He believed there should be a smychka (alliance) between peasants and workers (didn’t want to create differences between them.) • Trotsky wanted to abolish the NEP- Resented the fact that much of the USSR’s industry was under the direct control of the government. Hated the NEPMEN (traders who made large profits from the NEP.) Wanted to end the inequality between poor peasants and kulaks. Wanted to abolish private farms and introduce collective farming.
To achieve self- sufficiency: • Stalin wanted to make the USSR less dependent – especially on Western manufactured goods. • It was important that the USSR had a strong industrial base to produce the goods people needed. • He wanted to make Russia more self-sufficient and less dependent. To increase grain supplies: • Stalin wanted to end the dependence of the economy on a backward agricultural system – he did not want the new socialist state to depend on the peasantry for agricultural supplies. To move towards a socialist society: • According to Marxist theory, socialism could only be created in a society where the majority of the population were workers – but in 1928, only 20% were workers in the USSR.
Yet, for all of Stalin’s positive accomplishments, he also seemed quite the negative ruler, First, Stalin developed a system of collective farming that combined once privately owned farms into large farms, operated by the government. This put an end to individual profits. New he stressed, everything for the state must come first, the individual is
The reasons for agrarian discontent in the late 19th century were derived from trusts and monopolies, railroad freight costs for transportation of produce, and the circulation of money. Arguably, some of their complaints were not valid. The agricultural depression at the time in question could not solely be blamed on the government. Come to think about it, it was simple economics that mostly brought the farmers down. They grew too much too fast during a time where it wasn’t as required.
This meant serfdom was already coming to its own natural end, and for Alexander II to support his nobles he had to emancipate the serfs so they could go start increasing their wealth and get out of debt. Serfdom was also holding Russia back, with the rest of Europe liberalising and making vast economic progress Russia’s economy was starting to look inferior and for them to advance as a nation they had to increase productivity of the serfs and the simple solution was to emancipate them. The serfs were inefficient and had a low productivity due to poor farming methods and constantly being oppressed by their nobles. This oppression and poor farming was caused by the extremely conservative rule which refused to modernise, had the Tsar modernised the farming techniques and stopped the
His “Great Turn” can be seen as a realistic and attractive policy, suited to the rank and file of the party, that he did not adopt earlier in the 20’s since it was not a fitting policy at the time. The problems in ideology could be seen to link to the problems with agriculture as it was the Kulak class that Stalin held responsible for hoarding the grain and demanding higher prices for it, thus if the ideology changed to rid Soviet society of such elements, then haste could be seen to be of importance. However this was not the only problem with Russian agriculture. Farming methods were
There was agricultural inefficiency and backwardness, industrial out was one of the lowest among European nations and poor transportation and communication caused delays that hurt the economy. He knew that industrialization was vital for Russian superiority, and so under Nicholas ll’s reign came up with a number of reforms such as protective tariffs on foreign goods, foreign investment (loans etc.) and also managed to put the Russian currency on the gold standard. However his ignorance of peasants through high taxation, low wages and lack of agricultural reforms caused a great amount of dissent towards the Tsar. Stolypin like Nicholas was autocratic, however unlike him he was not weak.
This book foresees shortcomings for farmers and their crops as well economic distress. Populism is defined as people who are the under caste of society making a political movement. The farmers felt like they were beat around by big businesses, and felt like they had no political outreach to help them get an equal share for their work production. To oppose this they pulled together and formed the populist group called the Farmer’s Alliance. This helped the lower classes feel like they had some people.
Although the North and South labor forces didn’t see eye to eye, they did help to establish ways to limit those in the corporate world in ways that surprised and scared the capitalists. The capitalists wanted to halt all efforts of the “Progressive Era”, p. 6. Therefore, they established limitations on the victories of the alliance of the farmers and laborers. The economics of farming became connected to and dependent upon the farming areas that were a part of the international trading community. The weaknesses of the farmer-laborer alliance made overcoming the Capitalist efforts almost unattainable.
The decrease in agricultural production also affected the soviet government. Since 1921, Russia’s government had been selling grain surpluses abroad in order to gain foreign currency necessary to provide resources for industrialisation. Clearly, if there were no grain surpluses there was no money to build up Russia’s industry. Collectivisation aimed to hold out the prospect of many economic benefits. First, large farms would increase efficiency.