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The world-view of the reformers was evidently not devoid of a utopian faith in the limitless possibility of the state to direct the course of historical development. Nikolai Miliutin with his characteristic perspicacity instantly understood the emerging danger. In December of that year he wrote to his brother, Dmitrii, the minister of war: ‘It is necessary to fashion opinion, or perhaps a middle party, in parliamentary language “le centre”, which we don’t have here but the elements of which can evidently be found. Only the government can do this, and it would be the best means of consolidation for the government itself.’ In April 1863 in another letter, returning to these thoughts once again, he wrote with alarm: ‘There is no greater unhappiness for Russia than letting the initiative slip out of the hands of the government.’41 The stake placed by the reformers on the initiating role of the monarch and the liberal public turned out to be unreliable, laying bare the enlightened illusions which were characteristic of their generation. But at the time in Russia there were no other guarantees apart from the irreversibility of the legislation that had been adopted.

Legislation and life: the fate of the Great Reforms and the fate of the reformers

The implementation of specific reforms cannot be examined in detail in this chapter.42 But in order to have an adequate understanding of the problem presented here something must be said about the realisation of the great reforms in general. If one bears in mind the precise meaning of the 1861 legislation, it must be recognised that it did not anticipate the immediate transformation of gentry and peasant farming, let alone an immediate revolution in the economy as a whole. The final goal of the peasant reform was, however, quite definite: the creation of independent small, peasant farming alongside gentry farming. Until very recently, the prevailing view in the literature was that the reform was extortionate towards the peasantry, with inflated redemption payments for reduced plots, which led to land-hunger and ruination of peasant households on a mass scale. Modern methods of statistical analysis of the socioeconomic results of the peasant reform have allowed a number of historians to come to quite different conclusions. In reality, the abolition of serfdom by the terms of the statutes of 19 February led to the creation of self-sufficient peasant farming

41OR RGB, Fond 169, kart. 69, ed. khr. 11, ll. 9–11.

42For this the reader should consult the other chapters dealing with the peasantry, the economy, state finances, the legal system, local administration and the army.

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and the prospect of the predominance of the peasant family farm in Russian agriculture.43

In the legal sphere, the isolation of the peasant estate that was preserved by the statutes of 19 February was overcome to a degree through the implementation of the zemstvo and judicial reforms. The proportion of peasant deputies in the zemstva was significant, although it was exceeded by noble representation (38 and 43 per cent, respectively). In some regions (centralindustrial, southern-steppe, and southeastern) representation tended toward predominance by peasants, specifically peasant landowners. Peasant representation was also significant in juries – in the provinces it was even predominant (over 50 per cent). At the same time, the existence of the volost’ peasant-estate court created a dualism in the court system, preserving peasant isolation in this respect. This does not, however, justify the general conclusion that the peasant reform retarded the integration of the peasantry into civic life and fortified the schism in Russia between ‘traditional’ and ‘westernized’ society.44 Separate peasant self-administration and the separate volost’ court were introduced in the 1861 reform in connection with the termination of the hereditary power of the gentry landowner, which explains their expediency. They were not the final goal of the legislators, only a temporary, inevitable structure on the road to unitary citizenship.

Such an important measure as the abolition of the recruitment system for manning the army militated in the same direction of integrating the peasantry into the new, unitary organisation of Russian society. This last of Alexander II’s reforms (the Statute of 1 January 1874) was considerably influenced by the international situation and the experience of European wars. The personal role of Alexander II was great in this reform: he stuck to his decision in the face of strong pressure from the opposition. In all other spheres of state life, reform activity from the 1860s onward continued by inertia, without the previous energy.

Alexander II’s own disillusionment with the reforms and a major shift in his own personal state of mind occurred almost simultaneously and for a number of reasons. After the successful introduction of the reforms, the victorious

43See S. G. Kashchenko, ‘Nekotorye voprosy metodiki izucheniia realizatsii reformy 19 fevralia 1861g. v issedovaniiakh P. A. Zaionchkovskogo’, Otechestvennaia istoriia 4 (2004): 81–92; S. L. Hoch, ‘Did Russia’s Emancipated Serfs really Pay Too Much for Too Little Land? Statistical Anomalies and Long-tailed Distributions’, SR 63, 2 (2004): 247–74; D. V. Kovalev, Agrarnye preobrazovaniia i krestianstvo stolichnogo regiona v pervoi chetverti XIXv.

(Moscow: Rosspen, 2004), pp. 258, 260–5.

44W. Pintner, ‘Reformability in the Age of Reform and Counter-reform’, in Reform in Russia and the USSR (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), pp. 83–106.

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conclusion in 1864 of the half-century war in the Caucasus, the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863–4 and the carrying out of the radical agrarian and other transformations in the Polish Kingdom, the establishment of the Sejm (assembly) and of the constitutional order in Finland in 1863, the Tsarliberator came up against some unexpected difficulties and deep personal traumas. The Polish revolutionary response to his efforts at liberalisation was no doubt itself a disappointment. Much more important for Alexander, the Russian nobility, discontented with the emancipation of the serfs, voiced its claims for political rights. The zemstvo assemblies which had just been opened, especially the Petersburg zemstvo, showed a degree of independence which the government disliked.45 In April 1865 the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, unexpectedly died at the age of twenty-one. A year later Dmitrii Karakozov shot at Alexander II near the gates of the Summer Garden. The news that Karakozov was a Russian shook Alexander II more than the attack itself. The enthusiasm and inspiration which had sustained the emperor in the first, most unclouded and fruitful ten years of his reign was dissipated.

In this depressed state, Alexander II gave in to the pressure from conservative forces. The decree of 13 May 1866 bears witness to the shift towards a conservative course. Karakozov’s shot, as one of his contemporaries put it, ‘favoured reaction’.46 In the government the most influential figure became Count Petr Shuvalov, who was appointed head of the gendarmes and given overall responsibility for internal security straight after the attack. Shuvalov was an opponent of the liberal bureaucracy and the reforms carried out by it. The year 1866 was also a turning point in the personal life of the emperor. He was consumed by his passion for the young Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukov, which became stronger over time, often distracting him from affairs of state and at the same time weighing him down with the burden of a double life.47

In the Editing Commissions, the reformers had acknowledged that the current legislation would require further development. They hoped that this task would be carried out by an ‘enterprising monarchy’. Their hopes were not realised.48

45 I. A. Khristoforov, ‘Aristokraticheskaia’ oppozitsiia Velikim reformam. Konets 1 85 0–seredina

1 87 0kh gg. (Moscow: Russkoe slovo, 2002), pp. 172–6.

46Khristoforov, ‘Aristokraticheskaia’ oppozitsiia. Prilozhenie, p. 333.

47L. G. Zakharova, ‘Alexander II i mesto Rossii v mire’, Novaia i noveishaia istoriia 4 (2005):

141.

48See O. Trubetskaia, Materialy dlia biografii kn. V. A.Cherkasskogo. vol. I. book 2, part 3. V. 1902, p. 43.

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Though he accepted the legacy of Nikolai Miliutin in terms of the realisation of the peasant reforms and the preparation and implementation of the zemstvo reform, as minister of internal affairs, P. A. Valuev (Miliutin’s irreconcilable opponent) immediately led the attack on the liberal peace mediators – a most important link in the peasant reform.49 While it was not within his powers to infringe the Statutes of 19 February about the irremoveability and independence of the peace mediators, he began to reduce their number. Valuev’s policy transformed the position of peace mediator: from an honourable post, which attracted intelligent and thoughtful people, into a mediocre administrative function. The same phenomenon was observed with the introduction of other institutions created by the reforms – the zemstva and the new courts. From the first independent steps of the zemstva, the government displayed its distrust in them. D. A. Miliutin wrote, ‘It was as if the government itself, having just established socially inclusive (vsesoslovnoe) self-government, had a sudden rethink – hadn’t it taken a rather imprudent step. From the very beginning of the implementation of the new legislation it was considered necessary to follow the new institutions vigilantly, to hold them in check, so to speak.’ Already by the end of 1865 in government policy ‘instead of the gradual development and broadening of the zemstva, a systematic squeezing and restraining of them began’.50

Even more importantly, the peasant question, which demanded special attention and the development of the foundations which had been created in the 1861 reform, found itself by the end of the 1870s on the fringes of government policy. Serious problems which had emerged were not addressed. Already in the middle of the 1860s, M. Kh. Reutern in his reports drew attention to the burden of the dues and redemption payments for the emancipated peasants. But neither the minister of finance himself, nor the government as a whole took any measures to resolve the difficulties that had arisen in the course of the implementation of the peasant reform and to achieve the final goal of the reform – the creation of an independent small peasant economy. The issue of the obshchina was raised but not resolved. After quite a lengthy discussion of the problems of peasant land-ownership the ministers of internal affairs, finance and justice were entrusted with working out a set of measures to ease the departure of peasants from the obshchina, that is the broadening of article 165 of the Statutes of 19 February. The minutes of the Council of Ministers

49M. F. Ust’iantseva, ‘Institut mirovykh posrednikov v krest’ianskoi reforme’, in Zakharova, Eklof and Bushnell, Velikie reformy v Rossii, pp. 170–1.

50Miliutin, Vospominaniia, 1 865 –1 867 , p. 46.

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to this effect were approved on 9 March 1874, but the matter was put on hold.51

The weakest link in the chain of reforms was finances, and it was only after the war of 1877–8, against a background of financial crisis, social and political discontent, and terrorist acts, that Alexander II and the government acknowledged the need to continue the Great Reforms. This attempt would be undertaken by M. T. Loris-Melikov with the agreement and approval of Alexander II. The most recent research has convincingly shown that Loris-Melikov’s programme was not a set of separate measures, but a definite ‘scheme’, organically linked to those reforms which had been carried out in the first decade of Alexander II’s reign. The tsar himself expressed his understanding of this continuity, in particular in his confession to Loris-Melikov that ‘there was one person in whom I had full confidence. That was Ia. I. Rostovtsev . . . I have that same confidence in you and perhaps even more.’52

As N. A. Miliutin had done in the late 1850s to early 1860s, Loris-Melikov at the end of the 1870s considered it crucial to unite Russian society around a reforming government which rested on the support of public opinion. Without neglecting to strengthen the police, he argued that it was impossible to defeat nihilism by police measures alone. ‘Not only did the reforms of the 1860s need to be cleansed from subsequent deviations but their principles had to be developed further.’ Loris-Melikov’s programme envisaged a whole system of interrelated reforms. Above all it had in mind provincial reform: the reorganisation of the local administrative and social institutions, by removing the antagonism between the zemstva and the state administration, and the transformation of the police in the localities. The improvement of the peasant situation occupied a significant place in the programme: the salt tax was abolished and the tsar’s agreement was given to a reduction in redemption payments and a number of other measures. The transformation of the taxation and passport systems was also planned, as was a more flexible policy in the borderlands.

The creation of preparatory commissions along the lines of the Editing Commissions of 1859–60 was proposed in order to facilitate the implementation of this programme. Subsequently, a General Commission attached to the State Council would be created with the participation of representatives of

51V. G. Chernukha, Krest’ianskii vopros v pravitel’stvennoi politike Rossii (60-e–7 0-e gg. XIX v.)

(Leningrad: Nauka, Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1973), pp. 162–3, 170.

52A. V. Mamonov, ‘Graf M. T. Loris-Melikov: k kharakteristike vzgliadov i gosudarstvennoi deiatel’nosti’, Otechestvennaia istoria 4 (2001): 32–50. This article gives a detailed description of Loris-Melikov’s programme.

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the zemstva and town self-governments. This was what in the literature has been called the Loris-Melikov ‘constitution’ and what A.V. Mamonov considers a return to (and development of, I would add) Miliutin’s concept of the ‘enterprising monarchy’. On 1 March 1881, Alexander II approved the draft government report on the upcoming reforms but died a few hours later. The programme for the further development of the Great Reforms died with him for ever, although certain individual elements of it were realised by N. Kh. Bunge during his time as minister of finance between 1881 and 1886. Bunge’s attempts to develop the 1861 peasant reform (he was a believer in independent peasant farming) and modernise the taxation and banking systems only affected limited aspects of state policy, however, and were in any case compromised by the overall programme of counter-reforms carried out in the reign of Alexander III.53

By the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, it was understood by the few reformers still alive at the time that the possibility of continuing the reforms that had been decisively and radically begun by the abolition of serfdom had been lost. Russia entered the twentieth century, the century of revolutions and shocks, which they had tried so hard to avoid. In the first months of the 1905 Revolution four elder statesmen gave an independent and realistic appraisal of the Great Reforms and of subsequent government policy. These statesmen – Count K. I. Pahlen, A. A. and P. A. Saburov and A. N. Kulomzin – had experienced the Great Reforms in their early years of service and subsequently participated in their implementation. They produced a memorandum for Nicholas II which stated that the empire’s current crisis was rooted in the ‘fateful misunderstanding’ that the reason for 1 March 1881 (i.e., the assassination of Alexander II) was ‘the liberating policy of the tsarreformer’. They criticised ‘the government’s endeavour over the last twentyfive years to limit the privileges and advantages which were bestowed on Russia in the epoch of the reforms of Alexander II’.54

The revolution wrested from the autocracy the Manifesto of 17 October 1905 and led to the creation of the first Russian parliament (the Duma) and of a true ministerial cabinet and prime minister. The last great reformist statesman of the old regime, P. A. Stolypin, rose on the wave of the revolutionary events and in the struggle with them. While adopting harsh police measures in the struggle with terror, he worked out and began the realisation of

53See V. L. Stepanov, N. Kh. Bunge, Sud’ba reformatora (Moscow: Rosspen, 1998).

54P. Sh. Ganelin, ‘Politicheskie uroki osvoboditel’nogo dvizheniia v otsenke stareishikh tsarskikh biurokratov’, in Osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie v Rossii (Saratov: 1991), Izd. Saratovskogo universiteta, 14th edn, pp. 122–36.

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fundamental changes. In the first place, as in the 1860s, there was agrarian reform, which allowed peasants to leave the obshchina, strengthened peasant property-ownership and aided migration to Russian Asia. It was proposed to combine these paramount reforms with the expansion of local self-government and the extension of the reforms to the empire’s borderlands. However, Stolypin’s plans were not realised. He was killed in Kiev in 1911, where he had gone for the ceremonial opening of a monument to the Tsar-liberator in connection with the half-century jubilee of the abolition of serfdom. The final possibility for transformations had once again been lost. Russia would soon take part in the First World War and live through a revolution which would sweep away the monarchy and shake the world.

The Great Reforms, which were organically linked to socioeconomic and political processes in the first half of the nineteenth century, were at the same time a turning point in the history of Russia. While they neither intended nor ensured a simultaneous transformation in all the spheres of public life, they laid the foundations for this turnaround and ruled out the possibility of a restoration of the pre-reform order. As a result of the transformations, ‘a basic principle of Russian life was destroyed – the link of progress with serfdom’.55 The modernisation of Russia continued on a new basis – labour freed from serfdom, the development of private initiative, the origins of civil society. In this context the year 1861 was a watershed, ‘the beginning of a new history, a new epoch in Russia’ – as many contemporaries understood the abolition of serfdom at the time and as many historians evaluated it later. However, the degree and the depth of the turning point remain to be clarified. In this regard there still remains much for scholars to do.

Among the questions which demand attention are study of the statesmen of the Great Reforms themselves and of the actual circumstances in which they put together their plans. It is probably worth listening more closely to the terms and concepts used by them, their understanding, their perception of reality. For example, it is important to understand how they conceived of ‘the new system of agrarian relations’, which was supposed to be the result of the implementation of the peasant reform, how they envisaged the coexistence of the landlord and peasant economies. The idea of the reformers about the reforms as a process which would necessitate constant modifications by the government also merits attention. Undoubtedly, when studying the Great

55N. A. Ivnitskii (ed.), Sud’by rossiiskogo krest’ianstva (Moscow: Rossiiskii gos. gumanitarnyi universitet, 1996).

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Reforms, as well as the counter-reforms, there is the challenge of adopting a differentiated approach to the different stages and ‘levels’ of the process: to the ideology which lay at the basis of the intended transformations, to the initial draft laws, to the laws as actually adopted (a significant distinction) and finally to how these laws were realised and faced the test of reality.

Such an approach enables one to avoid one-sidedness in the evaluation of the Great Reforms, sometimes observed in the historiography, when either the unbridgeable gulf between epochs or the complete continuity in the gradual advance of the autocracy on the path of reform is emphasised. The undoubted links between the abolition of serfdom and attempts at earlier legislation, the traditions and structures of the pre-reform order, do not contradict the concept of the transformation of various aspects of the country’s life begun by the reforms. On the other hand, to acknowledge the inevitability of modifications to the reforms and the presence of pragmatic elements in the legislation of the 1880–90s does not remove the fundamental difference between the Great Reforms and the counter-reforms. For example, it is true that legislative measures were needed to strengthen the system of peasant self-government, and that the volost’ court needed to be co-ordinated with the socially inclusive structures of the new court system. In the end, too, and despite the government’s original intentions, the Statute of 1890 did not signify a radical change to the zemstvo as created by the reform of 1864. Realities neutralised the conservative amendments which were adopted. But it is impossible to derive from these truths the argument that there were no basic differences between the policies of the 1860s reformers and Loris-Melikov on the one hand, and the instigators of the counter-reforms on the other.

The ideological aims of Count D. A. Tolstoy underlying the revision of the Great Reforms were, for example, far from fully realised in the zemstvo legislation but had a much fuller impact in the spheres of education and censorship, where they created a gulf between the regime and the progressive intelligentsia. The dangerous consequences of this phenomenon were manifest in 1900–6. The co-operation of the liberal bureaucracy and liberal social forces in the eras of Nikolai Miliutin and Loris-Melikov was abandoned, as was their systematic approach to reform. In the 1880s Bunge continued the work of the Great Reforms, and Tolstoi and Pobedonostsev revised it. Thus, if it makes sense to speak of ‘the epoch of Great Reforms’, there is less reason to speak of ‘the epoch of counter-reforms’, which would imply co-ordination of the various aspects of internal policy under Alexander III. The course set on preserving the autocracy inviolate, which was proclaimed in the Manifesto of 29 April 1881 and reinforced by the decree of 14 August 1881 on states of

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emergency, signified the state’s loss of initiative in the realisation of large-scale reforms. That initiative would pass to social forces. When Stolypin tried to regain the initiative for the monarchy he did not have the twenty years he asked for. Those twenty years had been lost between 1881 and 1905.

I would like to stress one more problem. Russian and Western historiography has accumulated a rich store of factual material, many valuable conclusions and observations. But these achievements remain disparate and isolated. A comparison of the results of the study of ‘institutional’ and ‘social’ history, a comparison of the work on different reforms and a more attentive attitude to the knowledge already established in the historiography, together with a broadening of the range of sources could all yield new approaches and new answers to the question posed in the title of this chapter.

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