Alexander II 1855-1881
The Nature of Government
1. Type of rule
- Autocratic
- The Tsar liberator , power in February 1855
- First Tsar to consider people’s approval a part of autocratic rule
- Drove reform process supported by his liberal minded brother Grand Duke
Constantine , and his aunt Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna
2. Structure
Local government
- Zemstvo , it’s an elected local council, established to replace the rights and
obligations of a former serf owing gentry
- Chosen through a system of ‘electoral colleges’, separate colleges for nobles,
townspeople and church, peasants
- Zemstvo given power to improve public services, roads, school, public health, prisons
- Establishment of a degree of representative government at local level raised hopes of
intelligentsia who wanted a representative National Assembly
- Provided valuable addition to local government, as composed of men who understood
the locality and its needs
- However, the voting procedure was arranged in a way that allowed the nobility to
dominate
- Power of the zemstvo was strictly limited, no control over state and local taxes
- Despite peasant representation, never truly ‘people’s assembles’
- District 42% nobles, 38% peasants; provincial 74% nobles, 10.5% peasants
Central government
- Tsar and liberal nobles
- Milyutin brothers: Nicolai Alexander Milyutin, influential voice on internal affairs,
assistant minister of the interior, played role on emancipation; Dmitry Alekseyevich
Milyutin, minister of war, analysed failure of Crimean war and reorganised military
and education
3. Repression:
- Third section, Okhrana
4. Opposition - People’s will, polish revolution
, Opposition
1. Political opposition
- ‘Land and liberty’ set up in 1877, split in 1879: Black Partition, wanted to work
peacefully among the peasantry, avoid violence; ‘The People’s will’ bigger group,
advocate violent methods
- Assassinations
- ‘ The People’s Will’ advocated violence as the trigger to general revolution
- 1866 - an attempted assassination, Dmitry Karakozov ( a young revolutionary ) shot
Alexander but missed
- 1867- Polish immigrant Antoni Berezowski fired on carriage carrying Alexander but
hit a horse instead
- 1879 April – Aleksander Soloviev, former student fired Alexander 5 times but failed
- 1897 Dec – The bombs intended to blow up the Tsar on a railway journey was planted
under the wrong train
- 1880 – A mine positioned below the dining room in winter palace, killed 12 people
except the Tsar as he was late to dinner
- 1881 13th March – The People’s Will, 2 bombs missed, Tsar got out of his carriage and
another terrorist threw a bomb and killed him instantly
- Growth of radicals
- Herzen to Nihilism
- Herzen, an exile from Russia by 1848, had moderated his stance as a result of the
revolutions of that year, became more willing to accept reforms
- Chernyshevsky took the opposite path, he realised that further worthwhile reform was
impossible without a fundamental alternation of Russia’s political and economic
bases. He paved way for philosophy of 1917 revolution
2. Peasant opposition
- The Polish Revolt
- Populism
- A movement that dominated Russian radicalism in the mid 1870s
- Founders were Nikolai Mikhailovsky and Pyotr Lavrov
- Viewed the Russian peasantry not as a force of great revolutionary potential but as
one which needed re-education
- 1874-75 some 3000 young radicals invaded the countryside to open the eyes of the
population
- The movement ‘ To the people’ was a failure, many peasants were hostile and over
1,600 populists were arrested between 1873 and 1877
The Nature of Government
1. Type of rule
- Autocratic
- The Tsar liberator , power in February 1855
- First Tsar to consider people’s approval a part of autocratic rule
- Drove reform process supported by his liberal minded brother Grand Duke
Constantine , and his aunt Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna
2. Structure
Local government
- Zemstvo , it’s an elected local council, established to replace the rights and
obligations of a former serf owing gentry
- Chosen through a system of ‘electoral colleges’, separate colleges for nobles,
townspeople and church, peasants
- Zemstvo given power to improve public services, roads, school, public health, prisons
- Establishment of a degree of representative government at local level raised hopes of
intelligentsia who wanted a representative National Assembly
- Provided valuable addition to local government, as composed of men who understood
the locality and its needs
- However, the voting procedure was arranged in a way that allowed the nobility to
dominate
- Power of the zemstvo was strictly limited, no control over state and local taxes
- Despite peasant representation, never truly ‘people’s assembles’
- District 42% nobles, 38% peasants; provincial 74% nobles, 10.5% peasants
Central government
- Tsar and liberal nobles
- Milyutin brothers: Nicolai Alexander Milyutin, influential voice on internal affairs,
assistant minister of the interior, played role on emancipation; Dmitry Alekseyevich
Milyutin, minister of war, analysed failure of Crimean war and reorganised military
and education
3. Repression:
- Third section, Okhrana
4. Opposition - People’s will, polish revolution
, Opposition
1. Political opposition
- ‘Land and liberty’ set up in 1877, split in 1879: Black Partition, wanted to work
peacefully among the peasantry, avoid violence; ‘The People’s will’ bigger group,
advocate violent methods
- Assassinations
- ‘ The People’s Will’ advocated violence as the trigger to general revolution
- 1866 - an attempted assassination, Dmitry Karakozov ( a young revolutionary ) shot
Alexander but missed
- 1867- Polish immigrant Antoni Berezowski fired on carriage carrying Alexander but
hit a horse instead
- 1879 April – Aleksander Soloviev, former student fired Alexander 5 times but failed
- 1897 Dec – The bombs intended to blow up the Tsar on a railway journey was planted
under the wrong train
- 1880 – A mine positioned below the dining room in winter palace, killed 12 people
except the Tsar as he was late to dinner
- 1881 13th March – The People’s Will, 2 bombs missed, Tsar got out of his carriage and
another terrorist threw a bomb and killed him instantly
- Growth of radicals
- Herzen to Nihilism
- Herzen, an exile from Russia by 1848, had moderated his stance as a result of the
revolutions of that year, became more willing to accept reforms
- Chernyshevsky took the opposite path, he realised that further worthwhile reform was
impossible without a fundamental alternation of Russia’s political and economic
bases. He paved way for philosophy of 1917 revolution
2. Peasant opposition
- The Polish Revolt
- Populism
- A movement that dominated Russian radicalism in the mid 1870s
- Founders were Nikolai Mikhailovsky and Pyotr Lavrov
- Viewed the Russian peasantry not as a force of great revolutionary potential but as
one which needed re-education
- 1874-75 some 3000 young radicals invaded the countryside to open the eyes of the
population
- The movement ‘ To the people’ was a failure, many peasants were hostile and over
1,600 populists were arrested between 1873 and 1877
