Opposition 2

• The authorities knew the secret police knew there was a plot to assassinate Alexander II but they failed to get any further details
• Alexander II was assassinated

  1 March 1881
• Alexander II was killed by a bomb thrown by members of the People's Will group
• Alexander III


  Alexander II's son, an enormous imposing scary guy who was highly repressive
• Alexander III's repressive regime


  Made it harder for opposition groups to organise themselves
• The Okhrana, the secret police, was given a lot of resources by the Tsar and made extensive use of its power to arrest and imprison people without trial
• The People's Will group

  • They were heavily repressed by the Tsar after the assassination of Alexander II
  • Their activity significantly decreased after 1887
• The famine of 1891-1892 highlighted the need for significant change in the rural economy and led to a revival of populist ideas in the mid-1890s
• Plekhanov


  • He was seen as the father of Marxism in Russia
  • He translated Marx's writings into Russian, which were allowed in as the Tsar thought they would distract peasants from more dangerous activities
• Marxism inside Russia itself was fairly limited in the late 1880s and early 1890s, with only small groups of students involved
• Alexander III's repressive policies


  Created greater potential opposition and resentment against the Tsarist regime, particularly among Russia's national and ethnic minorities
• After 1894, Marxism became the big threat and flourished, given the many groups who had decided to turn away from the Tsar