Moreover the serf owners would exploit serf labour to produce cheap grain for the market. However due the lack of transportation in Russia, serf owners were forced to sell produce at local markets instead of the bigger markets causing prices for produce to be very low which in affect effecting the economical growth of Russia. Instead as is quoted in “the advantage of free labour in theory”, Tsar Alexander II should have encouraged peasants to become petty entrepreneurs and it was not wrong to suppose that once the Serfs became free they would be lazy, instead they would work even harder to ensure they were fed and had a stable income enabling the economy to boom, as a result this gave Tsar Alexander II a strong reason to emancipate the Tsars.
Nevertheless the poor economy of Russia meant that the military could not be modernised or reformed. The country was experiencing a low economic rate of growth due to poor production, as a result it caused transportation to be poor which directly effected businesses that were not able to transport goods as well as the military who were not able to transport supplies across Russia efficiently in comparison to the French and English. Moreover the military was predominantly made up of Serfs; hence many nobles feared a peasant rebellion via the army. If Russia was to avoid a revolution and remain a major military power, Serfdom had to be removed, in the good for the countries defence as a world power. As a result many historians argue that the causation of the Emancipation of the Serfs, was due to the fact “it is better to abolish Serfdom from above rather than wait until it abolished itself from below” in other words it was more sensible for Alexander II to emancipate the Serfs through his authority than it was for him to wait until they took liberation into their own hands via the military. Therefore the emancipation of the Serfs was a means for Tsar Nicholas II to ensure that the there was not a peasant revolution as many peasant revolutions had swept through Europe (e.g., French Revolution) this threatened the Russian autocracy as they feared similar practices were to occur in Russia, if the Serfs were not Liberated.
Serfdom was seen as (quoted by Nicholas I) a “flagrant of evil” hence it was identified that Serfdom was morally wrong and it should be abolished, despite the fact that “Serfdom was part of life”.
The emancipation of the Serfs occurred due to several factors all of which can be debated amongst importance and significance. It can be argued that the causation of the Serfs being liberated by Tsar Alexander II were to with economic, political, military and moral concerns. Nevertheless the idea of Tsar Nicholas II being labelled as a Tsar Liberator is strongly debated. In order for someone to be known or portrayed as a Liberator, they must give freedom to a person/group. The freedom received by the Serfs many feel left them worse off.
Despite this so called Liberation of the Serfs occurring it was not the Serfs who were benefiting but more so the landlords. This was the case as the statues proposed that through emancipation of the Serfs, the Serfs were able to buy the land they worked on by paying redemptions over 49 years at an interest rate of 6%. The land, which they received, was usually narrow strips of poor land, which was not very fertile.
It is significant to take into account that despite the fact the Serfs were given personal freedom, they were not free in the sense that they were initially paid a very small amount for their work. Hence the Serfs were naturally financially instable; therefore it was ironic that such interest was placed on their land as they were not able to pay off their 49-year redemption including the interest placed on their land. As a result many Serfs found themselves in a worse off situation to the extent where their children were brought up on the burden of having to pay off the excess (and not achievable) redemptions in relation to the land. As a result many historians argue that the state in which the Serfs lived in prior to emancipation was far better than that of when they became “liberated”.
Moreover serf owners became better off due to the liberation despite the fact that they lost their serfs. This was the case because the redemption payments made the serf owners financially stronger in relation to when the low productive serfs worked for them.
The intentions behind emancipation were not based on humanitarian concerns hence Tsar Alexander II cannot be labelled as the Tsar Liberator as his reasons for setting the Serfs free were not intentional in the sense he did not see the moral concerns facing Serfdom. More over the so-called liberation did not really lead to the Serfs living a better and freer life. Instead many Serfs were left in a worse off situation in comparison to the serf owners who were benefiting from the emancipation. The Serfs despite being legally free were tied to their land, as they were not able to sell their share of allotment land to others. Instead the process was seen as liberation because in literal terms it is correct to say that Tsar Alexander II had liberated the Serfs but the liberation was not intentional nor was it real liberation and genuine liberty towards the Serfs.
However it can be correct to name Alexander II as the Tsar liberator as freedom was given to the women who were delighted by the fact that they were no longer forced to supply their owner with goods. A strong source to back this up is evident the Document 3.6. It clearly identifies how the Serfs were happy by the fact that they were no longer under their owners control, this strongly favours the Tsars label of being a Tsar Liberator as the source clearly portrays that a minority of peasants felt they were set free hence Alexander II’s liberator status is correct.
Moreover if the peasants had not been given genuine liberty however small it may have been surely the peasant disturbances would have remained high, but instead the disturbances had died away to a distant rumble for forty years after 1862.
As a historian it is important to make comparisons to other liberators and compare why they were given such a status and what they did which may have caused them to receive such a label. President Lincoln was seen as the black man’s saviour as he had liberated the slaves.
However historians fail to realise that Lincolns initial intentions were similar to those of Tsar Alexander’s on a smaller scale as is made evident in the following extract,
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it"
Therefore one can argue that despite Lincoln not having genuine intentions to freeing the Slaves due to the fact he did free the slaves, he was known as a Liberator, despite the fact it took 3 years for the black slaves to actually be accepted in society (however this can also be argued as many areas of America still have supremacy white rule).
Alexander II had similar intentions in the sense he was out to improve Russia and as a result felt it was best that the Serfs were emancipated, isn’t it right to label him also as a liberator as he did literally set the Serfs free as had done Lincoln. Moreover it can be argued that in America the black slaves evidently witnessed a better life (despite it taking several years) whereas the Serfs were witnessing a worse life hence it was the consequences of the liberation of the Serfs which caused Alexander II’s Liberator label to be questioned.
Overall despite the Serfs receiving no genuine liberty one can argue that liberation did occur in the sense that an individual no longer owned the Serfs. However the extent of liberation is questioned by the situation of which the Serfs were left in as a consequence of emaciation. Russia had promised to give a new dawn to the Serfs but then left them in darkness.
Nevertheless historians such as Terence Emmons describe Alexander II and the reforms as “probably the greatest single piece of state directed engineering in modern European history before the twentieth century. In conclusion I believe that despite Liberation was given on a general basis to the Serfs the way in which Liberation was given to them put the Serfs back to their social hierarchy in society as the benefit which occurred from the Liberation were very minimal and instead of making the Serfs better off caused them to become worse off. Hence it is a bit optimistic to call Alexander II a Tsar Liberator when infact his intentions for liberating the Serfs were more to do with pragmatic concern regarding Russia’s economy, military and world status, than they were to do with giving the Serfs genuine liberty.
Bibliography
History Review, Novel 47, Dec 2003 publish history today pages 28-32
Imperial and Soviet Russia- power, privilege and the challenge of modernity, David Christian
More specifically Chapter 3
Russia 1848-1917, Heinemann advanced history, Jonathan Bromley
Imperial and Soviet Russia, page 72
Imperial and Soviet Russia, page 73
Russia 1848-1917, page 12
Imperial and Soviet Russia, page 73
History Review novel 47, page 30
Russia 1848-1917, page 29
History Review novel 47, page 30, 31, 32,
Russia 1848-1917
Imperial and Soviet Russia, page 82
http://bedfordstmartins.com/historymodules/modules/mod17/main.htm
History Review novel 47, page 30
History Review novel 47, page 31
Imperial and Soviet Russia, page 71
