Alexander,
the eldest son of Tsar Nicholas I, was born in Moscow on 17th April,
1818. Educated by private tutors, he also had to endure rigorous military
training that permanently damaged his health.
In 1841
he married Marie Alexandrovna, the
daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt. Alexander became Tsar
of Russia on the death of his father in 1855. At the time Russia was
involved in the Crimean
War and
in 1856 signed the Treaty of Paris that brought the conflict to an
end.
The Crimean
War made
Alexander realize that Russia was no longer a great military power.
His advisers argued that Russia's serf-based economy could no longer
compete with industrialized nations such as Britain and France.
Alexander
now began to consider the possibility of bringing an end to serfdom
in Russia. The nobility objected to this move but as Alexander told
a group of Moscow nobles: "It is better to abolish serfdom from
above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself
from below.
In 1861
Alexander issued his Emancipation Manifesto
that proposed 17 legislative acts that would free the serfs in Russia.
Alexander announced that personal serfdom would be abolished and all
peasants would be able to buy land from their landlords. The State
would advance the the money to the landlords and would recover it
from the peasants in 49 annual sums known as redemption payments.
Alexander
also introduced other reforms and in 1864 he allowed each district
to set up a Zemstvo. These were local
councils with powers to provide roads, schools and medical services.
However, the right to elect members was restricted to the wealthy.
Other reforms
introduced by Alexander included improved municipal government (1870)
and universal military training (1874). He also encouraged the expansion
of industry and the railway network.
Alexander's
reforms did not satisfy liberals and radicals who wanted a parliamentary
democracy and the freedom of expression that was enjoyed in the United
States and most other European states. The reforms in agricultural
also disappointed the peasants. In some regions it took peasants nearly
20 years to obtain their land. Many were forced to pay more than the
land was worth and others were given inadequate amounts for their
needs.
In
1876
a group of reformers established Land and Liberty.
As it was illegal to criticize the Russian government, the group had
to hold its meetings in secret. Influenced by the ideas of Mikhail
Bakunin,
the group published literature demanding that Russia's land should
be handed over to the peasants.
Some reformers
favoured a policy of terrorism to obtain reform and on 14th April,
1879, Alexander Soloviev, a former schoolteacher,
tried to kill Alexander. His attempt failed and he was executed the
following month. So also were sixteen other men suspected of terrorism.
The government
responded to the assassination attempt by appointing six military
governor-generals that imposed a rigorous system of censorship on
Russia. All radical books were banned and known reformers were arrested
and imprisoned.
In October,
1879, the Land and Liberty split into two
factions. The majority of members, who favoured a policy of terrorism,
established the People's Will. Soon afterwards
the group decided to assassinate Alexander. The following month Andrei
Zhelyabov and Sophia Perovskaya
used nitroglycerine to destroy the Tsar train. However, the terrorist
miscalculated and it destroyed another train instead. An attempt the
blow up the Kamenny Bridge in St. Petersburg as the Tsar was passing
over it was also unsuccessful.
The next
attempt on Alexander's life involved a carpenter, Stefan
Khalturin, who had managed to find work in the Winter Palace.
Allowed to sleep on the premises, each day he brought packets of dynamite
into his room and concealed it in his bedding.
On 17th
February, 1880, Khalturin constructed a mine in the basement of the
building under the dinning-room. The mine went off at half-past six
at the time that the People's Will had calculated
Alexander would be having his dinner. However, his main guest, Prince
Alexander of Battenburg, had arrived late and dinner was delayed and
the dinning-room was empty. Alexander was unharmed but sixty-seven
people were killed or badly wounded by the explosion.
The People's
Will contacted the Russian government and claimed they would call
off the terror campaign if the Russian people were granted a constitution
that provided free elections and an end to censorship. On 25th February,
1880, Alexander announced that he was considering granting the Russian
people a constitution. To show his good will a number of political
prisoners were released from prison. Loris Melikof, the Minister of
the Interior, was given the task of devising a constitution that would
satisfy the reformers but at the same time preserve the powers of
the autocracy.
At the
same time the Russian Police Department established a special section
that dealt with internal security. This unit eventually became known
as the Okhrana. Under the control of
Loris Melikof, the Minister of the Interior, undercover agents began
joining political organizations that were campaigning for social reform.
In January,
1881, Loris Melikof presented his plans to Alexander. They included
an expansion of the powers of the Zemstvo.
Under his plan, each zemstov would also have the power to send delegates
to a national assembly called the Gosudarstvenny Soviet that would
have the power to initiate legislation. Alexander was concerned that
the plan would give too much power to the national assembly and appointed
a committee to look at
the scheme in more detail.
The People's
Will became increasingly angry at the failure of the Russian government
to announce details of the new constitution. They therefore began
to make plans for another assassination attempt. Those involved in
the plot included Sophia Perovskaya,
Andrei Zhelyabov, Gesia
Gelfman, Nikolai Sablin, Ignatei
Grinevitski, Nikolai Kibalchich,
Nikolai Rysakov and Timofei
Mikhailov.
In February,
1881, the Okhrana discovered that their
was a plot led by Andrei Zhelyabov
to kill Alexander. Zhelyabov was arrested but refused to provide any
information on the conspiracy. He confidently told the police that
nothing they could do would save the life of the Tsar.
On 1st
March, 1881, Alexander was travelling in a closed carriage, from Michaelovsky
Palace to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. An armed Cossack sat
with the coach-driver and another six Cossacks followed on horseback.
Behind them came a group of police officers in sledges.
All along
the route he was watched by members of the People's
Will. On a street corner near the Catherine Canal Sophia
Perovskaya gave the signal to Nikolai
Rysakov and Timofei Mikhailov to
throw their bombs at the Tsar's carriage. The bombs missed the carriage
and instead landed amongst the Cossacks. The Tsar was unhurt but insisted
on getting out of the carriage to check the condition of the injured
men. While he was standing with the wounded Cossacks another terrorist,
Ignatei Grinevitski, threw his bomb.
Alexander was killed instantly and the explosion was so great that
Grinevitski also died from the bomb blast.
Of the
other conspirators, Nikolai Sablin committed
suicide before he could be arrested and Gesia
Gelfman died in prison. Sophia Perovskaya,
Andrei Zhelyabov, Nikolai
Kibalchich, Nikolai Rysakov and Timofei
Mikhailov were hanged on 3rd April, 1881.
(1)
Stephen Graham, Alexander II (1935)
To give the land (to the serfs) meant to ruin the
nobility, and to give freedom without land meant to ruin the peasantry.
The state treasury impoverished by the vast expenses of war, could
not afford to indemnify either party. There lay the problem. Could
the serfs made to pay for their freedom? Could the serf-owners be
granted loans on the security of their estates? Would not twenty-two
million slaves suddenly set free combine to take matters into their
own hands.
The position
of most large landowners was this. They lived in St. Petersburg or
some other great city. They did not farm their estates. They had stewards
who administered their property and collected their revenue. They
had numbers of serfs paying a handsome annual tribute for their partial
freedom, a tribute which the landowners' agents strove incessantly
to increase. It was their slaves rather than their land which brought
them income.
(2)
Victor Serge, From Serfdom to Proletarian
Revolution (1930)
From 1840 onwards, the need for serious reform does
begin to be apparent: agricultural production is poor, grain exports
low, the growth of manufacturing industry slowed down through the
shortage of labour; capitalist development is being impeded through
aristocracy and serfdom.
It is a
perilous situation, which is given a fairly astute solution in the
act of "liberation" of 19th February 1861, abolishing serfdom.
With a population of sixty-seven million, Russia had twenty-three
million serfs belonging to 103,000 landlords. The arable land which
the freed peasantry had to rent or buy was valued at about double
its real value (342 million roubles instead of 180 million); yesterday's
serfs discovered that, in becoming free, they were now hopelessly
in debt.
(3)
In her memoirs Olga
Liubatovich described the reactions of Sophia
Perovskaya after the failure to assassinate Alexander II in November,
1879.
A few days after the Moscow explosion, Sophia Perovskaya
appeared at one of the party's secret apartments in St. Petersburg.
The words began to spill out and she emotionally told us the story
of the Moscow attempt. On November 19, it was she who waited in the
bushes for the Tsar's train to approach and then gave the signal for
the explosion that blew up the tracks. But there had been too little
dynamite, she told us; how she regretted that so much had been sent
to the operation in the south, instead of concentrating it all in
Moscow! There was a catch in her voice as she spoke, and in her face
reflected intense suffering; she was shaking, either from a chill
produced by her bare wet hands or from a painful feeling of failure
and long-suppressed emotion. There was nothing I could do to comfort
her.
(4)
Stephen
Graham, Alexander II (1935)
The Tsar characteristically refused to quit the scene
until he had enquired into the condition of the wounded Cossacks.
One of them were dead; the others must be removed to hospital and
cared for at once. A police officer begged the Tsar to get into his
sledge and drive away, but Alexander turned away from him. At that
moment another of the gang of assassins hurried up and threw the bomb
which blew the Tsar to bits. It was a terrific explosion. Even the
Tsar's clothing was torn to rags and his orders and accouterments
scattered on the snow. One of his legs were blown away; the other
shattered to the top of his thigh. Windows a hundred yards away were
broken. The assassin himself was by the same explosion blown to bits.
(5)
Vera Figner was involved in the planning
of the assassination of Alexander II.
Everything was peaceful as I walked through the streets.
But half an hour after I reached the apartment of some friends, a
man appeared with the news that two crashes like cannon shots had
rung out, that people were saying the sovereign had been killed, and
that the oath was already being administered to the heir. I rushed
outside. The streets were in turmoil: people were talking about the
sovereign, about wounds, death, blood.
On March
3, Kibalchich came to our apartment with the news that Gesia Gelfman's
apartment had been discovered, that she'd been arrested and Sabin
had shot himself. Within two weeks, we lost Perovskaia, who was arrested
on the street. Kibalchich and Frolenko were the next to go. Because
of these heavy losses, the Committee proposed that most of us leave
St. Petersburg myself included.
(6)
Olga Liubatovich was
living in St. Petersburg when she heard of the assassination of Alexander
II.
One morning I awoke to an unusual commotion in the
streets. On every corner, small groups of people were standing around
talking about something, shaking their heads. Obviously something
important had happened - but what? I went outside. Couriers were tearing
madly through the streets. I thought back to the previous evening,
March 1, when carriages had been hurrying to the governor's house,
which was lit up as for a ball, although there was no sign of a large
gathering. Judging from the rumours that were now circulating among
the crowd - the sovereign had been killed. Toward noon, the notice
of Alexander II's death and Alexander III's accession to the throne
appeared, and people started gathering in synagogues and churches
to take the oath of allegiance.
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