Alexander II

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  • Alexander II
    • Emancipation of the Serfs 1861
      • Successes
        • Ushered in other reforms
        • First monumental step towards modernisation
        • Foreign and domestic trade grew
        • Major economic statistics grow e.g. exports, income
        • Kick starts economy - rail building, arms, metal works
      • Failures
        • Peasants resented redemption payments, nobles controlled best land still
        • Small plots = couldn't enforce modern, efficient methods
          • Tied to Mir - no mobile working force
            • Still not modern state
        • Technical backwardness remained, still subsistence
        • Loss of status and power, loss of land
          • Many attracted to intellectual groups opposing autocracy
            • gave rise to revolutionaries
      • Why?
        • Economically- preventing economic progress, no mobile work force. Low productivity levels
        • Moral and Intellectual - pressure for reform from peasants and nobles
        • Political - military defeats = power questioned
    • Other Reforms
      • Local Government
        • Elected local councils - Zemstvas created 1870
          • Created a forum to criticise central government
        • Powers to improve public services
        • Dominated by nobles - lack of representation
        • Illustrates a degree of representative gov at a local level
      • Military
        • Compulsory conscription for all over 20
        • Corporal punishment abolished, modern weaponry and provisions
      • Judicial
        • New legal system 1864 - introduced judge and jury
        • Better pay for judges = less bribery and corruption
        • ublic courts, freedom of press, fairer
      • Education
        • Universities could self-govern, appoint staff
          • Responsibility for schooling passed from Church to Zemstva
            • Secondary and primary education opened up to all classes and genders
              • Primary schools grew from 8000 to 23,000 1856 -1880
      • Economic
        • Taxing farming abolished, new tax collection methods
          • Gov subsidies to build railways
            • Foreign investment encouraged
              • Noticeable improvement but comparatively weak economy
              • 1/3 gov expenditure on paying debts
    • Counter-Reforms
      • Judicial
        • Strengthened police and 3rd Section to root out radicals
          • Open show trials as a deterrent but gave revolutionaries publicity - gov looked incompetent
      • Censorship
        • Reinstalled censorship = opposition, looks repressive
          • Replaces liberal ministers with reactionaries = uprisings
      • Education
        • Tight control reinstated - gov controlled curriculum
          • Radicalised students - discontent
      • Local government
        • Power of Zemstva reduced, e.g. their control over education
      • Ethnic Minorities
        • Harsh policy against Polish, Finns, Jews after 1866
          • Increased opposition to the regime from intellectuals
    • Opposition
      • Intelligentsia
        • Largely radical students
          • Inspired by Nihilist movement - need for action and more away from old system
        • Determnied to change outmoded Russian ways
          • Calls for more individual freedoms
      • Populists
        • 'Go to the people' - land redistribution and development of Mirs
          • Greeted by peasant hostility - loyal to Tsar
          • 1600 arrested by 1874
      • Land and Liberty
        • Populists who evaded capture - more radical, better organised
          • Accepted anarchist views, unsuccessful in rousing peasants
            • Carried out assassinations e.g. head of 3rd Section
              • People's Will
                • Used violent methods - assassinated Tsar 1881
              • Black Partition
                • Georgi Phlekhanov - peaceful, created first Russian marxist organization 1883
      • Amongst nobles
        • Disillusioned with terms of emenacipation
          • Reactionariesharder to quash than radicals
        • Saw posssibility for further reform vs those who saw reforms as controversial
    • Loris-Melikov Constitution
      • Too late, got assassinated the day it was to be signed
      • Famine 1879-80, industrial recession, Russo-Turk war 1877-78 = crisis
        • Two attempts made on his life - attempts to widen democratic consultation
          • Too late, got assassinated the day it was to be signed
          • Terms: ministerial changes, concessions, release of political prisoners, relaxation of censorship, abolition of 3rd section, increase powers of zemstvas, national gov body
    • Crimean War
      • Consequences
        • Defeat = humiliating, illustrated deficiencies in resources
        • Backwards - no railways, poor outdated weapons, army = inefficient
        • Questioned Russia's status as a great power - damaging to Tsar

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