RUSSIAN REFORM AND REVOLUTION

Efforts to create a homogenous society  Russification  Began by Nicholas I forcing non-Russians to use the Russian language, customs and religion In 1864, the Polish and Belarusian languages were banned in public places; in the 1880s, Polish was banned in schools "What the Russian bayonet didn't accomplish, the Russian school will” - Governor General of Lithuania  Pan-Slavism  The union of all Slavic people in the Balkans under Russian leadership  Required moving into the Balkans to expand into Ottoman controlled Balkans Resulted in a loss in the Crimean War

Crimean War  Russia’s losses revealed their military power was gone  Alexander II realized a self based economy needed to be replaced by an industrialized economy

Reforms under Alexander II  Created zemstvos - local councils elected by all classes  Could levy taxes, control local programs (education, health)  Emancipation Edict - better to abolish serfdom from the top down then to watch it disintegrate from the bottom up.  Limited assistance leads to a strong comparison with the Emancipation of American slaves Sharecroppers and tenant farmers  Courts were reformed  Modeled after European courts  Limited by corruption and ministry of interior

Political Opposition  Nihilists  tear everything down and build it back up  Had strong support with the intellectual liberals  Less of a movement and more a philosophy  Populists  Seize lands of the aristocrats and redistribute wealth on socialist terms  Live communally  People’s Will  Growing more radical in the face of repressive opposition Did they hurt or further their cause using such means to justify the ends I. Grinevitskii

Alexander III’s & Nicholas II’s Response  Similarity with the Fronde and Louis XIV  Immediately cancelled the Constitution signed by his father “senseless dreams” (Nicholas II)  Censorship  Controlled the church and schools  Spies  Imprisonment and exile (Siberia)  Pogroms  Consistent with the radicals’ failures, how did the Last Czars make the same mistakes.

Revolution of 1905  Obvious opposition to the repressive gov’t  The industrialization and labor problems spawned from the “Emancipation Edict”  Rise of the Social Democratic Labor Party  Reforms under Alexander II - Zemstvos were an introduction to self-government  What is the next step?  Bloody Sunday - Father Gapon’s peaceful demonstration goes horribly wrong  Result  The October Manifesto

The Autocracy Holds on a bit longer  Gradual limitation on the freedoms outlined in the Manifesto  Failures for 3 reasons  Army remained loyal to the state  France helped Russia militarily  No homogeny in the revolution