How 'liberal' was Russian government from 1855-1881?

1861 Emancipation of the Serfs

• ‘Freed’ 23m serfs

• Ended feudal obligations owed by serfs

• i.e. all privately owned serfs were freed, those kept by the state were to be emancipated in 1866

• Freedom entailed peasants being to own property, run their own commercial enterprises and marry whoever they wished

• Nobles had to hand over a proportion or allotment of land to peasants → measured by official surveyors

• State offered compensations to landowners which was often based on valuations way above the market level

What was repressive about the Emancipation

• Peasants had to help pay for the compensation through redemption payments to the village mir over a 49-year period

• Only alternative was continuing to work on the land of a noble for so many days in a year to compensate for their own land allocations

• Mir made sure that land could not be sold on before the final redemption payment had been made

• Leaves the mir + officials/nobles still in charge

• Redemption payments only cancelled in 1907 (Stolypin)

What had nobility been struggling with before emancipation

Struggling to maintain their large estates → many had taken out large loans to cover day-to-day costs. Revenue from redemption payments tended to be diverted to repay debts. If this failed, estates were broken up and sold off.

By 1905 land owned by nobility was reduced by about

40%

Some reasons why peasants also reacted badly to reforms

• Peasants allocated poorer quality land

• Received less on average than they had been farming before emancipation

• Many struggled to earn enough from the land to meet the heavy redemption payments (6% interest, 49 year burden)

• Rural poll taxes

• Not free totally as they had to answer to mir now, even if not landlords/the State/the Church → decisions about what was to be produced/how cultivated was in hands of village elders

• Mir also ensured that the principle of subsistence farming was adhered to → peasant farmers had no incentive to produce surplus, hence no modernisation/reluctant to invest in land (as Alex II had wanted)

Why might Alex II have been only an autocrat and not a ‘Tsar Liberator’

• 1862 from an assembly of ‘liberal’ nobility in Tver province, questioning of the unrepresentative nature of central government

• Tsar only change to central gov: the Personal Chancellery of his Imperial Majesty was abolished in 1861 and replaced with a council of ministers → still officials nominated by him, would be abandoned in 1882, chaired by tsar, etc.

One positive thing about Council of Ministers

Did give impression that Alex wanted to show that he was willing to debate proposed policies before implementing them

Legal reform 1864

1864 → jury system for criminal cases, hierarchy of chores for different types of case, better pay for judges (less chance of corruption), public attendance at courts allowed

1877 legal reform

Following assassination attempt on Alex’s life (1866), new department of the Senate set up to try political cases.

Vera Zasulich case and murder of tsar 1881 showed how new policies of Senate failed in condemning people

How were legal reforms liberating

• Trial by jury fairer

• Vera Zasulich → not found guilty, but argued that her actions were just (governor she wounded was a tyrant known for flogging political prisoners)

How were legal reforms still repressive

• Government officials only tried under special set of rules

• Government retained power of administrative arrest

• Judges still influenced by promotion prospects and government pressure

• Third section remained and arbitrary police action continued

• Peasant courts still → negated fundamental principle of equality before law

Zemstva when

1864

What were zemstva

• Form of elected rural councils, peasant elect 40% members

Zemstva liberating

• Peasant role in election

• After 1864, zemstva became an important agent in the provision of public service- administered local primary schools through the board of education- primary schools increased from 8,000 in 1856 to 23,000 in 1880

Zemstva not liberating

• Landowners and urban dwellers did have a role in election however, and electors selected mainly by property qualification

• Located only in areas considered to be part of Great Russia

• Dumas in urban areas (1870) → property qualifications required even higher → excluded urban proletariat

• provincial governors had power to reverse any decisions made by zemstva

• By 1914 only 43/70 provinces had them

Educational reforms → liberating

• 1861- Alexander appointed liberal Golvonin as education minister

• 1862- schools placed under jurisdiction of ministry of education rather than control of the church

• 1863 university regulations reduced class bias against students

• by 1881, there were around 2000 women studying

• 1856-1880 went from 8000 to 23000 primary schools

Educational reforms → not liberating

• Student organisations banned

• 1866 Tolstoy replaced liberal Golvonin as education minister (reactionary Alex policies)

• He clamped down on uni regulations → all applicants needed to have attended a gimnazium classical Russian curriculum to apply

• Elitist educational approach followed

Military reforms liberating

• Statute on universal military service, 1874: liability for conscription extended to all classes

• 1859 service reduced from 25 to 16 years → removed huge burden for peasants (as these were the people who had been primarily targeted ie people who paid poll tax)

Military reforms not liberating

• Officers mainly aristocratic

• Army doctors still bribed to declare people unfit for service

• Low educational standards of recruits → less effective training

1863 reforms relating to books

• Books and manuscripts from abroad no longer subject to censorship

• Censorship regulations also eased on pre-publications

1865 press

Press allowed to discuss government policy

Censorship still restrictive - third section

Still active → shadowed 2000 people and dealt with 15,000 security cases daily

Censored journal

1866, radical journal 'the contemporary' was banned (under new minister of education Tolstoy)

Alex II → reactionary

After assassination attempt 1866, we see growing strength of conservatives and reactionaries, and Alex started to reverse or limit many of the reforms

1860 peasant revolts

60 in 1860

Serfs returning from Crimean war thought would get freedom, did not

Peasant revolts after emancipation

Bezdna unrest - uprising of former serfs - put down by military troops - 100-300 peasants wounded or killed

Were these revolts nothing compared to those of e.g. 1770s e.g. Pugachev Rebellion 1773-5, which even led to battles with government forces + posed real threat to tsarist rule, not put down as quickly

How many serfs 1861

23m

Polish Rebellion 1863

• Result of many factors, including the access to land, proposed policies of Polish leaders and the role of the Catholic Church in Polish society

• Alex II tried to compromise with Polish gov by allowing it to frame own land reform programme

• Extremists in Poland opposed proposals (along with those relating to conscription)

• Rebellion

Peasants and Polish reellion

Divided their allegiance - some supported Polish insurgents, other the Russians

After Polish rebellion

Ruthlessly suppressed 1964

Tsar reforms that benefitted majority of peasants to detriment of the nobility

Clearly the start of Russification

Commission 1876

To investigate separatist activity in Ukraine

Baltic Germans

• Alex continued his father’s liberal policy towards the Baltic Germans, upper-class people of Latvia and Estonia - to keep them dominant

• In face of rising nationalism in these states → mainly from middle class intelligentsia

• Estonian nationalistic fervour → publication of literature written in Estonian (relaxed censorship)

• Newspaper Sakala campaigned for social and economic quality between all Estonians, though it clearly supported the Russian tsarist regime

• Tsar wanted to maintain regional stability but also complexity to this challenge

Tsar and Jews

Some categories of Jewish people e.g. merchants and doctors were allowed to live outside the Pale of Settlement

Alex II expansion

Into Central Asia, definitive subjugation of the Caucasus (in the 1860s - by 1864)

Further wars that historian Hite has emphasised indicate reforms for military not so effective

1877 Russian army struggled to defeat ‘weak Turkish troops’

1904-5 Russia defeated by Japan

Another reason for military reform as they were ‘slow to come about’?

Nobles only convinced of need for far-reaching military reforms after they witnessed the success of the ‘modern’ Prussian army in 1866-71