- 1855 – Russia was an autocratic empire
- Tsar took the title ‘Emperor and Autocrat of Russia’
- ‘God himself ordains that all must bow to his supreme power, not only out of fear but also out of conscience’
- The tsar was in name only the head of the church
- The vast Russian lands were his private property & the people his children
- Russians were taught to show devotion to Tsar & accept their conditions on Earth as the will of God
- The Tsar’s edicts were the Law of the Land
- CHANCELLERY: 35-50 nobles that advised the Tsar, but no one could do anything w/out the Tsar’s approval
- COUNCIL OF MINISTERS 8-14 in charge of different Gov departments & the Senate who were supposed to oversee the Government were largely redundant by 1856
- Tsar depended on provincial nobility to govern areas outside the capital
- Civil servants who made up bureaucracy were paid nobles
- 14 levels, 1 is top, 14 is lowest, information was sent down the ranks but never up, if you were at the bottom you couldn’t get to the top
- Bureaucracy was riddled w/ corruption
- World’s largest army (1.5 million conscripted serfs) – 25 years of service & made to live in military colony
- 45% of annual spending went towards the army & navy
- Higher ranks were reserved for the noble who bought & sold positions
- Lower ranks: discipline was harsh & life was tough
- COSSACKS: special & prestigious military class serving the Tsar = provided with arms & supplies by the tsarist government – rode horses
- POLICE STATE: prevented freedom of speech, press & to travel abroad, meetings & strikes were forbidden, censorship existed at every level of Government & exercised by the church and the state
- Third section agents kept strict surveillance over the population & had unlimited powers to carry out raids, arrest imprison or exile anyone suspected anti-tsarist behaviour
ECONOMIC & SOCIAL CONTEXT
- 1855 – Britain, Belgium, France and German states were already well advanced industrially (mills, factories, coal pits, quarries & railways transforming landscape)
- Russian economy remained rural , 11:1 village to town dwellers (2:1 in England)
- Inhospitable land – climate placed severe strains on economic development
- Mid 19th cent: Russia was Europe’s main exporter of agricultural produce & had reserves of timber, coal, oil & gold & other precious metals but remained untapped
- Communications between different parts of the Empire were poor
- Most important was Russian commitment to serf-based economy
- Landowning aristocracy, Tsarist government and army all reliant on the serf
- Inhibited economic development (no wage earners, markets or entrepreneurs)
- Serfs were poor & many only survived by the produce they grew on the land the landlord gave to them
- Often suffered w/ starvation in the winter – little incentive to become wage earners
- Self-sufficiency meant that few goods were actually purchased money was not usual form of payment, payment in kind (markets did exist but small scale, Mainly sold vodka, metal tools and salt)
- Land-owning elite – obtained what they needed from serfs in the form of service & feudal dues (uninterested in how the estate operated)
- No opportunity to accumulate capital (income generally fell)
SOCIAL
- Stark difference between landowning elite & the serf
- Former consisted of nobility, military officials, army, navy & royals
- Urban artisans – manufacturers and merchants = ‘productive classes’
- There was NO middle class like elsewhere in Europe
- Small number of professionals, doctors teachers lawyers, some of whom were intelligentsia but were often sons of nobles
- 1855 legal barriers limited social mobility , serfs were liable to dues & had to pay direct & indirect taxes to the government (the clergy and nobility were exempt from this tax (keeping the poor poor))
IMPACT OF THE CRIMEAN WAR
WAS PARTICULARLY EMBARRASSING BECAUSE THE ARMY WAS THE CROWN JEWEL OF RUSSIA; AND THEY POURED MONEY INTO IT
- Turko-Russian war
- Purpose of the war was to gain access to the Balkans & the Mediterranean Sea (trade)
- Russia suffered badly from outdated technology, poor transport & inadequate leadership
- Russian army was larger in number, but lacked the flexibility & determination on smaller French & Britain troops
- Defeated at Balaclava in October 1854
- Course of the fighting revealed Russia’s military & administrative inadequacies
- Disrupted trade, peasant uprisings escalated intelligentsia argued to close gap between Russia & the West
- TREATY OF PARIS (1856): prevented Russian warships from using the Black Sea
- Failure in the Crimean war gave Russia the ‘wake-up call’ it needed
- Nicholas I dies & Alex II comes (new generation of liberal-minded nobles & officials)
Dilemma was how to match other European powers w/out weakening autocracy