1855 - 1914

How effectively did the reforms of II solve the internal problems of Russia?

Timespan 1855 (death of Nikolas I) - 1881 (assassination of A II)

The reforms of Alexander II

REFORMS: · The abolition of serfdom - not immediate, the peasants still dependent of the commune. Econommically the serfs were worse off. · Local government reform - some powers distributed to the local community. · Reform of the judicial system - Russia one small step towards a state governed by law. · Economic and financial reforms · Education reforms · Reforms of the armed forces · The nationalities - liberalism towards the finns, of the poles.

Titel: nov 10-13:41 (Sida 1 av 65) Internal problems of Russia 1855-81:

Titel: nov 11-13:41 (Sida 2 av 65) How well were the problems solved:

Titel: nov 11-13:41 (Sida 3 av 65) The Crimean War made Alexander II realize that Russia was no longer a great military power. His advisers argued that Russia's serf-based economy could no longer compete with industrialized nations such as Britain and France.

"It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below.

In 1861 Alexander issued his Emancipation Manifesto that proposed 17 legislative acts that would free the serfs in Russia. Alexander announced that personal serfdom would be abolished and all peasants would be able to buy land from their landlords. The State would advance the money to the landlords and would recover it from the peasants in 49 annual sums known as redemption payments.

Titel: nov 10-19:14 (Sida 4 av 65) How far is it true to say that Russia was transformed into a modern country between 1855 and 1900?

Problems: the definition of modern. Transformation has to be discussed as it took place. In a conclusion the student has to decide if the result was a modern country. Timespan; The rule of Alexander II, Alexander III and start of Nicholas II.

Titel: dec 2-20:24 (Sida 5 av 65) Background: The humiliating defeat in the Crimean War. The war thought Russia a lesson. West European efficiency and industrialisation defeated the stagnated and old fashioned . This alarmed the Russian government and the new ruler. Russia had to be reformed in order to compete with the west. Social reform was also inevitable to prevent revolution by the peasantry.

Titel: nov 11-13:50 (Sida 6 av 65) Russian serfdom

By the end of the 16th century the Russian peasant came under the complete control of the landowner and during the middle of the 17th century serfdom became hereditary. Their situation became comparable to that of slaves and they could be sold to another landowner in families or singly.

By the 19th century it was estimated that about 50 per cent of the 40,000,000 Russian peasants were serfs. Most of these were the property of the nobility but large numbers were owned by the and religious foundations.

Titel: nov 7-17:21 (Sida 7 av 65) Titel: nov 7-21:10 (Sida 8 av 65) Rural Russia: Land tenure in Feudal Russia was arranged by cherespolositsa, where land on each fief was divided into long narrow strips. Serfs tended two strips side by side: one for the landlord, the other for themselves. After serfdom was abolished in 1861, the land serfs had once cultivated for themselves became owned by a peasant commune, the Obshchina , formed from those peasants on the same fief. The landlords retained the lands that were not used for maintaining the life of the serfs (eg. they kept the majority of the land), still in strips side to side with the communal land. The landlords also retained all of the forested and pastoral land. While the serfs had once been able to graze their animals (commonly a cow and horse) on pastoral land, now their animals had no where to graze. The newly "emancipated" peasants were also stranded from the most prized commodity of Russia throughout most of the year: firewood.

Titel: nov 8-1:36 PM (Sida 9 av 65) From this relationship between landowner and peasant was born the kulak ,

who imposed on the peasantry a tax to use their pasture. The communes

responded by lying fallow some of their land and turning it into pasture. Their

remained, however, the strips of the landlord's land throughout their community.

The kulak here established a system of tolls for each animal that crossed over their land (areas now called vavilony – "babylons"). In order to have wood for

winter, peasants had little choice but to work the kulak's land in return for a

payment fee that would allow them to cut timber from the kulak's forest.

The hated Kulaks as seen in Stalin's propaganda.

Titel: nov 8-1:45 PM (Sida 10 av 65) Titel: nov 7-21:11 (Sida 11 av 65) Titel: nov 7-21:12 (Sida 12 av 65) Titel: nov 7-18:20 (Sida 13 av 65) Distressed by the suffering of the serfs and the selfishness of the nobles Alexander II forbad landowners to move serfs to poor lands or to dispose of them by giving them to the army. The serfs on royal estates were liberated in 1858 and in 1861 Alexander II signed the EMANCIPATION ACT.

http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Eman.htm Here you can read the whole declaration l

Titel: nov 7-17:50 (Sida 14 av 65) · No intention of introducing a modern system of money relationship into the countryside or a class of capitalist farmers. · No equality before the law · No real economic freedom to develop individual lands. · The nobles remained priviliged increasing their share of the wealth from 1861-1914.

Titel: nov 7-17:52 (Sida 15 av 65) · 1864 - next major reform; the creation of the Zemstvos - elected local governments. · 3 categories of voters for councils chosen for 3 years. · Local assemblies · Provincial assemblies · Urban councils · Regional and provincial nobles of the highest rank chaired the rural assemblies. The wealthy and the titled had more voting power · Those who paid a higher tax had a greater representation · The councils main purpose were to make improvements.

Zemstvo building

Titel: nov 7-17:53 (Sida 16 av 65) · Army- and financial reforms; · Universal conscription 1874 - increase of the army, six years service with a vast reserve replaced the old serf army based on a 25-year service. · The Prussian army acted as a model for the new Russian army. · Economic reforms attempted to stabilise the currency and encourage foreign investments. · The Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 revealed the limitations of the new armies and caused a financial crisis and a loss of foreign confidence.

Titel: nov 7-17:56 (Sida 17 av 65) REFORMS IN

REFORMPOLICY Alexander II assembled the diet in 1863 which resulted inn a period of development and reforms. · The Dietreform of 1869 -The diet had to assemble every 5, later every 3 year. -Expanded representation -Expanded powers

Titel: nov 9-19:29 (Sida 18 av 65) THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF FINLAND. Background; · the industrial revolution, late 18:th century (Britain, , Sweden) · liberalism of AlexanderII

Titel: nov 9-19:31 (Sida 19 av 65) The industrial breakthrough didn't take place before the 1860's. The transition was quite slow and concerned almost only the woodworking industry.

FORESTRY · Watermills (16:th century) · Tarproduction, the most important

product of export The Finnish pavillion in Paris · Steampower, restricted until 1857 1900. Gesellius, Lindgren and due to fear of efficiency Saarinen. · Paperproduction, 1842 (Frenckell) · Saima channel (1856) · Industrial towns, Kemi, · Government of forestry 1859 · Worldexhibitions from 1867, exhibition of industry and art in Helsinki 1876

Titel: nov 9-19:34 (Sida 20 av 65) THE RAILWAY · Helsinki-Hämeenlinna 1862 · Riihimäki-St:Petersburg 1870 · Trackwidth-russian

Titel: nov 9-19:35 (Sida 21 av 65) ECONOMIC REFORMS · Right to take initiative in legislative matters 1886 · Decentrilisation, the cities and municipilities received most of the clerical duties (education, healthcare, infra structure) but also the right of taxation · The language reform(1863) - Suomen Pankki (The central Bank) headquarters, Finnish an official language within 20 built 1882. years. · Stock companies (1864) · Law of free enterprice - the right to buy/sell everywhere (1879) · Law of banks (1864) -made it possible to start bankingactivity. Necessary to acumulate investments. · The Finnish National Bank -National currency 1860

Titel: nov 9-19:36 (Sida 22 av 65) Lev Bronstein, or Trotskij before the founding the socialist party, when he was considered a Narodnik.

Titel: nov 7-18:00 (Sida 23 av 65) Birth of Revolution: From this conflict in rural society, Russia's first revolutionary organisation formed in the 1860s: the Narodniks . These groups were mostly made up of students without a clear direction, save to overthrow the monarchy and landlords, and distribute land among the peasantry. In the spring of 1874, the conflict between the kulaks and peasantry brought turbulence to Russia's urban centres, and the Narodniks left the cities for the villages, going "among the people" (hence their name), attempting to "teach" the peasantry to revolt under their guidance. They found almost no support.

The policefile of Stalin

Titel: nov 8-1:41 PM (Sida 24 av 65) The Tsarist police (Okhrana) responded to the movement with steeled repression: political action was not an option for the "emancipated" peasantry. Revolutionaries and peasant sympathisers were beaten, imprisoned or exiled to Siberia. As peasants were arrest and exiled or imprisoned, kulaks gained their land, putting the peasant communes under increasingly heavy burdens. In 1877, the Narodniks came to their height with thousands of revolutionaries and peasants in support. The movement was again brutally crushed. Responding to brutal repression of the open, spontaneous forms of organisation thereto taken, Russia's first organised revolutionary party formed: People's Will ( Narodnaia Volia ), with a new revolutionary programme: terrorism. [...] Terrorism would be incorporated into the tactics of the Socialist- Revolutionary Party after the People's Will was dissolved in the early 1880s, and used throughout the following 40 years against the Monarchy and later the Soviet government

Titel: nov 8-1:41 PM (Sida 25 av 65) Opposition against Alexander II

THE DIVISION OF OPPOSITION · The division probably preserved the until 1905. · The only uniting element was the opposition against the regime. · Socially, geografically, economically divided. · 'Divide and rule'.

Titel: nov 7-18:02 (Sida 26 av 65) Execution of terrorists after the assassination of Alexander II.

Titel: nov 7-18:03 (Sida 27 av 65) Titel: nov 7-18:04 (Sida 28 av 65) Titel: nov 7-18:07 (Sida 29 av 65) · Serfdom vanished but the Russian agricultural traditions remained. · The Mir (commune) based on collective farming and common desicions. · The payments restricted the individual enterprise of the peasants. · Productivity and investment were low, famines a constant threat.

The situation of the Russian liberated serfs was very much like the liberated american slaves in the USA after the civil war.

Titel: nov 7-18:11 (Sida 30 av 65) PROBLEMS · The former Serfs bound by high taxes, low incomes and the annual payments to the former owners. · This hindered investments which would have been needed to modernize the farming. · The peasants were also hindered by the MIR (villagecommunity); · No chance to decide waht, when and how to farm (collective decisions). The Mir a collection of households, not individuals. · Movement restricted by a passport system. This stopped the industrial development as it hindered migration and therefore urbanisation.

Titel: nov 7-18:21 (Sida 31 av 65) Titel: nov 7-18:26 (Sida 32 av 65) Titel: nov 7-18:27 (Sida 33 av 65) Titel: nov 7-18:28 (Sida 34 av 65) 1877

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 brought an economic recession which inflated the roubles and strengthened the central control of Russia's economy.

Titel: nov 7-19:14 (Sida 35 av 65) THE SITUATION FACING ALEXANDER III IN 1881

DEVELOPMENT SINCE 1855 NO CHANGES SINCE 1855 Serfdom abolished · · Autocracy dominated · The Zemstvos offered consultation · The powers of the traditional and political experience. institutions like nobility and church · Financial reforms and a Public budget as strong as ever. · Judicial independence and trial by jury indtroduced · Vaste estates dominated the · Military reforms, conscription agricultural sector. · The rich got richer and the poor poorer · Tradition and conservatism dominated, liberalism weak.

Titel: nov 10-19:19 (Sida 36 av 65) Titel: nov 10-19:21 (Sida 37 av 65) Alexander's dilemma: · Wanted a traditional Russia; no opposition, strict control over peasant communities, no democracy BUT · No return back to a pre-industrial past. Russia needed to be a great power. Towns, industries and communications had to grow AND · With growth came dangers as new ideas, which easily spread with efficient means of communication.

The Borki train disaster occurred on October 29 [O.S. October 17] 1888 when the imperial train carrying Tsar Alexander III of Russia and his family from to derailed at high speed. Twenty-one people died at the scene and two later. According to the official version of events, Alexander held the collapsed roof of the royal car on his shoulders while his family escaped the crash site uninjured. Alexander's death 1894 has partly been blamed on the injuries he received in the accident.

Titel: nov 10-19:21 (Sida 38 av 65) SIMILARITIES OF THE REIGNS OF ALEXANDER II AND ALEXANDER III · Both believed in autocracy but had different strategies to preserve it; A II by moderate reform, A III by repression. · Neither was consistent; The reforms of II were restricted while A III didn't entirely abandon concession and reform. · Both keen imperialists and expanded the Empire. · Both encouraged economic and military development and neither really came to terms with the possible concequences.

Titel: nov 10-19:22 (Sida 39 av 65) IMPROVEMENTS OF ALEXANDER III · Peasant payments to the State were reduced. · A peasant land bank was established, capital for improving investements. · Some taxes abolished · Working conditions for women and children regulated (the idea from Bismarck's Germany). · The first collection of Russian art founded.

The State Tretyakov Gallery is the national treasury of Russian fine art and one of the greatest museums in the world. The Gallery's collection consists entirely of Russian art and artists who have made а contribution to the history of Russian art or been closely connected with it. The collection contains more than 150 000 works of painting, sculpture and graphics, created throughout the centuries by successive generations of Russian artists.

Titel: nov 10-19:23 (Sida 40 av 65) SETBACKS · Anti-semitism ('Let us never forget that it was the Jews who crucified Jesus.' Banned from education and harrassed - emigration. · Russification - ethnic minorities threatened and rights restricted. · Press-cencorship · Control of the peasants increased by the appointments of land captains and giving the landlords more powers. · Increase of closed trials for political offences (terrorism) · The powers of the Zemstvos reduced · Religious tolerance reduced · Universities under stricter control.

Titel: nov 10-19:24 (Sida 41 av 65) Titel: nov 10-19:25 (Sida 42 av 65) OPPOSITION, 1881 - 1905 · Marxist ideas resulted in the establishment of different socialis groups; Thr Socialist Revolutionary Party 1900, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. · The political oppositional groups often quite small, led from abroad and divided on matters as use of violence. · Russification resulted in growing nationalism and opposition. · Industrialisation awoke urban opposition in the industrial centres

Lenin

E Schauman and Bobrikoff

Titel: nov 10-19:28 (Sida 43 av 65) Titel: nov 10-19:32 (Sida 44 av 65) Titel: nov 10-19:32 (Sida 45 av 65) Russian cartoon, showing how Rasputin dominated the Russian court in 1916.

Rasputin pt 3/3 Rasputin, pt 2/3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvTRh9C2GxY&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxAUQnh8-4o&feature=related

Titel: nov 10-19:33 (Sida 46 av 65) CHANGE OF RUSSIAN POLICY · 'The armed peace' · Growing German threat (1890) · Imperialism · Balkan-'the powder keg of ' · Russian nationalism · Growing opposition in Russia

Titel: nov 14-21:09 (Sida 47 av 65) THE FIRST RUSSIFICATION PERIOD The intention was to weed out the elements of "Finnish separatism" by depriving the country of its special status and absorbing it into the Empire. · Nikolaj II appointed the passionately pro-Russian General Nikolay Bobrikov as Governor-General of Finland in 1898. · Bobrikov's first move was to merg the Finnish military with the Russian army. · When this run into problems the russification started (The February Manifesto 1899) · Adoption of the Russian languaga for use in the senate, government offices and schools, the opening of all official posts in Finland to Russian citizens, and extension of the legal code of the Russian Empire to the Grand Duchy.

Titel: nov 14-21:10 (Sida 48 av 65) The Tsar issued a decree on the 15th February 1899 which the Finns saw as an attempt to seize power from the Diet. With the Febrarymanifesto the Russian Tsar and gained the powers to the legislation of so called nation-wide laws and it was the Tsar who had the powers to decide which laws were to be interpreted as nation wide ones. The Februarymanifesto gave rise to a vast outcry. At the beginning majority of the Finns thought that the Grand Dutch had been fooled and the Finns raised a Great Petition (with more than ½ million names of a population on 2 million). The petition was submitted to the Tsar but he refused to accept accept it. The same happened to the Cultural petition.

Titel: nov 14-21:15 (Sida 49 av 65) THE DIVISION OF THE POPULATION

THE 'CONCILIATION LINE' THE CONSTITUTIONALISTS · Advocated tactical collaboration with · Urged resistance (legal) to Russia and wished of returned Russification measures autonomy as a reward of good · The 'Kagaal' behaviour · Boycott of conscription call- ups

ACTIVISM · As russification became harsher with Bobrikovs dictatorial powers 1903 and Cossack riots in Helsinki 1902 a group of radicals advocating violent resistance emerged (Nationalists and socialists)

Titel: nov 14-21:15 (Sida 50 av 65) 1900 - Through a postmanifesto Finland lost its own national stamps. A languagemanifesto introduced Russian as administrative language in higher offices and the teachinglessons in Russian in the schools increased. Censorship was tightened and newspapers and magazines were forced to close. 1901 - Through the conscriptionlaw the Finnish army was dissolved and military service in the Russian army became compulsory (passive resistance and increased emigration). 1903 - Bobrikov received dictatorial powers.

Titel: nov 14-21:16 (Sida 51 av 65) 1904 - Bobrikov assassinated by Eugen Schauman. 1904-05 - The Russo-Japanese war. The Russian defeat in the War resulted in the first revolutionary attempt in Russia. After the Bloody Sunday a general strike spread throughout Russia and to Finland were it became a protestmovement against the oppressive policies. During the year of 1904 the political situation changed drastically in Finland. The unrest and opposition increased. Russia dragged itself into a war with Japan and Bobrikov was assassinated by Schauman.

Titel: nov 14-21:16 (Sida 52 av 65) The Parliamentary reform 1906 This represented a major step towards democratization of the Finnish society.

● The outdated concept of the four estates was replaced with a unicameral Parliament with 200 members elected for 3 years.

● Suffrage was universal and equal and the minimum voting age was set at 24 years.

● The elections were secret and proportional (d'Hondt's principles) The outcome of this reform was that Finland developed a modern style partysystem in which the existing parties were joined by the Swedish People's Party and the Agrarian Party.

Titel: nov 14-21:18 (Sida 53 av 65) REPRESSION · Extension of police powers · Censorship · Limitation of peasant freedom · Modification of the freedom of the zemstvos and municipal -the power of the wealthier classes increased. · Russification

Titel: dec 2-20:25 (Sida 54 av 65) INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION · Between 1893-1900 the industrial output doubled · Foreign investments (France after 1890) · S Witte increased state investments in industrial projects. · Railway expansion of astronomous dimensions

PROBLEMS · Agricultural stagnation and poverty · Industrial proletariat living in appalling conditions · A population growth (74-133, 1860-1900)

Titel: dec 2-20:26 (Sida 55 av 65) 'Repression and reaction were the particular marks of the rule of the last Tsar, Nicholas II'. Discuss the validity of this verdict on his reign to 1914.

Titel: nov 17-17:12 (Sida 56 av 65) To what extent the system caused its own downfall. Nicholas II was in favour of preserving the Tsarist state intact as he had inherited it, he was prepared to repress any attempt to undermine the autocracy The role of his advisers The family tragedy with Michael (hemophelia), the Tsarina and Rasputin. Nicholas wasn't prepared to take over as a ruler when he had to. The Russo-Japanese war 1904-05 The Bloody Sunday, the greatest act of repressive stateterrorism on the own people.

Titel: nov 18-14:20 (Sida 57 av 65) But at least after 1905 one can easily find arguments against the statement as well: The democratic reforms which Nicholas was forced to carry out after the revolution of 1905 - universal male suffrage, the elected Dumas, the returned rights of the ethnic minoroties. The reform policy of Witte and Stolypin - boosted the economic development. The impact of the Great War

Titel: nov 18-14:25 (Sida 58 av 65) If Russia wouldn’t have been pulled in to the Great War would the system have survived. It wasn’t the strength and unity of the opposition which brought the downfall it was the defeats in the war and the unpopularity of the imperial house. Without a war there would probably not have been any revolution.

Titel: nov 18-14:28 (Sida 59 av 65) How extensive and how effective in promoting change was the opposition to the Tsarist system in Russia from c. 1881 to 1914?

Titel: nov 17-17:12 (Sida 60 av 65) Define ‘opposition’ The opposition which brought the downfall wasn’t organised, united or planned. The Russo- Japanese war 1904-05 had already clearly warned the rulers that a major conflict with defeat could shake the existing powerstructure of Russia. Opposition to the Tsar: a. Political groups Socialists - divided in - Social Revolutionaries - Mensjeviks - Bolsjeviks - Anarchists

- Liberals

- Cadets

Titel: nov 18-14:34 (Sida 61 av 65) b. Non-political groups -The farmers -The industrial workers -The Bourgeois -The landless peasants -The poor Nobility -The poor priests -The ethnic minorities

Titel: nov 18-14:43 (Sida 62 av 65) Most groups divided and unorganised. The political parties often small and with minimal resources to premote any change in practice. The secret police controlled most of the political groups. E.g. the socialists party which was founded in London and of which most leaders were forced to imprisonment or or activity in exile. The non-political groups were only united by their opposition towards the existing order or part of the rule carried out e.g. the russification policy.

Titel: nov 18-14:48 (Sida 63 av 65) THE EVENTS 1904-1905 The Russo-Japanese war and the Bloody Sunday had an enormous impact as these proved that the Empire could tremble. The events resulted in spontaneous protests so big that they paralysed the regime. The successes of the opposition weren’t longlasting as the oppositional groups were so divided but e.g. the events in Finland were revolutionary. All oppositional elements had been given a proof of possible change but this needed a major crises in which Russia was part of. When the First World War started this was the signal many of the oppositional elements had been waiting for.

Titel: nov 18-14:52 (Sida 64 av 65) Conclusion: Most of the oppositional groups were unsuccessful in promoting lasting change in Russia but those who aimed in replacing the old powerstructure with a new one would be successful. In the struggle againt the russification policy the successes of 1905-06 showed the non-russian elements that unity existed and change was possible. The only political groups which promoted change from within were the quite conservative cadets and ‘Octobrists’. These parties had minor successes in reforming e.g. the economic legislation of Russia (wexsternisation).

Titel: nov 18-14:56 (Sida 65 av 65)