Name
Class
Date
CHAPTER
18
Connections With Civics
Main Idea: Reconstruction
Many former slaves in the United
States hoped that freedom would
bring peace and comfort. Unfortunately, reality was somewhat different. As many freedmen learned,
people with no money and few belongings faced many problems even
if they were free.
Many people in Russia were
learning this same lesson at around
the same time. In the mid-1800s, 40
million people—about one third of
the Russian population—were serfs.
Serfs were peasant farmers who
lived on the land of rich landowners.
Their condition was like that of enslaved African Americans in the
United States. Serfs were under the control of the landowners. They had to give part of their
crops and services to landowners in return for use of the land. They could be turned into servants. They could even be sold with the land.
As in the United States, some people in Russia opposed this system and pushed for abolition. In 1861, Czar Alexander II came to agree with the abolitionists. Revolts by serfs were
increasing, which worried the czar. Also, Russia was beginning to build its industries. As a
result, it needed more free workers to work in the factories.
In 1861, then, the czar decided to free the serfs. He issued an Edict of Emancipation. As
in the American South, though, the new plan did not give the serfs economic freedom. Under
the new system, former serfs were not given the land. Instead, the government bought the
land from landowners and gave it to villages. Peasants in the villages were supposed to work
the land and pay the government for its use. If the land were completely paid for at the end
of 19 years, the peasants would own the land that they farmed.
In truth, though, after emancipation the peasants were just as poor as they had been before. They had little money, and their plots were too small to be farmed. Unrest continued.
The czar had hoped that freeing the serfs would end peasant revolts. It simply postponed
them, however. In 1917, fifty-six years after the Edict of Emancipation, the peasants joined
with other Russians who were unhappy over poverty and lack of rights. They overthrew the
czar who then ruled Russia.
1. (a) Who were the serfs? (b) What rights and responsibilities did they have before 1861?
2. Czar Alexander II declared: “It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait until it
is abolished from below.” What do you think he meant by this statement?
A c t i v ity
104
Make a chart that compares and contrasts the situation before and
after the emancipation of Russian serfs and American slaves.
Chapter 18 Interdisciplinary Connections
© Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Emancipation in Russia