What if Alexander II never was assasinated?

Will Russia industrialize, form a duma with actual power? Will it win ww1? If he would outlive Alexander III and his son Sergei be as incompetant as Nicholas, meaning a possible russian victory in the russo jap war or ww1?
 
I think a duma with actual power would be established since he wanted to westernize Russia. I think this also leads to and earlier industrialization. With a more industrialized Russia it will definitely do better in WW1 if it isn’t butterflied away. If Russia wins the Russo-Japanese war then I think that they likely also win WW1.
Edit: the February and October revolutions are also butterflied if there is a Duma with actual power.
 
The commissions he was looking at would have stopped far far short of real democratic change - the main aim was to shut the revolutionaries up whilst maintaining Imperial rule - the pace of change would probably have been very slow - think a weaker version of 1905 - which would never have satisfied those opposed to the autocracy - Alexander II was willing to consider reform but to suggest he was planning to hand over power and absolutism is wishful thinking.
 

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I think a duma with actual power would be established since he wanted to westernize Russia. I think this also leads to and earlier industrialization. With a more industrialized Russia it will definitely do better in WW1 if it isn’t butterflied away. If Russia wins the Russo-Japanese war then I think that they likely also win WW1.
Edit: the February and October revolutions are also butterflied if there is a Duma with actual power.
No Alexander II's reforms were meant to save the autocracy, not destroy it.
 
No Alexander II's reforms were meant to save the autocracy, not destroy it.
What about the tsars who followed? I thought I read somewhere that Alexander III and Nicholas II who witnessed what happened to Alexander II were scarred into having no love for his reforms. They reacted vengefully towards the populace blaming them for Alexadner II's death while he was trying to help them. If Alexander II had lived, he may have limited how far he would go, but would his son and grandson have embraced his policies and expanded them further during each to their own reigns?
 
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Will Russia industrialize, form a duma with actual power? Will it win ww1? If he would outlive Alexander III and his son Sergei be as incompetant as Nicholas, meaning a possible russian victory in the russo jap war or ww1?

He was presumably going to sign some kind of a constitution on the day of his death but I doubt that this was about giving away his own power to some elected body.

Industrialization of Russia did not heavily depend on the monarch's personality or having/not having a constitution: under Alexander III Russian economy had been developing at a very high rate notwithstanding his conservatism and aversion to the reforms. Industrialization was pretty much all about the available capital and, if anything, "law and order" had been more conductive to this process than "social confusion" associated with the reign of Alexander II when the government was trying to run in all directions simultaneously.

I'm not sure how alt-incompetent monarch (Sergey) would be an improvement comparing to OTL incompetent monarch so perhaps it would be better if Alexander II died earlier from the natural causes to be replaced with Alexander III who would live noticeably longer keeping Russia from the international adventures like those which result in war with Japan and WWI and concentrating on developing economy, financial reforms, etc.

Now, about Duma with power. While the idea looks nice and reasonable, in Russia of that period it would almost definitely mean even greater corruption, a complete disorder and probably even more idiotic foreign policy than in OTL of Nicholas II. Most probably, neither Witte's financial reform nor Stolypin's agricultural reform would happen just because they'd drown in the endless demagoguery. Ptobably Trans Siberian Railroad would end up in the same group but "adventures" in Manchuria and Korea would most probably happen.

An idea that having the democratic institution will automatically cure all social and economic problems is quite idealistic (look at what happened in Yeltsin's Russia) especially taking into an account personalities: even during the reign of Nicholas II these Duma personages were mostly busy with a demagoguery. What was one of Duma's 1st proposals? Release of the political prisoners, aka, the people who were openly planning to overthrow the regime. Land reform - pure demagoguery because Russian peasants did not have capital to buy the modern equipment and skills necessary for high-efficiency agriculture: most of equipment and know-how was concentrated in the big estates; neither was a majority of the Russian peasants inclined to became the individual farmers: they had been stuck with a communal landownership and communal tax responsibility (that's why the commies achieved collectivization with a relative ease). What's left? More rights to the trade unions. Sounds great but in a reality these unions with the rights were going on strikes in the most "interesting" moments critical for country's survival. BTW, IIRC, by the early XX an average industrial worker had a higher income than a low-ranking officer. Not that the high level of Tsarist administration was highly competent or excessively honest but there is absolutely no reason to assume that the elected ministers would be better in any regard and most of the lower level administration would remain in their positions, anyway.
 
What about the tsars who followed? I thought I read somewhere that Alexander III and Nicholas II who witnessed what happened to Alexander II were scarred into having no love for his reforms.

Future Alexander III was not a big fun of the reforms well before assassination of his father and not without a good reason. The most fundamental reform, emancipation of the serfs, resulted in a huge damage to the Russian agriculture in general and majority of the peasants. It is enough to read some of the "liberal" authors of that period to find endless complaints about increased drunkenness, pauperization of the peasants and pretty much each and every problem imaginable; most of the "gentry" found themselves in a lousy economic situation as well.

The judicial reform also was a good idea, especially trial by jury. The only problem was that these jurors had tendency to pay attention to the "ideals" and "feelings" rather than to the laws or facts in which they had been helped by the liberal judges like Koni (who managed to make it all the way to the Senate and State Council). How the state was supposed to deal with the terrorism if the terrorists had been let free by the jurors? AFAIK, there were even demands to let the assassins of Alexander II free to show government's willingness to cooperate with the "society".

They reacted vengefully towards the populace blaming them for Alexadner II's death while he was trying to help them.

What "populace" and what this "vengeance" amounted to? Hanging Alexander's assassins? Was he supposed to give them a medal? And what, in general, would be an effective method of dealing with the terrorism without killing the terrorists?

Most of the population did not suffer from any "vengeance" and even if the contemporaries liked to moan about "suffocating atmosphere", none of them could spell out what that "suffocation" amounted to.

If Alexander II had lived, he may have limited how far he would go, but would his son and grandson have embraced his policies and expanded them further during each to their own reigns?

They did embrace part of his policies.
 
Future Alexander III was not a big fun of the reforms well before assassination of his father and not without a good reason. The most fundamental reform, emancipation of the serfs, resulted in a huge damage to the Russian agriculture in general and majority of the peasants. It is enough to read some of the "liberal" authors of that period to find endless complaints about increased drunkenness, pauperization of the peasants and pretty much each and every problem imaginable; most of the "gentry" found themselves in a lousy economic situation as well.

The judicial reform also was a good idea, especially trial by jury. The only problem was that these jurors had tendency to pay attention to the "ideals" and "feelings" rather than to the laws or facts in which they had been helped by the liberal judges like Koni (who managed to make it all the way to the Senate and State Council). How the state was supposed to deal with the terrorism if the terrorists had been let free by the jurors? AFAIK, there were even demands to let the assassins of Alexander II free to show government's willingness to cooperate with the "society".



What "populace" and what this "vengeance" amounted to? Hanging Alexander's assassins? Was he supposed to give them a medal? And what, in general, would be an effective method of dealing with the terrorism without killing the terrorists?

Most of the population did not suffer from any "vengeance" and even if the contemporaries liked to moan about "suffocating atmosphere", none of them could spell out what that "suffocation" amounted to.



They did embrace part of his policies.
Well then I guess I shouldn't always believe what I read. Thanks for interpretation of events. Very insightful.
 
Modernization of Russia and end of autocracy are by no means inherently synonymous. Russia could have been led by enlightened despots till at least 1914 - and, if execution of good government policy was done well enough, it would have had a bright future even notwithstanding the world war clouds on the horizon.
 
Well then I guess I shouldn't always believe what I read. Thanks for interpretation of events. Very insightful.

Well, I don't know what you read and I'm not an ultimate source of the Truth either, I'm just conveying my impressions. My basic point is that you can't easily jump from one type of a society to another, which was the main idea behind various Russian liberal and revolutionary movements: they wanted everything they could imagine and they wanted it yesterday but they were contributing little besides never-ending criticism and obstructionism. Within this framework even a staunch conservator like Alexander III was better than his weakling father who was, for example, pushed into a big unnecessary war with the Ottomans by public opinion and then managed to screw up military operations trying to please everybody in Europe.
 
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