Alexander II left the tsarist autocracy in a weaker position at the time of his death than it had been on his accession to the throne, an argument.
25 mark question
‘Alexander II left the tsarist autocracy in a weaker position at the time of his
death than it had been on his accession to the throne.’
Assess the validity of this view.
25 mark-45 minutes
Tsar Alexander II was known as a ‘liberator’ and is still known by that name
today in Russia. Alexander II ruled Russia during the Crimean War and post-
war; meaning that he saw the changes in the economy, attitudes in the
country and politics throughout the war and after. The embarrassing defeat in
the Crimean War pushed the Tsar and his advisors to make major reforms. One
of the Tsars main advisors was a man called General Dimitri Miliutin, he was
responsible for the major military reforms.
Although Alexander II emancipated the Serfs; the Serfs were not satisfied and
the emancipation did not fulfil its aim. The Serfs had redemption payments,
these payments were required if the Serfs wanted their freedom. The
redemption payments meant that one third of the population were still stuck
in serfdom as they could not afford these payments. From a Serfs point of
view, Alexander II had not emancipated the serfs fully. The peasants were
offered to buy land; this land was unfertile and hard to cultivate because the
landowners chose what land they got to keep; keeping the best land for
themselves and selling the land they didn’t want to the peasants. The land that
was bought was bought using a mortgage that would last for 49 years as the
peasants had no money of their own. This left the tsarist autocracy under
threat from the dissatisfied peasants that could revolt against the Government.
The Tsar upset several groups of people during his reign. This included land
owners, the Intelligentsia, serfs and peasants and the nobility. The land owners
hated that their land was taken away and sold to the freed serfs, however, the
land owners did get compensation for the lost land, around fifty percent of the
land was not sold. Many land owners and nobility became bankrupt as they
would spend the compensation money all at once. This caused blame on the
Tsar and this weakened economy. The Intelligentsia were the educated
Russians who had gone to university; they made up the majority of the
terrorist organisation ‘The Peoples Will’ who set out to assassinate Alexander II
and did so successfully by blowing him up. This shows that the Tsar didn’t not
please everyone as each class had revolutionaries or opposition, therefore
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