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. To establish his credentials: • Stalin wanted to prove himself was the worthy succession of Lenin. • He wanted to make the leading Bolsheviks believe the he was Lenin’s equal. • He believed he could do this through his economic plan – he believed that by taking the USSR towards socialism would prove this. To improve standards of living: • Stalin knew the USSR had a bad standard of living was poor compared to the West, and wanted to catch up with them.
To what extent was the Russian economy transformed in the period of 1881-1914 Russia’s economy in 1881 was in a rather detrimental state, they seemed to be so many years behind the rest of the European superpowers, especially in terms of industrial progress. A famous historian Murphy referred to Russia as the “most economically underdeveloped superpower.” Many reforms were attempted to improve the economic state of Russia, but just how successful were they? In this essay I am going to be writing from the point of view that Russia economy was changed, however there are some flaws in this statement, which I will discuss further on… Firstly, the first indication of major change for me was the reforms applying to the rural areas of Russia. At the start of this period peasants were in heavy debt and struggling to survive, agriculturally, the country wasn’t producing enough crops to supply the country with food, let alone sell for a profit. (Only 50% of Russian farms produced surplus crops.)
There was also a lot of conflict between trade unions and employers, with strikes and lock-outs frequent. Finally, the agricultural sector of the economy did not share in the general prosperity with food prices remaining low and farmers’ feeling abandoned by the government. All of these factors meant that the Government were spending more than they were receiving and that this ‘boom’ did not affect all parts of society, showing that these were not golden years for Germany. The German Political situation at home also appeared to be good. There were no more attempted revolutions and voting figures showed that extremist parties, such as the KPD were losing
Hitler’s attempt to win them over had so far failed. Germany was going through its ‘Golden age’ because Stresemann economic policies had helped to solve many of Germany’s problems e.g. loans from America under the Dawes plan. Political violence had decreased so this meant things were more stable, so people didn’t want to vote for extreme parties anymore. At that time people didn’t take the Nazis anti-Semitic ideas seriously because they were too extreme.
How far did Witte improve and modernise the Russian economy? Witte was a major influence in the improvement and modernisation of the Russian economy. Prior to the ‘Witte system’, Russia lacked in key factors required for rapid industrialisation, which would be the starting point of economic growth. Russia had a very little business class with vast numbers of peasants whom did not have complete freedom, which limited their migration. Also they didn’t have the significant funds to invest in an industrial revolution.
Working with a team of investigators, Booth discovered that 35% of Londoners and about 30% of everybody living in Britain were living in abject living in abject poverty. This shows that the Conservatives were poor in office as it proves they made absolutely no attempt to help people in poverty in the way of providing new houses or offering pensions. A further reason the Conservatives where seen as a weak government was the failure to win the Boer War. Although the government played no direct role in creating tactics etc. it was seen as the government’s fault that the British had no reinforcements for the men who were dying, because back in Britain over 30% of the population was malnourished, ill and weak as they were living in abject poverty.
Tsar Nicholas II has faced a revolution in 1905 due to social discontent, however Tsarist rule has managed to survive because of several factors such as disunity of opponents, loyalty of troops and Tsar's concessions. Disunity of opponents against Tsar has played a significant role in the survival of Tsarist rule during 1905 revolution because it was easy for the government to divide the opposing groups and crush them one by one. The lack of coordination between the opposing groups meant that the strike involving 2.7 million strikers was not as effective as it could be when working together and being able to prevent transportation of troops. Therefore the strikes without leaders of Social Revolutionaries or Social Democrats, created chaos which added worry for the government but wasn't regarded as a major threat to the government as the groups did not fight effectively. This meant that the lack of leadership of the groups reduced effectiveness of the opponents as a whole enabling the government to be able to crush them one by one and so therefore survive.
However, in the north and south there were groups such as the NAACP which campaigned for voting rights and this was successful, in the north jobs were better paid and there was less segregation. Between the years 1945 and 1955 lives of Black Americans did not improve this can be seen by the substandard housing that all African Americans were caused to live in. In 1945 40% of the housing that was allocated to African Americans was substandard and for white people this was only 12% substandard housing. This shows that Black Americans had to live in poorer living conditions and this would cause lesser health and a poorer quality of life. Little was done by the government in order to change the standard of housing that people were living in.
Do you agree with the view that between 1830 and 1875 attitudes towards the poor changed very little? A harsh line was taken towards the paupers in the 19th century, primarily because of the disability of the rate payers to empathise and understand that the system that the government insisted on implementing was encouraging the self-perpetuating cycle of pauperism. However explicitly famed ideologist tried to make this, large sectors of the rich were settled in their ignorance and attempted to ignore the increasing problem. An unwelcome ascent in the cost of the relief for the lower orders had motivated this harshness towards the paupers, but was the coldness towards the pauperism ever lifted? Source 16 highlights the root cause of the cause of pauperism as “the Government has decided to set aside the ordinary laws of nature,” by the mere creation of the poor laws.
This report gave a detailed look into official statistics revealing the clear line of inequalities that ran from the richest to the poorest in society. The fundamental finding of the report was that the death rate of those men in social class V was twice of the men in social class I. Additionally, individuals in lower classes were experiencing worse health than in the 1950s, giving proof that the improved living conditions of the working class had not made much of a difference to their health status. Furthermore, it was found that the manual classes made less use of the healthcare system available to them, despite needing it far more. There is research to suggest there is a link between socio-economic status and the use of health care systems. A study into the attendance at antenatal clinics of various social classes found a link between social inequality and attendance; the women from poorer classes were found to have fewer visits (Rowe & Garcia, 2003).