Alexander II's Great Reforms and the Liberal Revolution

Following Russia's defeat in the Crimean War, its intelligentsia believed that backward social, economic and political institutions had been the source of said defeat. After the Treaty of Paris (March of 1856) Alexander II's government immediately began planning for a total reform of the Russian society: the abolition of serfdom, military reforms, railway construction, free speech, judicial reform, etc. In 1864 a number of Russian officers, enraged and ideologically inspired by the great American struggle to end slavery, occupied the Winter Palace and proclaimed a new Russia. Its liberal intelligentsia was assembled to form the Constitution of 1864 and the first Duma, a body of elected legislators. While initially opposed to the unravelling revolution, Alexander II eventually ceded and agreed to transform Russia into a semi-constitutional monarchy.