Tsarist autocracy

The term refers to the Tsardom form of society in the time of the ruling autocratic Russian Czar. Sometimes the reign of Tsar other countries such as Bulgaria and Serbia is so called.

Tsarism was a more centralized form of feudalism. The development was in Tsarism but more slowly. Thus serfdom was only abolished in 1861, about 50 years later than in Western Europe, but four years before the abolition of slavery in the United States. Despite considerable industrial production ( steel, coal, oil, military needs) got the Russian Empire more and more into the background compared to the Western European major powers. The reason for this was the inefficiency of the state-controlled construction industry, has been driven only in the urban centers. While in the big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg due to the rural exodus, an industrial proletariat emerged, remained the rest of the country in poverty and the legal and social order of feudal society.