On the other hand, the growth in population compared with national output shows less production per head, and therefore less efficient production. His policies did little for agriculture considering 80% of the population were rural peasants. It is thought he focused too much on heavy industry, neglecting others like light engineering. Finally, Russia became overly dependent on foreign loans (never good if a financial crisis were to occur and foreign loans have to be repaid). Tariffs making goods scarce and heavy taxation meant prices for Russian consumers increased, whilst their wages stayed low.
However, back then numerous people didn’t comprehend just how much of an impact farmers had on their everyday lives. If you took farms away from the United States during this period of time, everything would have entirely crashed. Farmer’s had complications with making a living because the rates of being a farmer were so high, as it is stated in document B. The farmers were also being abused by the railroad companies and banks. Like it says in document F “Nothing has done more to injure the (western) region than these freight rates.” Out west the railroad companies took advantage of the people and often they would charge more than four times the Eastern rates.
These other causes are all political social and economical factors which helped to free the serfs. And had the Tsar taken a more liberal view on his rule the emancipation may never have happened. Firstly there are many political causes for the emancipation of the serfs. The bankruptcy of nobles who were the tsar’s main supporters was, caused because of the inefficiency of using serfs to farm lands, which meant most nobles were losing money and by 1860 over 60% of serfs were mortgaged to the government meaning they were “unofficially” no longer tied to their land. 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.
Due to big businesses like one of Carnegie’s, small companies which were less profitable were ruined, this resulted in the economy benefiting from monopolies. This explains how the prices of good decreased and pushed the domestic market to consume more. However there are also many factors suggesting that it was not due to the rise of big businesses. One of them being the development in agriculture across the Great Plains. This was made by the inventions such as barbed wire which protected the crops and animals leading to an increase in production in the US ‘break
How far do you agree that the most important development in the industrialisation of Russia from 1855 to 1965 was a result of Witte’s great spurt? After the defeat at Crimea, industrialisation the on became a key priority for each leader, sometimes at the expense of other sectors such agriculture and the general wellbeing of the peasantry. Some historians feel Witte was the figure who kick-started Russian industrialisation in the form of his ‘Great Spurt’. However others feel without Alexander II emancipation of the serfs all the progress made after him wouldn’t have been possible. Other than Witte the only Russian Leader to have made such a big of an impact on Russian industrialisation is Stalin and his five year plans.
Explain why in the years 1906 to 1911, Stolypin attempted to reform agriculture. (12 marks) Stolypin attempted to reform agriculture for many reasons, one of the most important being to strengthen tsarist autocracy. He strongly believed that the future of Russia depended on building a prosperous peasantry. There was widespread rural poverty but an upper class of peasant that farmed efficiently and were wealthier, they were known as the Kulaks. Stolypin believed that the encouragement of a class such as the Kulaks would make them hostile to further change therefore more conservative and loyal to the Tsar as the Tsar had made them wealthy.
The length of railway tracks in Russia increased form 31219 miles in 1891 to 58392 miles by 1904. In the same time period, Russia’s coal production increased from 6.01 million tonnes to 18.67 million tonnes. This shows how the government’s investment in expanding and modernizing the country’s railways resulted in significant economic gains. This was a result of an increased ability to transport raw materials to areas with the greatest population, such as the area surrounding St Petersburg. The railways, particularly the Trans-Siberian railway, also gave Eastern Russia a link to Europe and Western Russia a link to the Pacific Ocean, which made it easier to export Russian goods.
Prior to the “five year plans”, Russia had mostly a peasant farming economy. The 1750 to 1914 period in Russia was met by a large increase in the available labor force. Coupled with an increase in population, Russia's emancipation of the serfs freed many of Russia's serfdom from perpetual slavery. However, the emancipation process was planned so as to put the freed serfs deeply in debt to the original owners of the land. In fact, many of the serfs were so deeply indebted that they relocated to Russia's cities in search of better work opportunities.
Much like Tsarist reforming leaders, Witte and Alexander II, a poor economic situation also significantly influenced Lenin’s reforms, showing a nuanced continuity between factors influencing reforms in the Tsarist and Communist state. The peasants were at first discontented by the reform, for” a tax of 10% was imposed upon the harvest” (Acton), leading to crop prices temporarily rising, causing a famine reminiscent of the Tsarist age, indicating little change. However a year later the grain harvest increased by 19 million tonnes, this proved to be significant as the impacts of the NEP allowed Russian society to become more self-sufficient, without the need for imports. The reform was also significant, as it encouraged the growth of a bourgeoisie in the form of NEP men; older Bolsheviks viewed them as a threat to the socialist government, yet they accepted that a middle class was a necessary step towards complete socialism. The view that Lenin’s reforms were significant, therefore is credible, for despite gaining a government that had been ravaged by two wars, and rapid inflation, after about eight years Lenin’s NEP encouraged great economic growth, thus consolidating the position of the Bolshevik government in Russian society based upon Lenin’s work as a reforming
These new, larger farms would pool the labour and resources and therefore operate more efficiently. In addition state provided tractors and fertilises would modernise production, again making the opponents more efficient. Stalin’s aim to modernise Russia with the idea of collectivisation would be staged in three parts; economic, political and ideological. I believe that the policy of collectivisation was set up to achieve its objectives however, if historians look at the failures alongside the aims, many were reversed and the outcome was the opposite of what was expected. There were economic factors that led to collectivisation.