Another area that Alexander concentrated on was the army. Badly in need of reform after the defeats inflicted upon it by the Crimean War of 1854-56, Alexander initiated groundbreaking new measures to improve Russia's military capability. These were overseen primarily by Minister of War, Dimitry Milyutin He cut the "life sentence" service period from twenty-five years to only six. This improved the army's efficiency because there was a regular turnover of new recruits. Conscription was also introduced, so that all men aged twenty were eligible for service. The methods used by the army, particularly concerning discipline, were made much more humane. Corporal punishment was banned, and training regimes made more relaxed. Milyutin saw a link between the abolition of serfdom and Russia's new, more streamlined army. He saw them being conducive to each other. He once said: "Serfdom does not permit us to shorten the term of service." Another of Milyutin's great achievements was that the army was now more concerned with equality. The privileges that noble officers had previously received were stopped and no one could gain promotion or exemption from conscription on the grounds of class or wealth. As well as the army, the Russian navy, that was extremely backward compared with Western nations, was modernised. Sailing ships were replaced by steam-powered ones and, like the army, the navy was humanised: there was to be no corporal punishment. These reforms were carried out by Alexander's brother, Constantine.
Education was also dramatically reformed. Before the reign of Alexander II education had only been available to those who had the money to fund private tuition for their children. However, now, education was liberalised. Primary education was made available to all, improving literacy among the peasantry and other sections of society. Secondary education was also made available, providing teaching in modern languages, science and mathematics. Education in Russia had always been a careful balance between giving people the basic skills needed for life, but not teaching them so much that they learned to question the authority of the state, as this would have inspired revolution. Given this, it could be argued that Alexander II was a brave man to allow university lectures on philosophy and constitutional law. This was part of a general liberalisation in universities. They were allowed to have much more autonomy and freedom, and the numbers of students were once again allowed to rise. Surveillance operations that had previously been carried out by the secret police into the actions of liberal university lecturers and students were halted.
One area of Russian society that, before the accession of Alexander II, had been heavily biased in favour of the nobility, was the judicial system. Trials dealing with offences carried out by peasants had been carried out in secret, with no jury, by a landlord. The result was that the peasants received harsh sentences: either death or flogging, and landlords received little or no punishment for crimes that they had committed, because their cases were invariably tried by one of their friends. Alexander recognised this problem and as such revolutionised the judicial system in Russia. He made it less complicated than it had been before, and allowed the creation of a legal profession so that people had access to proper representation in court. Trials were to be held in public, and before a jury. This was to put an end to the summary form of "justice" that had previously been dispensed to many people. Evidence had to be presented orally, whereas previously it had been in writing. There was to be complete equality in the eyes of the law, and as far as possible, uniformity across Russia in the administration of justice. The public exposure of trials made corruption and cover-ups much less common. However, military courts were exempt from the reforms and still sat in private. The reforms in the Russian judicial system were effectively an extension of human rights. This policy was taken further by Alexander when he agreed to the issue of passports to many Russians. This meant that many could travel abroad for the first time.
One of the most important areas of Alexander's reforms was the economy and industry. Serfdom had impeded the creation of a large workforce, and, as such, the Russian economy had been almost completely agrarian. The abolition of serfdom allowed that situation to change, and a huge new workforce was suddenly created. Also, Russia's previously untouched deposits of coal and other raw materials began to be exploited. Central to the policy of industrialisation was the construction of railways. These were very useful. They allowed settlement of new areas (especially useful in Siberia), they allowed greater control over the country to be exercised by the tsar and they improved communication and made transportation of raw materials and industrial goods easier. Construction of railways in Russia began under Nicholas I but did not really take off until Alexander II came to the throne. In 1866 3,000 miles of railway track criss-crossed Russia. By 1883 that figure had climbed to 14,700 miles. Freight traffic carried by the railways underwent a similar explosion. In the same period it climbed from 3 million tons to 24 million tons. Under Alexander II Russia developed a large and important textile industry. Also, she began to produce large amounts of iron and steel, so important in the construction of railways, ships, armaments and factories. (By 1890 80% of Russia's new locomotives were built at home.) There were many metal works in the Ural Mountains and in the Donets Basin. Foreign entrepreneurs began to realise the potential that Russia had been hiding and started to establish new private companies there. Many Germans and Frenchmen established businesses in Russia, and the Swedish Nobel brothers introduced a huge oil works into Baku. Russia also became an exporter, less reliant on foreign imports. For example, grain exports rose nearly four times between 1860 and 1880, although this deprived many Russians of grain that they needed.
Nicholas I had maintained stringent censorship laws during his reign to prevent the Russian people from reading anything that might foster discontent or revolutionary feeling. Books, magazines and newspapers were tightly controlled. Alexander II, however, saw these measures as counter-productive and unnecessarily restrictive, so he relaxed them. Magazines and periodicals became much more common and more titles than ever were published. Similarly, more books were being published. 1,020 new titles were printed in 1855, compared with 1,836 in 1864. Literature began to be appreciated by a wider audience, as writers such as Tolstoy, Turgenev and Chernyshevsky found their way into print.
Although the early part of Alexander's reign was characterised by sweeping liberal reform, he later began to come under the influence of men such as Pobedonostev and as such began to favour a policy of reaction like that of his father and his son. This was for one simple reason. During the period of liberal reforms that Alexander initiated, pressure was being exerted upon him from a variety of opposition groups to act more decisively and to take his reforms to their logical conclusion: a parliament or at least a constitution. Alexander refused to go this far, however, and the pressure from groups such as the nihilists, populists and socialists to do so pushed him to reverse his previous policies and adopt a more reactionary stance. He also realised, through events such as Mad Summer of 1874, that the liberal atmosphere engendered in Russia was weakening his authority and people were beginning to question Tsarism. They were starting to hear about the freedom enjoyed by people in other countries, and realised that if they discarded autocracy they too could enjoy similar privileges. Several prominent intellectuals served to question the authority of the state, most famously, Alexander Herzen, lvan Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy.
As such, Alexander tightened up on censorship laws again. Freedom of the press, treated as corrosive to the absolute authority of the Tsar, was limited. Education began to be viewed as dangerous and subversive; a breeding ground for revolutionary ideologies. Dmitri Tolstoy, at the Ministry of Education, reined in educational liberalism. He said that students learning science were more likely than others to attempt to revolt against the Tsar, so he banned the teaching of science. University entries were limited again, and more and more trials began to be held in secret military courts, away from public scrutiny. The zemstva were robbed of much of their powers, and were prevented from raising the funds necessary for the reforms that they wished to carry out. Surveillance was stepped up in schools to identify would-be trouble makers, and imprisonment and exile were used as forms of punishment again. Between 1855 and 1875 approximately 250,000 people were exiled to Siberia. Large meetings were banned, and the Third Section (secret police) and agents provocateurs were used to apprehend those who would not accept the tsar's authority. The ordinary Russian people also began to fare worse in this period: in 1800 the Russian mortality rate had been 24 per 1000; in 1880 the figure stood at 35 per 1000.
Another negative feature of Alexander ll's reign was the increasingly violent nature of Russian society. This was provoked by his contradictory style of government, which angered many people, who translated their feelings into violence. This restlessness was epitomised by the murder of the Tsar himself in 1881. Under Alexander, groups such as People's Freedom, Black Partition and Land and liberty flourished, and went unchecked until they actually murdered the Tsar and were suppressed by Alexander III.
The nullification of many of his father's reforms was continued vigorously by Alexander Ill after his accession to the Russian throne in 1881 after Alexander ll's assassination. He ruled Russia in true dictatorial style and stamped out any small pockets of liberalism left over from Alexander ll's reign. He further limited the power of the zemstva, and appointed Land Commandants to oversee their running. They were effectively there to block any decisions made by the zemstva. Censorship was further tightened up and more inspectors were to be found in schools and universities. Universities were brought under state control and poorer people were prevented from attending them. Courses were made much harder to discourage people from going to university. A similar thing happened in the schools, which were forced to raise their fees to prevent the poorer classes gaining an education. Alexander Ill was a fierce nationalist and he was very harsh in his dealings with "non-Russian" nationalities within the Russian Empire. He subjected them to Russification and pogroms. He drove many Jews to the pale of settlement or even out of Russia into Germany and Austria. Alexander also removed all justices of the peace. Trials were now conducted, in many cases, by the Land Commandants.
Despite this image of a tyrannous bully, Alexander III did achieve one positive thing for Russia: he continued the alarmingly rapid process of industrialisation that had begun under the reign of Alexander II. Alexander lll's finance minister was Sergei Witte, a brilliant politician, who can claim much of the credit for Russia's belated industrial revolution. He secured the capital necessary for industrial expansion through loans from France, Germany and Great Britain. He masterminded the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and, under his authority, Russian industrial production trebled between 1885 and 1900.
In considering the original question, Alexander ll's reign was valuable for Russia as a whole. He showed the Russian people the humane side of autocracy. He relieved the suffering of many of his people. He restored some kind of equality to the Russian judicial system and an element of humanity to the army. He freed the serfs, and tried to bring Russia more into line with her western counterparts. He began a very important programme of industrialisation and economic revival. He transformed the flagging agrarian Russian economy into an industrial one. Although Alexander II and, later his son, repeated many of these reforms, the very fact that the Russian people had been allowed to see their effect for a short period of time was valuable in itself: it allowed them to have a taste of what life could possibly be like under a democratic government, if autocracy was discarded. This was vital in breeding a revolutionary movement in Russia, that eventually culminated in the events of 1917. This is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your view of autocracy. Many would say that it was a good thing to eliminate such a cruel form of government. Looked at in this way, Alexander II's reign was a positive thing for Russia.
Looked at in another way, though, Alexander ll's reign was neither good nor bad. He was self-contradictory, and this gives a very confusing picture of him as a man. He was unwise not to stick to one policy, either liberalism or reaction. His ambivalence caused much discontent and violence in his reign. He effectively gave the Russian people what they wanted with one hand and then took it away with the other. Many of his reforms did not have time to work properly because they were not in force long enough. This can be blamed on Alexander II, but also Alexander III.
Many of his reforms, like the emancipation of the serfs and the measures introduced in the army, however, were permanent and so of lasting worth for Russia. Most importantly, Alexander ll's industrial and economic policy was a good thing, and this was continued by Alexander III. Russia became recognised as an important industrial power in the world. So Alexander III did achieve things of lasting worth for Russia, but his reign was not as valuable as it might have been.
