How did Russia free its serfs in 1861, and did it really free them?

Russia freed its serfs from above, by an imperial edict in 1861, and the freedom was real but costly. By that edict more than 23 million people received their liberty. They gained the full rights of free citizens, including the rights to marry without anyone's consent, to own property and to own a business. The Manifesto also said peasants would be able to buy the land from the landlords, and that last part made all the difference.

Why would a tsar do it? After a speech in 1856, Alexander II's reasoning was recorded as: it is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for it to start to abolish itself from below. The liberal politicians behind the manifesto recognised that Russia was one of the few remaining feudal states in Europe, and the pitiful display by Russian forces in the Crimean War left the government acutely aware of its weakness. Meanwhile, by 1859 a third of the landowners' estates and two thirds of their serfs were mortgaged to banks, which was why they had to accept it.

Now the cost. Serfs had to pay the landowner for their land through redemption payments. The government advanced 75% of the sum to the landowner, and the peasants repaid the government, plus interest, over forty-nine years. The payments were finally cancelled only in 1907. The land allotted also did not include the best land, which remained with the nobility, and household serfs gained their freedom but no land.

No wonder the reaction was mixed. In many places peasants refused to believe the manifesto was genuine, and troops had to be called in to disperse angry crowds. At Bezdna, the official report counted 70 peasants dead and 100 wounded.