March 18, 1856
This was an odd day in Russian history. In Moscow, Tsar Alexander II was speaking before the Moscow nobility on one matter, while, at the other end of Europe quite another matter was being resolved. There, the Treaty of Paris was being signed – the agreement that brought the Crimean War to a close. The date of the signing, (March 30, according to the Gregorian calendar, or March 18 according to the Julian calendar still used in Russia), underscored the humiliating position Russia had fallen into. Not so long before, in 1814, the day had marked Russia’s triumphant entry into Paris after defeating Napoleon.
But now, Napoleon III, nephew of the great emperor, had forced Russian diplomats to recognize their shameful defeat in the Crimean War. It is unlikely that the representatives of the Moscow nobility meeting with Alexander II knew what was happening on that day in Paris. But everyone knew that the war was over and that Russia had been vanquished.
Alexander’s talk came at a time when strange rumblings were circulating through Russia. The sovereign, it was rumored, was pondering something unheard of: the liberation of the serfs. The residents of the “old” capital – some with hope, but most with anxiety – were waiting for the tsar to confirm or deny these rumors.
It is difficult to say what the tsar was feeling at this moment. What would be the thoughts of a 38-year-old man whose dying father, a year earlier, had fretted that Russia’s affairs were not “in good order”? Since Nicholas I’s death, the army had lost its war against France and England, the Russian economy was coming apart at the seams, the country was going through a dreadful crisis, and it was time to take urgent action. Taking action, however, was a frightening thing to do.
Alexander II probably felt the same fear that his predecessors had felt. For at least a century, Russian sovereigns had understood that the serfs had to be freed. In the eighteenth century, Alexander’s great grandmother, Empress Catherine the Great, had repeatedly spoken and written on this matter, but she had not dared to take the decisive step. Alexander’s uncle, Alexander I, had said things among friends that one would sooner expect to hear from a died-in-the-wool revolutionary. He asserted that his life’s dream was to free the peasants and give Russia a constitution, after which he could renounce the throne with a clean conscience and settle down with his wife in a little house on the Rhine. But again, nothing was done – a few decrees eased the lot of the serfs, and that was as far as it went.
During the 30 years of his rule, Alexander’s father, Nicholas I, was constantly creating secret committees to develop plans for deciding the question of the serfs. But he only made a few reforms, none of which had any fundamental significance. Why did these autocrats – who with the stroke of a pen could alter the fate of millions – behave so indecisively? What kept them from making real what they believed was correct and beneficial? Alas, it was fear.
The emperors of Russia were always afraid. “In Russia, autocracy is held in check by assassination,” was how one Russian revolutionary put it. Palace coups and murders – these specters haunted every tsar. Alexander II understood very well that his grandfather, Paul I, and great-grandfather, Peter III, were both killed in palace coups. Perhaps times had changed, but who knew how the nobility would react to an edict freeing the serfs? Did the reform-inclined tsar lie awake nights hearing footsteps outside his bedroom door and waiting for a band of murderers to come storming in? And, that danger aside, how would the landowners live? For centuries, their ancestors had relied on the labor of bonded peasants. Would the liberation of the serfs lead to the complete bankruptcy of the nobility? How would the State survive without the nobility, the foundation on which the throne rested?
All of these thoughts undercut the resolve of Russia’s rulers. Then they started to make deals with themselves and with their consciences. The well-being of Russia, of course, demanded the liberation of the peasants, but perhaps the time had not yet come? Are the peasants ready for this? Will the nobility accept it? Would it not be better to gradually work up to it? It would take some time for people to become more enlightened, for schools to be opened, for trade and industry to be developed. The landowners could be permitted to free peasants voluntarily, but only if they wished to do so, if they have no objections.
And so, very little changed until the Crimean War shook things up, until it became clear that the country was not even able to support any sort of respectable army, that Russian cannons and firearms could not shoot as far as French or English weapons, that Russian sailing ships are slower than the enemies’ steamships, that Russia lacked the railroads, the factories, and the free people who could work in these factories. On top of all this, it turned out that the peasants, who everyone had thought were satisfied with their lives, seemed for some reason to be dreaming of freedom.
The wildest of rumors swept the countryside. After volunteers had been called to enlist in the army, serfs from dozens of provinces had responded in droves, confident that they would be rewarded with their freedom. In a country whose virtues did not include sobriety, whole districts pledged to give up drink and save money to buy their freedom.
Alexander II was the one to make the decision. For him, this was extremely difficult. His entire upbringing and all of his beliefs ran contrary to the idea of radical change. This is all the more reason to respect this man for being able to understand that change was needed and for finding the courage to take the crucial step. He started with the very thing that his predecessors had so feared: he spoke about the coming reforms with the nobility, with those very landowners who were the most afraid and the most reluctant to liberate the peasants.
Standing before the Moscow nobility on a frosty March day, he understood that at that very moment his diplomats in Paris might be conceding Russia’s defeat in the war. The tsar’s audience was taken aback as he stated that he had not planned to liberate the peasants, but “It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to await the day when it will begin to abolish itself from below.”
Alexander spoke in the only terms the landowners would understand. There was not a Russian alive who did not know of the horrifying and bloody Pugachev Rebellion, which unfolded in the early 1770s. Eighty years had passed, and Alexander’s audience was peopled with the grandsons and great-grandsons of those who had fled in terror from Pugachev and seen the bloody retribution the rebellious peasants had taken on landowning families. Nobles were killed simply because they were nobles, with no mercy shown to women, children, and the elderly. The tsar told the landowners to ponder which was better: to give up their ownership of the peasants or to again give rise to a pugachevshchina, one that might be even bloodier than the original.
Alexander’s speech triggered an unbelievable level of agitation throughout the country. Everyone held their breath as they awaited further changes. A year later, the peasant reforms began to be formulated. Five years later, the peasants were given their freedom. A multitude of other reforms followed the liberation of the serfs. Local self-government was instituted, censorship and the military draft were abolished, and trial by jury was introduced. Another 20 years passed and the tsar-liberator perished, bleeding to death after a terrorist bomb tore off his legs. And it was not landowners enraged by the liberation of the serfs who killed him, but revolutionaries, who felt that he had not done enough to liberate the country.
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