16.7 Russia in the 19th Century

The Reign of Nicholas I, 1825 - 1855

The reign of Nicholas began with the Decembrist Revolt (December 1825) of young, aristocratic army officers in St. Petersburg. Many of the Decembrists had been part of the Russian forces that occupied France following the defeat of Napoleon. In France they had been inspired by the principles of the Revolution that the Bourbon monarchy dared not revoke: equality under the law, freedom of opportunity, etc. The Decembrists opposed the succession of Nicholas and demanded the succession of Nicholas' brother, Constantine (who had succeeded Alexander as King of the Russian-controlled “Congress Poland”), constitutional government, and the codification of law. Constantine refused to be identified with the rebellion, and army units loyal to Nicholas dispersed the rebels.

Known as the "Iron Czar," Nicholas reacted to the Decembrist Revolt with repressive measures intended to prevent liberal expression. He instituted strict censorship and created a highly efficient secret police to counter any political opposition.

By the 1820s the Industrial Revolution was well underway in Western Europe but had not yet affected Russia. Nicholas saw the need for Russia to industrialize but was both unable and unwilling to take the first step towards industrialization. If Russia were to industrialize, it had to have a free labor source. The only way to provide that labor was to free the peasantry from serfdom. Nicholas feared the results of such a policy which he believed would be uncontrolled peasant anarchy and violent reaction from the nobility. Industrialization would have to wait.

In the area of foreign policy Russia would experience mixed results. In 1830 Russia would act forcefully to crush a nationalist rebellion in Poland and attempted to eradicate the Polish culture. In 1849 Russian armies intervened and crushed a Hungarian rebellion for independence from Austria. Russia continued to expand its territorial sovereignty to the south bringing the Caucasus region (today the regions comprising Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan) under Russian control as well as parts of Central Asia (Kazakhstan).

Russian expansion into Central Asia alarmed Britain. Britain had been long established in India and saw Russia’s expansion as threatening to British interests in the region. To counter the Russian advance, Britain sent an army northward from India with the intent of securing Afghanistan as a buffer between Russia and India. The conflict of British and Russian interests in Central Asia would become known as the “Great Game” and would seriously strain relations between the two powers for the next fifty years.

The price of delayed industrialization became evident when Russian foreign policy objectives resulted in the Crimean War. In an effort to pressure the Ottoman Empire to grant further concessions to Russia, Nicholas provoked a war with the Turks in 1853. Britain and France, concerned that Russia might defeat the Turks and gain access to the Mediterranean, intervened on behalf of the Turks in 1854. The war was centered in the Crimea where British and French armies besieged the Russian port city of Sebastopol. Industrialization made the British and French forces technologically superior to the Russians, and Russia's armies were defeated. In the resulting Treaty of Paris (1856), a humiliated Russia lost its influence in the Black Sea area.

The Reign of Alexander II, 1855 - 1881

Nicholas did not live to see Russia's defeat in the Crimean War. In 1855 he was succeeded by his son Alexander, who is known in Russian history as the "Reform Czar." Alexander II would free the serfs, make significant reforms to modernize Russia, and fall victim to an assassin's bomb.

The defeat in the Crimean War made industrialization a necessity regardless of the cost. Alexander had to proceed carefully so as not to throw the country into anarchy. The resulting Edict of Emancipation issued in 1861 dealt with the matter very effectively.

The Emancipation Edict abolished serfdom. Over 40 million people became free peasants at the stroke of a pen. Each peasant family received tenure (but not ownership) of the land it had farmed under serfdom. The former landowners (nobility, Church) were compensated for their losses by the government. The peasants' land would be owned collectively by the local farming village, the mir. The mir, through cooperative decision-making involving all heads of peasant households, would determine how the land would be used. The lands would be paid for through a tax to be paid by the peasants over a period of 49 years. The mir would be responsible for collection of the tax. While the Emancipation Edict provided a source of free labor, industrialization did not come readily. The Russian middle class was small and lacked the capital necessary to start new industries. The peasant mir was reluctant to allow its members to leave for fear of losing their contribution to the land tax.

Alexander made some significant other reforms. His Zemstvos Law established regional elected councils (zemstvos) for local civil administration. In these councils nobles, townspeople, and peasants were equally represented. The purpose of the councils was to deal with such matters as public health, education, road construction, and other economic and social matters. The czar instituted legal reforms establishing equality under the law and jury trials for criminal cases (except for treason). An Urban Government Law permitted the people of towns and cities to elect their own mayors and governing councils. These reforms did a great deal to instill in the Russians a sense of citizenship.

There was opposition. To many Russians, Alexander was either too radical or too conservative. Among the intelligentsia the "Slavophiles" saw the czar as not being Russian enough and endangering traditional Russian values by these reforms. "Westerners" saw his reforms as being too incomplete and urged greater movement towards constitutional government.

Of greatest danger were the radicals. Many young educated Russians became disillusioned as the czar was not acting fast enough to effect change. Radicalism took three forms. There were the "Nihilists" who took a narrowly utilitarian view of society. To be totally free, all bonds holding the individual must be broken, they argued. This meant abolition of the family, marriage, all custom and tradition. They claimed to believe in nothing, hence the label "Nihilist." Conventional Russian society was shocked by their outrageous behavior and outlandish appearance.

The Populists believed that the peasants were the source of all that was good and virtuous about Russia. The peasants must be aroused to revolutionary action to bring about that change that would end the injustices of the czarist regime. The populists went into the villages to live and work with the peasants as well as encourage them to revolutionary action. The peasants, suspicious of these young intellectuals from the cities, often turned them in to the police.

The most extreme group of radicals was a tiny conspiratorial group calling itself the Narodniks, "People's Will." They saw acts of terrorism against the regime as the only means of forcing the reform of the political and social system. In March 1881, after several unsuccessful attempts, the Narodniks succeeded in assassinating the czar. Ironically Alexander was on his way to initiate a plan for constitutional government when he was killed.