An outstanding individual involved in Russia’s development was Sergei Witte. As minister of finance from 1892 to 1903 he set himself the huge task of modernising the Russian economy to compete with the advanced nations of the West. It was Witte’s belief that modernisation could be achieved only through state capitalism. He was impressed by the results of the industrial revolutions in the West, and argued that the same ideas could successfully modernise Russia. However, given the backwardness of the Russian economy particular difficulties were presented.
Why did Stalin want to industrialise the USSR so quickly? To increase Military Strength: • Stalin knew that an un-industrialised country was a weak country. • To fight a war, the country had to be well developed on an industrial base so they could manufacture the huge quantities of weapons that would be required to fight a war. • Stalin had a big suspicion that the USSR would be attacked especially in the lat 1920’s. To achieve self- sufficiency: • Stalin wanted to make the USSR less dependent – especially on Western manufactured goods.
For example Alexander II was a humanitarian but Nicholas II mainly wanted modernisation for Russia. Alexander III just wanted to retain his power and keep in control to avoid the same fate as his father. Similarly, the communist rulers were not uniform either as they had different core aims, for example Khruschev’s main aim was destalinisation whereas Stalin’s was to create his own legacy. The Provisional Government and Lenin were alike in their policies in the fact that they both completely changed the system. In the case of the Provisional Government they changed it from autocratic to democratic and Lenin changed it to a one party state; although the result was different the basis was the same.
Following, Marx ideas of socialism, the Social Democratic Party was set up in 1898. However, four years later in 1903 they spilt into 2 groups- the Bolsheviks (lead by Lenin) and the Mensheviks (lead by Martov). Lenin proposed that the party should be limited only to dedicated revolutionaries but Martov argued that membership should be open to anyone who accepted the party programme and was willing to follow the instructions of the party leaders. Lenin won the debate and his group was later called the Bolsheviks whilst Martov’s group was called the Mensheviks. This disagreement arose because of a profound difference in their beliefs of the role of the party.
Production was demanded with no clear idea of how it should be achieved or what the materials should be used for. * Stalin believed heavy industry was the only way Russia could industrialise as they were the first to be developed in the nineteenth-century. He valued mental and physical strength over the luxury of bourgeois life, and wanted to create a strong Russia, a country
To regain the support from people, he needed to carry out the reforms in the October Manifesto. His improvements included different aspects, such as political, social and economic approaches. However these were expedients rather than real reforms. He also appointed Peter Stolypin as the prime minister to stabilize the country. Nicholas II had tried his best to regain people’s support and stop the revolution tide through the reforms after the 1905 Revolution.
The second reason to why further reforms were introduced was to modernise Russia’s overall economy and industry in order to catch up with the already modernised Western countries. Economically, more banks were opened to tend to the growth of the country’s money based side of the economy, which in turn offered subsidies to entrepreneurs to encourage enterprise and the growth of
To what extent did collectivisation improve Soviet agriculture in the years 1928-41? Along with Stalin’s policy of industrialisation came widespread changes in agriculture. It was seen by Stalin as necessary to improve Russia’s agriculture, modernising it in order to create food surpluses that could be exported, therefore fuelling his Five Year plan. The policy of Collectivisation, in which larger agricultural units were created ensuring peasants would farm collectively rather than on individual farms, was seen as the solution to improving Russia’s agriculture, which had been left largely unchanged since the 1917 revolution. However, it proved deeply unpopular with the peasants, and although it allowed Stalin and the party to finally gain control over the workers in the countryside, it had devastating effects on this section of the Russian population.
In 1898, a new party arose in Russia, the Social Democrats; their aim was to achieve revolution in Russia by following the ideas of Karl Marx. Marx, a German revolutionary, had the idea that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”; he described this as dialectic. Marx based much of his thinking about history, economics and philosophy; the French revolution had helped the German revolutionary to extend his ideas about the struggles between different classes in society. He came at a very convenient time for Russia as she was just beginning her industrial revolution, this promised revolutionaries to create the industrial conditions that would make a successful revolution possible. The 'great spurt' of the 1890s saw a formation of a new social class; the proletariats.
Germany 1 Presidential Powers A major principle under the US Constitution is division of powers in the three branches of government. The Constitution emphasizes cooperation between the three arms of government in caring out their duties. Separation of powers discourages a sense of dominating the others arms of government and rule tyrannically. Our founding fathers designed the separation of powers as so one branch of government could not become powerful enough to overthrow the other branches of government. During the Korean War, President Harry Truman and his advisors believed that American involvement in the war required economic mobilization at home.