I don't know that much of the Tsars, only really knowing Ivan the Terrible. Peter and Catherine the Great, and the last three, so my views are admittedly cololred-if russia has a history of being behind and its greatest leaders were active reformers it makes sense that the have a lot of reactionary leaders. And i was mostly referrig to the exploitation of the peoples in the areas i mentioned
There is a problem with Ivan’s nickname: English translation, popular as it is, is not necessary correct: «Грозный» has many meanings and as applicable to Ivan the intended meaning was closer to “formidable”. Well, while we are on the subject, “War and Peace” is actually “War and society”, again, the most obvious but a wrong meaning of the world had been chosen.
Now, let’s be clear about “reformer” and “reactionary”. An implication that reform is always something liberal is plain wrong: it is just a change with the
intent to improve something. Needless to say, than the unintended consequences can result in something opposite to the intention. “Reactionary” is something opposing a liberal reform but if such a reform produced bad results, is being a reactionary a bad thing? Bismarck called himself a reactionary.
Back to the subject, Ivan was an intensive reformer in administrative and military areas and his reign cost Tsardom something like 20- 25% of its population, caused a serious damage to economy and society in general which could not be fixed by the next two reigns paving the way to the Time of the Troubles.
Jumping to the Romanovs, the 1st Romanov, Michael, was to a remarkable degree lacking any talents but he inherited a country thoroughly destroyed by the years of the foreign intervention and civic war and, while he lost a war and apart of a territory, Russia survived as an independent state and was on its way up as a regional power.
Tsar Alexei also was not a brightest apple on a tree and not a starry-eyed reformer but Tsardom kept getting out of its sorry state and ended with adding a big chunk of a modern Ukraine. There were gradual but noticeable changes bringing Russia closer to the Western level.
His elder son, Fedor, continued father’s policy of the gradual changes but he died too young.
Peter was an obsessed reformer. He enforced superficial “Western culture” (mostly in the terms of a dress code, furniture, architecture and the shape of the drinking parties in which females had been now forced to participate) and conquered few small pieces of a territory (after couple decades of an intensive fighting). His reforms created a terrible economic model which plagued Russia at least until Emancipation of the Serfs. All that at the cost of approximately the same 20 - 25% of the population. He also finalized a model of an absolute monarchy in Russia (“reactionary reforms”?) and after his death quite a few things had to be rolled back because it was impossible to keep spending 80 - 90% of a budget on military needs.
Few following reigns were not remarkable by any significant reforms (except for an avalanche of them during the very short reign of Peter III). Things did not get better but neither did they get worse.
Catherine II was not that “expensive” in the terms of the human losses but she was giving away the state peasants into private serfdom by the tens of thousands making fundamental problem of the Russian economy even worse and, objectively, slowing Russian industrial development. Needless to say that she was a great reformer and conducted a number of important territorial acquisitions. Was she a progressive or a reactionary? Ah yes, her reign besides many true accomplishments is also remarkable by an unusual, even for Russia, level of wastefulness and inefficiency.
Her son, Paul, during his short reign tried to restore some kind of an order and discipline by reglamenting clothes and hairstyles of his subjects. He also managed to give away more state peasants than his mother. Of course, he was a reactionary and he made a mistake of siding with Nappy against the Brits so his reign was cut short.
His two sons, Alexander I and Nicholas I, were ...er... “reformers” (especially in the areas of the military and civic uniforms) and by the end of Nicholas’ reign Russia was in such a deep s—t that even his son, Alexander II, was able to see the problem.
Alexander II conducted a number of the progressive reforms and as a reward had been killed. By the end of his reign Russian finances were in a terrible shape, industries were not developing due to the low tariffs on the imports, agriculture remained backward and peasant poor, reformed army managed to lose its reputation in a victorious war (thanks to his personal interventions), foreign policy was fundamentally screwed up, educated developed a habit of opposing the government as a matter of principle, expenses of the Grand Dukes were out of control, his own son openly despised him. It took him to be assassinated to get some appreciation.
Alexander III was a reactionary, which did not prevent him from conducting a number of reforms which triggered development of the Russian industry, made the railroads profitable, put spending under control, established gold standard for Russian currency, etc. International prestige was restored and proclaimed peaceful policy contributed to maintaining peace in Europe. Needless to say that he was despised and mocked by the educated classes for not being progressive or intellectual.
Nicholas II was really
bad and clearly reactionary but Russia became a constitutional monarchy and economic development continued in a reasonably high rate.
So I’m not quite sure that the course of the active reforms was such a good thing in the case of Russia. Perhaps the best thing was for the government to keep its activities down to a necessary minimum?
