Additionally the production of steel stagnated. Although economy grew by 14%, they failed to meet official targets and as a result the local party officials were sacked or demoted. Overall, the Russian economy improved massively changing from a backward peasant economy at the end of the 1920’s to a highly industrial economy by 1941. In terms of consumer goods there was no a significant improvement. The Five Year Plan tried to eradicate free trade which meant that people could not afford what they wanted.
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.
The farmers’ anger was further deepened at the government when the crisis remained unresolved. The farmers’ had reached boiling point when Congress passed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which allowed a limited amount of silver coinage, but did not solve the problem. The United States population and money in circulation between 1865 and 1895, demonstrates that between the time periods the population had almost double however the amount of money in circulation had grown only half as much. Farmer’s discontent came with the rise
In spite of all these changing times and circumstances, the tension between the upper and lower classes remained tenser than ever before, building up under the fabric of society. Russian became industrialized during the 1930's when Joseph Stalin instituted a series of what he called “five year plans". The plans were designed to rapidly increase the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union and change it from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. The plans succeeded and Russia did become an industrialized nation. Prior to the “five year plans”, Russia had mostly a peasant farming economy.
This caused a lot of distress amongst Russia’s population as well as depression. The war was thought of as a strategy to boost Russia’s morale and unite all the communities together to help the war effort, most importantly, to distract them from the current tension in the country. The war encouraged patriotism; it was soon obvious that Russia had hugely underestimated Japan’s strength and ability. This was also the first spontaneous outbreak of unrest which was directed at the Tsar, it made people lose their confidence in him. However, the Russo Japanese was not the only factor leading to Bloody Sunday, the start of the Revolution, other factors such as the Great Spurt and Alexander III’s manifesto – ‘the reaction’ also led to the start of the revolution.
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. Serfdom was also holding Russia back, with the rest of Europe liberalising and making vast economic progress Russia’s economy was starting to look inferior and for them to advance as a nation they had to increase productivity of the serfs and the simple solution was to emancipate them. The serfs were inefficient and had a low productivity due to poor farming methods and constantly being oppressed by their nobles. This oppression and poor farming was caused by the extremely conservative rule which refused to modernise, had the Tsar modernised the farming techniques and stopped the
War breaking out in 1914 meant the Russian economy had to change to be suitable for the Total war Russia was involved in. Due to the size of Russia different resources had to be transported from different areas by rail lines, which by 1914 it had 44,000 miles but they still were not sufficient to transport large quantities of materials to supply both the industrial needs, military needs and the civilian. Due to shortages in the cities inflation rates went up however wages did not increase fast enough so there were discontent among the workers, between 1914 and 1916 inflation rose by 232% .By 1917 Petrograd and Moscow got a third of the fuel and food it needed due to these resources being sent to the front to supply the army, or the supplies spoiling due to the military use and commandeering of the rail lines. If factories failed to receive the resources it needed to carry out, the factory closed
Another issue was that whilst the Tsar encouraged the industrial growth of Russia, and was keen for the country to become an industrial power, when peasants then left the land to work in the developing enterprises, they discovered that their living conditions did not improve. The disaster of the industrial slump that followed the initial rapid advances (coal production had trebled and iron production quadrupled) meant that there was atrocious working conditions, and as trade unions were illegal, life for the peasants that had been seeking a new way of life or hoping to earn more money was
How far was the impact of World War One the crucial factor in the fall of the Romanovs in February 1917. This essay will argue that the impact of World War One was a very crucial factor in the fall of the Romanovs in February 1917. The events in the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917 also show that Nicolas II was not a good leader and these events led to the fall of the Romanovs. World War One caused many problems for the Government, the army and the people at home. Having a war caused inflation, government spending rose from 4-30 million, taxation increased, and money became practically worthless and the price of food and fuel quadrupled.
The Czar was not present, so the neutralist protestants were shot down by the panicking soldiers. It was enough to evoke a wave of strikes, social dissatisfaction and political rearrangement. In any other epoch, they would have been frightened, and just relinquish it; however, they already had ideals in their minds, enough to commence the Russian Revolution. The October Manifesto was a document published by Czar Nicholas II, that was a precursor to the Fundamental Laws of 1906. Imperiled by the protests and violent marches, he announced that civil independence would be acknowledged to population and the creation of the Duma Parliament.