Nicholas I, having experienced the trauma of…

Nicholas I, having experienced the trauma of the Decembrists' revolt, is determined to restrain Russian society.

A secret police, the so-called Third Section, runs a huge network of spies and informers.

Government censorship and controls are exercised over education, publishing, and all manifestations of public life.

The minister of education, Sergei Uvarov, had devised a program of "autocracy, Orthodoxy, and nationality" as the guiding principle of the regime.

The people are asked to show loyalty to the unlimited authority of the tsar, the traditions of the Orthodox Church, and, in a vague way, to the Russian nation.

These principles do not gain the support of the population but instead lead to repression in general and to suppression of non-Russian nationalities and religions other than Russian Orthodoxy in particular.

For example, the Uniate Church in Ukraine and Belorussia is suppressed in 1839.