Russia: Reform and Reaction

1
Russia Reform and Reaction

• Ch. 23 sec. 5

2

• Russia had acquired a huge multinational empire,
  part European and part Asian.
• It had immense natural resources.
• Russia had several obstacles to progress in the
  1800s.
• 1. Land-owning nobles dominated society and
  rejected any change that would threaten their
  privileges.
• 2. Majority of people were serfs, laborers bound
  to the land. Serfdom had almost disappeared in
  the West as of the 1700s.
• Land-owning nobles had no incentive to improve
  agriculture and took little interest in industry.
  Thus, Russia economy remained backward.

3

• The Enlightenment and French Rev. had almost no
  effect on Russian autocracy as absolute power
  reigned.
• (1801) Alexander I inherited the throne. He
  feared losing the support of nobles so he didnt
  press for any modern reforms.
• Instead, he joined conservative powers in
  opposing liberal and nationalist impulses in
  Europe.
• (1825) Alexander I died and a group of army
  officers led an uprising (Decembrist Revolt).
• They had picked up liberal ideas while fighting
  Napoleon and now demanded a constitution and
  other reforms.

4

• The new czar, Nicholas I cracked down.
• 1. Used police spies to hunt critics.
• 2. Banned liberal western books.
• 3. Judged citizens with liberal ideas as insane
  and shut them up in mental hospitals (asylums).
• 4. 150,000 others were exiled to Siberia.
• He believed in orthodoxy, autocracy, and
  nationalism.
• Strong ties with Russian church.
• Absolute power of state.
• Respect for Russian traditions and suppression of
  non-Russian groups within the empire.

5

• He tried to modernize state with reforms, but
  couldnt follow through because of upset nobles.
• (1855) Alexander II came to the throne during the
  Crimean War.
• War had started after Russia tried to seize
  Ottoman lands on the Crimean peninsula.
• Russia lost and their backwardness was exposed.
• Many liberals demanded changes and students
  demonstrated for reform.
• Pressed from many sides, Alexander II finally
  agreed to reforms.
• (1861) he emancipated the serfs (2 yrs before
  Lincoln emancipated slaves in U.S.).

6

• Serfs had to buy the land they worked on. Lands
  allotted to peasants were often too small to farm
  efficiently.
• Many peasants remained poor.
• Other peasants moved to the cities, taking jobs
  in factories.

7

• Alexander II also set up a system of local govt.
  where elected assemblies, called zemstvos were
  responsible for matters such as road repair,
  schools, and agriculture.
• Gained experience of open discussion concerning
  govt.
• (1870s) many radical liberals still wanted a
  constitution and elected legislature. Socialists
  became abundant, influenced by western ideas.
• Czar moved away from reform and toward
  repression.
• Socialists tried to carry the revolution idea to
  the peasants, but this didnt work because the
  peasants didnt understand them and even turned
  them over to police.

8

• The failure of go to the people method led
  radicals to use terrorism.
• Group called the Peoples Will assassinated
  officials.
• (1881) the Peoples Will hurled two bombs at
  Alexanders carriage and killed the czar.
• Alexander III responded to his fathers death by
  reviving harsh methods of Nicholas I to wipe out
  liberals.
• He even went further and launched a program of
  Russification aimed at suppressing cultures of
  non-Russian people.
• Poles, Ukrainians, Finns, Armenians, Jews,
  Muslims were all persecuted.

9

• He encouraged mob attacks on Jews, known as
  pogroms.
• They were beat, killed, looted, and their homes
  and/or stores were burned.
• Jews became refugees, people who flee their
  homeland to seek safety elsewhere.
• Under Alexander III and his son, Nicholas II,
  Russia finally entered the industrial age.
• Trans-Siberian railroad stretched across the
  country.
• Peasants flocked to factories, but faced long
  hours, low pay, and dangerous conditions.
• At factory gates, socialists handed out pamphlets
  that preached ideas of Karl Marx.

10

• Vladimir Ulyanov was one of them. He used an
  aliasLenin. Later, in 1917 he took power in the
  Russian Revolution.
• (1904) Russo-Japanese war broke out and Russia
  lost again.
• People were discontent and under a Orthodox
  priest, many marched in a religious procession to
  Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to ask the czar
  for help.
• They chanted prayers, sang hymns, workers carried
  holy icons and pictures of the czar.
• Fearing the marchers, Nicholas II fled the palace
  and called in soldiers.

11

• The soldiers fired upon the crowd, hundreds lay
  dead in the snow. This is known as Bloody
  Sunday.
• The peoples trust and faith in the czar had been
  killed as discontent exploded across Russia.
• Peasants demanded land, workers demanded better
  working conditions.
• Nicholas II made some reforms such as creating
  the Duma, or elected national legislature.
• He dissolved it often though as it often
  criticized the govt.
• Nicholas II appointed Peter Stolypin as prime
  minister. He cracked down on radicals, was
  assasinated.