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Emancipation

On 3 March 1861, Alexander II issued what seemed on the face of it the most revolutionary reform in Russia’s history – his ‘Manifesto on the Emancipation of the Serfs’. The edict freed 23 million serfs from their bondage to landowners, and wrested ownership of 85 per cent of Russia’s land from private landowners in favour of the peasants. The landlords, understandably, opposed such a sweeping change but were told by the Tsar, ‘It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below.’


Alexander II, c.1870

The high ideals of Alexander II’s emancipation of the serfs fell very short of its ambition. Landowners held onto 15 per cent of the land and this was, invariably, the best land; while peasants had to buy back their land from the nobles, usually at an inflated price. The majority were, inevitably, unable to afford the cost, and were offered a loan by the government, repayable at 6 per cent over forty-nine years. The peasant, freed from serfdom, was no better off and no happier.

Twenty years later, on 13 March 1881, a group calling themselves the People’s Will threw a bomb at the Tsar’s carriage in St Petersburg, fatally wounding Alexander II. The Tsar’s son (Alexander III) and twelve-year-old grandson (Nicholas II) were witness to Alexander’s violent end. As future tsars they never forgot.

Ironically, Alexander II had, just hours before his death, put his signature to a draft decree to establish a parliament, a Duma, the first step towards a constitutional monarchy. He knew that the emancipation of the serfs had failed, and that his reforms, though laudable, merely created demand for greater reform. Thus, by their very action, the terrorists had unwittingly aborted any chance of constitutional reform. Instead, they got a new Tsar, Alexander’s son, Alexander III, who immediately tore up his father’s parliamentary proposal, undid his reforms and intensified the level of repression.

The new Tsar’s Manifesto on Unshakable Autocracy, issued within two months of his father’s death, summed up Alexander III’s view on how Russia should be ruled. Liberalism and democracy were considered signs of weakness; for the benefit of all, his people needed to be ruled with a firm hand and the nation needed to be more ‘Russian’. Ethnic languages and nationalistic tendencies were repressed. The vast empire was to be subject to the Tsar’s Russification and autocratic rule.

The Tsar intended to start teaching his son the art of statesmanship once Nicholas had reached the age of thirty. But on 1 November 1894, aged only forty-nine, Alexander III died of kidney disease. His son was still only twenty-six. Following the death of his father, a fearful Nicholas was thrust unprepared into the limelight, reputedly asking, ‘what will become of me and all of Russia?’

The Russian Revolution: History in an Hour

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