This money was important because the economy in Russia was poor at the time; bearing in mind there was a huge number of peasants and very few working class people at the time may suggest a reason for this. Russia's biggest produce was grain. This was the most important factor in my opinion, as without this money, Witte wouldn't have been able to implement any of his ideas. The second area was state sponsored development of heavy industry. Witte believed that heavy industry was the way forward, because he thought that light industry and agriculture could both benefit from this boost.
How far does Alexander II deserve the Title “Tsar Liberator”? Prior to the reign of Alexander II, his father, Nicholas I ruled Russia under repressive and old fashioned policies. Alexander felt there was a lot of change needed to help boost the Russian economy. Russia’s economy was largely based around agriculture which was seen as backward for the time. One of Alexander’s reforms was to boom industries to start competing with the west who had more developed technology and whose economies were much more stable.
This was all thanks to Russia’s finance minister Sergei Witte. He tried to bring Russia’s economy up to the standards with the rest of Europe as they were seen as backwards compared to other countries. The best way he saw this was through industrialization. This is because the market was heavily controlled by the state and the development of heavy industry allowed for a fast catch-up, rapidly covering the 'gap' that existed in the country's economy. Besides all this such industrialization improved the overall military capability of Russia.
This meant that the peasants still owed money to the government which stopped them from moving at all. Because the railway was such a large and ambitious project, it cost lots of money. Money that Russia simply did not have. Witte paid for this though foreign loans with western powers. The Trans-Siberian Railway made by Witte was a
This was sometimes called ‘Revolution from above. During the years 1928 to 1941 Stalin decided to introduce a series of reforms in order to radically change Russia’s economy. This would not only create a more prosperous country, but as well would stand out the figure of Stalin and would make him a memorable leader for his acts, moving of the way the image people had of Lenin as the real and unique leader Russia once had. During these years, through collectivisation and industrialisation (Five Year Plans), Stalin was able o successfully improve Russia’s economy. This was mostly due to his policies of collectivisation which made economic sense and forced a lot of peasants to leave the land, which was a process needed in order to change an agricultural rural society to an urban and industrial one as well s the fact that his industrialisation plan increased massively the heavy industry in Russia; the production of raw materials such as iron, coal, steel and oil all increased successfully.
Sergie Witte's attempts to modernise the Russian economy during the period 1892-1903 were very successful. How far do you agree? Sergie Witte made several attempts to modernise Russia during the period during the period 1892-1903, however they were not always successful in the grand scheme of things in the country as he successfully freed serfs, however they were not completely free and were still heavily taxed. He however did manage to somewhat modernise Russia but one could argue that it was not to a great enough extent. Sergie Witte's aims included creating a bigger business class as that is what was driving other countries forward such as Britain and Germany.
The 1880s saw an industrial expansion in Russia. Coal and oil exports rapidly increased meaning more money was being brought into the country. The government however, used it for increasing military power such as making new weapons and employing more soldiers rather than helping the structure of Russia. To help the structure of Russia they could have spent it on building new roads and railways, and investing in new agricultural equipment which would help the economical transformation of Russia a lot more. Sergei Witte was minister of finance from 1892 to 1903 and wanted to modernise Russia.
In 1928, Joseph Stalin, now leader of the USSR, knew that the agricultural sector had to be made more efficient in order for it to feed the huge workforce which would take Russia through industrialisation. In his ascent to power, Stalin criticised Lenin's New Economic Policy for its Capitalistic features and so, through the Gosplan, a centrally controlled economy was created which subsequently gave birth to the five-year-plans and Collectivisation. By removing the Kulaks (wealthy peasants), combining numerous small holdings into one large farm and introducing modern equipment, collective farms were established. There is no doubt that this was a much more Socialist policy than the NEP, but whether it was successful is highly debatable: it would entirely depend on the interpretation of the word 'success' which, for this essay at least, will be that it has benefitted the majority of the people it has affected. However, it would be all too easy for one's opinion to be based entirely on the increase in agricultural output after 1928.
Also in order to provide money for industrial developments, taxes were raised which squeezed the peasants and therefore made them penniless to buy consumer goods, resulting in the economy of Russia itself to stagnate. Witte’s industrial policies show that there was some development of the economy, but the changes were not completely beneficial to industry, and he
Sergei was a key member of the government under the rule of both Alexander III and Nicholas II. Witte’s largest project was to improve the transport across Russia; he did this by improving the Trans-Siberian Railway which was constructed between 1891 and 1902. The line stretched for over 6000 kilometres and was intended to open up the more remote parts of Russia, which would in turn make the production better all over Russia as the produce would be able to be transported quicker across the different industries. Obviously this factor improved the economy as it meant that the country would be able to produce more and quicker. This railway also opened up a range of different jobs, meaning that the unemployment of Russia plummeted.