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.
Since the serf population had gotten ridiculously low, plantation owners were forced to start paying workers to tend the farms. (Gottfreid, pg. 55) The same effect was applied to factories, and the wages rose in attempt to get more workers. The poor were moving into deserted houses, and many began to live better. On farms that had become vacant, peasants took ownership and started making more money.
(Only 50% of Russian farms produced surplus crops.) In 1883, Nikolai Bunge introduced the “Peasant Land Bank”. It was a scheme set up to loan peasants resources such as land and equipment, this was arguably to make them more inclined to make surplus crops, which would be in turn given back to the government. Alexander II also removed all the debts that had been imposed on the peasants due to the increasingly high taxes that were simply ludicrous for the peasants to pay off. Not only did this mean that the peasants were now living without worry, but statistically, makes Russia’s economy better as a whole as the majority of the country was no longer in massive debt.
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. The creation of collectives angered many of the of the Russian peasantry. The dekulakisation squads meant that peasants were being forced into collectives, and their crops, livestock, supplies and building were seized as property of the collective. Once again peasants began feeling tied to the land in a similar way to that of serfdome, instead of working for themselves as they did under NEP policies, they were now working for the State, largely losing the independence they had gained. This unhappiness began to manifest itself in violent opposition from large numbers of peasant, particularly in the wealthier agricultural areas, as they had more to lose to the state that the poorer farmers.
WW1 ends – The ending of WW1 meant that the European countries were able to meet their own demands and therefore did not need any more supplies from America. Farmers suffered from overproduction and could not afford to keep their homes or pay mortgages, some farmers even decided to become sharecroppers. In 1924, 600,000 farmers went bankrupt. Also, there was stiff competition from Canadian, Australian and Argentinean farmers who were selling vast amounts of grain to the world market. Over-production – Fewer products such as cars, consumer good etc were not being sold as factories were making more goods than Americans needed or could afford to buy.
Therefore, lack of care led to his housing policy to be unsuccessful and proving that live of the peasants under Khrushchev did not improve. Another reason was the financial cost of competing in the Cold War proved a barrier to the successful implementation of Khrushchev housing policy. So, he invested more in the Cold War than the housing programme. Stalin’s lack of care on peasants and their living conditions was very similar to Nikita Khrushchev although there was a lack of care for different reasons. Stalin was more focused on Five Year Plans
As it was them who started the protest which turned into a revolution and also they were the ones behind the mutiny of the troops. However, the military was having many problems such as the war was going horribly wrong with many casualties, poor commanding from officers and limited military resources and equipment. The peasants were doing the fighting and the dying. So this could be a small contributing factor to the fall of the Romanov's on several different reasons. Firstly the tsar did not help the peasants personally, but instead leave the burden to the prime ministers when they cannot rule like a democracy today.
Together, Bryan and the farmer’s alliance brought in some good ideas. The farmers were hardly getting any money for all they did so, the Alliance came up with an idea to help with inflation, bring in more crop shares, lower their debt, and income taxes which would help hold down the American economy. The book mentions silver to gold ratio 16:1, for an unlimited amount of coinage and creates more surplus. The silver was their uprising and their downfall. The Alliance hadn’t had much political power, except for the Sherman Silver Act which replaced the gold as the primary coinage in the United States.
There were many critics who were opposed to the FSA experiment. The program had failed though because many of the farmers wanted there own ownership. But once the Conservative Coalition gained control of the Congress, they were able to start making changes to the (FSA), which turned the program into being now able to help the poor farmers buy their land. The program continues to operate in the 21st century , known as the Farmers Home Administration
From a women’s perspective, Stalin made positive changes, giving women more economical and social independence, however there were also some problems with that. It can be said that Stalin made some successful social and economic changes in Russia, however failed drastically in others, causing more failures than successes during his government. Collectivization was a disastrous failure both in social and economic point of view. There were very few economic successes, however there were much more failures than successes. Stalin forced all peasants to leave their farms in order for them to be collectivized, and their suffering was horrendous.