However after Karakazov attempts to assassinate the Tsar in 1866, he becomes much more autocratic, revealing that he had no intention of significantly developing politics, his use of the Zemstvas were in fact to help sustain autocracy, through making local administration more efficient. It can be suggested from this that Alexander II had put the Zemstva Act in place to appease the nobles angered by the Emancipation Act. Alexander III was much more of a successful autocrat. His reactionary attitude led to the reversal of many of his father’s liberal reforms, and was in some cases angered by them. Alexander III re-implements Tsarist form, through the use of repression and terror.
Alexander was hopelessly out of touch with the emerging realities of a modern Russia. For example, agriculture was exploited as a source of export earnings; this helped cause a series of famines, especially in 1891. This made him hugely unpopular as he took grain from the people in an attempt to make money and improve the economy. Due to his slow intelligence and lack of experience, Alexander forgot the fundamental rule of keeping his people happy and instead chose to supress them. He did not realise that, following Alexander II’s emancipation of the serfs in 1861, he could not return to a state of rigid autocracy when the serfs had already had some freedom.
How important was the role of Lenin compared to the failures of the Provisional Government in bringing about the October revolution? After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917, the Provisional Government (PG) took control of Petrograd, and led the country how they thought it should be led. Their main policy was to maintain Russia in fighting in the war; this was not a favoured idea with the PG followers. Although, they promised to stop the food shortage and to give peasants land which was what everyone wanted. This was one of the main reasons why they gained many followers during the period of the Tsars abdication.
How far does Alexander II deserve the Title “Tsar Liberator”? Prior to the reign of Alexander II, his father, Nicholas I ruled Russia under repressive and old fashioned policies. Alexander felt there was a lot of change needed to help boost the Russian economy. Russia’s economy was largely based around agriculture which was seen as backward for the time. One of Alexander’s reforms was to boom industries to start competing with the west who had more developed technology and whose economies were much more stable.
In particular, he released the serfs, which is generally seen as one of the most significant social reforms of the nineteenth century. Yet, the fundamental inconsistency between Alexander II's commitment to autocracy and his moves towards liberal reform isolated him from both reformers and conservatives. The growth of radical political opposition during his reign, was arguably given momentum by the liberal reforms he made which still left some radical groups pushing for revolution and eventually led to his assassination by terrorist of 'The People's Will' group in 1881. A great obstacle was that compared to Western Europe, Russia was backward economically, socially and politically in the late 19th Century. Russia was determined to not set up a new system by which the government were modernized and autocratic in which this stopped Russia from industrialising.
Fewer workers could then be used on the farms and industrialisation could take place more rapidly by transferring more workers from the countryside to the factories. Unfortunately, Lenin's NEP was not achieving the results that they wanted. Stalin dubbed the NEP as an impediment to communism and had to be scrapped. This rapid industrialisation would also bring about two political results. Communist support would increase as the workers were the Communists' greatest supporters and remaining opposition would be eliminated, in particular the class of rich peasants, the kulaks.
After the 1905 revolution, Russia was in need of political and economic reform if it was to remain one of the world’s great powers and prevent another revolution from occurring. The answer to this was the October Manifesto. However, some of the Tsar’s attempts to reform made little change to Russia. The October Manifesto was published as a result of the 1905 revolution as a way to appease the peasants and to be seen as revolutionary change. The October Manifesto promised to create a parliament called the Duma.
History Essay – Russia To what extent did Witte achieve economic modernisation in Russia? Russia saw a lot of changes in the years 1881-1903. A lot of these were due to Witte. The Russian empire wasn’t strong as it seemed and it was certainly not modern. Witte tried to change this with a series of projects, to help the economy and industry of Russia.
The term “reaction” refers to the idea of opposition to the ideals of reform; it refers to the idea of a backwards change, usually a change towards more traditional views and in the case of Alexander III it can be argued to whether his reign was completely reactionary or reformist or to whether only some parts where. When Alexander III took the position of Tsar from his father in 1881; his father Alexander II had started to reform the country of Russia both politically and socially through policies such as the Zemstva Reform in 1864 and the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 but this during Alexander III’s reign this all began to change, which is why his reign is famously known as “The reaction”. When Alexander first became Tsar in 1881 he announced that he wanted autocracy to be upheld and that any proposal of a constitutional government would be rejected; Alexander III appeared to be asserting his power of the country to stabilise it after the assignation of his father. Alexander III made it clear that he was to reverse his father’s reforms; he reversed the zemstva reform which had enabled Russia to have their first elective government, he decreased the power they held in 1890 by placing them under the disciplinary control of the ministry of the interior whilst also decreasing the peasant representation in the court. The 1890 Zemstva Act showed Alexander III as a reactionary by reducing the power people had and upholding the idea of autocracy.
Sergei Witte and The Industrialization of Russia During the last decade of the 19th century, the autocracy of Russia was weakening considerably, and at the same time their economy was becoming industrialized. This process of industrialization was put forth by the government in an effort to modernize. The autocracy began to realize that their economy was falling behind the other industrialized nations. Rapid industrialization would prove to be very draining on the country, and would also establish an industrial working class, which would contribute to the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The imperial government clearly did not foresee industrialization as an eventual catalyst to their demise.