User:Rjensen/Great Reforms in Russia

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 * Government reforms of Alexander II of Russia

User:Rjensen/Great Reforms in Russia The Great Reforms in Russia Were a series of major social, political, legal and governmental reforms in the Russian Empire carried out in the 1860s under the direction of tsar Alexander II of Russia. By far the most important was the Emancipation reform of 1861 which freed the 23 million serfs From an inferior legal and social status. Many other reforms took place, including the relaxation of censorship of the media, Judicial reform of Alexander II, modernization of the army, zemstva and [[dumy] innovations in local government,  educational innovations including the expansion and reform of universities, elementary schools and secondary schools,  reform of the Russian Orthodox Church, Economic modernization and banking, railways, mining, manufacturing, emancipation of the peasants in Poland, upgrading the status of finish In Finland, and upgrading the status of Jews.

Role of gentry
While most of the landowning gentry were conservative, the strong liberal element that was more articulate. They vigorously argued that serfdom was severely restricting the entrepreneurial opportunities of the gentry. They propose that emancipation of the serfs, financed by the government, would provide the gentry and the nobles with capital to invest in the sort of economic opportunities that were being demonstrated in Western Europe. s innovative schemes came especially from the liberal gentry in  Tver  province. The plan was to use government loan so that freed serfs could purchase farms from the gentry. The gentry would then have the capital to begin entirely new enterprises not restricted by the low returns to farming in the cold Russian climate. In late 1858 Alexander II set up a commission to study emancipation and the liberal ideas proved attractive. However the government bureaucrats shut out the liberals from The actual planning, much to their dismay. A compromise was reached whereby the gentry was given extensive new roles in zemstvos created to operate local government.

Education
Before 1860 Russia had a scattershot educational program that featured a few good universities, but severe limitations in every other area. Planning began in 1858, and the main reforms came in 1863. They extended popular education, opened secondary schools to women and allowed some women to audit University courses. Universities obtained more autonomy, but when small-scale student protests erupted, universities were returned to closer supervision. Private groups opened over 500 Sunday schools, without government funding or supervision, but the government distrusted innovations--such as teaching history--in place of wrote language drills and closed them down. Although new funding was not made available, laws in 1864 reformed secondary schools along the lines typical in France and Prussia. Elementary schools Likewise were regulated to emphasize religious teaching by Orthodox priests.

Economy
thumb|Count Michael von Reutern, Finance Minister, 1862-1878 The extreme difficulties of financing the Crimean war, and the military weakness caused by An ineffective railway system made economic reforms a high priority. A state bank was founded in 1860, and municipal banks in 1862, as well as savings banks in 1869, All under national supervision. A systematic overhaul of national finances was achieved in 1862 by legislation that created a ministry of finance under Count Michael von Reutern (1862-1878),along with a regular national budget supervised by the finance minister. Reutern installed a uniform system of public accounting for government agencies. Tax collection was no longer handled by private farmers, but became a regular national bureaucratic issue. There was no income taxes yet, In the poll tax was continued,but the much hated salt tax was abolished. He promoted private credit institutions and stabilised the rouble. Government revenues rose significantly, the chronic budget deficit was eliminated by 1867 and surpluses were achieved from 1873. On trade policy Reutern pragmatically supported reducing some tariffs and duties on manufacturing goods in 1863 and 1868. A balanced budget facilitated borrowing from Western Europe, using state guaranteed railway bonds. This made possible the rapid expansion of the rail system. The Russian-Turkish war ran up deficits and he resigned in 1878.

The new favorable environment encouraged entrepreneurship. In 1860 there were 78 joint stock companies, with a capital of less than 8 million roubles each.Between 1861 in 1873, businessmen set up 357 joint stock companies with a capital of 1.1 billion roubles. They included 73 banks, 53 railways and 163 factories. Foreign capital started arriving for the first time, although massive amounts had to wait for the alliance with France in the 1890s.

Memory and historiography
In Russia, the bulk of serious commentary on the emancipation of the serfs was highly favorable before 1917, With Alexander playing a central role. Soviet historians minimized Alexander and the other personalities, arguing that the crisis in feudalism forced the rulers to compromise. The key Leninist interpretation was that the concessions were merely a tactical response to a concerted attack on the status quo by rural masses and their urban allies. Western historians have generally agreed that fear of further upheaval played a minor role in the decision.

Emancipation of serfs

 * Domar, Evsey. “Were Russian Serfs Overcharged for Their Land by the 1861 Emancipation? The History of One Historical Table.” Research in Economic History Supplement 5b (1989): 429-439.
 * Easley, Roxanne. The emancipation of the serfs in Russia: Peace arbitrators and the development of civil society (Routledge, 2008).
 * Emmons, Terence, ed. Emancipation of the Russian serfs (1970), 119pp. Short excerpts from primary and secondary sources.
 * Emmons, Terence. The Russian Landed Gentry and the Peasant Emancipation of 1861
 * Emmons, Terence, and Wayne S. Vucinich, eds. The Zemstvo in Russia: An Experiment in Local Self-Government (Cambridge UP, 1982).
 * Field, Daniel. The End of Serfdom: Nobility and Bureaucracy in Russia, 1855-1861 (1976)
 * Miller, Forrest A.  Dmitrii Miliutin and the Reform Era in Russia (1968)
 * Moon, David. The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia: 1762-1907 (Routledge, 2014).
 * Pereira, N. G. O. "Alexander II and the Decision to Emancipate the Russian Serfs, 1855-61." Canadian Slavonic Papers 22.1 (1980): 99-115. online
 * Pushkarev, Sergei G. "The Russian Peasants' Reaction to the Emancipation of 1861." Russian Review 27.2 (1968): 199-214. online
 * Robinson, Geroid. Rural Russia under the Old Regime (3rd ed. U of California Press, 1972).
 * Vucinich, Wayne, ed. The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia (1968)