World History: Reforming Russia

Repin, Volga barge haulers, 1873

Throughout the nineteenth century several states tried to undergo a nebulous process called 'modernisation'. This basically meant industrialising and adapting institutions from Western Europe and the US. However, states did this for different reasons with varying outcomes. Today we'll be looking at one of these attempts in Russia. Russia has always been seen as a land of autocracy whether it be under tsar, soviet, or president, but there has been a tendency to overlook limits to autocracy and how people lived in Russia. In the last few decades nineteenth century Russia has started going through a change of image - particularly the reign of, quoting Edvard Radzinsky, 'The Last Great Tsar' Alexander II (1855-1881). Today we'll be looking at how Russia faced its challenges to autocracy ending just over a decade before the collapse of Russian tsardom during the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Russia at the Start of the Century

1920 painting of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow

As we saw last time when we looked at Russia we discussed how diverse Russia actually was - stretching from Poland to Alaska within Russia's borders many. national identities existed. Naturally, Russians were at the top of society but other national identities could exercise power. With it being a Grand Duchy Finland had a measure of self-autonomy granting Finnish national identity to continue. Meanwhile, other identities were ruthlessly persecuted - antisemitism was commonplace and many Jews were confined to 'The Pale' (a section of land in Eastern Europe), Polish nationalism was brutally crushed, and Central Asian pastoralists were regularly dispossessed of their land. There was a large disparity between the culture of the Russian peasantry (the overwhelming majority of the population) and the nobility. There was a push-and-pull among the nobles between adopting 'Slavic' or 'Western' policies and cultural practices - this would continue until the nobility was abolished by the Bolsheviks. While the peasantry spoke their own languages - whether it be Russian, Ukrainian, Yiddish, or any other language - the nobles spoke French, it was even made language of the court by Catherine the Great. Large part's of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace was written in French to show how this. The Christianity of the peasantry in Russia was very different to that of the nobility - it was a blend of Russian Orthodoxy and local pre-Christian beliefs. Of course, there were many other beliefs including Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, to name a few, present in the empire. Serfdom was very present in Russia - by the time of emancipation in 1861 there were over 10 million serfs. Russian serfdom was brutal - treated like slaves they could be sold, beaten, and sexually abused by landowners.

In 1801 a court coup deposed tsar Paul I for trying to limit the power of the nobility and issuing in land reform. His son, Alexander I, was crowned after helping conspire to overthrow his father who then proceeded to solidify his power. By overturning some of his father's despotic laws and bringing loyal friends, including his mother Marya Feodorovna, to key positions of court he found support among the public and could outnumber the other conspirators. However, he did appeal to conservative forces - with the exception of Marya women in court were curtailed and he hoped to act as a mediator to prevent Napoleon's expansion. One of Alexander's major allies, Mikhail Speranskii, started implementing further reforms which angered the nobility as he expelled corrupt nobles, supported financial policies which harmed their interests, and formed the State Council as a buffer to their power. To win back noble support Alexander exiled Speranskii to Siberia at the worst possible time. Speranskii could see that Napoleon was gearing up to invade Russia so was preparing the army - his exile weakened these efforts. When the Grand Armée, numbering half a million (twice the size of the Russian army), invaded on June 1812. Knowing that Russia could not stand against Napoleon generals, especially Mikhail Kutuzov, decided to let the land itself wear down Napoleon. The Russian army would retreat and burn fields and cities, including Moscow in September, depriving Napoleon of using local resources - a tactic he had used during the wars in Central Europe. In fact, around half of the Grand Armée was made of non-French conscripts. Through lack of supplies, Russian partisans, and the weather only 10% of Napoleon's forces escaped. The Congress of Vienna of 1815 left Russia as one of the three conservative 'policemen' of Europe - the other two being Prussia and Austria.

Reform and Revolt

The Decembrists

The rest of Alexander's reign has been characterised as intense conservatism and autocracy - this is not entirely inaccurate though. David Ransell has argued that we should instead see this period split into two - one of conservative reform and one of repression. As late as 1818 Alexander discussed how he wanted a constitutional order for Russia and in 1820, in private, expressed hopes for the constitution being drafted. Emancipation of serfs had been slowly developing since the reign of Catherine the Great and Alexander continued this trend, although all that came of it were rejected proposals. Immediately following the defeat of Napoleon literature helped expand Russian vernacular which would pave the way for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy decades later. The reformist ethos collapsed after 1820. With the nobility again disliking emancipation of serfs Alexander abandoned any pretence of reform. The semi-independent Polish diet, the Sejm, angered him so in 1821 he argued to the French envoy that it was 'unworkable' in 'less educated societies'. In 1825 Alexander died and his conservative son, Nicholas I, would come to power - two revolts would set Russia on the stage for conservative repression for the next few decades.

The first was the Decembrist Revolt in 1825. Not all of Russia's powerful were opposed to reform - secret societies were deeply upset by Alexander's abandonment of reform. Seeing the ideas of both the American and French Revolutions had inspired a younger generation, and the Napoleonic Wars inspired by a deeper patriotism in Russia and gave them an opportunity to see the rest of Europe. One Decembrist, Nikolai Bestuzhev, testified saying 'My five months stay in Holland in 1815, when a constitutional administration was being introduced there, gave me my first concept of the benefits of laws and civil rights; then two visits to France and a voyage to England and Spain confirmed my attitude.' The secret Union of Salvation wanted serfdom to be abolished and for Russia to become a constitutional monarchy - as Freemasons were influential in America and France their secrecy and hierarchy was based off of Masons. Seeing Nicholas become tsar scared the Decembrists into action who rose up in St Petersburg in December but were soon crushed; a second rising in Ukraine was soon crushed. 282 were hanged and the rest were imprisoned or exiled - in a trend in Russian history women eagerly joined their husbands in exile seeing themselves as supporting a new Russia. Their writings in exile would start a literary model for Russian exiles. Several years later, in November 1830, Russia planned to send troops to help crush the rebellions in France and Belgium which Polish secret societies strongly disliked. Polish nationals had long looked to France for inspiration and Napoleon had established a Polish, but puppet, state. In November the Polish army rose up and the Congress supported the rebellion - after a year the Imperial Army crushed the revolt and Poland was declared to be 'an integral part of Russia'. These two revolts made the conservative Nicholas even more willing to crush nationalist, liberal, or socialist opposition - the famous image of the 'Russian exile' properly began in this period. Russia has had a long history of secret societies, and the repression of Nicholas' reign influenced their continuation. Nicholas helped out abroad - in 1849 Russia helped crush revolution in Hungary, as an example. Thanks to his socialist writings, like Poor Folk (1845), Fyodor Dostoevsky was exiled to Siberia in 1849.

Crimea - A Turning Point

Russia had long seen itself as the defender of Slavic peoples and the Orthodox Church - Russian influence helped bring independence to Greece in 1830. By the 1850s the Ottoman Empire was undergoing its own attempts to reform - one of our future World History posts - which other European powers were exploiting. Both France and Russia had been putting pressure on the Ottomans to grant special rights for Christian communities in Palestine - France for Catholics and Russia for Orthodox. When the Ottomans refused to grant Russia its demands Nicholas declared war in 1853 and quickly took Moldavia and Wallachia, however, he did not realise that the Ottomans had refused due to them being supported by Britain and France. Thus the Crimean War began. Crimea was a disaster. Russia had issues mobilising due to a lack of railways and infrastructure, serfdom meant that a properly trained army was hard to create, and the navy and army proved to be very outdated. Quoting Edvard Radzinsky 'It turned out that his army was fighting the army of Napoleon III with weapons of the era of Napoleon I'. The war soon became unpopular with all combatants - Lord Tennyson's poem Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) laments Britain's ineptitude during the Battle of Cardigan. It was also the first major war to have photographs sent home which soured opinion - war could not be celebrated when it looked so bloody. It was even worse for Russia - Nicholas I lost his ego upon seeing the enemy navy from his villa in Alexandria. Demoralising the army Nicholas died in 1855, and his son, Alexander II, had to sign a peace in 1856. No one could avoid reform now - Slavophile Iurii Samarin wrote that 'We were defeated not by external forces of the Western alliance, but by our own internal weakness...Stagnation of thought, depression of productive forces, the rift between government and people, disunity between social classes and the enslavement of one of them to another'. 

Alexander II

Abolishing Serfdom

As mentioned earlier there had been reforms of serfdom, enacted or just planned, since the reign of Catherine. The question is, why was Alexander so eager to abolish serfdom? There have been several theories why: the triumph of liberal humanitarian ideas, Romanticist Vassily Andreyevich Zhukovsky was made chief tutor to the young heir; the economic decline of the nobility when debts grew and estates became less productive; and the fear of peasant revolt, 1796-1826 there had been 990 disorders which rose to 1,799 in 1826-1856. Emancipation had been promised to those who enlisted in the army, when those promises had started to be broken there was a fear of reprisal. Despite the title of 'Tsar Liberator' Alexander II was still conservative. Emancipation was to be from 'above' which would ensure the nobility remained in power. Loosening hold on the press allowed liberal voices for reform to spread and committees were formed to plan emancipation. It came in 1861 it was a let down for the peasants. Similar to how freed slaves in the US viewed their emancipation a few years later the 10 million serfs hoped they would now own the land they had been tied to. Alexander hoped to turn the serfs into small landowners, but not immediately - they were segregated into 'village societies', mirs, which answered to a self-rule administration called volosti, and they had to pay a redemption payment initially estimated to take 49 years to pay off. Furthermore, payments were increased by inflated evaluations of the land and nobles could keep parts of their old estate. As a result, the 'emancipated' serfs were subjected to their set of laws, where corporal punishment remained legal, and Alexander's new zemstvos had no say in them. Immediately disorders rose - from 126 in 1860 to 1,889 in 1861. 

Other Reforms

From peasants to workers

Alexander did not just focus on emancipating serfs - he wanted a 'Western' but distinctly Russian state. We have already mentioned the zemstvos which were formed in 1864, and were followed by municipal councils in 1870, to form a network of elective local government systems. They were both progressive and conservative. Non-nobles, and some peasants, could finally have a chance to influence local politics - doctors in zemstvos rose from 613 in 1870, to 1,558 in 1890, and 3,082 in 1910. However, peasants were still excluded and the municipalities were very elitist - in St Petersburg the richest 202 individuals, 705 middle-class, and poorest 15,233 all had the same number of seats. Defeat in Crimea made the military supportive of any reforms which started being reformed on Western lines. A massive standing army with no reserves was replaced by universal military training; new training on Western lines was implemented; and the Universal Training Act of 1874 established all-class conscription where education determined length of service. This encouraged greater education, wealthy students stayed in university for as long as possible to avoid conscription, and wealthier peasants sent their children to elementary education for two-years as it reduced terms of service from six to two years. Rural primary schools rose from 23,000 in 1880 to 54,416 in 1890, however, rural peasants often saw little education regardless. Censorship, to an extent, was reduced - if the Chief Censorship Committee of Ministry of the Interior could ban anything they disliked. Preliminary censorship in 1865 ended for newspapers, periodicals, and books over 160 pages to lighten the load on the strict system - hence why radical socialist Leo Tolstoy managed to publish so much, War and Peace definitely exceeded 160 pages. Alexander also amnestied many exiles, especially surviving Decembrists, although there were many limits - most famously anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin. Industry also began in this period although it was very sluggish - it would take until the time of Stalin to properly industrialise. As late as 1910 Russia imported in the vast majority of its machinery. A novel way to raise money Alaska was even sold to the US.

Russification

One thing that Alexander wanted to do, and that of his successors well into the twentieth century, was tie the people to Russia - he wanted a nation, not a state. Panslavism was a very important driving force in the ideas of the elite - leading newspaper editor Mikhail Katkov regarded Russian identity as a super-nation like British identity. As Britain was composed of English, Scottish, Welsh and some Irish he hoped that Russia could be the same; something Dostoevsky also advocated for. Russian was implemented in local schools and governments, the Imperial Army absorbed minorities hoping it would turn them into Russians, and nationalists were deported. In Central Asia Russian settlers were encouraged to colonise the region, albeit not a new policy, to displace local peoples. Following the emancipation of the serfs Polish szlachta (land-owners) hoped this could pave the way for Polish emancipation, and secret societies were formed to agitate for Poland. When the Imperial Army was going to conscript Poles in January 1863 an uprising began which, like the Decembrists, were crushed. Over 18,000 nationalists were deported to Siberia and 365 leaders were publicly executed. Polish was banned in administration and schools, the University of Warsaw was converted into a Russian institution, and only Russians could become local governors. Geoffrey Hosking has highlighted the destructive nature of Russification of Russia's Jews - as the Pale started seeing restrictions very slowly lifted between 1859 and 1879 antisemitism became weaponised for nationalism. Panslavist Ivan Aksakov argued that Jews continued to live by their own rules and were backed by foreign powers. In 1903 the Protocols of the Elders of Zion first appeared - a conspiracy theory stating that leaders of 'international Jewry' were using liberalism and the French Revolution to take over the world and, eventually, Russia. Antisemitic violence broke out during times of political turmoil - in Kishinev in 1903 blood libel accusations led to a pogrom killing 47 Jews. Only the semi-independent Finland managed to escape the brunt of Russification, in 1863 it even was awarded its own parliament. However, under the reign of Nicholas II it was attempted again - the 1899 February Manifesto declared that Russia had supreme power over Finland, and the 1900 Language Manifesto forbade Finnish.

Jan Matejko, Polonia, 1864

Russification was not formerly implemented and was actively resisted. Despite banning Polish it was continued to be taught, and spoke, and this was repeated with Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Finnish. Throughout the 1870s the state continuously clashed with intellectuals in Ukraine who promoted Ukrainian as a language, so much so it that Galicia became known as a 'Ukrainian Piedmont'. Nationalist groups continued to grow across the political spectrum - Josef Pilsudki of the Polish Socialist Party tried to obtain arms from Japan during the Russo-Japanese War, and the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania became Marxist. Meanwhile, Roman Dmowski of the National Democrats wanted Poland to be autonomous but in the empire. Persecution of Jews saw resistance - Zionism began growing in popularity (it would take until after this period for it to become a popular identity) and Jews disproportionally joined socialist and Marxist parties due to their emancipatory rhetoric. Leading Bolshevik Leon Trotsky was born to a Jewish family, as an example. This brings us neatly onto our next section.

The Left

Tolstoy organising famine relief in 1891

Despite most of Europe's socialist thought being directed at urban workers primarily rural Russia, but the Left became a strong force despite this and political repression. The lifting of some censorship restrictions allowed socialist papers to enter Russia - the 160 page limit even allowed Das Kapital to escape censorship for some time. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which was socialist at the time, regularly translated Marxist papers and sent them to Russia. That is not to say that Russia lacked its own radical population. The reform era, and its limits, inspired a new class who saw themselves as 'the new people' or the 'intelligentsia' - N.G. Chernyshevskii's What is to be Done? (1863), which inspired Lenin years later, reflected this. Agrarian socialism, suitable for overwhelmingly rural Russia, became a driving force on the Left. Leo Tolstoy was a proponent of aiding the rural poor, he organised several famine reliefs, and advocated for a blend of Christianity, spiritualism, and anarchism. Tolstoy's views would become highly influential to Gandhi - both would steep themselves in spiritualism and dress as peasants. We also saw a look at the urban poor. We have already mentioned Mikhail Bakunin - one of the major thinkers behind modern anarchism - who travelled around Europe advocating worker revolt, and clashing with a young Karl Marx over property. Perhaps the most influential anarchist is Pyotr Kropotkin. Born into a landowning factory he became disillusioned with society and in the 1870s joined a revolutionary society. Like many other radicals he was imprisoned and eventually escaped to live in exile. In 1892 he published the very influential Conquest of Bread which went beyond Bakunin's collectivism and instead advocated for mutual aid. There were also Marxists - the most famous being Vladimir Lenin. Like other radicals he had been exiled and spent years developing his theories. Alexandra Kollontai became an advocate for Marxist feminism and Finnish independence, and her time in exile helped establish feminism in Scandinavia. Furthermore, Kollontai helped lay the groundwork for International Women's Day.

Not all left-wing activity in Russia was theoretical. Violent secret societies - very much in line with previous movements - aimed to shape society. The most famous was Narodnaia volia, 'People's Will', which broke off from another group, Zemlia i volia, in 1879 after a disagreement. Their aim was to destabilise the government by assassinating key officials until the state could be overthrown, and following this a new regime could be put in place which would convene an assembly to represent the people. They believed it could work. Emerging radical Vera Zasulich in 1878 was acquitted by court, and got widespread public sympathy, after she had almost successfully assassinated Fyodor Trepov - who had help put down the 1830 and 1863 Polish rebellions and had recently had a political prisoner flogged. Narodnaia volia had one figure in mind - Alexander II. After several failed attempts on March 1 1881 a bomb was thrown at Alexander's carriage in St Petersburg - he died shortly after thanks to his wounds. The aftermath saw an antisemitic wave across Russia, outpouring of grief for the tsar, and the very conservative Alexander III becoming tsar. Leon Trotsky would denounce People's Will and individual acts of terror on the basis that it created martyrs out of the slain, and justified harsh reprisals.

Alexander II's funeral procession

Reaction

Wanted poster for Sergey Degayez

With the death of Alexander II and the crowning of Alexander III Russia went from a conservative reformer to an outright reactionary. Reaction did happen under Alexander II, we can see this with the reprisals against peasants and nationalists. Following the tsar's assassination a secret police known as the okhrana was formed - they were tasked with disseminating false information, infiltrating left-wing groups or trade unions, and disrupting the labour movement. It is quite possible that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was written by okhrana agents. There is an interesting case of leading inspector Georgy Sudeykin, who in 1879 had exposed the Kiev branch of People's Will, and was able to supervise all secret agents. Sudeykin arrested a key figure in People's Will, Sergey Degayez, and the two formed an agreement: Sudeykin would use the okhrana to eliminate Degayez's enemies in People's Will as Degayez would eleminate Sudeykin's enemies using People's Will. Together they arrested the group's leader Vera Figner. However, People's Will learnt of Degayez's betrayal and offered a new deal - kill Sudeykin or be killed. He killed his former ally and fled to the US. Meanwhile, jurist and adviser Konstantin Pobedonostsev was appointed to enforce conservative and reactionary rulings until his death in 1907. He managed to ensure that Alexander III heard his policies which included condemning elections and democracy, deviations from strict Christianity, a call for excommunicating Tolstoy in 1901, extensive Russification, and in 1882 he managed to implement the May Laws which persecuted Jews and reinforced the Pale of Settlement. When Alexander died in 1894 his son, Nicholas II, continued his father's reactionary politics - he himself had watched Alexander II bleed out. Bloody Sunday in 1905 saw his guard attack a protest killing hundreds and would set the stage for revolution.

Conclusion

Russia's nineteenth century was not a great time of liberalism which ended with a bomb, nor was it a time of overarching repression. Alexander II wanted reform that could keep the nobility in power but also create a new Russian, 'modern' state. Meanwhile, political repression, even under Alexander III and Nicholas II, was never total and saw resistance. The limits of reforms and changes in society would set the stage for the Russian Revolution in 1917. A question arises, would this post exist if it did not set the stage for 1917? Quite possibly. Russia was not the only state to attempt to 'modernise' in the 1800s - in future posts we'll also look at attempts in Japan, China, and the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. These ideas could be found across the world and were adapted or changed in each setting. We can see how malleable ideas and policies are by looking at this period. Of course, to understand the rise of the Russian Revolution we have to understand this time period. It has also becomes relevant in recent years - counteracting Soviet historiographies Alexander II in particular has been cast as 'The Last Great Tsar' or 'The Tsar Liberator' (a term also used during his life). Nicholas II has also seen a partial rehabilitation despite the political repression and antisemitism of his reign. Looking at the 1800s can we possibly discuss these narratives?

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917, (London: HarperCollins, 1997)

-Gregory Freeze, Russia: A History, Third Edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)

-Edvard Radzinsky, Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar, Trans. Antonia Bouis, (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2005)

-Walter Moss, Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, (London: Anthem, 2002)

-Christopher Read, 'In Search of Liberal Tsardom: The Historiography of Autocratic Decline', The Historical Journal, 45:1, (2002), 195-210

-N.G.O. Pereira, 'Alexander II and the Decision to Emancipate the Russian Serfs, 1855-61', Canadian Slavonic Papers, 22:1, (1980), 99-115

-Herburtus Jahn, 'Politics at the Margins and the Margins of Politics in Imperial Russia', Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 14:1, (2013), 101-116

-Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman, Trans. Salvator Attansio, marxists.org

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. For other World History posts we have a list here. Next time we will be looking at the US Civil War, the Reconstruction era, myth, successes and failures.