Alexander II and the extent of reform

What prompted reform?

Defeat to the Ottomans in the Crimean War

3 Military reforms - Extent?

1. Reduced Service length

2. Introduced conscription for nobles as well as peasants

3. Army schools established

Extent: Fairly - and successful: victory in Russo-Turkish War

3 Legal Reforms - Extent?

1. Introduction of juries

2. Courts opened to the public

3. Judges well-paid and served for life

Extent: great - NO legal system before

3 Social Reforms - Extent?

1. Censorship relaxed - Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done?

2. Rapid growth of private schools

3. 2-3 million men become literate through army

Extent: Great - significant advances

3 Economic Reforms - Extent?

1. Attracted foreign investment and experts (French…)

2. Rapid expansion of staple industries

3. Sevenfold increase in railway construction

When was serfdom abolished? What was Alexander’s aim?

1861 - aim to allow free movement of peasants to fuel industrialisation - typical capitalist reforms

Serfdom - 4 limits of reform

1. Outdated practice continues - yields barely increase

2. Redemption payments for peasants

3. Land held by the mir rather than individual peasants

4. Landlords kept the best land; many peasants ended up with less!

Zemstva - 3 limits of reform.

1. Only limited opposition to Tsar allowed

2. Limited franchise = not truly representative

3. Many provinces didn’t have one

Overall extent of reform?

• Large extent: Russia so backwards that almost anything was radical

• Most success in social and legal reform

• But in the most vital areas - Democracy and the economy - changes for everyday Russians were limited.

  • Abolition of serfdom WAS a significant structural reform, and prepared the way for industrialisation. But it failed to enact agricultural reform, and very few peasants migrated to the city, preferring to hold on to what little land they had left

  • Zemstva by far the most limited area of reform - Russia still autocratic

• But overall can still be considered a reformer: even if those reforms had little impact for everyday Russians, they were unprecedented for the Russian Empire

• The effect of reform was best seen in Russia’s resounding victory over the Ottomans in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877