poor, and to develop industry.

Question 10

How successful were local government reforms of 1864 and 1870?

Answer 10

1) Zemstva offered some representative government at local level.
2) They were dominated by nobles and ‘professionals’; peasants had limited influence.
3) They made significant improvements in welfare and education.
4) They provided a forum for debate on, and criticism of, government policies.
5) They had no control over taxation and law and order, Tsarist-appointed provincial governors could overturn their decisions.

Question 11

Please give me four judicial reforms of 1864.

Answer 11

1) The reforms established a single system of local, provincial and national courts.
2) Criminal cases were before barristers and a jury.
3) All classes were judged equal before the law and proceedings were open to the public and reporters.
4) Judges’ training and pay were improved.

Question 12

How successful were the judicial reforms of 1864?

Answer 12

1) A fairer and less corrupt system was created.
2) The jury system could undermine government control, e.g. in the case of Vera Zasulich, who was acquitted of terrorism, although guilty. As a result, from 1878, political crimes were tried in special courts.
3) Ecclesiastical and military courts continued and the reform was not applicable to Poland.

Question 13

Improving standards of literacy and numeracy were necessary for Russia’s modernisation. The liberal-minded minister Alexander Golovin led some important changes - what five educational reforms were introduced to 1863-64?

Answer 13

1) The Zemstva took responsibility for primary education (replacing the Church).
2) Free primary education was made available to all - regardless of class and sex.
3) New vocational schools were set up at secondary level.
4) Students from both types of secondary school could progress to university.
5) Universities were made self-governing in 1863 and began offering broader and more liberal courses.

Question 14

Please give me four strengths of Golovin’s educational reforms between 1856 and 1880?

Answer 14

1) The number of primary schools tripled.
2) The number of children in primary education more than doubled.
3) There was a greater selection of subjects - for boys and girls.
4) The number of students at university tripled.

Question 15

Please give me four problems with Golovin’s educational reforms between 1856 and 1880?

Answer 15

1) The primary curriculum was still based on religion and offered basic reading, writing and arithmetic.
2) Secondary education was still fee-paying so was limited to the better-off.
3) More radical students joined opposition movements committed to violence.

Question 16

Please give me three ways that Alexander’s reforms in the 1860s stimulated excitement and the emergence of opposition.

Answer 16

1) The relaxation of censorship laws encouraged the spread of more radical books.
2) Educational changes led to growth of more independent, radical student organisations.
3) Legal reforms promoted legal careers and attracted the educated middle classes who were critical of government.

Question 17

What were two opposition groups of the early 1860s?

Answer 17

1) 1862: ‘Young Russia,’ a student organisation which was hostile to both the Tsar and the Church. This group was probably responsible for a series of fires in St Petersburg in 1862.
2) 1863: ‘The Organisation,’ which was set up by students at Moscow University to co-ordinate revolutionary activities.

Question 18

Following assassination attempts on the Tsar in 1866 and 1867, a period of reaction set in.

What reactionary ministers did Alexander appoint?

Answer 18

Alexander appointed reactionary ministers, such as Dmitri Tolstoy and Peter Shuvalov, who argued that westernising changes were weakening Russia. So, although military and economic reforms continued, Alexander’s other reforming impulses were halted, or even reversed.

Question 19

What six educational policies were reinstated as a result of assassination attempts on the Tsar and what were the results of these policies?

Answer 19

Reinstated policies:
1) Authority over primary schools was returned to the Church and the activities of the Zemstva were restricted.

2) Secondary schools were ordered to remove from the curriculum the sciences they had introduced.
3) Students from vocational schools could only go to higher technical institutions (1871), not university.
4) Subjects thought to encourage critical thought, such as literature and history, were banned in universities.
5) Student organisations were banned.
6) University appointments could be vetoed by the government.

Results:
1) Religious control was reasserted.

2) The curriculum was restricted.
3) Female education declined.
4) Many students escaped restrictions by studying abroad. Here they were influenced by radical Russians living in exile.

Question 20

What four policies on police and law courts were reinstated as a result of assassination attempts on the Tsar and what were the results of these policies?

Answer 20

1) The work of the Third Section (secret police) was increased.
2) Until 1878 political offenders could face show trials.
3) 1878: political crimes were tried in secret military courts.
4) 1879: governor-generals were given emergency powers to use military courts and impose exile.

Results:

1) Critics and opponents thrived underground.
2) The ‘show trials’ were abandoned after sympathetic juries acquitted the accused, e.g. Vera Zasulich

Question 21

The Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), famine (1879-80), the beginnings of an industrial recession and further assassination attempts in 1879 and 1880 led Alexander II to establish a commission under Count Loris-Melikov, who had been appointed Minister of the Interior in 1880 to investigate the spread of revolutionary activity. What five things did this lead to?

Answer 21

1) Release of political prisoners.
2) Relaxation of censorship.
3) Lifting of restrictions on the activities of the Zemstva.
4) Removal of the tax on salt.
5) Abolition of the Third Section (replaced by the Okhrana).

Question 22

Who was Nikolai Chernyshevsky?

Answer 22

A radical thinker and editor of a radical journal, The Contemporary, and author of ‘What is to be done?’ (1863), both of which spread the view that peasants had to be made leaders of revolutionary change.

Question 23

Who was Mikhail Bakunin?

Answer 23

Bakunin was an anarchist and socialist who suggested private ownership of land should be replaced by collective ownership and that income should be based on the number of hours worked. In 1869, he wrote the book Catechism of a Revolutionary, together with Sergei Nechaev. Published in Switzerland and secretly smuggled into Russia, this encouraged opponents of Tsardom to be merciless in pursuit of revolutionary change.

Question 24

How was Marx’s work smuggled into Russia?

Answer 24

Mikhail Bakunin translated Marx’s ‘communist manifesto’ into Russia in 1869; the first volume of Marx’s ‘Das Kapital’ was published in Russia in 1872. Marx believed that society had evolved through a series of class struggles and that a final struggle between an industrial working class (proletariat) and capitalist middle class (bourgeoisie) would, after a short ‘dictatorship of the proletariat,’ lead to a perfect society in which all would be equal.

Question 25

What did the radical Peter Lavrov encourage in 1874?

Answer 25

In 1874 Peter Lavrov encouraged around 2000 young people to, ‘go to the people.’ These Narodniks (Populists) tried to dress and talk like peasants to gain acceptance in villages and spread their socialist ideas. However, ignorance, loyalty to the Church and to the Tsar and fear that the Narodniks were secret agents led peasants to reject them and sometimes hand them over to the police. There were 1600 arrests.

Question 26

In 1877, the remaining Narodniks established Land and Liberty, what two main things did they achieve / attempt to do?

Answer 26

1) the assassination of General Mezemstev, head of the Third Section, 1878
2) several attempts on the Tsar’s life

Question 27

Who was Peter Lavrov and what opposition did he encourage throughout the 1870s?

Answer 27

1874: Peter Lavrov encouraged around 2,000 young people, mainly students, to ‘go to the people.’ These Narodniks (Populists) tried to dress and talk like peasants to gain acceptance in villages and spread their socialist ideas. However, ignorance, loyalty to the Church and to the Tsar and fear that the Narodniks were secret police agents led peasants to reject them and sometimes hand them over to the police. There were 1600 arrests.

Question 28

In 1879, Land and Liberty split into ‘The Black Partition’ and, ‘The People’s Will.’ Please explain what the group ‘The Black Partition,’ aimed to do and achieved.

Answer 28

The Black Partition

1) Organised by Georgi Plekhanov
2) Aimed to ‘partition the black (fertile) soil’ provinces among the peasants
3) Worked peacefully among peasants
4) Spread radical materials among students and workers
5) Weakened by arrests in 1880-1 and broken up
6) Plekhanov later became a Marxist

Question 29

In 1879, Land and Liberty split into ‘The Black Partition’ and, ‘The People’s Will.’ Please explain what the group ‘The People’s Will,’ aimed to do and achieved.

Answer 29

1) Led by Timofei Mikhailov
2) Larger than the Black Partition
3) Advocated violent methods and assassination (particularly of the Tsar)
4) March 1881 - succeeded in assassinating Alexander II with a bomb as he was travelling by coach to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg

Question 30

Please give seven ways in which Alexander III reasserted autocracy after the assassination of his father.

Answer 30

1) After his father’s assassination, Alexander III ascended the throne and was crowned on 27 May 1881. He was advised by the reactionary Konstantin Pobedonostev, procurator of the Holy Synod. He encouraged the Tsar to reassert the principle of autocracy and abandon his father’s reforms. The new Tsar announced: ‘I shall be sole and absolute ruler, for a kingdom cannot be ruled without an iron hand. Only absolute power can safeguard Russia.’
2) Alexander III arrested 150 members of the People’s Will and publicly hanged those responsible for his father’s assassination. He increased the powers of the police. He made the Department of Police, which supervised the Okhrana, responsible to the Ministry of Internal Affairs so that its activities could be monitored. Spies and counter-spies were also widely used.
3) From 1882, any area of the empire could be deemed an ‘area of subversion,’ with police agents able to arrest, imprison or exile on suspicion.
4) In 1885, closed court sessions (where trials were held in secret) without juries were reintroduced.
5) In 1889, Alexander III introduced Land Captains, appointed from the nobility. These replaced local magistrates and had the power to override Zemstva elections and decisions. They could overturn the judgements of local courts and order the flogging of peasants.
6) In 1890, the peasant vote to the Zemstva was reduced.
7) Outspoken liberal members of the judiciary and the Zemstva were removed from office.

Question 31

Alexander III adopted Pobedonostev’s creed of ‘Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationality,’ which effectively meant Russification. Please give seven ways in which Alexander III enforced Russification.

Answer 31

1) Russian was declared to be the official first language, so that trials and local government had to be conducted in Russian.
2) Public office was closed to those who did not speak Russian fluently.
3) Adherence to the Orthodox Church was encouraged. In the Baltic region, 37,000 Lutherans converted to Orthodoxy.
4) Catholic monasteries were closed down. Members of non-Orthodox churches were not allowed to build new places of worship.
5) Resistance to Russification was suppressed, often by the military.
6) The nationalities that suffered most were the Poles, the Finns, the Baltic Germans and the Ukrainians.
7) Russification was intended to ‘unite’ the country but it intensified national feeling among non-Russians and drove some to join opposition groups, e.g. many early opposition groups were composed of Jews (Trotsky was a Jew).

Question 32

How were Jews negatively effected by Russification?

Answer 32

1) Anti-Semitism was ingrained in Russian society and, when anti-Jewish pogroms broke out in 1881-84, the authorities did little to curb the violence. Many Jews were raped or murdered and Jewish property in several cities was destroyed.
2) Many laws were passed in Alexander’s reign to restrict the rights and movement of Jews, who were forced to live in certain districts of ghettoes.
3) Many Jews emigrated emigrated or were expelled and a number, such as Leon Trotsky and Julius Martov were driven to join revolutionary groups.

Question 33

Since Russia did not possess a wealthy middle-class, Mikhail von Reutern (Minister of Finance, 1862-78) believed the government must direct economic change. What six economic reforms did Reutern consequently introduce?

Answer 33

1) Tax-farming was abolished (companies could no longer buy the right to collect taxes).
2) The Treasury was reformed and budgeting and auditing systems were established.
3) Credit facilities were made available through the establishment of banks.
4) Subsidies were offered to private railway companies and other industrial initiatives.
5) Government-guaranteed annual dividends were provided for foreign investors.
6) Tariffs on trade were lowered and trade treaties were negotiated.

Question 34

What were the strengths and limitations of Reutern’s reforms?

Answer 34

Strengths:

• The cotton industry and mining both expanded.
• There was some improvement in agriculture.

Limitations of reforms:

• Transport and labour mobility remained limited.
• Growth was slow.
• The Russian currency was unstable and much income went towards paying off debts.

Question 35

Despite some progress under Reutern, Russia still remained undeveloped in relation to Western Europe, Ivan Vyshnegradsky (Minister of Finance, 1887-92) tried to build up industry - name three things Vyshnegradsky increased in order to achieve this?

Answer 35

1) Import tariffs by as much as 30 per cent in order to boost home production.
2) Grain exports by forcing peasants to sell grain to the state.
3) Loans from abroad (e.g. France, 1888).

Question 36

What were the results of Vyshnegradsky’s efforts towards industrial production?

Answer 36

1) Grain exports increased by 18 per cent (1881-1891) and by 1892 the budget was in surplus.
2) Peasants suffered from heavy taxation, high goods prices and grain requisitions.
3) A famine (1891-92) following a bad harvest killed about 350,000 people and Vyshnegradsky was dismissed.

Question 37

Please explain the Russo-Japanese war in six points.

Answer 37

1) In January 1904, the Japanese attacked the Russian naval base at Port Arthur in the Far East.
2) Plehve, the Minister for Internal Affairs, called for a, ‘short, victorious war,’ which would distract attention from political unrest at home.
3) In March 1904, Russian forces were defeated at Mukden with 90,000 Russians killed.
4) In May 1904, 24 out of 27 ships of the Russian fleet were sunk in the Battle of Tsushmina.
5) In December 1904, Russia surrendered the naval base at Port Arthur.
6) This defeat turned initial anti-Japanese patriotism into discontent and increased opposition to the government.

Question 38

Please explain the 1905 Revolution and its results, giving us a timeline from 3rd January to 23rd September.

Answer 38

3rd January –> Outbreak of a strike at the Putilov works in St Petersburg, which soon involved 150,000 workers.

9th January –> Father Gapon led a peaceful march of about 20,000 workers to the Winter Palace, with a petition demanding improved working conditions and political reform. Troops fired on the marches, leading to over a hundred deaths. Nicholas II later told the workers’ representatives that they had been misguided and should return to work.

4th February –> Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Nicholas’s uncle and governor-general of Moscow, was assassinated.

March –> An ‘All Russian Union of Railway Workers’ was established and soviets of elected factory workers were formed to co-ordinate strikes.

June –> Naval unity on the battleship Potemkin. In Odessa, the authorities tried to disperse sympathetic crowds, killing more than 2,000.

August –> Peasants rioted and a ‘Peasants’ Union’ was formed.

6th August –> Nicholas promised a restricted State Duma, which revolutionaries regarded as too weak.

23 September –> A printers’ strike in Moscow spread to St Petersburg and other cities, creating a general strike in October.

Question 39

The October Manifesto of 1905 contained what promises?

Answer 39

• Civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, conscience, press and assembly for all
• a State Duma, elected by universal suffrage, to pass laws

Question 40

Name four impacts of the October Manifesto

Answer 40

1) Most liberals, such as the Kadets, Progressives and Octoberists accepted the Manifesto.
2) The SRs and SDs rejected it.
3) Many workers were unconvinced by the Tsar’s promises and continued to support the SRs and SDs.
4) Peasant risings continued, especially with hopes of land redistribution.

Question 41

Give four ways in which the Tsar managed to recovery authority in late 1905?

Answer 41

1) Most of the army remained loyal and helped to storm the headquarters of the Moscow and St Petersburg soviets in November/December 1905.
2) Most of the leaders of the soviets were arrested and many were executed or exiled to Siberia.
3) Troops restored order in the countryside and the government promised an end to redemption payments.
4) The October Manifesto split the opposition. Peter Struve, a liberal, said: ‘Thank God for the Tsar who has saved us from the people.’

Question 42

In April 1906 a new constitution was drawn up and political parties were legalised for election, although the SRs and Bolsheviks refused to participate. Then, four days before the first Duma met, the Tsar issued the ‘Fundamental Laws,’ in which his claimed his right to…

Answer 42

1) Exercise ‘supreme autocratic power.’
2) Initiate legislation and approve laws.
3) Appoint and dismiss ministers.
4) Summon and dissolve the Duma.
5) Rule by decree in an emergency or when the Duma was not in session.

The Tsar never had any intention of becoming a ‘constitutional monarch.’