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Further Reading

Alexander III (1881-94)

In 1881 revolutionaries assassinated Alexander II. The man who now ascended the throne of Russia was in the full flush of magnificent manhood. Alexander III (r. 1881-94), son of Alexander II, was thirty-six years of age, and of powerful physique. His education had been chiefly military. He was a man of firm and resolute rather than large or active mind. He was profoundly religious, and had a deep sense of his responsibility.The assassination of Alexander II. by the terrorists made a profound impression on his son and successor, and determined the general character of his rule.

It shortly became clear that he possessed a strong, inflexible character, that he was a thorough believer in absolutism, and was determined to maintain it undiminished. Alexander III, who had never sympathized with liberalism in ?ny form, entered frankly on a reactionary policy, which was pursued consistently during the whole of his reign. He could not, of course, undo the great reforms of his predecessor, but he amended them in such a way as to counteract what he considered the exaggerations of liberalism.

Alexander III was a typical Czar, without any special talents, blindly devoted to reaction, absolutism, and the narrowest conception of the Church, surrounded by dull and servile flatterers and leading the narrowest personal life, absorbed in trivialities and drink. His most influential adviser was his former tutor, Pobyedonostseff, later for many years Procurator of the Holy Synod, a man who abhorred the liberal ideas of western Europe, and who insisted that Russia must preserve her own native institutions untainted, must follow without deviation her own historic tendency, which he conceived in a strictly nationalistic sense. The orthodoxy of the Greek Church, the absolutism of the monarch, were the fundamental tenets of his belief, no coquetting with western ideas of representative government and religious and intellectual freedom.

Alexander III initiated a period of political reaction, which intensified a counter-reform movement that had begun in 1866. In a short time the great reforms of Alexander II were largely undone. The peasants were put back under the control of the local upper classes as much as possible. In 1886 it was decreed that breach of contract by a Russian laborer should be a criminal offence, thus binding the lower classes with stricter economic control. More important still, in 1889 the local elected magistrates were replaced by officials known as Land Captains, to be appointed by the provincial governor from among the upper classes of the neighborhood, and they were given not only judicial but also administrative functions, so that they had practically unlimited authority over the peasants, ruling them at the behest of the central government. In this way the administration of justice sank back into the evil state of a generation before. About the same time the character of the zemsivos, or provincial assemblies, and the dumas, or councils of the cities, was changed, by increasing the representation of the upper classes and diminishing that of the lower, and then taking from the assemblies thus altered much of their power.

He strengthened the security police, reorganizing it into an agency known as the Okhrana, gave it extraordinary powers, and placed it under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Dmitriy Tolstoy, Alexander's minister of internal affairs, instituted the use of land captains, who were noble overseers of districts, and he restricted the power of the zemstva and the duma. Alexander III assigned his former tutor, the reactionary Konstantin Pobedonostsev, to be the procurator of the Holy Synod and Ivan Delyanov to be the minister of education. In their attempts to "save" Russia from "modernism," they revived religious censorship, persecuted non-Orthodox and non-Russian populations, fostered anti-Semitism, and suppressed the autonomy of the universities. Their attacks on liberal and non-Russian elements alienated large segments of the population. The nationalities, particularly Poles, Finns, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians, reacted to the regime's efforts to Russify them by intensifying their own nationalism. Secret organizations and political movements continued to develop despite the regime's efforts to quell them.

Under the sway of his own instincts and his indignation at the insolent demand of the Nihilists that the murderers of his father be not punished as they were merely "executors of a hard civic duty" ; influenced, too, no doubt, by the general horror which that event inspired, and the warm evidences of loyalty which it called forth, Alexander assumed an attitude of defiant hostility to innovators and liberals. His reign, which lasted from 1881 to 1894, was one of reversion to the older ideals of government and of unqualified absolutism. The terrorists were hunted down, and their attempts practically ceased. The press was thoroughly gagged, university professors and students were watched, suspended, exiled, as the case might be. The reforms of Alexander II were in part undone, the zemstvos particularly being more and more restricted, and the secret police, the terrible Third Section, being greatly augmented. Liberals gave up all hope of any improvement during this reign, and waited for better days.

Local self-government in the village communes, the rural districts and the towns was carefully restricted, and placed to a greater extent under the control of the regular officials. The reformers of the previous reign had endeavored to make the emancipated peasantry administratively and economically independent of the landed proprietors; the conservatives of this later era, proceeding on the assumption that the peasants did not know how to make a proper use of the liberty prematurely conferred upon them, endeavored to re-establish the influence of the landed proprietors by appointing from among them "land-chiefs," who were to exercise over the peasants of their district a certain amount of patriarchal jurisdiction. The reformers of the previous reign had sought to make the new local administration a system of genuine rural self-government and a basis for future parliamentary institutions; these later conservatives transformed it into a mere branch of the ordinary state administration, and took precautions against its ever assuming a political character. Even municipal institutions, which had never shown much vitality, were subjected to similar restrictions. In short, the various forms of local self-government, which were intended to raise the nation gradually to the higher political level of western Europe, were condemned as unsuited to the national character and traditions, and as productive of disorder and demoralization. They were accordingly replaced in great measure by the old autocratic methods of administration, and much of the administrative corruption which had been cured, or at least repressed, by the reform enthusiasm again flourished luxuriantly.

In a small but influential section of the educated classes there was a conviction that the revolutionary tendencies, which culminated in Nihilism and Anarchism, proceeded from the adoption of cosmopolitan rather than national principles in all spheres of educational and administrative activity, and that the best remedy for the evils from which the country was suffering was to be found in a return to the three great principles of Nationality, Orthodoxy and Autocracy. This doctrine, which had been invented by the Slavophils of a previous generation, was early instilled into the mind of Alexander III by Pobédonostsev, who was one of his teachers, and later his most trusted adviser, and its influence can be traced in all the more important acts of the government during that monarch's reign. His determination to maintain autocracy was officially proclaimed a few days after his accession. Nationality end Eastern Orthodoxy, which are so closely connected as to be almost blended together in the Russian mind, received not less attention.

Complete Russification of all non-Russian populations and institutions was the chief aim of the government in home affairs. Even in European Russia the regions near the frontier contain a great variety of nationalities, languages and religions. In Finland the population is composed of Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking Protestants; the Baltic provinces are inhabited by German-speaking, Lettspeaking and Esth-speaking Lutherans; the inhabitants of the south-western provinces arc chiefly Polish-speaking Roman Catholics and Yiddish-speaking Jews; in the Crimea and on the Middle Volga there are a considerable number of Tatarspeaking Mahommedans ; and in the Caucasus there is a conglomeration of races and languages such as is to be found on no other portion of the earth's surface. Until recent times these various nationalities were allowed to retain unmolested the language, religion and peculiar local administratÍod of their ancestors; but when the new nationality doctrine came into fashion, attempts were made to spread among them the language, religion and administrative institutions of the dominant race. In the reigns of Nicholas I. and Alexander II. these attempts were merely occasional and intermittent; under Alexander III they were made systematically and with very little consideration for the feelings, wishes and interests of the people concerned.

The local institutions were assimilated to those of the purely Russian provinces; the use of the Russian language was made obligatory in the administration, in the tribunals and to some extent in the schools; the spread of Eastern Orthodoxy was encouraged by the authorities, whilst the other confessions were placed under severe restrictions; foreigners were prohibited from possessing landed property; and in some provinces administrative measures were taken for making the land pass into the bands of Orthodox Russians. In this process some of the local officials displayed probably an amount of zeal beyond the intentions of the government, but any attempt to oppose the movement was rigorously punished.

Of all the various races the Jews were the most severely treated. Under Alexander III began the persecutions of the Jews. The chief home of the Jews in the late 19th Century was Russia. Out of about eight and a half million Jews in Europe, over five million lived in that country. The Russian Jews had long been restricted to Poland and to the contiguous provinces of Lithuania, called the Pale of Settlement, formerly a part of Poland. The great majority of them had long been confined to the western and south-western provinces. In the rest of the country they had not been allowed to reside in the villages, because their habits of keeping vodka-shops and lending money at usurious interest were found to demoralize the peasantry, and even in the towns their numbers and occupations had been restricted by the authorities. But, partly from the usual laxity of the administration and partly from the readiness of the Jews to conciliate the needy officials, the rules had been by no means strictly applied. As soon as this fact became known to Alexander III he ordered the rules to be strictly carried out, without considering what an enormous amount of hardship and suffering such an order entailed. He also caused new rules to be enacted by which his Jewish subjects were heavily handicapped in education and professional advancement.

The Tsar believing in a policy of Russification of all the varied elements and races of the Empire, looked with disfavor upon a people which held fast its own religion and spoke its own language and maintained its own customs. Under Alexander II the restrictions upon Jewish residence had not been rigorously enforced, and many were living outside the Jewish Territory. These were now ordered back, although suffering and hardship were the inevitable result. Anti-Jewish riots broke out in many places, costing many lives. The Government gave but slight protection; indeed, in many cases the officials appeared to encourage the outbreaks, so popular was Jew-baiting. To keep Jews out of the liberal professions decrees were issued limiting the number of Jews who might attend the secondary schools and universities-to from three to ten per cent. of the total enrollment according to the region, even though in some of these districts they formed a third or a half of the population. Utterly miserable and insecure, tens of Jewish thousands left the country. The great Jewish emigration emigration to the United States dates from this time.

Under the system of protection adopted by Alexander II, and continued and increased by Alexander III, industries of a modern kind began to grow up. A tremendous impetus was given to this development by the appointment in 1892 as Minister of Finance and Commerce of Sergius de Witte, one of the most salient personalities in recent Russian history. Witte believed that Russia, the largest and most populous country in Europe, a world in itself, ought to be self-sufficient, that as long as it remained chiefly agricultural it would be tributary to the industrial nations for manufactured articles. But that the process of building up the nation's industries might be rapid, it was essential that a large amount of capital should be invested at once in the various industries, and this capital Russia did not possess. One of the cardinal features of Witte's policy was to induce foreign capitalists to invest in Russian factories and mines. All this created a considerable body of rich "industrials" of the middle class, of capitalists, in short, a rich bourgeoisie which would not permanently be content with entire exclusion from political power or with obsolete, narrow, illiberal forms of government.

Alexander III died in 1894, and was succeeded by his son, Nicholas II.

In the foreign policy of the empire Alexander III introduced considerable changes. During his father's reign its main objects were: in the west, the maintenance of the alliance with Germany; in south-east cm Europe, the recovery of what had been lost by the Crimean War, the gradual weakening of the Sultan's authority, and the increase of Russian influence among the minor Slav nationalities; in Asia, the gradual but cautious expansion of Russian domination.

In the reign of Alexander III. the first of these objects was abandoned. Already, before his accession, the bonds of friendship which united Russia to Germany had been weakened by the action of Bismarck in giving to the cabinet of St Petersburg at the Berlin congress less diplomatic support than was expected, and by the Austro-German treaty of alUance (October 1879), concluded avowedly forthe purpose of opposing Russian aggression; but the old relations were partly reestablished by secret negotiations in iSSo, by a meeting of the young tsar and the old emperor at Danzig in iSSi, and by the meeting of the three emperors at Skierniewice in 1884, by which the Three Emperors' League was reconstituted for a term of three years.

With regard to the German alliance, gradually, however, a great change took place in the tsar's views. He suspected Bismarck of harbouring hostile designs against Russia, and he came to recognize that the permanent weakening of France was not in accordance with Russian political interests. He determined, therefore, to oppose any further disturbance of the balance of power in favoui of Germany, and when the treaty of Skierniewice expired in 1887 he declined to renew it. From that time Russia gravitated slowly towards an alliance with France, and sought to create a counterpoise against the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria and Italy.

The tsar was reluctant to bind himself by a formal treaty, because the French government did not offer the requisite guarantees of stability, and because he feared that it might be induced, by the prospect of Russian support, to assume an aggressive attitude towards Germany. He recognized, however, that in the event of a great European war the two nations would in all probability be found fighting on the same side, and that if they made no preparations for concerted military action they would be placed at a grave disadvantage in comparison with their opponents of the Triple Alliance, who were believed to have already worked out an elaborate plan of campaign. In view of this contingency the Russian and French military authorities studied the military questions in common, and the result of their labours was the preparation of a military convention, which was finally ratified in 1894. During this period the relations between the two governments and the two countries became much more cordial. In the summer of 1891 the visit to Kronstadt of a French squadron under Admiral Gervais was made the occasion for an enthusiastic demonstration in favour of a Franco-Russian alliance; and two years later (October 1893) a still more enthusiastic reception was given to the Russian Admiral Avelan and his officers when they visited Toulon and Paris.

But it was not till after the death of Alexander III that the word "alliance" was used publicly by official personages. In 1895 the term was first publicly employed by M. Kibot, then president of the council, in the Chamber of Deputies, but the expressions he used were so vague that they did not entirely remove the prevailing doubts as to the existence of a formal treaty. Two years later (August 1897), during the official visit of M. Félix Faure to St Petersburg, a little more light was thrown on the subject. In the complimentary speeches delivered by the president of the French Republic and the tsar, France and Russia were referred to as allies, and the term "nations alliées" was afterwards repeatedly used on occasions of a similar kind.

In south-eastern Europe Alexander III adopted an attitude of reserve and expectancy. He greatly increased and strengthened his Black Sea fleet, so as to be ready for any emergency that might arise, and in June 1886, contrary to the declaration made in the Treaty of Berlin (Art. 59), he ordered Batum to be transformed into a fortified naval port, but in the Balkan Peninsula he persistently refrained, under a good deal of provocation, from any inteivention that might lead to a European war. The Bulgarian government, first under Prince Alexander and afterwards under the direction of M. Stamboloff, pursued systematically an anti-Russian policy, but the cabinet of St Petersburg confined itself officially to breaking off diplomatic relations and making diplomatic protests, and unofficially to giving tacit encouragement to revolutionary agitation.

In Asia, during the reign of Alexander III the expansion of Russian domination made considerable progress. A few weeks after his accession he sanctioned the annexation of the territory of the Tekke Turkomans, which had been conquered by General Skobelev, and in 1884 he formally annexed the Mcrv oasis without military operations. He then allowed the military authorities to push forward in the direction of Afghanistan, until in March 1885 an engagement took place between Russian and Afghan forces at Panjdeh. Thereupon the British government, which had been for some time carrying on negotiations with the cabinet of St Petersburg for a delimitation of the Russo-Afghan frontier, intervened energetically and prepared for war; but a compromise was effected, and after more than two years of negotiation a delimitation convention was signed at St Petersburg on 2oth July 1887. The forward movement of Russia was thus stopped in the direction of Herat, but it continued with great activity farther east in the region of the Pamirs, until another Anglo-Russian convention was signed in 1895. During the whole reign of Alexander III. the increase of territory in Central Asia is calculated by Russian authorities at 439,895 square kilometers.

On 1st November 1894 Alexander III. died, and was succeeded by his son, Nicholas II., who, partly from similarity of character and partly from veneration for his father's memory, continued the existing lines of policy in home and foreign affairs.