To what extent was Alexander II's main aim intended to maintain autocracy?

To be able to answer this essay it is necessary to first analyse the question and the key details in it. First of all, Alexander II is the key figure in this question and so his reign and the context surrounding it are essential for the answer. Additionally, by looking at the command words of the question you are able to understand how you can possibly structure the essay itself. In this essay you are asked a 'to what extent' question which means that a baseline structure is to divide this essay by how Alexander II did and did not maintain autocracy in Russia. With the idea of structure in place you can move onto the argument starting with the introduction where it is necessary to identify your main thread of argument. In this question it would be useful to identify Alexander II's main aims in the introduction and to do this looking at them under the scope of political, social and economic aims. One argument is that whilst Alexander II's aims were not all strictly to maintain autocracy, in the presence of any threat to Alexander's power, it did take priority over most reforming aims.In structuring the answer organising facts under the titles of political, economic and social as well as any other headings is useful whilst also dividing these facts by whether they are good evidence in how Alexander II did or did not maintain autocracy. The emancipation of serfs is a good piece of evidence to use as it displays how this move helped reform the military and seemed to be quite liberating. However, an argument could be made that an underlying motivation was the maintenance of autocracy as Alexander II made the decision to emancipate the serfs himself rather than let them rebel which allowed him to maintain control in comparison to similar situations around the world.