Stolypin changed a number of things. His first change was a stick, in the form of military courts. These courts could sentence and hang a person on the spot, no questions asked. And if the dead were found not guilty, the grieving family would get an apology, and if they were lucky, a small amount of compensation. These courts did not benefit peasants at all. It just made their meek little lives even fuller of worry and fear. Next, Stolypin’s land reform was put in place. This was good for the richer peasants as it enabled them to buy other peasants land, with the help of loans from a peasant’s bank. However, for the poorer peasants whose land was bought, this reform left them as wanderers, travelling around the countryside looking for work. Some went to Siberia, after being promised a new home by the government, but when they got there, all they found was wasteland, all the good land had been bought by richer nobles.
The next method the Tsar used to govern Russia was also a stick. The Okhrana, who were the secret police, infiltrated people’s lives. They had spies everywhere, and would know very quickly about any planned riots, revolts, or protests. Then, they could tell the soldiers, who would go and put out the disturbance using violence.
Another tactic the Tsar used was censoring newspapers. He had promised freedom of speech, but newspapers were often fined for publishing anti-tsarist material, and frequently appeared with white spaces where they had been censored. This meant that people were less likely to be against the Tsar, as they were not reading newspapers that were constantly voicing bad opinions.
The October manifesto of 1905 was a rotten carrot. It promised the peasants and urban workers all that they had asked for. A parliament, shorter working hours and higher wages. The parliament however, had next to no power, and the higher wages and shorter days were short lived. By December, all the troops were back in Russia, having signed a peace treaty with Japan, and the Tsar soon put them to work crushing the people back down, lengthening hours and lowering wages. The carrot had turned rotten before the people had even had a proper bite.
Overall, I believe that the Tsar used more malicious ways of governing Russia than nice ones. I believe that had he been slightly kinder to his subjects, then he could probably have stayed in power for longer.
