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.
How far were the divisions over the continuation over the NEP responsible for the contest to succeed Lenin in the years 1924- 1928? Divisions over the continuation of the NEP: • The party split into 2 sides- Behind Trotsky or Bukharin. • Bukharin wanted to keep the NEP- Felt it should continue for a while because it was providing food for the cities and work for the proletariat. Bukharin told the peasants to enrich themselves and buy goods to promote the USSR’s industry. He believed there should be a smychka (alliance) between peasants and workers (didn’t want to create differences between them.)
Industrialization was creating even more towns, increasing this problem. So in order to feed his industrial workforce Stalin needed to revolutionize agriculture. He achieved this through forced grain seizure and the prosecution of kulaks and forcing peasants to work together in ‘collectives’. By doing so he was able to secure extra grain to feed the growing urban population of workers and sell the surplus to gain foreign currencies for purchasing foreign machineries. Though collectivisation may have had short term boosts to the economy but the effects of collectivisation were disastrous.
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.
For this, rural councils known as the Zemstvas were set up in 1864 which offered the serfs a representative government; but they were mostly dominated by the nobility and professionals and many of them resented their loss of power over the serfs. To tend to these demands, local government reforms were put in place which were largely made up of nobility and made to give former serf owners a sense of local authority to make up for their loss of control over the serfs. Further judicial reforms were also put in place to help peasants arrange property rights and contracts, even more so now as they were able to own their own land. The emancipation of the serfs and reduction of labour services contributed to the growth of a money-based economy which had been a long term goal for the Tsar. 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.
To the government the whole reason of the law was to guarantee land owners profits of which they had became accustomed to during the war. However opponents of the regime both inside and outside of the regime only saw the law as a class piece of legislation in which the law saved landowners from three things: cheaper foreign grain, stabilised prices and making corn more expensive for the consumer. This concept and idea was not new, a similar law 1804 had been introduced to guarantee 80 shillings a quarter. In spite of this the government had problems to face including riots, petitions and demonstrations. The main protest for this law, was the Luddism riots and machine breaking.
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
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.
The party was led by Victor Chernov, who believed that the future of Russia not only lay with the peasantry, but the more newly developed industrial workers too - thus a main aim was to gain support of the peasantry and townspeople. The aim of the SR's was essentially to help the people a lot more by improving things such as their living conditions, and also they wanted to return all land back to peasants . Rather unsurprisingly, especially considering the peasants made up about 80% of the Russian population, the SR's were arguably the most popular party at the time in Russia. However despite those positive outlooks on the party there were a number of a weaknesses that caused divisions within
This act provided retirement funds, disability insurance and unemployment compensation on a national scale. FDR also made that the value of the dollar was devalued to help stimulate trade with foreign countries and to support competitive practices in terms of business. With the New Deal in place, assistance was provided to businesses and farms and The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) was passed to stabilize industry. At the time, The Supreme Court deemed that the Agricultural Adjustment Acts and NIRA were unconstitutional. Many people claimed the programs were socialistic and were worried about having a welfare state funded by the government.