In my opinion his violence and repression was the most important feature in his takeover of the Russian system, yes some of it was quite cruel and hard on the Russians but the Russians must have a ruler that is hard and is a stiff upper lipped person and is a powerfull ruler, every leader of Russia has been a hard and powerful one so I do agree that violence and repression were key factors in his role to rule Russia.
Alexander III came to power very unexpectedly due to the assassination of members of the terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya. He was only 36 when his father died and he came to power He was very aware and under no illusion that he could suffer the exact same fate as his father did, because he was so aware of this he put in place many forms of repression These were labelled ‘Russification’ and they came into being immediately he was crowned tsar in 1881. The primary aspect of Russification was to rid Russia of western ideas that Alexander III believed had weakened the country and reduced its national identity. Alexander wanted to reclaim Russia’s ‘Russian-ness'. To achieve this he had to remove those people who had imported into Russia alien ideas that were covertly undermining his position and the national identity of Russia itself. Alexander saw no difference in what he wanted for himself and what he wanted for Russia. Russification was not new to Russia. There had been isolated examples of when this was done before. What made Alexander’s policy so different was the intensity of it after 1881 and the attempt to give it some form of academic intellectual backing. Russification was to be carried out by the civil service and then by the governors in the regions who would use the police to carry it out at grass-roots level. Those who opposed this were to be dealt with by the police. The most central theme to ‘Russification’ was the power of the