Russia from 18501881

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Russia from 1850-1881
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Review of Serfdom

• Serfs are peasants tied to the land of a noble
• They cannot leave but must be cared for
• Nobles had nearly unlimited power of their serfs
  
• Unlike in the rest of Europe, Russian serfs could
  be bought, sold, or exiled to Siberia

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Reaction to the European Revolutions

• massive apparatus of autocratic governmentarmy,
  secret police, censorship, repressionprevented
  the outbreak of revolution
• troops sent to Austrian Empire to crush the
  revolutions in Hungary and Austrian Poland.
• Russian power preserved the Austrian empire
• Supported suppression of liberal movements in
  every part of Europe.
• Russia took the place of Austria as the arsenal
  of autocracy.
• Stood behind the authoritarian governments of
  Italy and Germany
• Kept the Poles, the Magyars, the Czechs, the
  Finns, in the control of foreign despotisms.

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The Crimean War The Backwardness of the
Russian Autocracy

• Russia unable to repel a localized invasion on
  its own soil by two western powers
• Russia's resistance to change had left it far
  behind the states of western Europe not only in
  science and technology but in social and
  administrative developments.
• Russia's backwardness was the major problem
  recognized by most Russians who realistically
  appraised the lessons of the Crimean War.

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Alexander II and the Problem of Reform

• Tsar Nicholas I, ruled 1825-1855, died during the
  Crimean War
• anything but a liberal in the western sense.
• staunch a believer in autocratic government as
  his father, and it was as an autocrat that he
  introduced, or rather imposed, his great reforms.
• remained the supreme authority in the state.
• ruled through a vast bureaucracy that was
  responsible to him alone.

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• Russia, with its poor transportation and
  communications power passed by default to the
  local authorities
• no changes could be made on a national scale
  unless they had been initiated or approved by the
  tsar.
• no government machinery existed through which the
  ordinary Russian citizen could introduce
  improvements or suggest reforms.

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Lack of an outlet for the expression of political
opinion fostered the development of the many
illegal political societies and created an
atmosphere of frustration in which politically
conscious people turned to extremist ideas and
methods, to bombings and assassinations, as the
only means of bringing about change.
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THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS
"It is better to abolish serfdom from above than
to wait for the time when it will begin to
abolish itself from below.
Problems with serfdom

• The system simply was not working.
• Serfs were bought and sold like slaves
• Serfdom was inefficient
• Yields remained low throughout most of the
  nineteenth century
• Confined to antiquated methods of production.
• Could not compete with agriculture abroad.
• Many estates were heavily in debt, the land
  mortgaged.
• Most important because of poor education the
  serfs were not good soldiers

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Humanitarian Considerations
"This measure," an enlightened landowner wrote in
a memorandum for the tsar, "is even more
necessary for the welfare of our class than for
the serfs. The abolition of the right to dispose
of people like objects or like cattle is as much
our liberation as theirs. "
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Emancipation Manifesto

• proposed 17 legislative acts that would free the
  serfs in Russia
• serfdom would be abolished and all peasants would
  be able to buy land from their landlords.
• Money advanced to the landlords
• it would be recovered from the peasants in 49
  annual sums known as redemption payments.

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• worked to the nobles advantage who used the
  money to pay off their debts and who were
• They were now free of their obligations to care
  for their serfs
• The land did not belong to individual serfs but
  to communities of peasants called mirs
• owned and worked the land and paid taxes to the
  government
• another form of slavery

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In other words

• the state bound the peasant to the mir
• The mir was responsible for the payments the
  villagers owed, for the collection of taxes, and
  for supplying recruits for the army.
• The peasant could not leave the land without the
  consent of the mir, which was closely supervised
  by government officials.

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Results

• reforms did not satisfy liberals and radicals who
  wanted a parliamentary democracy
• reforms in agricultural also disappointed the
  peasants
• it took peasants nearly 20 years to obtain their
  land.
• Many were forced to pay more than the land was
  worth less
• By 1900 around 85 per cent of the Russian people
  lived in the countryside and earned their living
  from agriculture.
• The nobility still owned the best land and the
  vast majority of peasants lived in extreme
  poverty.

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Reforms Encouraged Unrest

• The peasants still oppressed
• had to pay a poll tax
• subject to the death penalty if convicted of a
  crime
• bound to the mir
• had to support more people on the same amount of
  land and couldnt buy more

A Peasant Leaving His Landlord on Yuriev Day,
painting by Sergei V.Ivanov
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• Educated Russians were irritated with the
  censorship that forced them to form secret
  societies
• A few adopted nihilisma philosophy dedicated to
  eliminating the existing system to create a new
  world
• Some put their faith in narod
• These narodniki wanted to teach peasants to read,
  provide medical care, and spread the ideas of
  revolution to change Russia

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REFORMS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT, THE JUDICIARY, THE
ARMY
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Local Government
On January 13, 1864, the inhabitants of each
rural district were empowered to elect
representatives to a zemstvo, or local council

• responsible for the maintenance of roads and
  bridges
• poor relief
• primary educalion
• public-health services.
• the zemstvos were given the right to levy taxes.

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reforms in the judicial system
Petty offenses were henceforth to be handled not
by local landlords, but by
justices of the peace elected by the zemstvos,
the more important cases were to be brought to
higher courts whose judges were appointed by the
crown. Court proceedings were to be conducted
according to a strictly regulated system of
prosecution and defense, and trial by jury was
introduced for criminal cases.
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The legal code was revised according to the
principles of western jurisprudence
I ) the principles of equality before the
law, 2) legal uniformity
3) the independence of law courts
4) irremovability of judges
5) of public trial,
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Reforms in the Army I . In 1874 came
a reform of the army. a.
Military service was made compulsory for all men
of all social classes, although
the provisions for exemption were so numerous
that only about a third of those
eligible actually served. b.
The period of service was reduced from
twenty-five to six years, with an
additional nine years in the reserves and
five in the militia. c. Training
was revised, discipline humanized, the cruelest
forms of corporal punishment
abolished. d. The preparation of
officers was improved, and all ranks were
provided with some form of
education to enable them to use the complicated
weapons of modern warfare.
e. it was chiefly in the army that
the Russian peasant learned to read and write
f. it was in the army that an
important segment of the Russian population was
exposed to the revolutionary
propaganda of Russian intellectuals.
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Revolutionary Ferment A. The
relaxation of government censorship during the
early part of Alexander II's reign
resulted in a dramatic increase in the spread of
revolutionary propaganda. 1. The
result was that after a few years government
authorities imposed new
restrictions, which were made especially
stringent after an attempt on the tsar's life in
April, l866. a.
despite repression and censorship, new
intellectual and revolutionary movements
continued to flourish. b
. Especially influential were the radical
writings of Alexander Herzen (1812 pae 7
1870), which were published abroad and
smuggled into Russia on a remarkably
wide scale. 1 ) Herzen sounded the
battle cry "land and freedom" and urged
intellectuals to go "to the people"
to spread their ideas. 2) His mystic
faith in the Russian peasant as the vehicle of
social reform was to have a profound
effect on the subsequent course of the Russian
revolutionary movement. 3)
Herzen's ideas provided the intellectual
foundation of populism, a peculiarly
Russian form of socialism that advocated
revolution and a reorganization of
society on the basis of such specifically Russian
institutions as communal land tenure
and popular associations of peasants and artisans.
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THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
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THE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENTSIA

• WESTERNIZERS
• Moderates (Fathers) TIMOFEI GRANOVKSY NIKOLAI
  STANKEVICH
• Mild liberal reform
• Education enlightenment
• Evolutionary approach
• Radicals (Sons) VISSARION BELINSKY, ALEXANDER
  HERZEN
• Revolutionary approach
• Russian socialism

T. Granovskii
V. Belinsky
A. Herzen
N. Stankevich
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THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

• PETRASHEVKSY CIRCLE
• NIKOLAI CHERNYSHEVSKY FEDOR DOSTOEVSKY
• Influenced by French Utopian socialism
• PHALANSTERIES
• Transitional group between Moderates Radicals
• Arrested 1849

Charles Fourier
N. Chernyshevsky
F. Dostoevsky
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THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

• INCREASING RADICALIZATION
• Frustrations born from limitations of reforms
• Sharp break between moderates radicals in
  1860s
• Rise of NIHILISM, utilitarianism, materialism,
  critical realism
• Influenced by LUDWIG FEUERBACH
• Advocated emancipation equality for all, even
  women

LUDWIG FEUERBACH
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THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

• POPULISM
• Loose form of socialism
• Shared desire to help masses
• Commune as basis of society
• LAND AND FREEDOM (ZEMLIA I VOLIA) 1870s
• TO THE PEOPLE NARODNIKI movement
• CRAZY SUMMER of 1874
• But movement was failure

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THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

• POPULISM
• Increasing radicalization
• Advocacy of violence/terrorism
• SERGEI NECHAEV father of political terrorism
• VERA ZASULICH shot governeor general of St.
  Pete
• Land and Freedom splits, 1878
• BLACK REPARTITION
• PEOPLES WILL (NARODNAIA VOLIA)

SERGEI NECHAEV
VERA ZASULICH
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THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

• PEOPLES WILL
• Goal assassinate high ranking officials of
  govt.
• Main target Alexander II
• Many women involved, even in leadership
  positions
• SOFIA PEROVSKAIA
• VERA FIGNER
• Numerous failed attempts to kill tsar
• Finally successful on March 1, 1881

VERA FIGNER
SOFIA PEROVSKAIA
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References
http//www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSpeasants.h
tm http//us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/photos/html/
1031.html http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_ser
fdom