Alexander III: Context

When did Alexander III rule?

1881-1894

Was Alexander III prepared to rule?

• No

• His older brother had been trained to be Tsar instead

What was Alexander III’s relationship with his father like?

• They were estranged

• He had established an alternate court to his father’s while he was still alive

Who did Alexander III align himself with?

• He surrounded himself with conservatives

• This was unlike his father, who had surrounded himself with liberals

Who was Pobedonestev? What was his relationship with Alexander III like?

• Alexander’s tutor

• He was known as the ‘Black Tsar’, because people thought that he was manipulating Alexander

What did Alexander think of his father’s regime?

He disapproved of his reforms and though that they had weakened the autocracy

What was Alexander’s political mission? How successful was he in this?

• He set out to undermine and reverse his father’s reforms

• He went further than his father in terms of repression

What was one way in which Alexander actively repressed his people?

• The Third Section

• They would become the biggest secret police in Europe

What was Alexander’s attitude towards industrialisation?

He actively supported the policies of his finance ministers to advance industrialisation

Why did Alexander III use repression?

He used it to try to preserve the autocracy

Give five ways in which Alexander saw the autocracy as having been weakened

• Assassination attempts

• Creation of universities

• Relaxing of censorship

• Judicial reforms (creation of self representation in Russia)

• Creation of the Zemstva who started to ask for a national form of representation

Why did Alexander III support industrialisation?

He was paranoid about falling behind the West and wanted to make Russia a greater power

According to Marxist theory, why would industrialisation be bad for the autocracy?

• It would create a middle class and an urban proletariat

• Marx believed that the proletariat would develop class consciousness and overthrow the bourgeoisie after the bourgeoisie had overthrown the nobility