RUSSIA

1. RUSSIA • Largest population and land area but also poorest, most economically backward, and most repressive country in Europe • Majority of population serfs

2. REPRESSIVE STATE • Spared shocks of 1848 • Because of backwardness • Because of repressive measures of Nicholas I • Secret police • Censorship • Alliance with Orthodox Church

3. CRIMEAN WAR • Defeat in Crimean War changes situation • Lost because Russian military was poorly equipped, poorly trained, and poorly led • Transportation system a mess • Officers corrupt, soldiers illiterate and incapable of initiative, and government incapable of running a modern war • Many begin to recognize that Russia’s backward and reactionary character had caused defeat

4. REFORMS OF ALEXANDER II • Motive was not humanitarian but to restore Russian military power and position on the international stage • Abolition of Serfdom (1861) • Implemented despite protests of the nobility • Legal rights granted to former serfs and also title to the land they worked • Provided they paid for it • Reform did not go far enough • Peasants usually sold bad land • Seldom were able to buy enough land • Expense of land left many peasants deeply in debt • Freed peasants from indignity of being serfs but did make them equal

5. OTHER REFORMS • Creation of Zemstvos • Local government committees • Increase in number of schools • Relaxed censorship • Changes in the army • No reform went far enough and each revealed more problems that needed resolution. • Because Alexander needed support of the nobility, he could not risk alienating that support by implementing real, far-reaching reforms

6. GROWTH OF REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT • Caused by Russia’s failure to thoroughly reform itself and the unfulfilled hopes and promises of Alexander II’s reforms • Some came to realize that real change would only take place in Russia if the tsarist government and its noble foundation were replaced by something better • Mainly young, educated people • Not mass movement • Sons and daughters of the upper-class • University students • Intensely hated status quo in Russia Vera Zasulich Nicolai Chernyshevsky

7. INTERNAL DIVISIONS • Divergent views • Revolutionary potential of peasants • Revolutionary potential of workers (Marxists) • Terrorists • Assassinated Alexander II in 1881 • Not especially effective before late 1890s

8. ALEXANDER III • Alexander III (1881-1894) • Ignorant and brutal • Despised father’s reforms and did his best to undo them • Increased powers of secret police • Increased privileges and powers of nobility • Persecuted Jews

9. NICHOLAS II • (1894-1917) • Continued father’s reactionary policies • Even stupider than his father • Results • Revolutionary propaganda and agitation among masses begins to take root • Peasants show signs of waking up • Juries let terrorists off • Marxists make tremendous headway among workers • In general, unrest increased throughout Russia, placing tsarist regime in real danger for first time

10. GREAT BRITAIN • Most powerful nation in world before 1870s • Dominated industrial production • Controlled world trade • Largest and best navy • Largest empire in history • Relatively peaceful and stable

11. PROBLEMS • Gross social and economic inequality • Growing unrest in Ireland • Difficulties in governing huge empire • Maintenance of economic dominance in the face of the rise of Germany and the United States

12. LIBERALS/CONSERVATIVES I Alternated position of prime minister from 1868 to 1894 William Gladstone (Liberal Party) Advocated extending right to vote to lower-class Benjamin Disraeli (Conservative or Tory Party) Convinced fellow party members to support extension of the vote and passed Reform Act of 1867 (doubled size of electorate) Disraeli Gladstone

13. LIBERALS/CONSERVATIVES II Two parties accomplished quite a bit improvements in educational system easing of British rule in Ireland (but fell short of granting Ireland independence) improved public health system legalized trade unions enlarged empire After 1886, Conservatives control position of prime minister until 1905 Marquis de Salisbury and Alfred Balfour

14. SOUTH AFRICA • Region settled by Boers in late 18th/early 19th century • Dutch-speaking immigrants • England gains control of region in 1818 – Cape Colony • Many Boers migrate to neighboring areas and create Transvaal Republic and Orange Free State • British attempted to annex the Transvaal in 1877 but failed • Forced to recognize Boer republics but tensions remained

15. GROWING TENSION • Gold discovered in Transvaal in 1880s • Brits flood Boer Republics as a result • Boers tax them heavily and deny them right to vote • Brits beg government to intervene but Gladstone refuses • Conservatives reverse this policy after 1886 • Encouraged by Cecil Rhodes in his plan to unite entire region under British rule • Governor of Cape Colony • Launched covert raids on Boer farms, towns, and communication lines

16. BOER WAR • War erupts in 1899 • British army takes cities of region but Boers use countryside to wage guerilla war • British burn farms and create concentration camps to subdue Boers • British win but war damages their prestige and self-confidence

17. PROBLEMS I • Strikes by unskilled workers increase and skilled workers woke up to need for political participation • Resulted in formation of Labour Party in 1902 • Elected 29 mps in 1906 • Few years later, Liberal Party comes to rely on Labour support in order to rule • Workers began talking about “General Strike”

18. PROBLEMS II • Middle-class female activists begin agitating for right to vote • Interrupted public meetings, smashing windows, chaining themselves to fences, even planting bombs • Parliament passes Irish Home Rule bill in 1914 • Protestants in northern Ireland and army threaten armed revolt if bill was ever implemented

19. SUMMARY • The stability and unity that had characterized Great Britain appeared, to many observers, to be falling apart in the late 19th century • Looked to previous 100 years as a “golden age” and generally believed that the future held catastrophe • Outbreak of World War I temporarily pulled the various competing factions of British society together again • But problems were only “pushed under the rug” and would all soon emerge again with increased urgency and vehemence once the war was over