Tsar Alexander II (1840-1881) succeeded Nicholas I. The new tsar held more liberal views than his predecessor, but the ancient dichotomy persisted. During the nineteenth century the Slavophile/Westernizer debate entered the literary realm. Some of the greatest Russian writers such as Turgenev, Gogol, and Tolstoy grappled with the issue. Chernoshevsky and Dostoyevsky argued the matter in more indirect forms. The Westernizer camp lost a good bit of its credibility as a consequence of the Crimea War, but the war led the tsar to implement the most liberal reform imaginable: In 1861 Tsar Alexander II issued decrees that formally liberated the serfs.
Westernizers thought the decrees long over-due, and Slavophiles thought the ancient practice of serfdom explained inherent Russian "backwardness". And like every other Westernizer to lead Russia, Alexander II could not seem to reform enough to satisfy his allies. He promised vast land reforms, but radical political factions evolved and presented vigorous opposition; the reforms were not broad enough.
The Will of the People organization was among the most vigilant and radical factions. Presenting themselves as the ideological successors of the leaders of the 1825 Decemberist Revolution, the Will of the People in 1874 orchestrated uprisings among peasants and former serfs to seize the land of their former masters. The tsar promptly reacted and issued orders to arrest and exile the uprising organizers. This stern and repressive reaction aided the policy of eastward expansion and development.
Order was restored, but the arrests did not stifle the Will of the People. As new leaders emerged, the organization gained a more anarchist slant. From their places of exile, the old radicals set themselves the task of helping and expanding their faction. The tactics were similar to classic terrorism. In 1881 the Will of the People played the ultimate terrorist card and assassinated the tsar. Tsar Alexander III succeeded him and imposed an undeclared war against dissent. Alexander III was a weak and quite ineffective ruler. His successor Nicholas II (1894-1917) also bore political and fiscal weakness, but those weaknesses caused Russia interminable future trouble.
A quasi-democratic revolution during the reign of Nicholas II led to elections to a national assembly (Duma) in 1905. Liberal-minded government ministers and their industrial allies welcomed the elections, but the results of the experiment did not prove much to their liking. Many bureaucrats and ministers still feared radical organizations such as the Will of the People, the Black Hundreds, the Communist Terrorist Organization, and the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR). To their credit, SR leaders soon dominated the debates in the Duma. Some ministers urged the tsar to dismiss the Duma and suspend the reforms. When he accepted that advice in 1907, Nicholas II heightened the roles of state capitalism and radical politics.
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