The majority of the Russian population were illiterate, 80% of them being peasants. This was seen as a good thing by the tsar, as he did not then have to worry about the peasants, finding out about better standards of work, housing, political rights etc that are found in the rest of Europe. The tsar was more than happy to keep the majority in very poor conditions, as they knew no other lifestyle and could therefore not want anything else.
On the other hand, a downfall of this lack 0f education was that the tsar could not promote either himself or his religious, political and social beliefs. It was because of this that the tsar relied so heavily on the support of the church and its influence.
The majority of European Russia were Russian Orthodox; a branch of Christianity which had been completely independent of any outside authority since the 15th century. By the time Nicolas 11 came to power the ethos of the church had changed into that of a conservative body, completely opposed to political change and utterly committed to preserving the tsarist system.
Because of this, the tsar was able to use the church to his advantage, because of his Devin Right, in the promotion of his propaganda. The church was the most effective way of doing this, due to the mass illiterate population. These peasants were dependant on the priests for everything; their religious views, their social opinions and of course the reconfirmation of Devin Rights that made the tsar who he was. This was the belief that God had decided into which social class you would be born. You were born a peasant because that was Gods will. This therefore meant that if you happened to be born into the royal family and became tsar, you were only one step down from God himself. Because of this it was easy for the tsar to keep the peasants downtrodden. If God had wanted people to lead better lives, he would have had them born into different social classes.
There is however a slight implication to this, an in 1861, Alexander 11 brought about the emancipation of the serfs, allowing them to be released from bondage to live as peasants. This “jump” from serf to peasant came at a high price. The government raised the tax on property sales to increase the revenue that was needed to compensate the landowners for the loss of their serfs. Money was available to the peasants from the government, but this left them with mortgages so large they and their families would be paying it for generations.
The tsar also abused the control he had over the church and the peasants with the introduction of Russification. This was an attempt by Alexander 111 to unite the whole of Russia. This was an endeavour to minimise the effect of the minority nationalities that were living in Russia. It was decided that Russian would be the official language with all business and political circles using Russian only. Russian Orthodox was to be recognised as the religion of all Russians, disregarding other religions such as Christianity, Catholicism and Judaism. Alexander 111 was trying to maintain the dominance of Russian values at the expense of other cultures.
It was during this time also, that the discriminatory actions against non-Russians became more predominate. Although this had always happened, never before had it been publicised the way it was being done now. Thousands of people were persecuted because of these ideals; Poles, Finns, Ukrainians etc but it was the Jews who suffered the most during this time, with over 600 new measures implemented to impose social, political and economic restricti0ns on their population. They were also the subjects of severe Anti-Semitism and therefore the attacks they received from Pogroms were harsh and extremely violent. Jews were ideal scapegoats for the Russians, if anything went wrong it was far easier to blame it on the Jews rather than having to look closer to home, which may throw the tsars reputation into disrepute. It also enabled a release of frustration for some Russians. If anything happened that the peasants didn’t understand and that the church could not explain, it was blamed on the Jews. This type of scapegoating was not just verbal; it resulted in the wounding and killing of Jewish people and the destruction of their property. What made this persecution worse was that both the tsar and the church promoted it. The Russian peasants were both naive and ignorant, having a similar mind-set of the medieval peasants here in the UK. They believed in witchcraft and evil forces as well as being very fatalistic; they believed they had no control over their lives, due to the Devin Right. It was therefore easy for the church to promote the alleged guilt of the Jews.
It has been said that the Russification policy was introduced at exactly the wrong time. The tsar was trying to unite Russia, however he decided that half its population should be treated as inferior, due to their ethnic background. It is therefore no surprise that during the late 19th century a large influx of Jews joined the various revolutionary groups and in 1897 they had formed their own “Bund” or union. Other groups and unions began to for across Russia. Many of the disillusioned nationalists such as the Georgians and the Poles also joined revolutionary groups, as they too wanted to break away from Imperial Russia. In 1905 large unions of workers gathered to protest about the appalling conditions they were forced to live and work in. Despite the tsars’ attempts to keep his people in the dark about alternative political and social standards, it was inevitable that eventually people would find out. Many of the workers in the larger cities formed their own unions before the Intelligentsia began to really make waves and gather people together to push for a new Russia.
Although I have only covered a few areas of the tsarist system in this essay, I feel I have highlighted some of the key points. It is easy to see how the tsars had stayed in absolute power for so l0ng. However due to the advancement of the rest of the world, Russia could not stay lurking in the middle ages for much longer. It could be said that the Intelligentsia were simply doing what all other Europeans governments were doing for their country, trying to push it forward as much as possible. Industry did not appear to be of any major concern for any of the tsars. For years they had the opportunity to really make something out of the areas of farmland that were productive, even though this was a relatively small area in comparison to the size of Russia and its population. However the tsar enforced such high taxes onto the peasants that the only real chance they had of owning any land was to live in Mir’s, a commune system where all land was shared, thus giving no incentive to make the land work to the best of its abilities.
I feel that if the rest of the world had not made such great advancements in industry and human rights, Russia would have maintained its safe cocoon of autocratic rule. However world advancement cannot be blamed for the blunders of the tsars and their advisors. For too long they survived through fear and intimidation, dependant on their reputation and authority, despite the fact they did nothing worthwhile to earn this respect. It is therefore not surprising that eventually the tsarist system fell.
