vast natural resources of the country, public instruction received an unprecedented impetus, a considerable amount of liberty was accorded to the press, a strong spirit of liberalism pervaded rapidly all sections of the educated classes, a new imaginative and critical literature dealing with economic, philosophical and political questions sprang into existence, and for a time the young generation fondly imagined that Russia, awakening from her traditional lethargy, was about to overtake, and soon to surpass, on the path of national progress, the older nations of western Europe.
These sanguine expectations were not fully realized. The economic and moral condition of the peasantry was little improved by freedom, and in many districts there were signs of positive impoverishment and demoralization. The local self-government institutions after a short period of feverish and not always well-directed activity, showed symptoms of organic exhaustion. The reformed tribunals, though incomparably better than their predecessors, did not give universal satisfaction. In the imperial administration, the corruption and long-established abuses which had momentarily vanished, began to reappear. Industrial enterprises did not always succeed. Education produced many unforeseen and undesirable practical results. The liberty of the press not infrequently degenerated into licence, and sane liberalism was often replaced by socialistic dreaming. In short, it became only too evident that there was no royal road to national prosperity, and that Russia, like other nations, must be content to advance slowly and laboriously along the rough path of painful experience. In these circumstances sanguine enthusiasm naturally gave way to despondency, and the reforming zeal of the government was replaced by tendencies of a decidedly reactionary kind. Partly from disappointment and nervous exhaustion, and partly from a conviction that the country required rest in order to judge the practical results of the reforms already accomplished, the tsar refrained from further initiating new legislation, and the government gave it to be understood that the epoch of the great reforms was closed.
In the younger ranks of the educated classes this state of things produced keen dissatisfaction, which soon found vent Revolutionary propaganda. in revolutionary agitation. At first the agitation was of an academic character and was dealt with by the press-censure; but it gradually took the form of secret associations, and the police had to interfere. There were no great, well-organized secret societies, but there were many small groups, composed chiefly of male and female students of the universities and technical schools, which worked independently for a common purpose. Finding that the walls of autocracy could not be overturned by blasts of revolutionary trumpets in the periodical press and in clandestinely printed seditious proclamations, the young enthusiasts determined to seek the support of the masses, or, as they termed it, “to go in among the people” (idti v naròd). Under the disguise of doctors, midwives, school teachers, governesses, factory hands or common labourers, they sought to make proselytes among the peasantry and the workmen in the industrial centres by revolutionary pamphlets and oral explanations. For a time the propaganda had very little success, because the uneducated peasants and factory workers could not understand the phraseology and abstract principles of socialism; but when the propagandists descended to a lower platform and spread rumours that the tsar had given all the land to the peasants, and was prevented by the proprietors and officials from carrying out his benevolent intentions, there was a serious danger of agrarian disorders, and energetic measures were adopted by the authorities. Wholesale arrests were made by the police, and many of the accused were imprisoned or exiled to distant provinces, some by the regular tribunals, and others by so-called “administrative procedure” without a formal trial. The activity of the police and the sufferings of the victims naturally produced intense excitement and bitterness among those who escaped arrest, and a secret organization calling itself the Executive Committee announced in its clandestinely printed organs that the functionaries who distinguished themselves in the suppression of the propaganda would be “removed.” A number of prominent officials were accordingly condemned to death by this secret terrorist tribunal, and in some cases the sentences were carried out. General Mezentsov, the head of the political police, was assassinated in broad daylight in one of the principal streets of St Petersburg, and in the provinces a good many officials of various grades shared the same fate. As these acts of terrorism had quite the opposite of the desired effect, repeated attempts were made on the life of the emperor, and at last the carefully laid plans of the conspirators were successful. On the 13th of March 1881, when returning from a military parade to the Winter Palace, Alexander II. was terribly wounded by the explosion of a bomb, and died shortly afterwards. (For details of this revolutionary movement, see Nihilism.)
In respect of foreign policy the reign of Alexander II. differed widely from that of Nicholas. The Eastern Colossus no longer Foreign policy. inspired respect and fear in Europe. Until the country had completely recovered from the exhaustion of the Crimean War the government remained in the background of European politics. Its attitude was graphically described in the famous declaration of Prince Gorchakov: “La Russie ne boude pas; elle se recueille.” On one point, however, this description was not accurate; Russia sulked so far as Austria was concerned, for she could not forget that the emperor Francis Joseph, by his wavering and unfriendly conduct towards her during the Crimean War, had ill repaid her assistance to the Habsburg Monarchy in 1849, and had fulfilled the cynical prediction of Prince Schwarzenberg that his country would astonish the world by her ingratitude. It was not without secret satisfaction, therefore, that Prince Gorchakov watched the repeated defeats of the Austrian army in the Italian campaign of 1859, and he felt inclined to respond to the advances made to him by Napoleon III.; but the germs of a Russo-French alliance, which had come into existence immediately after the Crimean War, ripened very slowly, and they were completely destroyed in 1863 when the French emperor wounded Russian sensibilities deeply by giving moral and diplomatic support to the Polish insurrection. On that occasion Bismarck helped Gorchakov to ward off the threatened intervention of France and England, and he thereby founded the cordial relations which subsisted between the cabinets of Berlin and St Petersburg down to 1878, and which contributed powerfully to the creation of the German empire by defending the Prussian cabinet against the jealousy and enmity of Austria and France. In return for these services Bismarck helped Russia to recover a portion of what she had lost by the Crimean War, for it was thanks to his connivance and diplomatic support that she was able in 1871 to denounce with impunity the clauses of the treaty of Paris which limited Russian armament in the Black Sea. Had the tsar been satisfied with this important success, which enabled him to rebuild Sevastopol and construct a Black Sea fleet, his reign might have been a peaceful and prosperous Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. one, but he tried to recover the remainder of what had been lost by the Crimean War, the province of Bessarabia and predominant influence in Turkey. To effect this, he embarked on the Turkish War of 1877-78, which ended in disappointment. Though the campaign enabled him to recover Bessarabia at the expense of his Rumanian ally, it did not increase Russian prestige in the East, because the Russian army was repeatedly repulsed by the Turks, and when at last it reached Constantinople, it was prevented from entering the city by the threatening attitude of England and Austria. In the field of diplomacy there was likewise disappointment. The concessions extorted from the Porte in the preliminary treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878) were revived and considerably modified in favour of Turkey by the congress of Berlin (June 13-July 13, 1878); see Europe: history.
Much greater success attended the efforts of Russian diplomacy and Russian arms in Asia. By the treaty of Aigun (May 28, Russian expansion in Asia. 1858), and without any military operations, the cession of a great part of the basin of the Amur was obtained from China. Six years later began the rapid expansion of Russia in Central Asia, and at the end
