ON THIS DAY ·
Assassination of Alexander II
Alexander II is killed by a People’s Will bomb on the Catherine Canal, on the day he approved a modest step toward elected advisers. His son buries the plan with him.
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The moment in context
The murder of Alexander II gave his successor a reason to distrust concessions. If reforms had failed to protect the reforming Tsar, Alexander III believed, demands for further change had to be resisted. Pobedonostsev drafted the April 1881 manifesto proclaiming unlimited autocracy, and reforming ministers resigned. The August emergency statute let governors ban meetings, close newspapers and exile suspects without trial. It was renewed until 1917. Suspicion reached beyond the assassins. University self-government ended in 1884; in 1887 schools were urged to turn away cooks’ children. In 1889 noble land captains were appointed to administer and judge peasants, much like colonial district officers. Each measure placed a larger group under control because the government feared what some of its members might do.
From Counter-reforms of Alexander III, chapter 2 of The Russian Revolution, 1855–1924 (MAY 1891).
Teach this in 5 minutes
- Why it happened — The assassination of 1881. The People’s Will pursued Alexander II for two years. Its Winter Palace bomb killed eleven guards in February 1880, and in March 1881 it killed the…
- The turn — The Catherine Canal, 1/13 March 1881. On the morning of 1/13 March 1881 Alexander II approved Loris-Melikov’s plan to bring elected zemstvo and city delegates into the drafting of laws.…
- What it changed — A state of permanent emergency. The 1881 emergency statute became an ordinary instrument of government, placing a large share of the empire under emergency rule for a generation.…
Then ask the room: Did Alexander III’s policies strengthen the autocracy or prepare its collapse? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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