'Despite revolutions and attempts to achieve reforms, autocratic rule was strengthened in both Russia and Germany in the years 1825 to 1939.' Assess the validity of this view.

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'Despite revolutions and attempts to achieve reforms, autocratic rule was strengthened in both Russia and Germany in the years 1825 to 1939.' Assess the validity of this view.The years 1825 1o 1939 in both Russia and Germany were characterised by the existence of authoritarian and autocratic government. Germany at this time did not exist, the areas which would become Germany in a loose confederation which included Austria. These states were however largely autocratic, and the unification of Germany culminated in an establishment dominated by oppressive Prussian elites and the authority of the Kaiser and his Chancellor. Little similar constitutional wrangling took place in Russia during this era, in which the century began much as it ended politically, with the Tsar and his advisers directing a slow and bloated bureaucracy with the vast majority of Russians excluded completely from political influence or expression. It is possible to argue, however, that the reforms and revolutions that took place in both Russia and Germany created genuine opportunities for political participation and a more equitable distribution of power. For example, the 1848 revolution in Prussia gave way to an elected assembly - although the electorate and seats were organised so as to give Junkers and the bourgeois massive overrepresentation. In Russia, again, the emancipation of the serfs, probably the most extensive single reform which took
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place during 19th century Russia, gave a huge majority of the population personal freedoms which had been denied them longer than the peasantry of virtually every other country in Europe; and the other reforms that Alexander II instituted - military, educational, and of censorship, all tended towards an easing of autocratic and repressive rule (for example the abolition of flogging as a punishment in the army and the loosening of censorship in universities and in general). Superficially these reforms did indeed seem to reduce the grip of the ruling establishments on social and political hegemony, but it is important to ...

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