(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.
All Russian governments in this period faced strong opposition to their regime with the period as a whole punctuated by riots, disturbances and revolutions. Political change was expected in Russia during this period, particularly during the Tsarist regime where the growth of the revolutionary intelligentsia, ironically an effect of the Great Reforms, led many to question the need for a Tsar or a royal family at all. The first main success of political opposition is widely considered to be the assassination of Alexander II at the hands of the People’s Will in 1881. Although they assassinated their Tsar, it is very likely this did not actually lead to their desired outcome, it being greater political freedom/democracy. Many historians have said Alexander II was considering the formation of a parliament in Russia.
Women were another vulnerable group because they were always paid at a lower rate than men. There was no safety net for people who fell into poverty other than resorting to the ‘workhouse’ which had been established to deal with cases of extreme poverty in Trade unions had little power as the Taff Vale Incident of 1901 showed and Friendly Societies could only provide a limited amount of help. Attitudes to poverty in the early 20th century were quite unsympathetic many politicians from both the Liberal and Conservative party felt that poverty came from personal laziness. Both parties had an attitude of “laissez-faire” i.e. non interference from the government.
Some peasants left to work in the cities as the Tsar wanted Russia to be an industrial power, however the living conditions there hardly improved, which matched their dreadful working conditions. This poor treatment is what led to the 1917 strikes that helped force the Tsar to abdicate from the throne. This was an important factor in bringing down the Tsar because with so many people opposing him (over the years, because of food shortages and war failures, they were supported by women and army members, and the number of workers on strike rose to 250 000), he had no choice but to give up. However, I believe there is more causes behind this so I wouldn’t label it the most important factor of the Tsar’s abdication. Russia’s poor performance in WW1 played a very significant role in bringing down the Tsar too.
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
However what they found was poor pay, poor housing and with trade unions being banned they had no one to help them. Also with no minimum wage factory owners could pay what they wanted without any interference of the government, and while the working class could theoretically move around and were not bound to one factory the new job would not bring about anything better as factory owners were able to get away with it due to the poor working class not being able to pay lawyers and
Extended Response 1 At the turn of the year 1905 Russia was in a state of social, political and economic turmoil. The entire system, political, social and economic was manufactured by the ruling classes to support their own privileges. Russia’s economy was imbalanced to the extent that the majority of the country lived in poverty while the Romanov’s and the Orthodox church controlled a vast fortune. In Russian society, human rights and personal freedoms for citizens didn’t exist. Instead, the Romanov’s had created a police state where capital punishment and discrimination were tolerated and even encouraged by the government so, not surprisingly, many Russians feared the absolute power of the Romanov dynasty.
The laborers felt they held no influence in politics therefore they weren’t concerned with them. After time, the farmers’ and the laborers’ involvement in the national politics took on different roles. The farmers started at the bottom and worked their way upward. The laborers, who had no political power or influence, threw themselves into the center of the political world. Although the North and South labor forces didn’t see eye to eye, they did help to establish ways to limit those in the corporate world in ways that surprised and scared the capitalists.
These other causes are all political social and economical factors which helped to free the serfs. And had the Tsar taken a more liberal view on his rule the emancipation may never have happened. Firstly there are many political causes for the emancipation of the serfs. The bankruptcy of nobles who were the tsar’s main supporters was, caused because of the inefficiency of using serfs to farm lands, which meant most nobles were losing money and by 1860 over 60% of serfs were mortgaged to the government meaning they were “unofficially” no longer tied to their land. This meant serfdom was already coming to its own natural end, and for Alexander II to support his nobles he had to emancipate the serfs so they could go start increasing their wealth and get out of debt.
All the way through the 1890’s and the early years of the 1900’s a storm was brewing among the people of Russia. A majority of the people wanted to reform the political system by either changing it completely or modifying it to suit. This is why a revolution occurred in 1905. The political system in Russian was an autocracy whereby the Tsar, the divine ruler, owned and controlled absolutely everything in the country. Many of the people looked up to the Tsar like a father, not because he was inspirational or because he was exceptional but because 85% of the country, the Peasants were uneducated and so were very easily controlled and influenced.