IB HL History Year 1

17 Jan, 2022 18:00

To what extent did the reforms of Alexander II achieve his aims?

Through the Crimean War, Russia’s backwardness was exposed to the world. It took Russia

much longer than France or Britain to get supplies to the front lines due to the fact that Russia

lagged far behind in transport and communications. Not only that, but Russia’s military

equipment was extremely outdated. The technologically advanced British and French had metal

ships powered by steam whereas Russia was still using wooden-bottom ships with sails. Once

Alexander II became tsar in February 1855 allowing him to bring this pathetic failure of a war to

an end with the Treaty of Paris on March 30, 1856. Alexander II aimed to remodel the

backwardness of imperial Russia through controversial yet necessary reforms which benefited

the lower and working classes. He was quite successful in his endeavor notwithstanding the

negative feedback received from rebels like the People’s Will.

Not only did Alexander II receive criticism from the People’s Will, but the upper classes and

landowners especially were hostile towards his ‘liberation’ of serfs. The Emancipation Edict

ended serfdom while also correcting one of Russia’s major backward ideals all with one stone.

The idea was born in 1857 through a group of officials who set out to consider the emancipation

of serfs. From 1858-59, Alexander II toured Russia giving pro-emancipation speeches in order

to gain the support of the general public while also showing the lowest classes that he was on

their side. The Emancipation Edict was proclaimed to take effect at Lent in February, 1861. Lent

was in March of that same year. This allowed landlords at least a little bit of a head’s up before

their whole life got turned upside down which simultaneously gave serfs something to look

forward to… Freedom. There were three stages of emancipation: freedom, temporary obligation,
and redemption operation. These steps allowed serfs to gain personal freedoms such as marriage

and own property but did not upset the landowners too much as the serfs wanted to buy their land

for well above the land’s value. Therefore, they got hired for labor to pay the landlords back. In

the long run, emancipation made the nobles lose money. Increasing their resentment and hatred

towards the tsarist government. In Notes of a Serf Woman, she discloses the cruelty landowners

displayed upon their serfs. “Although the maids liked the young bárin Egor Petrovich for his

beauty, they complained that his ‘endearments’ were painful. He would caper around pinching

them and lashing them with a switch that left behind bloody welts on their flesh” (204). This is

an example of precisely the abuse Alexander II was aiming to prevent occurring in the future. In

a legal sense, the Emancipation Edict did make serfs free. However, were they really truly free?

Sally Waller presents the idea that Alexander II is a “Tsar Liberator” (69) in Imperial Russia,

Revolutions and the Emergence of the Soviet State 1853-1924. By no longer holding slaves,

Alexander II did achieve his aims of correcting Imperial Russia’s ‘backwardness’ as

demonstrated through the Crimean War. His efforts eventually resulted in Russia’s industrial and

economic troubles to be a thing of the past. On the contrary, he did next to nothing to prevent

landlords from scamming former-serfs into buying low quality land for insane prices in order to

keep their cheap labor.

The emancipation of serfs revealed that further change was needed and provided influence to

reformers such as the Milyutin brothers who were behind the military reforms of 1874-75.

Alexander II’s subsequent reforms impacted people of all classes in ways both good and bad.

The reconstruction of Russia’s military created a more efficient army. It became harder for

nobles to escape conscription enabling for a more fair advantage. Peasants were educated within

the military training and taught to read if they did not know how to already. Officers still
preferred outdated muskets so that did not change, however. The educational reforms of 1863-64

extended opportunity to not just the highest classes and reduced the amount of control the church

had. Not to forget that now Russian newspapers can now discuss international and domestic

politics. Citizens and women with non-noble blood also now have access to a higher university

education. The legal reforms of 1864 partially corrected injustice and provided a fairer and less

corrupt court system with trials by jury. Allowing outsiders such as news reporters and critics to

find out about what was going on and speak up if they thought the verdict was unjust. The local

governmental reforms of 1864-1870 established two types of elected councils. “At a local level,

the zemstva and duma proved very effective… however, despite their willpower and enthusiasm,

they were only able to make limited progress on alcoholism, poverty, epidemics and famines”

(Waller, 53). Unfortunately, there was limited effort to reform the Church and the treatment of

ethnic minorities. Alexander II did, however, allow Jews to attend university despite the

entrenched anti-Semitism. The combination of all these reforms definitely boosted the lower

classes' confidence in the tsar even if it furthered tensions with the nobles. He very much

succeeded in correcting at least somewhat of Russia’s backwardness through these endeavors

and boosted overall morale.

Unfortunately, Alexander II’s reforms were controversial and viewed as radical, causing

extreme opposition in the later years of his rule. A new intelligentsia emerged, becoming a threat

to the reign of the tsar. In 1880, the People’s Will was set up inspired by the works of Karl Marx.

His Communist Manifesto suggested and even encouraged the working class to rebel and rise up

against those oppressing them. According to Marx, history is divided into precisely five stages:

gentilism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and finally socialism. Capitalism was in the wrong due

to the fact that capitalists strove to limit production because they are driven by money. In Marx
for Beginners, Rius emphasizes that “to possess possessions, a man will ‘sell himself’ to have

what another has, but it never dawns on him—that the more he gets, the less he keeps of himself”

(83). Monopolists in a capitalist society see the average citizen purely as walking bags of money

who only exist to consume. Moving towards socialism can be the only way forwards into a

perfect utopian society. Unfortunately, socialism done wrong leads to communism which

exploits its subjects almost as much as capitalism. The People’s Will tried many times to muder

the tsar. Their first failed attempt was that of April 4th, 1866 in which Dmitry Karakozov’s

elbow was jostled by a peasant causing him to misfire. This peasant, Osip Komissarov, claims to

have noticed something was going on in regards to Alexander II’s safety. On March 13th, 1881,

a sixth assassination attempt on Alexander II by People’s Will was successful. Boris Chicherin,

writes, “Alexander set out to remodel completely the enormous state which has been entrusted to

his care” (Waller, 69). Regardless of the disapproval Alexander II was receiving from many of

his subjects, he did not give up on what he set out to do. Many historians agree with Chicherin

and that through all of Alexander II’s reforms, Russia was able to propel itself into the modern

world, correcting it’s ‘backwardness’.

Even if his reforms were ‘only half measures’ or ‘too restricted’, he at least accomplished his

goal to ‘unbackwards’ Russia. Alexander II’s reconstruction of classes set in motion the

modernization of Imperial Russia and future Soviet Russia. In the long term, the government

suffered from his decisions and historians continue to argue on how great these ‘Great Reforms’

truly were. Werner Mosse rejects Alexander II’s reign and reflects, “Alexander proved himself a

disappointing liberal and inefficient autocrat” (Waller, 70). Through the Emancipation Edict, and

many other reforms including but not limited to: education, freedom of press, military, and local

government. Alexander II aimed to remodel the backwardness of imperial Russia through

controversial yet necessary reforms which benefited the lower and working classes and was

genuinely successful in kickstarting a modern state.

Work Cited

Waller, Sally. “Alexander II and the Emancipation of the Serfs 1855-61, Alexander II’s

Subsequent

Reforms and Their Impact 1861-81.” Imperial Russia, Revolutions and the Emergence of the

Soviet

State, 1853-1924, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, pp. 19–60. History for the

IB

Diploma.

MacKay, John Kenneth. “Notes of a Serf Woman.” Four Russian Serf Narratives, University of

Wisconsin Press, Madison, 2009, pp. 197–212.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Monthly Review Press, 1998.

Rius. Marx for Beginners. Writers and Readers Pub. Cooperative Society, 1976.