Essay on Did Alexander II deserve the title Tsar Liberator?

Tsar Nicholas II was one of the central figures to the Russian February Revolution of 1917 and secured the downfall of the Romanov dynasty. Nicholas II continued the regressive reforms of his father Tsar Alexander III, ultimately disenchanting the constituents from the neglect of longstanding grievances; he epitomised the fundamental problem of absolute rule, as years of suffering would eventually lead to revolution. His mismanagement and direct involvement in World War I undermined the already unstable government, causing his subjects to join radical movements to overthrow the tsarist regime.

This was achieved with the emancipation of the serfs. Still without a middle class, the government played a strong role in the early decisions with industrialization. The tsar during this time, Alexander II, had a great railroad network created that allowed for more efficient use of Russia’s plentiful natural resources.

By 1881, Alexander destroyed the proposals of reform that his father had created. He forced the reforming ministers to resign and made it very clear that his rule was one of autocracy. Met by many with dislike, however, Alexander did crush any hope of a peaceful reform by the Russian people and by doing so made it less likely that there would be opposition to him, as the people were unwilling to use violence for their cause.

The October Manifesto 1905 gained the Tsar back some of his support by promising reform; however the Tsar failed to abide by his promises and did not satisfactorily address the problems of Russia. To ensure his long-term survival the Tsar needed to address the problems that had caused the 1905 revolution. The action of Nicholas II to introduce reform saved his position in the throne s, though not for long as he took the wrong approach and chose to please some groups in Russian society and ignored the demands of others. Some changes were made that did temporarily satisfy his people such as the creation of a duma and the cancellation of the redemption payments. The creation of a duma meant the Tsar now had to delegate authority to parliament and could no longer consider himself an autocrat, however although it may of appeared that the Tsar now did not have ‘absolute’ power he didn’t really give the duma much power at all and he restricted their influence on the Russian government.

An American essayist, H.L. Mencken stated, “The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants be safe”. I disagree with this statement because an “average man” wants to live. In order to live you must have two necessities; freedom and safety. I believe neither is more important than one another because being free gives you the opportunity to a safe nation, and a safe nation allows you to be free. You cannot live a life without exploring and growing because that would not be considered living. On the other hand, you cannot expect to be free without safety around you.

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority” (Acton Institute 1). Alexander the Great was and absolute ruler that had both influence and authority; he abused both which is why many of his subjects followed him out of fear and not loyalty. Rulers are defined by how they use their power, the decisions’ they make; and how those decisions will affect the people. In my essay, I will analyze two viewpoints’ made by two professors and their viewpoints about Alexander III and whether or not he was deserving of the title “The Great”.

During Alexander II reign he concentrated on exposing Russia to the outside world therefore he built a railway line. During this period too there was some though very little reform in the government’s taxation policies which still was a heavy burden for the peasants because they still had to pay poll tax which was increased by 80% during his reign while Alexander III abolished the poll tax and also created the

During the 1900’s the Russian Government made it extremely hard for the Bolsheviks to progress which made them revolt against the government making this a prime matter for the start of the Revolution. The Czarist government was ostracized by the common people of Russia so Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown by the Provisional Government, whom later on were overthrown by Lenin and shortly after the Bolsheviks took control over Russia. Russia was hard to develop because of the major leaders who had control; Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky. Almost overnight an entire society was destroyed and replaced with one of the most radical social experiments ever seen. Poverty, crime, privileged and class-divisions were to be eliminated, a new era of socialism

Society was extensively transformed. Indeed, there were many negative results, yet many reforms proved to be positive such as the development of education; in 1862 schools were placed under the jurisdiction of the state, rather than the church. The university regulations of 1863 allowed freedom for universities and as a result women's education flourished; by 1881 2,000 women were leaving their stereotypical roles behind and studying in universities, something that the west hadn’t yet done, showing that Russia was ahead of

Alexander III’s stance on domestic issues came as no surprise. As a youngster, he was tutored by Konstantin Pobodonestev, a conservative, forceful man who strongly opposed Western ideology. Pobodonestev’s ideas and beliefs rubbed off on the young boy, and he blamed his father’s liberal-minded reforms as the cause for his murder. Seeking to strengthen the autocracy, he gave officials the power to declare a state of emergency, and to arrest or fine anyone unreliable. He also cleverly cut off schools by setting up discriminatory admission rules, against women, poor families, and the Jews. He then forced the expansion of Russian culture and language by forcing everyone in the nation to speak, write, and think in Russian; otherwise known as Russification. Alexander III preferred having as much control as possible over his people, something he did not have in common with his father.

Freedom does not mean free. The saying has been established in the past, present, and the future which happens to be the setting of where Brave New World by Aldoux Huxley takes place. In futuristic London, though people living there come off as happy with all their wants satisfied and fulfilled, by looking closer into what seems to be a perfectly utopian society, a dystopian society strongly seems visible due to total authority and corrupt government control as further developed by perspective. Huxley's choice of point of view as the rhetorical device contributes to the dystopian purpose for the novel.

What do I mean by this? Well, firstly I need to be entirely clear about what I mean by freedom. The Oxford English Dictionary defines freedom as “the state or fact of being free from servitude, constraint, inhibition, etc.; liberty.” This is true; however, any reasonable person can determine that that does not even begin to cover what “freedom” really means. There is emotional value in the word that simply cannot be captured by such a clinical definition. When I say freedom, what I really mean is the reasonable ability to make choices about one’s own actions and one’s own life. This does not have to be free from consequence, but it has to be a reasonable possibility on a de facto level.

People would not seek for freedom unless, they do not have enough freedom, or they are

there were many people, either willingly, or forced, to give up there freedom in order to

Tsar Alexander II and III while father and son had very different ambitions as Tsar and different view for the future of the empire. Alexander III succeeded to his father’s throne in 1894. His reign is looked upon by most historians as a time of repression that saw the undoing of many of the reforms carried out by his father. Certainly that was a time of great economic and social change but these had led, in the West of the nation, great pressure on political system. However Alexander was deeply suspicious of the direction in which his father had taken Russia and the internal reforms that he instituted were designed to correct what he saw as the too-liberal tendencies of his father's reign.