Alexander allowed each district to set up a Zemstvo in 1864. These were local councils with powers to provide roads, schools and medical services but this was only limited to wealthy and caused rage from peasants.
Censorship so people were restricted in what they could think/do because of terrorism favored by reform groups >>> banned radical books and known reformers were arrested and imprisoned.
80% of Russians could not read/write (illiterate)
Less censorship in Russian universities in early years of Tsar
Thinkers believed that Russian society had to be changed on a moral level because bondage was wrong and uncivilized
Intellectuals also believed that serfdom degraded slaves but also slave owners in their nobility because serfdom weakened character of upper classes and made them lazy and unable/unwilling to contribute to the well-being of the state
Thinkers began to favor socialist values because the upper class and lower class were both human and thus capable of feeling the same emotion and so they are equal and because they wanted to secure a better future for Russian
1861 Emancipation edict; censorship was tightened again to prevent revolts after slaves were freed but it was legalistic and obscure so the uneducated serfs had trouble understanding it after it was read to them