Historical background of abolishing serfdom. First, the contradiction between the development of Russian capitalism and serfdom. /kloc-in the first half of the 0/9th century, capitalist industries developed in Russia. 1860, there were more than 10000 factories in Russia producing with machines. Railway mileage1.500km; The number of workers is 860,000, of which 62% are employed workers. But the existence of serfdom seriously hindered the development of Russian capitalism. 38% of the workers are serfs, and a large number of serfs are bound to the land by serf owners, living in poverty and without personal freedom. Slave owners can abuse and even transfer them to others at any time; In order to make huge profits, serf owners exported a lot of grain and raw materials. Serf owners cruelly oppressed serfs, constantly increasing the number of days they worked for their masters every week, and even taking back their land, making serfs slaves. Due to the above reasons, the labor force, raw materials, market and capital needed for the development of Russian capitalism cannot be solved at all, which leads to Russia falling behind western European countries. For example, the pig iron output in Britain is only115, France is only 1/3, and the total railway mileage in Britain is only110. This shows that serfdom, a backward feudal mode of production, has become a serious obstacle to Russia's economic development and has fallen into a profound crisis. Second, the existence of serfdom led to the failure of foreign aggression and expansion. Starting from Peter I, Russia went south to the Black Sea and expanded to the Mediterranean Sea. To this end, there were several wars with the Ottoman Empire. 1853, Russia attacked Turkey on a large scale under the pretext of persecution of Orthodox Christians by the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian-Turkish war broke out. In order to curb Russia's expansion to the Mediterranean, Britain and France declared war on Russia in 1854, and the Crimean War broke out. 1855, Russia made peace with Britain and France because of the fall of fortress Sevastopol, and signed the Paris Peace Treaty. Russia lost the right to keep its fleet and fortress in the Black Sea. The failure of the Crimean War was mainly due to the social and economic backwardness of Russia, and the root of economic backwardness was the existence of serfdom. Due to economic backwardness, Russian troops are poorly equipped and lack of military supplies. The time required to transfer troops from central Russia even exceeds that of Britain and France from the mainland, which will inevitably affect the war situation. When the war broke out, the Russian government further brutally exploited serfs in order to invest more manpower and material resources, causing serfs to resist. As a result, the rear area is tight and the military supplies are insufficient, which greatly weakens the combat effectiveness of the army. In short, the failure of the Crimean war further intensified the social contradictions in Russia. After the war, the peasant movement surged. From 1858 to 1860, there were nearly 300 peasant uprisings in Russia. The peasant uprising is essentially an attempt by the peasant class to eliminate serfdom from the bottom up. The failure of the Crimean War and the surge of peasant uprisings after the war show a grim reality, that is, serfdom, as the cornerstone of czar's autocratic rule, is facing extinction. If we continue to preserve it, it will lead to the collapse of the czar's rule. Therefore, on March 30th, 1856, that is, only 12 days after the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty, Tsar Alexander II talked about abolishing serfdom: "It is better to liberate farmers from top to bottom than to wait for them to climb from bottom to top."

To sum up, the existence of serfdom hindered Russia's social and economic development, affected Russia's external expansion, caused a serious political crisis and endangered the czar's autocratic rule. In order to save the ruling crisis, Alexander II finally signed a decree to abolish serfdom in February 186 19 (March 3, Russian calendar).

2. Content and evaluation of the reform. The content of the reform has been summarized in the textbook, so there is not much to add here. The following comments are made from the nature, function and incompleteness of the reform.

First, Russia's 186 1 reform is a top-down reform carried out by the tsar in the name of the country. Because it objectively provided the necessary free labor force, domestic market and funds for the development of Russian capitalism (by 1905, the ransom paid by serfs for land expropriation had reached 2 billion rubles), Russian industry grew rapidly, and by the end of the industrial revolution in the 1980s, the capitalist economy gradually took the dominant position in the national economy, which complied with the requirements of Russian capitalist development. Therefore, it is a bourgeois reform and a turning point in Russia's transition from feudal mode of production to capitalist mode of production. The reform also liberated serfs, freed them from the shackles of feudal relations of production and obtained certain means of production and livelihood. This is beneficial to the development of agricultural production.

Second, this reform is very incomplete, which is essentially a "legal" plunder of the peasant class by the landlord class. It was carried out on the premise of protecting the interests of landlords. Its performance is as follows: the best fertile land is occupied by landlords; Farmers' land is not only smaller than the original cultivated land, but also pays a ransom two or three times higher than the land price. Therefore, when the peasants were truly "liberated", they were actually penniless. Most of them can't operate independently, so they can only rent land, borrow money from landlords and put on their lost shackles again. In addition, this reform did not touch the czar's autocratic system, so the reform in 186 1 saved many feudal remnants. Russia's way of developing capitalism at the expense of farmers' interests will inevitably have a negative impact on developing capitalism, leading to the reduction of people's purchasing power, the failure to fully activate the domestic market, and farmers' dissatisfaction with the reform. The peasant movement has developed again. 186 1 year, 1 176 farmers in the manor held riots, which lasted until 1864.