- Two aspects of Russian policies: domestic reforms and territorial expansion.
- Starting with Catherine Great, to prevent the impact of the French Revolution.
- Conservative intellectuals supported isolation, serfdom protected the ignorant peasanst.t
- Alexander I, policy of liberalization, which collapsed with the Vienna Congress and the Holy Alliance. Russia was presented as the bastion of sanity in Europe.
- Rupture between those who were fascinated with western progress, political freedom, scientific advance, others turned towards to autochtonism and slavophilia
-1825 Decembrist uprising led to more suppression,
- Territorial expansion: In 1830-31, Russia suppresses a Polish uprising, 1829 Treaty of Adrianople, French and British fear for Russian expansion leads to the Crimean War 1853-56.
- In terms of technology and economy it lagged behind the West, even Prussia and Austria.
- Russian landlords took advantage of western markets for grain, by intensifying labor.
- Russia remained a profoundly agricultural society.
- It became clear that the Crimean war was lost due to industial backwardness,
- The new tsar Alexander II decided to proceed with reforms, abolition of serfdom.
- The purpose was not to imitate the west but to protect russian institutions, such as the landed aristocracy and peasant communities.
- In 1861, serfs received most of the land, nobility, however, remained dominant. The serfs obtained no political rights, they were tied to their villages until they could pay for the land
- Emancipation led to a larger urban labor force. It did not bring larger production, it led to peasant uprisings, substantial population growth.
- A series of laws cutting back traditional punishments, creating local political councils, which gave the middle-class some political experience, however, they had no impact on national policy, dominated by the tsar.
- Recruitment in the army included peasants and promotions was rationalized
- Literacy increased, a new market for popular readings,women’s conditions improved, some achieved higher education, family relations and morality became less strict.
- Industrialization through state support,
- Railroad network, transiberian railroad, end of the 1880s, expansion of metallurgy and coal sector. It also increased the export of grain to the west, more currency, active role in Asia.
- Modern factories appeared and an urban working class appeared.
- Count Sergei Witte minister of finance,in the 1890s, introduced high tarifs to protect industry, improved banking system and encouraged foreign investment.
- The power of Russia lay on its size, population, natural resourses.
- It remained peasant socity, where peasant-soldiers saw their officers as landlords. The absence of a large self-confident middle class.
- Nationalism: the reforms and mobility instigated minorities to make their own demands.
- Social protests were more frequent due to peasants redemption payments and taxes.
- Russian intellectuals opted for social reform while maintaining cultural particularity.
- Intellectuals claimed revolutionary changes. Narodnic, populist movement. Two attitudes. A more moderate and a more radical. Many turned anarchists. Bakunin.
- This triggered supression, censorship, and arrests. Alexander II was assassinated in 1881.
- His successors Alexander III, Nicolas II opposed further political reform.
- They also refused any rights to nationalities. Jews were persecuted and many migrated.
- In the 1890s radical ideologies gained new momentum. Marxism. Vladimir İlyich Ulyanov, Bolsheviks capitalised on the working-class unrest in the cities and peasant revolts.
