The assassination of the Tsar threatened the entire social and political system of the Russian empire. The first casualties in the campaign of the repression were Alexander II’s ministers, M.T. Loris-Melikov and N.P. Ignatiev, who left office. In their place came Pobodonostsev, head of the Orthodox Church and former tutor of Alexander III. As the Tsars chief minister and head of the church Pobodonostsev held enormous power, he was the organiser of the Tsars manifesto; it declared that absolute political power was held by the Tsar.
The immediate task of the Tsars new government was to destroy the terrorist group The Peoples Will; they planned to do this by introducing the statute of state security, this involved setting up government controlled courts for trying government enemies which meant the government could arrest political criminals and try them without a jury, those convicted faced execution or being exiled to Siberia. The Okhrana (secret police) was also set up as part of the statue of state security.
The government also took action to prevent the spread of radical and even liberal ideas. Press freedom was severely restricted, with fourteen major newspapers being banned between 1882 and 1889 for displaying ‘liberal’ tendencies. Foreign books and newspapers were also rigorously censored by the Okhrana in order to prevent dangerous foreign ideas, ideas such as democracy and parliamentary government, reaching the Russian people. Universities in particular were under strict government supervision, Fees were increased to only allow the very wealthy, and in in 1884 they lost self-control and became government controlled. Universities all over Russia were temporary closed in 1889 because of student demonstrations against government control. The Tsar also banned Women attending all higher education above 16 years old. However these policies did not eradicate groups such as the peoples will and they even made an attempt to assassinate Alexander III. In this crackdown the Okhrana arrested and executed a student called Alexander Ulyanov, also known as the brother of future Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. Alexander IIIs reactionary policies clearly had a dramatic long-term effect on his own dynasty. In 1918, on Lenin’s orders, Nicholas II and his entire family were murdered by the Bolsheviks.
Alexander III ruled over a multi-racial empire, and one way for him to bring unity and cohesion to even its far-flung corners was to adopt a policy of ‘Russification’ – insisting on the use of the Russian language. This policy had already been introduced late in the reign of the Tsar Alexander II, but it reached new peaks of execution under Alexander III. In 1885 Russian was made the official language of the empire. All official documents had to be in Russian, and all other languages were forbidden in schools, even when other races were in majority. Areas which were badly affected were Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. But the area that was one of the worst hit was central Asia’s (Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan) where many people were not only non-Russian but Muslim.
It was the Jews, however, who suffered most under Alexander III. The majority of Russias Jews lived in the ‘Jewish Pale’, which is now Belarus. Organised attacks on Jews greatly increased during the reign of Alexander III. These attacks (known as pogoroms) would involve a mob going into Jewish parts of town to beat, rob, rape and even kill Jews, Under Alexander III, many of these attacks were organised or approved by the government. Such was the intensity of persecution in the early 1890’s that thousands of Jews fled Russia for new lives in north America and Western Europe.
