‘The reforms of Alexander II weakened the Tsarist regime’, explain why you agree or disagree with this view. (25 marks)
While in reign Alexander II introduced many reforms into Russian life, hoping they’d play a key part and influence society positively. Nevertheless, the majority of the reforms weakened the Tsarist regime showing that planning was not effective, and that many of the ideas had been rushed, for example, the emancipation of the serfs.
The reform of emancipation weakened the Tsarist regime, and was the reform that showed the most cracks. The idea behind emancipation was to ensure that Serfs had freedom and were not tied down by the nobles. Alexander did this by giving the serfs their own land, although, on paper this looked like a positive reform in reality it was infact the complete opposite. The serfs had no money behind them, indicating that they would not make a profit on their land; the land they were given had poor soil. The Peasants had to pay for this land, often putting the majority in debt, and therefore, affecting the economy. As well as the Serfs being badly effected Alexander also upset the nobility because they no longer had the Serfs working for them, leading to a decline in their profits also. It was recorded that between 1877 to 1905 the number of landowners fell from 115,000 to 107,000 and land ownership fell from 2,000 to 144 million acres. The nobility were therefore, becoming a lot weaker and wanted to do something about it. They formed a commission to protect their rights but it was only supported by a small minority. Alexander at the time, believed that emancipation was a positive thing, however, the planning was not efficient. There was much disorder that surrounded this; Alexander had not set a common date for emancipation to come in so places in Russia began emancipation at different times. Although, it may be argued that in