IB 2010-2012

Analyse the strengths and weaknesses of Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century.
History Essay
Hannah Critchley 12/29/2011

The timeframe that will be considered for this question is between 1850-1900, this time includes the reigns of three Tsars: Alexander II, Alexander III and also Nicholas II. The timeframe ends just before the 1905 revolution which was an important time for tsarism and also Russia. There were many themes that ran throughout this vast time period and also throughout the three Tsars. The themes include repression, fate of reformers and the peasant problem these themes will be analysed for strengths and weaknesses and the effect that these strengths and weaknesses had on tsarism and Russia. Firstly, It could be argued that repression was a consistent theme seen during all three tsars reigns, however it is debatable whether it should be regarded as a strength or a weakness during the time period selected. Some may argue that it was a strength to tsarism; it enabled tsars to squash the opposition and meant that they had little or no competition, however this same tactic could be seen as being a weakness to tsarism as it was, in some cases, counterproductive and the opposition were more likely to form a group that would over throw the tsar. This can be seen in Alexander II s reign; firstly he reforms, for example the emancipation of the serfs, but then due to circumstances he becomes more reactionary and increases repression on the population. During the time where he increases repression and implements counter reforms there are more opposition groups that are seen to be plotting against the tsar. The formation of these opposition groups lead to the death of Alexander II, this shows a weakness of tsarism but it shows a strength in the Russian population as it is clear that they were not happy with the current state of affairs and were able to do something about it that would help them. Perhaps if there was a democracy in Russia at this time there would have been no strong opposition as they would have been able to channel their different views into a debate, but this would have been a weakness to tsarism and may not have worked for Russia who were used to being governed under an autocratic ruler. Another feature of repression during these times was censorship. As previously mentioned Alexander II introduced many reforms that would benefit the Russian population, censorship was one of these; he made it so that censorship was very low. People were able to read many kinds of books and newspapers and were, for once, able to see other people s opinions on how Russia should be governed. This was strength to Russia as they were finally able to see how other countries were dealing with modernisation, but it did mean that people were able to see that the autocratic way of ruling was not perhaps the best way of ruling. This lead to the formation of many opposition groups. When Alexander II realised that he was faced with opposition he counter reformed and tightened censorship again. This was a weakness to Russia as it was counterproductive and meant that the population had a taste of freedom which was shortly taken away. Russification was also a key area in which the tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II were able to enforce repression onto the population of Russia. Russification involved uniting all Russian people and in effect exiling all non Russian Nationals, including the Polish, and also non

Russian Orthodox Church religions, including Jews. For Russia the fact that all Russian people were to be united was a great strength, it would increase morale and strength as an army that would fight together if and when they had their next war, however at this time they were making sure that they would not enter a war with any nation and were doing their best to stay out of trouble so they did not need this anyway. The fact that other nationalities and religions were being lost or more clearly forced out of Russia was something that sounds like it would have been happening before the emancipation of the serfs this was a weakness to Russia and tsarism. It goes back to an almost feudal like approach to how to govern society and was not something that would, in any respect, benefit the tsar who was ruling at the time or the next tsar to rule as again the population would have had a taste of freedom and now be living to overthrow the tsars for taking it away. It could be argued that the fate of people who reform was a weakness to Russia. The fate of the reformer Alexander II, who was killed by opposition, was noted by his son Alexander III and impacted the way that he later governed Russia. He had seen how reformers were treated and was, in no circumstances, going to reform the way that his father had done. Also Witte, who was the minister of finance between 1892 and 1903 and for a short time prime minister, was considered a reformer of industrialisation. He put Russia on the Gold standard and was able to start to build the Trans-Siberian railway, but was later dismissed from duty. This was a weakness to Russia as they were unable to progress further and modernise as they would only go as far as they really had to before shutting down and stopping their reforms as they were scared of being overthrown for the benefit of Russia. Perhaps another weakness of Russia was the peasant problem / the structure of Russian society. There was no social mobility/class mobility, people who were serfs went on to be peasants and people who were nobles went on to be nobles and there was almost nothing in between. The creation of the industrial working class did mean that some peasants were able to work their way up and earn money and have some rights, but these were very limited and the majority of the population were still peasants. The reason that this was a weakness to Russia was because there was a successive failure to resolve the problem. None of the three tsars in the time period in question were able to resolve the problem and this reflected badly on the Russia and also the tsars and meant that modernisation of industry and also politics was not able to happen as fast as in other places. In conclusion it is hard to analyse whether there were more strengths or weaknesses during the second half of the nineteenth century in Russia as it totally depends whose side you look at each theme from. For the opposition to the tsars, the tsars weaknesses were their strengths and the oppositions weaknesses were the tsars strength. It would be clearer if, at the time, the people of Russia had known about the events that were to follow, for example, the revolutions of 1905 and also 1917 as they would have had something to work towards, but they did not know that these revolutions were to happen. With hindsight we

are able to see that some of the themes that ran in the second half of the 19th century did also run on into the 20th Century, for example Russification can now be clearly seen in both century s but it is unclear whether this should be regarded as a strength or a weakness of Russia. Perhaps one way to define whether tsarism was a strength or a weakness is to say that by the end of this time frame the reign of tsars was still in place, they had not yet been overthrown by opposition and the tendency for assassinations/attempts to assassinate didn t destroy the Romanov dynasty: this was a clear strength tsarism, however as we know from hindsight this was not perhaps a strength for Russia moving forward and having to modernise both industrially and politically in a short space of time.