Russia under the Old regime

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forth. The slow but steady spread of educational opportunities increased the number of potential dissidents. In secondary schools until the reign of Alexander in, the proportion of commoners in secondary schools rose uninterruptedly at the expense of dvoriane, as Table 2 shows; and since between eight and nine out of every ten secondary school graduates went on to the university or another institution of higher learning, it is clear that with each passing year the composition of all the student bodies became more plebeian. TABLE 2 Social Composition of Students in Russian Secondary Schools, 1833-85 (inpercentages).12 Vear Dvoriane and Clergy Tax-paying chinovniki groups

The free professions, virtually unknown in pre-Reform Russia, flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is estimated that between i860 and 1900 the number of professionally trained persons in Russia grew from 20,000 to 85,000."

The educated class, from which the intelligentsia recruited its membership, thus steadily expanded and in expanding changed its character: what had been a small band of rich youths with troubled consciences and patriotic aspirations, became a large pool of people of all estates for whom intellectual work was a way of making a living. In the 188os, Russia, already had a large intellectual proletariat. Nevertheless, to the end of the old regime, descendants of the old service class set the tone: the majority of the leaders of Russian opinion always came from well to do dvoriane or chinovniki of the upper ranks. It is they who formulated the ideology of a resentful mass of the intelligentsia.

The intelligentsia had to have institutions which would bring the like-minded together, allow them to exchange ideas and to form friendships based on shared convictions. In nineteenth-century Russia there were five such institutions.

The oldest of these was the salon. The open house maintained by rich landlords, especially in their spacious Moscow residences, provided an ideal setting of informal contact for people interested in public affairs. Although most of the aristocracy attending salons were preoccupied with gossip, match-making and cards, some salons were known to attract the more earnest and even to have a certain ideological colouring.