These reforms made a significant change to the government as a weakened sense of autocracy replaced the traditional span of control the Tsar ruled over, due to freedom of serfs which ultimately creates opposition. Further consequences of war faced by the government can be illustrated in the assassination of Alexander 2nd and the severe social unrest following the Russo-Japanese war. These protests are suggested to be the beginning point of the 1905 revolution. This caused extreme damage to the government as it questioned the strength of leadership and citizens became more and more critical, eventually leading to further reforms and the initiation of changing the way Russian government was formatted. However, it can be argued that
Alexander III is considered by many to be a conservative reactionary due to his traditional beliefs, taught by Pobedonostev and his reversal of some of his father’s liberal reforms. It was due to the assassination attempts that Alexander II faced which can be seen to have had an effect on his son and thus led him to take a more stern and reactionary approach. Alexander III followed the traditional manifesto: ‘full faith in justice and in the strength of the autocracy’ thus highlighting his loyalty towards protecting Tsarism. Although it is true that Alexander III undid a vast number of his father’s reforms, especially concerning the civil rights of the Russian people, in order to repress opposition; he also succeeded in making a vast number of economic reforms which proved beneficial to Russia. Perhaps the biggest legacy left by Alexander II was his emancipation of the serfs in 1861, he had realised that modernisation was incompatible with serfdom and thus endeavoured to liberalise the serfs.
To what extent did Witte achieve economic modernisation in Russia? Sergei Witte was introduced as the Tsars financial minister at a time when Russia was in a state of social and economic backwardness. Witte successfully achieved economic modernisation in Russia to a certain extent. Witte’s policies lead to a ‘Great Spurt’ in economic modernisation as they increased the number of factories and led to vast improvements in infrastructure such as railways. However his policies were still very limiting as they did not address the backwardness of agriculture and caused frequent famines, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people; keeping Russia economically and socially far behind the great European powers.
Therefore, paying higher taxes was another struggle for the peasants and their lives had just got harder. Due to the numerous problems in Russia, Witte developed a plan for economic growth which was different from the rest of Europe. This was called the ‘Witte System’, which meant the economy would be controlled by the government. Russia got loans from Britain and France, therefore much of the economic developments were financed from abroad. However, this led to even more taxes on the already over-taxed peasants.
One of the key reasons Alexander II emancipated the Serfs was due to the fact that he wanted to improve the economy, which was struggling. He did manage to improve the economy in some ways; however the significant problems in the national economy caused by the Emancipation, meant that any positives were not felt to an extent at which they should have been. Firstly, there was a decline in labour services, which contributed to the growth of a money based economy and encouraged enterprise, stimulating growth of railways, banking, industry and cities. There was also an increase in production of grain, which meant that Russia’s exports were increasing pumping money into the economy. However this increase in exports was limited and did not increase at a significant extent, due to the fact that agriculture was still very backward.
The Fordney McCumber Tariff of 1922 was a law introduced in the United States with the purpose to protect American farms and factories from foreign exports. The tariff however only made the situation that farmers were already facing worse. The tariffs meant that foreign exports to the United States were extremely expensive and therefore if Americans opted not to buy foreign goods the Foreigners would make less money from their foreign exports and therefore have less money to spend on U.S food. The result of this was a severe agricultural crisis faced by farmers across the American
Part of Alexander III’s problem was the legacy left by his father who had begun reforms which raised expectations of major change within Russia. Other problems he faced were that Russia was economically underdeveloped, he had to keep the large multi-ethnic empire together and also the country was still recovering from the death of Alexander II. As a result Alexander III pursued a policy of counter-reform. Counter-reform was partly a reaction to the murder of Alexander II, but Alexander III also believed that his father’s ‘Great Reforms’ had been a mistake, weakening Tsarism and leaving it insecure. His policy was to undo the reforms as far as possible and he did this through a number of social and political changes.
Nicholas’s decisions in things such as the war and internal affairs were at the best poor. One of the main factors in the downfall of Nicholas 2nd was his lack of reform. Throughout the course of his reign he had many opportunities to implement improvements in areas such as the government, social welfare for the peasants and the working class. His attempts to improve things but still hold onto as much power as possible, led to him deceiving his people through the nobles holding onto power and his self-elected and so called democratic dumas. This was made possible by him controlling the majority of the dumas funding meaning he could deny a new law by limiting their financial strength.
How far were divisions among its opponents responsible for the survival of Tsarist rule in the years 1881-1905? Divisions among the Tsars opponents were important to the survival of Tsarist rule. However other elements also affected it, such as the belief in the Russian Orthodox Church and the belief that the Tsar was divinely appointed, poor communication across Russia this included the large the number of different languages and nationalities and the Cossacks which stayed loyal to the Tsar. The growing political opposition to the Tsar affected the stability of the Tsarist regime. Many Russian intellectuals were rising up against the Tsar; they believed that the regime was oppressive and that European countries had more freedom and felt that many Russians lacked basic freedoms seen in other European nations.
These farmers complained that these railroad companies were charging a high rate to have the goods shipped and that they would only offer favorable rates to wealthy northeastern industrialists at the farmers’ expense. These railroad companies had a tight hold on the Transportation of crops shipped from small farm towns; subsequently farmers were forced to suffer with below average service and sky high shipping tariffs. The smaller farmers were unable to carry on due to, the bigger companies and consequently were put out of business. The government’s decisions and their policies made it extremely difficult for the American farmer to profit and grow; the Homestead Act was a prime