Social Engineering: General A. A. Arakcheev’s Military Colonies
In an attempt to make the army pay for itself, Alexander approved the organization of the army into brutal colonies, where soldiers and their families lived in barracks, and were supposed to farm when they weren’t fighting.
Secret Societies: inspired by Freemasons, a number of young officers form secret political societies with the aim of replacing autocracy with republicanism.
The five leaders of these “Decembrists,” so-called because they staged their revolution December 14, 1825, were hanged.Most of the conspirators, though, ended up in Siberian exile with their wives, where they forged new lives for themselves. Note the irony of the Soviet building in the background.
