Serf's Up

When Alexander II assumed the throne in 1855 Russia had more problems than an epileptic tight-rope walker. Nicholas' imperialist pretensions towards Turkey left Russia embroiled in the embarrassing Crimean War with France and Britain, and discontent both among the upper classes and the serfs was becoming more evident (during Nicholas' reign there had been over five hundred peasant uprisings). A series of reforms including the abolition of flogging in the army and some judicial and educational reforms culminated in the abolition of serfdom in 1861. After an assassination attempt on Alexander II in 1866, the reform period gradually faded and Russia slid back into conservatism.

During the 1860s and 1870s revolutionary groups began to flower in St. Petersburg, mostly among students. The 1860s were the heydey of the nihilists, 19th century hippies who offended people with their hair styles and free-loving attitudes. In the 1870s populism was the rage, and young starry-eyed revolutionaries "went to the people" (i.e. travelled to peasant communes in an attempt to put their theories about the political potential of the Russian countryside into practice) only to have the people tell them to get lost. Anarchists and terrorists also appeared, and it was one of the latter (representing an extremist group called People's Will) that assassinated Alexander II on March 1, 1881.