One was a new set of local organs of self-government called the zemstvo. Because the pre-reform regime had been so heavily concentrated in the major cities (with only nominal representation in rural areas) and plainly lacked the human and material resources to construct an elaborate system of local administration, in 1864 the government elected to confer primary responsibility on society itself by establishing a new organ of local self-government, the zemstvo. The reform statute provided for the creation of elected assemblies at the district and provincial level; chosen from separate curiae (peasants, townspeople, and private landowners), the assemblies bore primary responsibility for the social and cultural development of society’s infrastructure. Specifically, by exercising powers of self-taxation of the zemstvo, ‘society’ in each province was to build and maintain key elements of the infrastructure (such as roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, asylums, and prisons), to provide essential social services (public health, poor relief, and assistance during famines), and to promote industry, commerce, and agriculture.
A second major sphere of reform was education, both at the elementary and higher levels. Of particular urgency was the need for elementary schooling: if the former serfs were to become part of the body politic and good citizens, it was essential that the massive illiteracy be overcome. First through the initiative of the Orthodox Church, later the Ministry of Education and the zemstvo, a host of schools sprang up across the countryside. In contrast to the clandestine reformism under Nicholas I, the liberal bureaucrats not only drafted legislation but also published these plans to solicit comment at home and abroad; they then drew heavily on these critical comments as they prepared the final statutes on schools and universities. The Elementary School Statute of 1864 provided the legal framework for this multi-tier system but left financing as the legal responsibility of the local community. A parallel statute sought to regulate and promote the growth of secondary schools. More complex, and political, was reform at the university level, which had been shaken by student unrest and appeared to be a hotbed of radicalism. Nonetheless, the University Statute of 1863 generally dismantled the crippling restrictions of Nicholas I’s rule and transformed the university into a self-governing corporation, with far greater rights for its teaching staff and even some recognition of student rights.
The third (and arguably most liberal) reform was the judicial statute of 1864. Russian courts had been notorious for their corruption, inefficiency, and rank injustice; indeed, so notorious were they that Nicholas had initiated reform by establishing a commission in 1850 to rebuild the court system. But that commission had been dominated by old-regime bureaucrats who lacked formal legal training; in 1861 Alexander, persuaded of their incompetence, abolished that commission and established an entirely new committee, which was dominated by liberal
A fourth important focus of reform was the military, which had acquitted itself so badly during the Crimean War and was plainly in need of thoroughgoing reconstruction. The military leaders, indeed, proved to be energetic reformers, eager to rebuild the army and to borrow freely on Western models. The result was a protracted and far-reaching set of reforms—measures for technological rearmament, administrative reorganization, professionalization of military schools. But one essential reform—replacement of a huge standing army without reserves by universal military training—proved politically difficult, chiefly because the reform abrogated the nobility’s right
