About: Economy of the Russian Empire after the abolition of serfdom

In the second half of the nineteenth century, it became clear that the preservation of the power and political influence of the Russian Empire is impossible without reform and transformation of the entire political system. Among the economic prerequisites, it should be noted the crisis of the landlord economy, the poverty of the peasants, the low purchasing power of the population, from which the underdevelopment of the domestic market ensued. Serfdom held back the development of the wage labor market and created a shortage of labor for industry. Therefore, the reign of Alexander II became a period of fundamental transformations of Russian society.