Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/168

142 he should be granted a small allotment; others proposed a partial enfranchisement with a definite legal formulation of peasant right. The manifesto of 1861 aimed at meeting the landowners' wishes as far as possible.

Serfdom was abolished, and agrarian difficulties, which still persist, were the sequel of enfranchisement.

HE liberation of the peasantry rendered necessary a reform of the entire administration.

The landowner had lost his patriarchal and patrimonial status. He was no longer the privileged hereditary official of the tsar, the direct and indirect controller of the peasant, lord and economic exploiter. The demands of the decabrists, their constitutionalist designs put forward as supplementary to the liberation of the peasantry, the demands of N. Turgenev and Pestel, were partially realised under Alexander.

The first administrative effect of liberation was a mitigation of corporal punishment. In 1863, running the gauntlet, the use of the lash, and the branding of criminals were simultaneously abolished. The use of the cane was continued, not until 1904 did the volost courts cease to inflict sentences of caning, but the practice persisted in the penitentiaries. For women corporal punishment was abolished, except in the case of administrative exiles.

In the year 1864 the new judicial procedure and the local government of the zemstvos were introduced.

Prior to 1864, state courts of law had indeed existed, but the nobility and the landowners had acted as judges, whilst the courts of first instance were in the hands of the police. It can readily be imagined how, in these conditions, justice was administered. The most important element in reform was the establishment of publicity in legal procedure. The judiciary was made independent of the executive, judges being declared irremovable. Justices of the peace were appointed and trial by jury came into use.

The general effect of these reforms in the administration of justice may be gathered by the delight with which the opening of the new courts was everywhere hailed by the public,