Includes an essay plan about Alexander III suppressing opposition (“The tsarist regime was successful in suppressing opposition between 1861-81. Explain why you agree or disagree with this view” )
With reference to the extract and your understanding of the historical context, assess how con...
Agree:
● Power of Zemstva was reduced.
● After Zemstva of St Petersburg demand a body to coordinate the regional councils.
● Refused to allow a national assembly.
● However, was going to on the day he was assassinated by the peoples will, who were a revolutionary group.
● Alexander was unwilling to compromise autocracy
Disagree:
● Zemstva was where opposition would gather and criticism of gov was evident.
● Better education and reduced censorship meant for growth in intelligence.
● Loris Melnikov reforms willing to give power to more people rather than just the Tsar.
● The Narodnyism's helped to take radical option from underground to the country side making the government aware if the depth of
feeling of its opponents
●
● Successful suppression at beginning with Narodnik – Going to the people
● Land and liberty: 1876 – emerged from GTTP, first modern revolutionary group
, ● Peoples will: very unsuccessful – use of terror, assassinated all
● Black repartition – rejection of terror, emphasised education and organisation of the people
● Eventual adoption of Marxism
Narodnik's:
● In 1874 Pyotr Lavrov encouraged 2000 young men and women from the intelligentsia to travel to the countryside to persuade the
peasantry that the future of Russia depended on the development of the peasant commune
● Exploited the resentment felt after the emancipation of the serfs
Regime was successful:
● 1600 of them were arrested and after the second attempt more arrests were followed and show trials in 1877-78.
● This made the government aware of the depth of the feelings of their opponents.
● Several hundred were arrested / imprisoned / exiled to Siberia
● 2 large trials in 1877: the trial of 50 and the trial of 193 – some got long sentences or were acquitted
● Executed members of the people's will who had assassinated
● Alexander II, and many more arrested and imprisoned by the Okhrana > effectively ended the populist movement by the late 1880s
● A statute of August 1881 allowed the tsar's ministers to declare martial law, imprison people without trial, prohibit public
gatherings, dismiss local officials, and send suspected revolutionaries into exile in Siberia.
● Police powers were increased. A secret political police (Okhrana) was organized to fight the socialists. Censorship was tightened. The
zemstvos had their budgets capped.
Unsuccessful:
● inability to suppress the opposition led to his downfall.
● In 1881, they assassinated Alexander II
● Political assignation including the head of the secret police as well as the Tsar
● Peoples will be managed to implant a spy into the Third section to avoid being caught and remain in the dark and arrest.
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