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| Tsar Alexander II. Public domain. |
Alexander II (1855-81): the 'Tsar Liberator'
Alexander Nikolayevich succeeded his father during the Crimean war and the first year of his reign was taken up with military affairs. His foreign policy was, in many respects, a continuation of his father's - to suppress Polish nationalism and expand into the declining Ottoman Empire - but after the fall of Sevastopol this ambition had to be put on hold. He had to negotiate for peace, and the terms of the resulting treaty were unfavourable to Russia. The defeat impressed him with a profound conviction that the country needed to modernise and reform. Alexander's reign saw a dramatic expansion of Russia's railway network. Defeat in the Crimea exposed Russia’s lack of a railway network, with the only major line being the link between St Petersburg and Moscow (450 miles). In 1853 there were just 620 miles of railway, by 1866 there were 3,000 miles and by 1877 the mileage had trebled. The railways served a dual military and economic purpose. They enabled men and military hardware to be delivered to the field of conflict and they speeded up the transport of goods.
The emancipation of the serfs: In March 1856 he told the nobility of Moscow,
The emancipation settlement, proclaimed on 19 February (3 March NS) 1861, was therefore a compromise, but one particularly aimed at winning over the landlords.
This meant that emancipation was not, in practice, a good deal for the peasants.
Emancipation therefore fell short of the hopes of the idealists, leaving many peasants economically worse off than when they had been serfs.
Further reforms: Other measures followed the emancipation. Local assemblies (zemstva) were introduced in 1864. They were elected by the nobility, urban dwellers and peasants under a voting system based on property qualification. The zemstva were empowered to levy taxes and to spend their funds on schools, public health, roads, and other social services. This meant the creation of new posts that were filled by professional people. More than half were teachers, who presided over a remarkable expansion of primary education. The remainder were largely medical professionals and administrators. On the other hand, local government lacked the powers and finance it needed to do its job properly.
In 1864 Russia also received a system of law courts based on European models, with irremovable judges and a proper system of courts of appeal. Justices of the peace were instituted for minor offenses; they were elected by the county zemstva. A properly organised, modern legal profession now arose.
During the first years of Alexander II's reign there was some demand from a liberal section of the nobility for representative government at the national level. The tsar and his bureaucrats refused to consider this: there was to be no challenge to the principle of autocracy. The decision against a national assembly deprived Russia of the possibility of public political education such as that which existed, for example, in contemporary Prussia, and it deprived the government of the services of hundreds of talented men.
In April 1877 the Russians invaded Ottoman territory and by January 1878, in spite of stiff Turkish resistance, they were threatening Constantinople. The Turks were forced to accept the Treaty of San Stefano which created an independent ‘Big Bulgaria’. Britain and Austria-Hungary feared that Russia would now have a client state in the Balkans.
In response to the threat of war, the Congress of Berlin was called, with Bismarck as ‘honest broker’ to revise the treaty and curtail Russian ambitions. There was to be no 'Big Bulgaria'. This was the last occasion before 1914 when the great powers met to settle their differences. The Congress postponed war for a generation, but Russia was humiliated and the aspirations of the Balkan peoples were not fully realised.
The magnificently restored Church of the Spilt Blood stands on the site of Alexander's assassination.
His son, Alexander III, was a reactionary, devoted to autocracy, Russian nationalism and the Orthodox Church. Under him, the universities lost their autonomy, the independence of the courts was sapped and the zemstva were remodelled and lost many of their powers.
This reactionary policy was continued by his son, Nicholas II. The census of 1897 revealed that there were over 100,000 policemen and 50,000 men in the security gendarmerie, deploying a formidable range of spies and informers. In 1880 there were 8,000 people in ‘administrative exile’ in Siberia.
The pogroms: All religious minorities came under attack, but the Jews most of all. In 1880 about 4 million of them lived in the Pale, the tract of Poland and western Russia to which they were confined by law. 700.000 more were driven into it in the next ten years. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century 2 million Jews left Russia. A series of pogroms between 1903 and 1906 left 2,000 Jews dead and increased the number of emigrants.
Industrial growth: In 1892 Sergei Witte, the son of a civil servant of Lutheran Scandinavian origins, became Finance Minister. Gravely concerned at Russia’s backwardness, he initiated a massive programme of state investment in industry to overcome ‘two hundred years of economic sleep’. Believing that ‘a great power cannot wait’ he abandoned liberal economics for direct state intervention in order to prime the country’s industrialization.
Between 1894 and 1902 two thirds of government expenditure went into economic development. Russia’s industrial production increased dramatically making her economy the fifth largest in the world by 1914. Oil was discovered in Baku, which soon produced half the world's oil supply. The Ukraine became the bread basket of Europe, the grain being sold through Odessa. The government encouraged private banks and its decision to adopt the gold standard kept the economy stable.
In 1891 construction began on the 5,000 mile long Trans-Siberian Railway. Much of the money for investment came from abroad. In 1900 one third of the capital of private industry in Russia was in foreign hands. By 1914 French investors held 80 per cent of government debt securities. The British invested most heavily in mining and new oilfields.
In spite of this, most Russians grew poorer. There was a famine in 1891-2 followed by a series of crop failures. There was widespread discontent in the countryside and in the industrialised areas. And with no indigenous liberal tradition in Russia many of the disaffected intelligentsia turned to extreme parties like the Marxist Social Democrats.
The emancipation of the serfs: In March 1856 he told the nobility of Moscow,
it is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait until the serfs begin to liberate themselves from below.However, the bulk of the landowning class was determined to give the freed peasants as little as possible.
The emancipation settlement, proclaimed on 19 February (3 March NS) 1861, was therefore a compromise, but one particularly aimed at winning over the landlords.
- Peasants were granted their existing allotments and no longer owed labour duties or services. Legally, they were now free.
- The government compensated the landlords by paying them eighty per cent of the capital value of the land they were surrendering to the peasants. The peasants then had to pay twenty per cent of the capital value of their allotments to the landlord and the rest to the state over a period of forty-nine years.
This meant that emancipation was not, in practice, a good deal for the peasants.
- From 1863, they were bound to 'temporary obligation', which meant that they had to continue providing their old dues and services until they had redeemed the value of their allotments. This could take many years.
- On the other hand, if they wished to be free of these obligations, they could receive 'beggars' holdings', which were very small and often less than the land they had had for their own use when they were serfs. Only half a million peasants, or five per cent of the total peasant population, most of them from the fertile 'black earth' provinces of the south, accepted this offer, and many of those who did so were forced to return to the estates of the landowners in search of paid labour.
Emancipation therefore fell short of the hopes of the idealists, leaving many peasants economically worse off than when they had been serfs.
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| Grigory Myasoyedov, Peasants Reading the Emancipation Manifesto (1873) Public domain. |
Further reforms: Other measures followed the emancipation. Local assemblies (zemstva) were introduced in 1864. They were elected by the nobility, urban dwellers and peasants under a voting system based on property qualification. The zemstva were empowered to levy taxes and to spend their funds on schools, public health, roads, and other social services. This meant the creation of new posts that were filled by professional people. More than half were teachers, who presided over a remarkable expansion of primary education. The remainder were largely medical professionals and administrators. On the other hand, local government lacked the powers and finance it needed to do its job properly.
In 1864 Russia also received a system of law courts based on European models, with irremovable judges and a proper system of courts of appeal. Justices of the peace were instituted for minor offenses; they were elected by the county zemstva. A properly organised, modern legal profession now arose.
During the first years of Alexander II's reign there was some demand from a liberal section of the nobility for representative government at the national level. The tsar and his bureaucrats refused to consider this: there was to be no challenge to the principle of autocracy. The decision against a national assembly deprived Russia of the possibility of public political education such as that which existed, for example, in contemporary Prussia, and it deprived the government of the services of hundreds of talented men.
The Russo-Turkish War
Alexander II’s foreign policy was a continuation of his father’s. He put down the Polish revolt of 1863, and continued with the advance into Asia. Like his father, he saw Turkey as ‘the sick man’ of Europe, and twenty years after defeat in the Crimea, Russia was at war again. The opening was provided in May 1876 when Ottoman troops massacred over 20,000 Christians in what became known as the Bulgarian Horrors. This aroused outrage in Russia, which saw itself as the protector of the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. |
| Konstantin Makovsky, The Bulgarian Martyresses (1877). Public domain. |
In April 1877 the Russians invaded Ottoman territory and by January 1878, in spite of stiff Turkish resistance, they were threatening Constantinople. The Turks were forced to accept the Treaty of San Stefano which created an independent ‘Big Bulgaria’. Britain and Austria-Hungary feared that Russia would now have a client state in the Balkans.
In response to the threat of war, the Congress of Berlin was called, with Bismarck as ‘honest broker’ to revise the treaty and curtail Russian ambitions. There was to be no 'Big Bulgaria'. This was the last occasion before 1914 when the great powers met to settle their differences. The Congress postponed war for a generation, but Russia was humiliated and the aspirations of the Balkan peoples were not fully realised.
Repression
Alexander’s reforms aroused fierce opposition from conservatives and revolutionaries while the suppression of the Polish revolt alienated liberals. In 1866 there was an unsuccessful attempt on his life which led to a clamp down on reforms. On 1 March 1881 Alexander was assassinated by a terrorist group called the People’s Will. You can hear a discussion of this on Melvyn Bragg's 'In Our Time'. The main leaders of the group were caught by the police, and five of them were hanged.Alexander III: expansion and reaction
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| Alexander III Public domain. |
This reactionary policy was continued by his son, Nicholas II. The census of 1897 revealed that there were over 100,000 policemen and 50,000 men in the security gendarmerie, deploying a formidable range of spies and informers. In 1880 there were 8,000 people in ‘administrative exile’ in Siberia.
The pogroms: All religious minorities came under attack, but the Jews most of all. In 1880 about 4 million of them lived in the Pale, the tract of Poland and western Russia to which they were confined by law. 700.000 more were driven into it in the next ten years. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century 2 million Jews left Russia. A series of pogroms between 1903 and 1906 left 2,000 Jews dead and increased the number of emigrants.
Industrial growth: In 1892 Sergei Witte, the son of a civil servant of Lutheran Scandinavian origins, became Finance Minister. Gravely concerned at Russia’s backwardness, he initiated a massive programme of state investment in industry to overcome ‘two hundred years of economic sleep’. Believing that ‘a great power cannot wait’ he abandoned liberal economics for direct state intervention in order to prime the country’s industrialization.
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| Sergei Witte, modernising minister. Library of Congress Public domain. |
Between 1894 and 1902 two thirds of government expenditure went into economic development. Russia’s industrial production increased dramatically making her economy the fifth largest in the world by 1914. Oil was discovered in Baku, which soon produced half the world's oil supply. The Ukraine became the bread basket of Europe, the grain being sold through Odessa. The government encouraged private banks and its decision to adopt the gold standard kept the economy stable.
In 1891 construction began on the 5,000 mile long Trans-Siberian Railway. Much of the money for investment came from abroad. In 1900 one third of the capital of private industry in Russia was in foreign hands. By 1914 French investors held 80 per cent of government debt securities. The British invested most heavily in mining and new oilfields.
In spite of this, most Russians grew poorer. There was a famine in 1891-2 followed by a series of crop failures. There was widespread discontent in the countryside and in the industrialised areas. And with no indigenous liberal tradition in Russia many of the disaffected intelligentsia turned to extreme parties like the Marxist Social Democrats.
Conclusion
- Russia at the end of the nineteenth century presented contradictory images.
- It was the fastest growing economy in the world, and foreign money poured in to invest in industries and infrastructure.
- But it remained an autocracy; if anything, the restrictions on freedom were tightening. The result was a hostile, and potentially dangerous, intelligentsia.
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