Opposition

• Opposition


  Opposition against Alexander the Second
• Opposition


  • Developed due to Alexander the Second's reforms
  • Reforms created more intellectualism and independence in universities
  • Reforms led to more people reflecting and evaluating the political system
• Moderate and liberal opposition

  • Westernizers
  • Slavophiles
• Westernizers


  Wanted Russia to be more like Western Europe and develop more democratic ideas
• Slavophiles


  Believed Russia had a unique history, culture and position, and wanted to preserve the influence of the Orthodox Church and peasant society
• The Westernizers and Slavophiles were in a strong position in 1881 when Alexander II was assassinated, but the Slavophiles' influence declined after the 1891-92 famine
• Radical opposition


  • Young Russia (1862)
  • The Organization (1863)
• The radical opposition groups in the 1860s engaged in violent actions like setting fires, but did not achieve much
• Assassination attempts on Alexander II in 1866 and 1867

  Changed Alexander II's attitude towards reform, leading him to return to more repressive actions
• Poland had been under Tsar's power since 1815, and there were Polish rebellions against Russian rule in 1831 and 1863
• Alexander II's attempts at reform in Poland

  Were met with nationalist demonstrations and an armed rebellion, leading him to abandon reform and move towards repression and Russification
• Chernyshevsky


  A key thinker who was initially enthusiastic about Alexander II's reforms, but later concluded that more radical change was needed to end Tsarist autocracy
• Pisarev


  Associated with nihilism, believed in completely re-evaluating and reimagining Russian society and government from scratch
• Pisarev's ideas of nihilism became popular among young people, especially students, in the 1860s
• The revolution things weren't ready for it in the 1950s in the 1850s and 1860s
• Nikolai Chernyshevsky wanted a complete re-evaluation of Russian society and government
• Nihilism


  Idea of reimagining society from nothing from scratch, comes from the Latin word meaning 'nothing'
• Nihilism became quite a popular idea amongst young people, especially students, in the 1860s
• Some young people didn't share Chernyshevsky's idea of non-violence and decided that Russia wasn't ready for revolution
• They started to push towards revolution and sweeping away the Tsar's autocracy
• Mikhail Bakunin


  Believed the state crushed individual freedom and therefore should be removed, referred to as an anarchist
• Bakunin believed the land shouldn't be privately owned by the Tsars and nobles, but should be owned collectively by all the peasants
• Bakunin published the Catechism of Revolution with Sergei Nechayev in 1869 while they were on the run in Switzerland, encouraging the opposition to assassinate the Tsar
• Karl Marx


  German thinker, wrote the Communist Manifesto with Engels in 1848 and Das Capital in 1867, believed workers should overthrow the capitalists
• Marx believed this would happen in industrial countries, not in a feudal, agricultural system like Russia
• Radical thinkers in Russia liked Marx's ideas and started trying to apply them to Russia
• Bakunin published a Russian translation of the Communist Manifesto in 1869
• Chaikovskii Circle


  Group of about 100 people in Russia, primarily a literary society concentrating on distributing scientific and revolutionary literature like Das Capital
• The Chaikovskii Circle realised they needed to go to the peasants in the countryside and spread these ideas, as the peasants could make a big difference in overthrowing the Tsar
• In 1874, Lavrov set off with about 2,000 young, idealistic people to try to turn the peasants against the Tsar, but it was an abject failure as the peasants remained loyal to the Tsar
• In 1877, a new, more radical populist group called Land and Liberty was set up, pursuing two courses of action: living alongside peasants to understand them better, and assassinating Tsarist officials
• Land and Liberty had some success in 1878 when the head of the Third Section was assassinated, which worried the Tsar's government
• Land and Liberty split into two groups in 1879: Black Partition, which favoured the long-term tactic of living with peasants, and People's Will, which favoured terrorist tactics and assassination
• People's Will made several attempts to assassinate Tsar Alexander II in 1879-1880, but he survived until 1881 when they were successful
• The assassination of Alexander II led to his replacement by the more repressive Alexander III, who was less likely to implement reforms
• The radical opposition groups' actions made the Tsarist regime more repressive, which ironically gave them a greater chance of rebellion