Government reforms of Alexander II of Russia

By far the most important was the Emancipation reform of 1861 which freed the 23 million serfs from an inferior legal and social status, and helped them buy farmland.

Further important changes were made concerning industry and commerce, and the new freedom thus afforded produced a large number of limited liability companies.

[7] Reorganisation of the judiciary occurred to include trial in open court, with judges appointed for life, a jury system and the creation of justices of the peace to deal with minor offences at local level.

Legal historian Sir Henry Maine credited Alexander II with the first great attempt since the time of Grotius to codify and humanise the usages of war.

The Tsar decided to abolish serfdom from above, setting up a new system whereby the state would be able to purchase farmland from the landowners and sell it to the freed serfs.

The Tsar told Moscow nobles: “Better that the reform should come from above than wait until serfdom is abolished from below.”[9] Historians have debated Alexander's role.

His top advisors included Count Michael von Reutern, Finance Minister, 1862-1878, and the brothers Nikolay Milyutin (1818-1872).

[11][12] Boris Chicherin (1828-1904) was a political philosopher who believed that Russia needed a strong, authoritative government by Alexander to make possible all the important reforms that did take place.

He praised Alexander for the range of his fundamental reforms, arguing that the tsar was: In 1858 he removed most of the censorship restrictions on the media—newspapers, magazines, books and pamphlets, resulting in an explosion of new publications.

[14][15][16] The emancipation reform of 1861 that freed 23 million serfs was the single most important event in 19th-century Russian history, and the beginning of the end for the landed aristocracy's monopoly of power.

The peasants who stayed on the land were obliged to make redemption payments to their obshchina (the village mir, or commune) over a 49-year period.

[19][20] Revolutionaries calling themselves Narodnaya Volya (the People's Will) made multiple attempts to assassinate Alexander II, and they succeeded in 1881.

They proposed that emancipation of the serfs, financed by the government, would provide the gentry and the nobles with capital to invest in the sort of economic opportunities that were being demonstrated in Western Europe.

The gentry would then have the capital to begin entirely new enterprises not restricted by the low returns to farming in the cold Russian climate.

In late 1858 Alexander II set up a commission to study emancipation and the liberal ideas proved attractive.

Payments were calculated for 49½ years, and in some cases had to be made before 1931, but were canceled on 1 January 1907 as part of the Stolypin agrarian reform under the influence of the revolution in 1905.

The main results were the introduction of a unified judicial system instead of a cumbersome set of estates of the realm courts, and fundamental changes in criminal trials.

The latter included the establishment of the principle of equality of the parties involved, the introduction of public hearings, the jury trial, and a professional advocate that had never existed in Russia.

Also, the reform was hindered by extrajudicial punishment, introduced on a widespread scale during the reigns of his successors – Alexander III and Nicholas II.

[32][33] Naval reforms were also attempted, however inexperienced private Russian shipyards were used to build a modern steel fleet.

Alexander II also made the mistake of putting his brother in charge of the Navy, and then playing his ministers against each other to save money.

[37] The extreme difficulties of financing the Crimean War, and the military weakness caused by an ineffective railway system, made economic reforms a high priority.

Mass protests erupted across Finland in 1898 when Tsar Nicholas II reversed the policy and made Russian the official language.

However special taxes on Jews were eliminated and those who graduated from secondary school were permitted to live outside the Pale of Settlement, and became eligible for state employment.

[49] Alexander firmly believed he had the God-given duty to rule as an autocrat, and that he alone understood the best interests of all of the people of Russia.

In sharp contrast, the remainder of his term after 1865 saw the growing strength of conservatives and reactionaries who reversed or limited many of the reforms.

[51] Historian Orlando Figes has argued: According to Russian scholar Larisa Zakharova: In Russia, the bulk of serious commentary on the emancipation of the serfs was highly favorable before 1917, With Alexander playing a central role.

Soviet historians minimized Alexander and the other personalities , arguing that the crisis in feudalism forced the rulers to compromise.

The key Leninist interpretation was that the concessions were merely a tactical response to a concerted attack on the status quo by rural masses and their urban allies.