Alexander III

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Created on: 15-05-17 12:37

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Alexander III 1881-1894
- Counter Reforms
  - Emergency Powers 1881
    - Courts set up outside legal system, emergency powers for police, arrests for political crimes
  - Control
    - Secret Police (Okhrana) established
  - Education
    - 1884 University statute - women can no longer attend, church control primary education
  - Local Government
    - 1890 Zemsta Act reduced its independence
  - Legal
    - Court martials to avoid publicity in sensitive cases, crimes against state tried w/out jury, opposition dealt with harshly and secretly
  - Repression
    - nationwide police offensive - 10,000 arrests
- Russification and Anti-Semitism
  - Russification
    - forcing Russian culture and language on ethnic minorities
    - To help centralise and maintain control - prevents growth of national ID
    - To create loyalty to regime
    - Georgian Orthodox Church targeted, Russians got top jobs in Poland, made Lutherans in Baltic Provinces convert to ROC
    - To unite behind a common goal of modernisation
      - But in reality creates anger and resentment
  - Anti-Semitism
    - Deep-rooted hatred, easy to enforce, to isolate Jews from soc
    - Number of Jews admitted to schools regulated by quotas, banned from Dumas
    - Pograms 1881-4 encouraged by Okhrana
      - Spread to Warsaw, Kiev, Odessa
        Shops burnt, looted, ****, murder - 20,000 deported
- Industry
  - Supported ministers e.g. Bunge, Vyshnegradsky and Witte
  - Policies
    - Rail building, foreign investment, tariff protection, building gold reserves, exporting grain
      - At the expense of social aspects in case of Vyshnegradsky and Witte
  - Became 4th largest economy by 1897, pig iron tripled to 900,000 tonnes, coal production doubled, growth rate of 8%
  - Grain exports increased at expense of peasants who starved
  - Witte 1892 - 1903
    - State sponsored development of heavy industry, foreign loans, high tariffs on imports, strong rouble, raised taxation costs, exports of grain
    - Great industrial spurt 1890s - growth at 9%, coal iron and steel production increased hugely, rail building
    - But foreign debt = high interest, 20% of budget used to pay it off, agriculture ignored, welfare ignored, no consumer goods, international recession 1899
- Agriculture
  - Peasants could buy and sell land due to Peasants Land Bank 1883
  - Agricultural production grew rapidly, production grew by 2.1% a year, despite pop increase
  - But geographical variation - central region = weakest. Outskirts = access to capitalist western farming methods
  - Upward trend of food supply overall
  - Stolypin - reforms = peasants could leave Mir, help create larger more efficient farms and methods but slow progress getting them out of Mir
    - Livestock can't keep pace
      - Still needs to be modernised!
- Social Change
  - Famine 1891-92
    - Russian gov dealt with it poorly - continued exporting grain, wouldn't call it a famine
      - Zemstvas took action - organised relief = calls for constituent assembly
  - Social and Cultural Change
    - By 1914 modernisation and industrialisation = social upheaval, development of working and middle classes, huge pop growth
    - Workforce grew rapidly - poor living and working conditions, trade unions popular after 1905, workers organisations grew - no attempt to address grievances
    - Standards for peasants mainly rising, increased consumption and income, Kulaks emerge, growth in factories, increased services, progressive young peasants want social betterment
    - Increased urban rural migration - 9 million. Central region = poverty, hunger, stuck in Mir, subsistence
    - Nobles sold 50% of their land, many opened businesses with help of Land Bank
    - Middle class growth = increase in professions, voluntary organisation and associations, industry business and commerce

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Alexander III

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