Prior to the “five year plans”, Russia had mostly a peasant farming economy. The 1750 to 1914 period in Russia was met by a large increase in the available labor force. Coupled with an increase in population, Russia's emancipation of the serfs freed many of Russia's serfdom from perpetual slavery. However, the emancipation process was planned so as to put the freed serfs deeply in debt to the original owners of the land. In fact, many of the serfs were so deeply indebted that they relocated to Russia's cities in search of better work opportunities.
After the rule of the Mongol over Russia, many of the free peasants had fallen into debt and were forced to work as laborers on the large estates owned by nobles. The Russian serfdom system expanded as more land was added to the empire. This similarity exists between these two systems of forced labors because as both the Spanish and Russian empire expanded, forced labor became necessary to maintain the empires’ economic status. The best social classes to demand labor from are the poorer social classes, in this case, the Russian peasants and Native Americans of the new world. Another similarity between Russian serfdom and the Spanish encomienda system is that both the serfs and the natives were born into their social class, thus born into the system of forced labor, although
Stolypin believed that the encouragement of a class such as the Kulaks would make them hostile to further change therefore more conservative and loyal to the Tsar as the Tsar had made them wealthy. Furthermore, peasants made up 85% of the population of Russia and a majority relied on agriculture for their income. Reforms that would please the ‘dark masses’ would strengthen the tsarist regime. Another reason for reforming agriculture was to oppress peasant unrest. In Poltava and Kharkov provinces, mass impoverishment of the peasants, which was exacerbated by the poor harvests of 1901 led to 40,000 peasants took part in an uprising where they also ransacked 150 landlord properties.
This was due to the inefficiency of Serfdom, and by this time, roughly 60% of Serfs had been mortgaged to the government. What this essentially means is that Serfdom was already beginning to come to a natural end. As the Nobles were the Tsar’s staunchest supporters, he was forced to emancipate the Serfs to allow the Nobles to refill their coffers and get out of their debt. As well as this, with the rest of Europe beginning to make large economic progress, Russia was beginning to look inferior economically and industrially, and it was Serfdom that was holding them back, with the simplest solution to just emancipate the Serfs and allow them to become more productive. The main reason that the Serfs were inefficient was due to oppression from the Nobles, which, coupled with poor farming methods, gave inferior results
ALEXANDER II Alexander II Alexander II was emperor of Russia from 1855 to 1881. He is called the "tzar liberator" because he freed the serfs (poor peasants who lived on land owned by nobles) in 1861. Alexander's reign is famous in Russian history and is called the "era of great reforms." Born: April 17, 1818 Moscow, Russia Died: March 1, 1881 St. Petersburg, Russia Fact : Alexander learned to speak Russian, German, French, English, and Polish. He gained a knowledge of military arts, finance, and diplomacy, or the study of dealing with foreign countries.
The effect of Mongol rule on Russia and China was similar in some respects and different in others economically. The Mongols affected both civilizations similarly in that the Mongols demanded tribute from both empires. Although it was similar that Russia and China both had to give tribute to the Mongols, it affected both civilizations differently. For example in Russia, the peasants were taxed very harshly, turning them into serfs. Also in Russia, all of the tax went to Moscow because Moscow was the tax collector because Chinggis Khan did not live directly in Russia, so this helped build Russia’s wealth.
Under the rule of the Mongols, Russia changed in that paper money was introduced and diminished, and that Russian language had once again become the main language. It stayed the same in that Russian culture and the aristocrats in Russia stayed in power along with the Eastern Orthodox Church. Paper money was introduced to keep the values of metals up. The flow of silver and gold into Mongol hands starved the local economy. The Khan of the Golden Horde attempted to introduce paper money as a response to currency shortage.
For this, rural councils known as the Zemstvas were set up in 1864 which offered the serfs a representative government; but they were mostly dominated by the nobility and professionals and many of them resented their loss of power over the serfs. To tend to these demands, local government reforms were put in place which were largely made up of nobility and made to give former serf owners a sense of local authority to make up for their loss of control over the serfs. Further judicial reforms were also put in place to help peasants arrange property rights and contracts, even more so now as they were able to own their own land. The emancipation of the serfs and reduction of labour services contributed to the growth of a money-based economy which had been a long term goal for the Tsar. The second reason to why further reforms were introduced was to modernise Russia’s overall economy and industry in order to catch up with the already modernised Western countries.
In Russia, the peasants were treated very poorly, Russian princes did not want to pay their share of the tribute, so they raised taxes on the peasants and kept some of the money for themselves. Unlike the Russians, Chinese peasants were treated fairly better had restored granaries and reduced taxes. While securing the empire in China, they secured the most valued trade region in all of Asia; the Silk Road. It was necessary for the Silk Road to be protected from bandits and thieves. It would be a great risk if travelers did not have a secure route to trade on.
This was why it was crucial for Lenin to show strong leadership which he did. However, I don’t think that the October/November revolution would have taken place without other factors which contributed to it. Lenin was a key factor in the revolution. His return to Russia in April 1917 was a key reason that the Bolsheviks succeeded. He issued his famous April Thesis, which had his promise of ‘Peace, Land and Bread’ which was cleverly aimed at the majority of Russia (peasants wanted land, everyone wanted peace and there was a bread shortage which made problems for most people).