An Era of Liberalism or an era of false liberalism, which is the most accurate description of Tsar King Alexander II's time in power?
An Era of Liberalism or an era of false liberalism, which is the most accurate description of Tsar King Alexander II’s time in power?
To a certain extent, Tsar King Alexander II was a false liberator, however from closer examination, it is not clear cut and there are strong arguments to suggest the contrary. The reasons for the view that Alexander was a false liberator are that firstly, the Crimean war saw Britain, France and Turkey dealt an unexpected and resounding defeat to Russia, who until then was regarded as a superpower. This therefore made change and reform inevitable? Secondly, his reforms were limited in scope and therefore did not reform all that was needed to be. Thirdly, and most importantly for the side for false liberation is the fact that Alexander was simply trying to pacify his people. The main points for Alexander being a liberator are that he made his reforms for genuine reasons; he wanted to bring Russia inline with the rest of Western Europe. Secondly His reforms were far reaching and he did reform as much as he could under difficult circumstances. Finally his reforms could be described as reactionary. During the course of my essay I plan to weigh up the arguments, both for liberalism and false liberalism and finally come to my own decision, explaining why I believe he did what he did. Alexander II was ‘isolated from his people, unpopular with the educated and cut off from the bulk of society…’
The Crimean war made Russia look like a ‘has been’ and a country suffering from an era of no industrial advancement. Of course we all know that the latter of the two statements were true, Russia was falling ell behind the rest of Western Europe industrially, economically and in some regards socially. All the Crimean war did for Russia was to show the Tsar these problems. Immediately Alexander started to reform, he let the number of university places rise and Nazimav project took place, allowing serfs their own land and lectures were permitted. However slavery abolishment is hardly mind blowing in its radical ness, people deserve freedom it is therefore just giving people a human right that was taken away from them, although the serfs got land, they had to pay a sort of mortgage on it anyway so rent was replaced with a mortgage. In fact only 50% of peasants made any sort of profit anyway. This point could therefore be described as simply attempting to pacify the people. As for the other point, surely universities need to be allowed to give lectures as other wise how are students supposed to learn. These reforms showed also show the limitedness of his reforms. The 1861 emancipation of the serfs was nothing more than a change in name for most, from serf to poverty stricken peasants. Alexander cancelled tax bills, but to the many of people who had arrears, it wouldn’t make much difference if they had to pay or not because they couldn’t do so anyway. The Tar knew this and so this reform could be described as a way of pacifying the many. Many historians believe that even though Russia’s largest social group, peasants, who accounted for 135 million of 180 million inhabitants of Russia, had no power in Russia in 1855 when Alexander II came to the throne, it was a matter of time before they got a voice and joined with the intelligentsia, workers and some of the left wing parts of the military to make a quest for power of Russia. This is why it is a common believe that Tsar Alexander’s reforms were to pacify a portentously life threatening group, and one who could change his, the church and many of the nobilities way of life, which they didn’t want, which is why they were very right wing.
