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.
It was in this time that Russia’s industrial output increased by up to 4%. Most of the capital industries were on a rise. The government done this by focusing on the construction of railroads that required iron, coal and steel. The hope was that the construction of railways would lead to the creation of iron, steel and coal industries, which would in turn create other industries focusing on production and consumer goods. This was all thanks to Russia’s finance minister Sergei Witte.
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
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
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.
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. There were other successes in his economic policy of rearmament, which also improved labour productivity and the transport in the country. However, it would be incorrect to say that all what Stalin did during this period was a success since he also presented various failures, for example not being able to boost the production of consumer goods as well as creating a huge man made famine. It was clear at the time that Russia needed a change, as Stalin said: ‘’ We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this
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.
Roads and railway were inadequate to meet the demands. Transport and housing were also inadequate to cope with the number of town dwellers. Under the NEP there had been unemployment, a shortage of labour. Many of the new workers were in experienced peasants. Wages rose how ever there were too few goods on which to spend money.
The system of land distribution was unfair and most peasants received 4% less land than they had rented before, many received much less. In reality they had less land than when they were serfs. This was seen as unfair as they believed that, because they had worked the land for generations, it should now belong to them. The Mir still restricted peasants’ movements and as consolidation and enlargement of property was difficult, there was little incentive to improve the land and adopt modern methods, resulting in a decline in productivity The huge redemption taxes also meant that the peasants had to sell many of the crops they needed to eat and the Mir kept the peasants tied to their commune and still controlled by rules. Peasants felt disappointed and disillusioned and many rioted.
This railway also opened up a range of different jobs, meaning that the unemployment of Russia plummeted. Although this factor of the changing in Russia was very substantial, it promised more than it delivered. Sections of the railway were still incomplete in 1914 and it did not greatly improve or increase east-west communications. Between 1881 and 1910, Russia’s trade with other countries dramatically increased very dramatically this is seen by the statistics as the exported goods is higher than the imported goods, also the productivity of natural resources dramatically increased as there was allot more iron, coal and oil being produced and sent from Russia to the rest of Europe. Although this was a large advantage to the economy of Russia, the grain production did increase, but it didn’t