Concludes 1917
How far do you agree that the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 was the most important turning-point in the development of Russian government in the period from 1855 to 1956?
In 1881 the assassination of Alexander II, the ‘Tsar Liberator’, brought a final end to the period of reform dominated by his emancipation of the serfs in 1861. His successor, Alexander III, ruled repressively and autocratically; his reign is often referred to as ‘the Reaction’. Whether this was the most important turning-point in the development of Russian government in the period from 1855 to 1956 will be debated in this essay.
It has been argued that the assassination of Alexander II marked the last chance that the Romanovs might reform sufficiently to save their doomed dynasty. This argument has some validity but Alexander II, faced with a rising tide of opposition abandoned any serious attempt to reform and modernise Russia long before the Peoples Will sentenced him to death. Equally, although Alexander III’s reactionary policies restored stability during his reign,as Trotsky argued his legacy to Nicholas II was to be the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The Romanovs were on collision course with catastrophe; Alexander II’s assassination was a significant event but it was not the most important turning-point in the development of Russian government in this period.
An equally good case could be made that Alexander II’s accession to the throne in 1855 was a significant turning point in the government of Russia. His decision to ‘reform from above’ led to the Emancipation Edict in 1861. In one fell swoop he ended serfdom and brought Russia and its peasants out of mediaeval feudalism. This case is also flawed. The inadequacies of emancipation were quickly apparent. The lives of the peasants remained grim as exemplified by the famine of 1891. In similar vein, Khrushchev’s announcement of de-Stalinisation in his ‘secret speech’ of 1956 promised the Russian people reform from above. Khrushchev’s ‘Thaw’ was a welcome respite after the brutal excesses of Stalin but his reforms didn’t lead to a significant overhaul of the communist system.
The revolutions of 1917 profoundly changed the course of Russian history, ending the Romanov dynasty and creating the world’s first communist state. Even if Berdiaev was correct when stating that ‘All of the past is repeating itself, and acts only behind new masks’, this was a fundamental change of significant importance in Russian and world history. The replacement of autocratic Tsarism with the world’s first communist government during the revolutions of 1917 was of major importance. The Twentieth Century would ultimately see both the rise and fall of totalitarian Marxism, but by 1956 a significant part of the world was communist and predominantly under the direct influence of the USSR. The Cold War was at its height. In 1956 Khrushchev crushed the Hungarian Revolt despite his criticisms of Stalin’s regime and his announcement of ‘peaceful co-existence’. All of this was a direct result of the events of 1917 and the Bolshevik seizure of power. Revolution may not have delivered all the changes anticipated in the heady days of 1917, but 1917 was clearly an extremely important turning-point in the development of Russian government in this period.
When George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ was published in 1945 the rise to power of Stalin after the revolution appeared to be the most important turning point in the development of Russian government. To Orwell and many historians it was Stalin’s betrayal of the principles of the revolution that ultimately led to what Lynch has described as ‘the replacement of one form of state authoritarianism by another’. It is impossible to deny that Stalin’s acquisition of total power had a huge impact as the countless victims of de-kulakisation, the terror, the gulags and the Show Trials could testify. As Khrushchev admitted in 1956 under Stalin ‘Soviet citizens came to fear their own shadows’. However, since the opening up of the old Soviet archives following the collapse of communism the extent to which Lenin’s replacement by Stalin marked a significant turning point has been challenged. Many historians now claim that Stalinism grew directly out of Leninism. Pipes states that: ‘Every ingredient of Stalinism save one – murdering fellow communists – Stalin learned from Lenin and that includes mass terror’. The post-Soviet Russian historian, Volkogonov, writing in 1994, agrees: ‘Everything done in Russia after Lenin’s death was done according to his blueprint’.
In conclusion the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 was not the most important turning-point in the development of Russian government in this period. 1917 with its twin revolutions that swept away the Romanov dynasty which had ruled Russia since 1613 and turned Russia into the world’s first communist state overshadows all other turning points in the period. 1917 was the most important turning-point in the development of Russian government in the period from 1855 to 1956.