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 shows that Alexander was ready to liberate Russia because even though it was risky, it helped to start the liberalisation process because it enabled ex-serfs to work in factories which would help boost the economy, let the gentry to earn their own money and would help advances in industry which in turn help Russia to compete with the western world. However the aftermath of this manifesto was a lot more negative than first appears. Although Alexander helped to abolish Serfdom there were a lot of negatives
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 important for this change to occur because Russia had massive resources of iron, coal, timber etc. but was not exploiting them. By encouraging heavy industries to tap into Russian resources, Witte was stimulating the Russian economy using Russian resources; self sufficiency. This can be seen in statistics that show Russian production of coal and iron multiply three and eightfold respectively.
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
Stalin expected agricultural yield to increase due to a higher efficiency, mechanisation and a greater work incentive, he also believed that mechanisation would decrease the need for farm labour, increasing the number of proletariats in the city. Collectivisation was both a success and failure. Collectivisation was a success because it achieved one of its initial aims, state procurement for grain increased from 11 million tonnes in 1928 to 23 million tonnes in 1933, because of this proletariats could be fed and supplied with grain. This was vital for communism to succeed as the proletariats were needed for the factories and industrialisation. The increase in state procurement also meant that exports of grain increased.
Mussolini’s economic policies can be seen as improving the standard of living of ordinary Italians. This was done by the initial liberal economic policies, the policy of autarky which resulted in the ‘battles’. However, Mussolini’s economic policies can be seen to not improve the standard of living because of the failures of the ‘battles’, the early recession, the rise in cost of living and the drop in income. One of Mussolini’s economic policy that helped to improve the standard of living was the economic policy Autarky. Mussolini wanted Italy to survive on self-sufficiency -which wasn’t surprising for a nationalist country.
In many respects, there is no doubt that Alexander III was the most effective Tsar in such the short reign that he had. He was referred to as a reactionary, unlike his father Alexander II who was known as a reformer. He managed to please the people with his Russian figure and attitude, he changed their attitude and he made tsarism look all the better, all in a short period of time. Despite their different policies, they had the same ambitions inside their head in the long run, and that was to strengthen autocracy in the Russian empire but Alexander III did this by reversing what his father had done as he felt he knew better ways of dealing with the situation and strengthening the Tsarist position. The first thing that Alexander III did when he came into power to contradict his fathers’ reforms was to recall the decision of creating the constitution.
There is a failure to realise that long term better economic welfare also means general higher standards of living, as people have enough money to buy everything they need and some of what they want, competition is rife so drives quality up and prices down, and the government are able to take in more taxes from firms who are much healthier financially. This mass employment may lead to more jobs, but the workers themselves or the way they’re used is hugely inefficient. Another reason that labour production in the UK is so low is the lack of competition. There is a strong body of evidence that competition enhances productivity. So, with a lack of one there is a lack of the other.
Even though there was a low birth rate in the and plentiful jobs in America many of the Irish found that the fast paced economy they heard about was not as fast as they believed. Many of the Irish worked as domestic servants particularly the women that came over, and the men mostly worked as day laborers [4]. Even though the Irish aided in our expansion and economic well being, they created unrest for the "natives" of the United States of America as "native's" were angered that the immigrants were