&10 years post A II’s rise to the throne, more enlightened members of society felt optimistic = various reforms had begun to change the Russian state
- Optimism did not last (1866 ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF THE TSAR)
- The assassination shook the Tsar’s confidence & after this a more repressive policy was adapted
- Although there was a brief ‘flirtation’ with constitutional reforms in the final years of his life
FROM 1881 – A III was simply characterised by reaction as made clear in his address to the nation:
HOSKING: – the problems of later years of 19th cent were result of A II’s failure to set up ‘institutions of civil society’/ ‘rule of law’ = Tsarist regime to fall back on nothing but repression
- He accuses the Tsar of a ‘change of mind’ & suggests that the attempt to ‘repair’ the Tsarist autocracy was a threat to the whole system, producing an ’insoluble’ dilemma.
- To have introduced ‘civic institutions’ would have undermined stability.
ALEXANDER II’S LATER YEARS
1865 – A II’s eldest son & heir dies & wife, who suffers from TB, withdraws from public appearances.
- Sought consolation w/mistress
Distanced him from the reforming elements within his own family (brother & aunt)
- These developments & the assassination attempts, helped to make him aloof & he became less inclined to resist the reactionary conservatives who believed the Tsar’s reforming instincts had gone too far, weakening the props on which the Imperial monarchy replied, the Church & the nobility.
The reactionaries feared the spread of ‘Western’ ideas through liberal universities & freer press & ethnic minorities with their different religions were diluting Russian strength.
Alexander was persuaded to make a series of new appointments in 1866, replacing
Liberal ministers w/conservatives:
DMITRY TOLSTOY (Min. of Education)
ALEKSANDR TIMASHEV (Min. of IA)
PYOTR SHUVALOV (Head of 3rd Section)
KONSTANTIN PAHLEN (Min of Justice)
EDUCATION
DMITRY TOLSTOY:
- Staunch Orthodox believer
- Tight control over edu. Was essential to eradicate Western liberal ideas & growing criticism of autocracy
- Reduced zemstva’s power over education
- Church regained its authority over rural schools
- Gimnazii schools were ordered to follow trad. classical curriculum & abandon teaching natural sciences
- POST 1871 – only gimnaziya students could go to uni (modern tech schools go to higher tech institutions)
- UNIVERSITIES: more liberal courses replaced w/trad curriculum
- Subjects that encouraged critical thought (Lit, Science, Languages & History) were forced out & Maths, Latin, Greek & Divinity were encouraged
- Censorship was tightened & strict control over student activities & organisations
- More state teacher-training colleges were set up ( was to increase tsarist control, rather than improve education)
- Tolstoy reluctantly accepted Moscow Uni’s decision to organise lectures for women, but he used Gov’s right to veto uni appointments when he felt necessary & many students chose to attend uni abroad rather than in ‘stifling’ atmosphere at home.
POLICE, LAW & CONTROL
PYOTR SHUVALOV:
- Strengthened the police
- Encouraged the Third Section
- Stepped up persecution of other religious & ethnic minorities
KONSTANTIN PAHLEN:
- Ensured the judicial system made an example of those accused of political agitation
- Searches & arrests increased & new governor-general’s were est. in 1879 w/emergency powers to prosecute in military courts & exile political offenders
- Even radicals who fled the country & settled in Switzerland/ Germany were liable to be tracked down & recalled to face justice
- Pahlen held open ‘show trials’ w/the intention of deterring others from revolutionary activity, experiment backfired & in 1878, political crimes were transferred from civil courts to special secret courts.
THE LORIS-MELIKOV CONSTITUTION
LATE 1870’S – time of political crisis in Russia (Russian army bogged down in Russo-Turkish War 1877-78, famine swept the countryside in 1879-80 & an industrial recession began.)
However the further attempts on the Tsar’s life in 1879 & 1880 led Alexander to accept that the violence & unrest might be better curbed by widening democratic consultation.
Count Mikhail Loris-Melikov was appointed Minister of IA
- Released political prisoners
- Relaxed censorship
- Removed salt-tax
- Abolished the Third Section & powers transferred to regular police
- Although special section called the ‘Okhrana’ was created & soon became just as oppressive
1880 – Loris-Melikov produced a report in response to zemstva demands
- It recommended the inclusion of elected representatives of the nobility, of the zemstva & of town governments in debating the drafts of some state decrees
These proposals became known as ‘Loris-Melikov’s Constitution’, although they did not really create a constitution at all.
An II accepted & signed the report on the morning on 13 March 1881, calling for a meeting of the Council of Ministers to discuss the document. The same day, the Tsar was killed by a bomb.
ALEXANDER III AS TSAR
A change of direction
Tutored by Konstantin Pobedonostsev, A III had been brought up w/ a very strong sense of commitment & sincerely believed that, with God’s direction he alone could decide what was right for his country; the duty of his subjects was not to question, but to love & obey.
His reign began w/the public hanging of the conspirators involved w/his father’s assassination & the 1881 MANIFESTO OF UNSHAKABLE AUTOCRACY.
He also issued a Law on Exceptional Measures that declared that if necessary, a Commander-in-chief could be appointed to take control of a locality; using military police courts & arbitrary powers of imprisonment.
CHANGES IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT
JULY 1889 – Creation of the ‘Land-Captain’
- Had the power to override elections to the zemstvo & village assemblies & to disregard zemstvo decisions.
- Land Captains were made responsible for law enforcement & government in the countryside & could ignore the normal judicial process, overturning court judgements.
1890 – New act that changed election arrangements for the zemstva – to reduce the peasants’ vote & placed zemstva under central govt control. = channelled efforts away from political discussion & towards social services (education, health, local transport & engineering projects)
JUNE 1892 – similar arrangement for town’s, electorate reduced to owners of property above a certain value & mayor & members of town councils became state employees, subject to government direction.
CHANGES IN POLICING
Department of Policing (including the Okhrana) was led by VYACHESLAV VON PLEHVE (1881-84) & PYOTR DURNOVO (1884 – )
# of police increased & new branches of the criminal investigation department was set up. There was also a drive to recruit spies, counter-spies (to spy on the spies) & ‘agents provocateurs’ who would pose as revolutionaries in order to incriminate others.
The Okhrana
took responsibility for ‘security + investigation’.
Intercepted + read mail
Checked activities in the factories, unis, the army, + the State
Detained suspects + used torture + summary executions
communists , socialists + trade unionists were particular subjects of their investigations
They also watched members of the civil service + government
1882 STATUTE OF POLICE SURVEILLANCE
- Any area of the Empire could be deemed an ‘area of subversion’ & police agents could search, arrest, detain, question, imprison/exile not only those who had committed a crime, but any who were thought likely to commit crimes/knew, or were related to, people who had committed crimes.
This gave them tremendous power over people’s lives particularly since any such arrested person had no right to legal representation.
CHANGES IN THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
The judicial reforms of Alexander II were partially reversed.
1885 – Decree for Minister of Justice to exercise greater control e.g. in the dismissal of judges.
1887 – Ministry granted powers to hold closed court sessions
1889 – became responsible for the appointment of town judges
1887 – Property & educational qualifications needed by jurors
1889 – Volosts courts were put under direct jurisdiction of the Land Captains in the countryside & judges in the towns.
CHANGES IN EDUCATION
Educational developments were overseen by Delyanov whose new uni charter in 1884 made appointments of chancellors, deans & professors subject to the approval of the Education Ministry based on ‘religious, moral & patriotic orientation’ rather than academic grounds.
Delyanov also closed universities for women & abolished separate university courts.
All university life was closely supervised, with students forbidden from gathering in groups of more than five.
Children from the lowest classes were to be restricted to primary education, lest they ‘be taken out of the social environment to which they belong’ and primary education was placed firmly in the hands of the Orthodox Church.
Although the overall # of schools & the # of those receiving some education increased, nevertheless, only 21 per cent of the population were literate by the time of the first census in 1897.
These education policies were of dubious value, since they both ran counter to the government’s attempts to promote economic modernisation & failed to prevent student involvement in illegal political movements, particularly in the 1890s.
CHANGES IN CENSORSHIP
Tolstoy est. a government committee in 1882, which issued the so-called ‘temporary regulations’. These allowed newspapers to be closed down and a life ban placed on editors and publishers. Censors became more active; all literary publications had to be officially approved and libraries and reading rooms were restricted in the books they were allowed to stock. Censorship also extended to theatre, art & culture where ‘Russification’ was enforced.
EXTENT AND IMPACT OF COUNTER-REFORM
Although A II’s policies helped to reverse the trends set into motion by his father, not all of A II’s reforms disappeared & there was some positive change.
MAY 1881 – law reduced the redemption fees payable & cancelled the arrears of ex-serfs in the 37 central provinces of the Empire.
MAY 1885 – the poll tax was abolished & the introduction of inheritance tax helped to shift the burden of taxation away from the lowest classes.
Other reforms included the introduction of the right of appeal to the higher courts (after trial before the Land Captain), the est. of the Peasants’ Land Bank in 1883 & some reformist factory legislation.
Could have been said to have been introduced in an effort to forestall rebellion, but the same accusation could be said for A II.