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Yeah. The fact is that the abolition of serfdom (that is, slavery) was carried out by the upper classes. There was no giant anti-serfdom popular movement forcing them to do so. Obviously the upper classes were interested in doing it, or they wouldn't have done it, but they did so without being forced into it by the people they were liberating.
^^^^ CB: However, there seemed to be an ongoing rebelliousess of the _middle_ classes ( bourgeoisie) against the rule of both Alexander II and his father, Nicholas. Nicholas faced an uprising right away. Alexander faced many assasination attempts and then was assassinated. So, your "upper classes" category above slurs together two antagonistic classes, the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, which is where the revolutionary action was at, naturally, as this is the phase , feudalism, in Russia where the bourgeoisie is the revolutionary class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia
The tsar was succeeded by his younger brother, Nicholas I (1825–1855), who at the onset of his reign was confronted with an uprising. The background of this revolt lay in the Napoleonic Wars, when a number of well-educated Russian officers traveled in Europe in the course of the military campaigns, where their exposure to the liberalism of Western Europe encouraged them to seek change on their return to autocratic Russia. The result was the Decembrist Revolt (December 1825), the work of a small circle of liberal nobles and army officers who wanted to install Nicholas' brother as a constitutional monarch. But the revolt was easily crushed, leading Nicholas to turn away from the Westernization program begun by Peter the Great and champion the doctrine "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality."[83]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia
Some 26 years after he had the opportunity of implementing changes he would, however, be assassinated in public by Narodnaya Volya terrorist organization.
-clp-
His reign Alexander II succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father in 1855. The first year of his reign was devoted to the prosecution of the Crimean War, and after the fall of Sevastopol to negotiations for peace, led by his trusted counselor, Prince Gorchakov. It was widely thought that the country had been exhausted and humiliated by the war. Encouraged by public opinion he began a period of radical reforms, including an attempt to not to depend on a landed aristocracy controlling the poor, to develop Russia's natural resources and to thoroughly to reform all branches of the administration.
Painting by Mihály Zichy of the coronation of Tsar Alexander II and the Empress Maria Alexandrovna, which took place on 26 August/7 September 1856 at the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The painting depicts the moment of the coronation in which the Tsar crowns his EmpressAutocratic power was now in the hands of someone with some sort of flexible thought, sufficient prudence and practicality.
However, the growth of a revolutionary movement to the "left" of the educated classes led to an abrupt end to Alexander's changes when he was assassinated in 1881. It is notable that after Alexander became tsar in 1855, he maintained a generally liberal course at the helm while being a target for numerous assassination attempts (1866, 1873, 1880).
[edit] Emancipation of the serfs Main article: Emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia
Tsar Alexander II and his wife, Empress Maria, with their son, the future Tsar Alexander IIIIn spite of his obstinancy in playing Russian Autocrat, Alexander II acted for several years somewhat like a constitutional sovereign of the continental type. Soon after the conclusion of peace, important changes were made in legislation concerning industry and commerce, and the new freedom thus afforded produced a large number of limited liability companies. Plans were formed for building a great network of railways—partly for the purpose of developing the natural resources of the country, and partly for the purpose of increasing its power for defense and attack.
The existence of serfdom was tackled boldly taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces, and hoping that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way (meaning in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors), he authorized the formation of committees "for ameliorating the condition of the peasants," and laid down the principles on which the amelioration was to be effected.
This step was followed by one still more significant. Without consulting his ordinary advisers, Alexander ordered the Minister of the Interior to send a circular to the provincial governors of European Russia, containing a copy of the instructions forwarded to the governor-general of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint was taken: in all provinces where serfdom existed, emancipation committees were formed.
But the emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial ukase. It contained very complicated problems, deeply affecting the economic, social and political future of the nation.
Alexander had to choose between the different measures recommended to him. Should the serfs become agricultural labourers dependent economically and administratively on the landlords, or should they be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors?
The emperor gave his support to the latter project, and the Russian peasantry became one of the last groups of peasants in Europe to shake off serfdom.
The architects of the emancipation manifesto were Alexander's brother Konstantin, Yakov Rostovtsev, and Nikolay Milyutin.
On 3 March 1861 , 6 years after his accession, the emancipation law was signed and published.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions
1773–1775:Pugachev's Rebellion was the largest peasant revolt in Russia's history. Between the end of the Pugachev rebellion and the beginning of the 19th century, there were hundreds of outbreaks across Russia.[6]
1834–1859: Imam Shamil's rebellion in Russian-occupied Caucasus.
1863–1865: The January Uprising was the Polish uprising against the Russian Empire.
1866: The Uprising of Polish political exiles in Siberia.