Alexander II’s reforms changed Russia more than any other events from 1855-1905. The most significant of these reforms The Emancipation of the Serf’s freed the people from the land. Serfdom had long been seen as the symbol of the superannuated Russian system holding Russia back from real progress. The emancipation had some significant advantages for Russia: it created a movable industrial workforce, a better military it changed the structure of Society and it abolished it without Civil War or revolution which had happened as a consequence in the West. On paper the freedoms for the people was impressive, in reality little changed for the peasantry. Swaddled with large debt and poor land to work on, it is unlikely the serfs felt genuinely liberated.
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It set Russia on a path towards revolution because of his failure to modernise Tsarism and he was the last Tsar that could of. It was in the reforms large failures and unintended consequences that it changed Russia not in the smaller …show more content…
On the day of his assassination by the People’s Will, Alexander II signed the Loris-Melikov constitution. This would have been a huge concession on his part, creating two legislative commissions of indirectly elected representatives and if it had been successfully implemented it could have been the start of constitutional development in Russia. Giving a country a constitution changes history (look at America’s constitution, turning point in American and World history), and I think a constitution for Russia implemented successfully could have shifted the course of Russian and therefore world history. Unlike the constitution in 1906 which was brought in too late as a measure to prevent revolution, a constitution in 1881 may have had more chance of working successfully.The constitution implemented by Alexander II would not have been perfect but it would have likely created legislative commissions that would have vetoed Alexander III’s “Reaction”. However, because of Alexander II’s assassination and a will to protect Tsarism, Alexander III repealed all his father’s reforms including the Loris-Melikov Constitution and took a hard-line reactionary stance as Tsar. I believe the reaction was the opposite of a creating a constitution, it was repressive e.g. The Statute of State Security created a police state, it started a policy of Russification which angered a
It set Russia on a path towards revolution because of his failure to modernise Tsarism and he was the last Tsar that could of. It was in the reforms large failures and unintended consequences that it changed Russia not in the smaller …show more content…
On the day of his assassination by the People’s Will, Alexander II signed the Loris-Melikov constitution. This would have been a huge concession on his part, creating two legislative commissions of indirectly elected representatives and if it had been successfully implemented it could have been the start of constitutional development in Russia. Giving a country a constitution changes history (look at America’s constitution, turning point in American and World history), and I think a constitution for Russia implemented successfully could have shifted the course of Russian and therefore world history. Unlike the constitution in 1906 which was brought in too late as a measure to prevent revolution, a constitution in 1881 may have had more chance of working successfully.The constitution implemented by Alexander II would not have been perfect but it would have likely created legislative commissions that would have vetoed Alexander III’s “Reaction”. However, because of Alexander II’s assassination and a will to protect Tsarism, Alexander III repealed all his father’s reforms including the Loris-Melikov Constitution and took a hard-line reactionary stance as Tsar. I believe the reaction was the opposite of a creating a constitution, it was repressive e.g. The Statute of State Security created a police state, it started a policy of Russification which angered a