domestic reforms

• He wanted to get revenge for those who killed his father, maintain autocracy, Russification
• 1884 university statuteL tighter government control
• new secret police, Okhrana established
• Land captains 1889: new government agent, resented by peasantry
• All police centralised, special courts dealt with serious political offences, land captains
• libraries and reading rooms faced restrictions on books they could stock
• universities lost some of abilities to run own affairs
• lower class children banned from secondary education
• Witte introduced: state-sponsored developments of heavy industries, railway investments, foreign loans, high tariffs in foreign industrial goods, raised taxation on everday items (Vodka, tobacco)
• Witte: prioritised heavy industry over light= lack of modernisation, neglected agriculture, prioritised industry over welfare, failed to develop market of consumer goods, interest rates on foreign debt high
• 1866 Poll tax abolished
• 1883 peasants land bank was created to help peasants buy their own land; successful as peasants purchased 1/3 of landlord estates by 1904
• peasant representation in Zmestva reduced
• conditions in prisons made severed
• newspapers and censorship tightened
• increase in foreign investment: 98 million roubles in 1880 to 911 million roubles in 1900
• 6% annual growth rate in industry; highest in the world
• industrial cities had slum conditions
• railway grown by 53,384km between 1880 and 1914
• workers showed their anger through strikes and in 1899 97,000 workers were withdrawing from their labour; strikes reduced economic output
• population grew 50 million between 1897 and 1914
• 1886 penalties for illegal striking
• no factory inspectorates until 1882
• 1882 children under 12 banned from employment in factories
• 1890s real wages decreasing
• 1882 employment of children under 12 made illegal
• 1896 maximum working hours days of 11 hours imposed
• 1899 land captains abused their power over the peasants
• banned lower class children from secondary schools
• elections to university councls changed to an appointment system
• whips used to disperse university demonstrations
• did not revoke emancipation
• famine of 1891 had 350,000
• peasants land bank 1883
• abolition of the poll tax in 1886
• 1882 factory inspectorates
• 10,000 arrested after Alexander II death
• Vyshnergradksi raised import duties by 33% 1891