This is completely disingenuous because a great deal of bloodshed did happen in Russia, at least partially because the serf reforms were so ineffective.
The argument seems to me that democracies cannot enforce their edicts except with killing, as opposed to monarchies which do not have this evident failure? You said so yourself that it's a bad analogy, partially due to the very different histories at play. I think we'd both regret it if we suggested that any of the European monarchies had got to a start and a running without an iota of war or bloodshed. The United States, by all accounts a young nation with an undeveloped set of legal principles vis a vis secession, was simply breaking in its new shoes, if you will. At any rate, the proposition that monarchies are better equipped to handle questions of social change seems very spuriously established to me. Monarchies are historically resistant to social change to the point of bloody annihilation.
My focus was on the specific comparison that seemed appropriate because the reforms in question happened within the same decade. My argument was simply that in those specific examples we see: how enlightened despotism, or else, a bureaucratic monarchy that has embraced Enlightenment values, has been able to carry through reforms with more ease, to a greater effect and with less immediate bloodshed than a federal, representative democracy. Are you going to deny that?
The bloodshed that did happen in Russia - do you mean the Civil War or something else? Because if you mean the Civil War, it happened five decades later, under circumstances that cannot be compared with those that started the American Civil War. I am not sure what point you are trying to make there - that bloodshed occurs in monarchies too?
Did the United States have special historical circumstances that explain why things went the way they did? Of course. So did every country in history - Russia, Austria, France, the lot of them. You could not find some sort of ideal monarchy or ideal democracy in a vacuum where it would have no excuses and no extenuating circumstances. Is being young and inexperienced an excuse? Maybe. On the other hand one could also say that they could have done better when they did not have the deadweight of hundreds of years of far more entrenched societal traditions, or that they could have learned from the mistakes of others.
Are monarchies historically resistant to social change to the point of annihilation? I'd argue that this is dubiously supported by the evidence, if we don't just focus on the ones that resisted it and were annihilated for that reason, and pay attention to all the ones that did carry out successful reforms. Sometimes monarchies are resistant, sometimes they encourage it, sometimes they ram it down their subjects' throats. A lot depends on the personality of the ruler and his ministers, but a lot depends on the social base of the monarchy as well. One of my main contentions was that a bureaucratic monarchy was in many ways a whole different beast from a purely aristocratic one, and that enlightened despotism had very different policies from 17th century absolutism, ones that probably have the best track record in terms of successful social reforms as compared to aristocratic absolute monarchies, noble republics such as Poland or representative democracies. And are democracies historically supportive of social change? Sometimes - sometimes very much not.
To conclude, I think that, inasmuch as any generalisations could be said, they are that democracies are more moderate. More inclined to support either the status quo or a steady degradation or a steady improvement. Monarchies are, at least in theory, more versatile and volatile (in practice, though, they are generally held back by any number of considerations, for better and for worse). They are more free to change things for the better or the worse, though they seldom actually do so. However, without autocratic power it can be much harder to carry out social change, even when it is desperately needed. If Joseph II or Alexander II was constrained by a parliament, it would have been much harder to force through their respective reforms. Would you deny this?
Obviously any comparisons between the two situations are going to be strained (a lot had happened over 800 years, for one thing), and we could spend a long time bending them in one direction or another.
Whereas the abolition of serfdom, while done against the aristocracy's will, was still handled more liberally - they were generally compensated. If anything, it should have been less lenient, even if that meant actually forcing them at gunpoint - as opposed to in accordance with the laws of the land and the government's normal procedure; certainly a more complete land reform back then, if it could have been carried out, would have both outraged liberal opinion (never particularly in favour of land reform as opposed to emancipation) and headed off much of the socio-economic tensions that undermined the Russian Empire in its last years.
