Russian Realpolitik: The Great Reform

As for Austria, the Crimean War was a cataclysm for Russia. Defeat in a war on home turf shook
the tsarist autocracy to its very foundations. The military machine - staunch supporter of autocracy,
serfdom, and the Dike - was revealed to be corrupt, inefficient, backwards and hopelessly outdated.
Although the Russian army fought bravely, even heroically, it was not enough to bring victory in
the “first” modern war. Defeat brought into sharp focus the glaring deficiencies of the pillars of
19th century Russia: autocracy and serfdom.
The definition of autocracy included the conception of no checks whatsoever upon the unlimited
power of the ruler, in this case of the Tsar. There existed in 19th century Russia before the Great
Reform - and indeed after it - no constitutional or institutional limitations upon tsarist authority.
There existed no tradition of social contract or reciprocity between the rights and duties of ruler and
ruled. The rulers tended to be arrogant, while the populace tended to be cringing and servile. The
Tsar did not rule according to the law, nor was he bound by the law: he was the law. Even Louis
XIV in his most flagrant assertions of divine right royal absolutism had not the power of a tsar.
Whimsical ideas of liberals regarding civil rights, freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion
were viewed in Russia as pernicious and subversive.
In 19th century Russia, serfdom tied the rural peasantry to the soil upon which they worked but
which they did not own. By the 18th century, serfdom had evolved into virtual slavery according to
which the serfs could be bought and sold by their land - lords off the land; they had become chattels
- articles of property - which could be separated from home, family and traditional villages to work
in mines, mills, factories or the worst fate of all, into the army. The serfs had no legal identity under
the law, no recourse for expression of their grievances to an authority higher than their landlord. In
Russia, in the middle of the 19th century, approximately fifty-two million serfs (defined either as
private or state serfs) made up a majority of the Russian population. On the eve of Emancipation in
1861, Serfdom was the primary evil in Russia (next to its tweedledum, Autocracy). The autocratic
power of the tsars was tied to the aristocratic privilege of owning serfs which ensured aristocratic
control of the countryside. For the most part, the Russian gentry/aristocracy clung to serfdom as
their guarantee of prestige, wealth and power and did not respond to the heady, liberal and radical
ideas of their Western counterparts.
In the 19th century, a third institution emerged to challenge the twin evils of serfdom and autocracy;
this was the intelligentsia. The Russian intellectuals, by their education and their reforming zeal,
were cut off from their gentry roots. To a large extent they were superfluous; they criticized the
basic institutions of the society which enabled them to study and write; they were feared by the
tsarist bureaucracy and prevented from serving a nation which they loved and reforming a system
which they despised. Indeed, the intelligentsia were even isolated from the serfs whose cause they
so enthusiastically espoused: the intelligentsia spoke and wrote in French; the serfs spoke Russian
and were largely illiterate; the intelligentsia were Western in attitude and motivation; the serfs were
deeply religious and adoring of the tsar, their “little father.” When the intelligentsia turned to
violence and assassination, they frightened and alienated the peasant-serfs who were disinterested in
political and constitutional issues and wanted only land.
Alexander II (1855—1881) succeeded his broken and disillusioned father Nicholas 1, to the throne
of a crumbling Russia reeling from the defeats in the Crimean War in 1855. Enraged by the colossal
ingratitude of Austria’s Franz Josef, but unable to do anything about it at the time, faced with
widespread rural discontent and facing a possible mutiny, Alexander sued for peace and acceded to
the humiliating terms of the Peace of Paris in 1856.
A Realpolitiker himself, Alexander II knew that change had to come, and come quickly or his own
throne and possibly his head were in jeopardy. Tsar Alexander I announced that the first order of
business was the emancipation of Russia’s fifty-two million serfs. The announcement came in
1855; the actual Emancipation Manifesto was promulgated in February, 1861 (pre-dating by a year
Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1862). The Imperial Ukase of 1861 abolished
serfdom; Alexander II, the Tsar-Liberator, freed the serfs from above before they freed themselves

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from below. In the context of realpolitik, Alex, the Tsar-Liberator, reformed to prevent Revolution.
He made whatever concessions were necessary to preserve the basic integrity of his autocratic
power. Nevertheless, the Emancipation Manifesto marked the opening salvo in the epochal Great
Reform which made long overdue reforms in many other facets of the Russian economy and
society.
Alexander II freed the serfs with land; recognizing that they were farmers and could not survive off
the land, the Imperial Ukase made provision for the transfer of state and some gentry lands to the
village communes which, in turn, parceled the land out among the rural heads-of-household. The
land was held in collective ownership by the village as a whole rather than by the individual peasant
proprietor; the heads-of-household then decided how much land was allotted to each family and
upon its periodic redistribution. These ruling elders also collected the taxes, provided men for the
draft, issued internal passports, paid the redemption dues, and operated as the connecting link
between the government in St. Petersburg and the peasant in the village. Although the peasants
were freed from serfdom, they were “free” only the vaguest sense of the word: they were not free to
travel, to find work in the cities, or to leave the commune.
As part of the Great Reform and subsequent to the Emancipation Manifesto, Alexander II, the Tsar-
Liberator, proceeded to attack other obsolete institutions. He ordered the overhauling and
revamping of the judicial system with an eye to improving the administration of justice. He
established a sequence of lower and higher courts; public trials for most kinds of cases (excluding
morals, blasphemy, and treason); the jury system for some kinds of cases; equality under the law for
all except peasants, the clergy, and the military - all of whom had their own judicial apparatus.
The Zemstvo Reform of 1864 provided for elected officials at the local, district, and provincial
levels to address local, district, and provincial problems. This effort to decentralize was aimed at
greater efficiency: it put local problems into the hands of local officials who would know best and
care most about their solution. Zemstvo officials concerned themselves with health care, schools,
roads, sanitation and the like.
Although Alex, the Tsar—Liberator, made a few gestures in the direction of civil liberties,
educational reform and concessions to Poland, his basic view of government remained paternalistic
and autocratic. For the Tsar to initiate reform was praise worthy; for the people to demand more
was treason. The Tsar had rights; the people had duties. In essence, Alexander’s reforms were
designed to give away as much as necessary but as little as possible in order to preserve the existing
order. He reformed to prevent revolution and then withdrew gradually the reforms as soon as it was
politic to do so.
For example: Poland. In 1855, Alexander II pledged to relax the Orthodoxy- Nationality-Autocracy
policy so rigidly enforced upon that unhappy land by his father, Nick the Stick. He made some
vague promises regarding the Organic Statute, constitutional reform, possibly an autonomous
Poland within the framework of the Russian Empire, including concessions regarding the Polish
language and the Polish Catholic Church. He even hinted at an examination of Polish secondary and
university education. The Poles, however, ungrateful wretches, wanted nothing to do with
piecemeal, stopgap concessions: they wanted unity, freedom, sovereignty; they wanted the
permanent evacuation of all Russian troops and officials. In 1863, Poland was engulfed in yet
another tragic, doomed, romantic, nationalistic revolution.
Poor sacrificial Poland - drunk on romantic nationalism - expected aid from Napoleon III (it will be
recalled that Napoleon III posed as the “friend of the nationalities”) in 1863. As he had aided
Cavour against Austria, the Polish nationalists expected Napoleon to help them throw off the yoke
of Russian oppression. Why did the Polish nationalists think help was coming? Because the
exuberant French press led them to think so; because Empress Eugenie voiced outspoken sympathy
and support for the Polish cause. However, French support did not materialize, but Russian troops
did. The Russian army poured into Poland, and the rebellion was ruthlessly crushed. Russification
went back into effect; the word Poland was forbidden. Thousands emigrated. Again, Poland existed
only in the hearts of the Poles.

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In 1863, the Iron Chancellor, Bismarck, pledged cooperation and support to Alexander II in his
crushing of the Polish insurrection; in return for this support, Bismarck gained pledges from
Alexander II - in the Alvensleben Convention - that Russia would stand aside in the event of an
outbreak of hostilities between Prussia and Austria over Holstein and the German Confederation.
Indeed, Alex did stand aside when Prussia and Austria went to war in 1867. Franz Josef paid a high
price for his betrayal and ingratitude during the Crimean War.
The last reform in Alexander II’s Great Reform concerned itself with the military. In 1874,
Alexander’s minister, Dmitry Milyutin, copied the example of Bismarck, Moltke and Roon in
Prussia in the early 1860’s. The Russian Military Reform of 1874 provided for conscription; new
weapons and uniforms were adopted; education, drill and sensible rather than senselessly cruel
discipline practices were introduced into the ranks. Reading, writing and patriotism were inculcated
at the conscript level to correct one of the great problems of the Crimean War army that “serfs make
stupid soldiers”. The caliber of the army, its dash, its zeal and quality were dramatically and swiftly
improved - as would be amply demonstrated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. After the Military
Reform, the major problems of the Russian army derived from Russia’s technological and industrial
backwardness.
The Great Reform of Alexander II, the Tsar-Liberator, was the result of necessity rather than good
will. His motive was to stave off revolution and to protect autocracy. The intelligentsia, at first
heartened and encouraged by the early promise of Alex’ reign, envisioned a liberalization of the
regime - the very thought of which was terrifying to Alexander II. By the mid-1860’s Alexander
had become disillusioned, as the intelligentsia also became disillusioned. He became increasingly
reactionary; they became increasingly cynical and revolutionary. In the 1870s they turned once
again to violence and terror; by the end of the century, they were reading Marx.