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.
How effective were the Liberal social reforms in the period 1906 to 1914? In the early Twentieth Century poverty in Britain was a very serious issue. There were groups of society who had no way of tackling or rising out of poverty. Poverty was more evident in the North of Britain and in big cities, although rural poverty was also a problem. Particularly vulnerable groups were the old, who had no means of acquiring money.
(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.
There was also a lot of conflict between trade unions and employers, with strikes and lock-outs frequent. Finally, the agricultural sector of the economy did not share in the general prosperity with food prices remaining low and farmers’ feeling abandoned by the government. All of these factors meant that the Government were spending more than they were receiving and that this ‘boom’ did not affect all parts of society, showing that these were not golden years for Germany. The German Political situation at home also appeared to be good. There were no more attempted revolutions and voting figures showed that extremist parties, such as the KPD were losing
The method in which welfare is being reformed, including, but not limited to forcing people to survive off unlivable minimum wages and instituting harmful qualifications in order to receive welfare aid, is not an effective means of helping the impoverished. This has been true for about the past decade. Working for minimum wage does not provide a sufficient amount of income to survive. In addition, welfare now has qualifications that are harmful for those in need of support. Welfare reform is not on the right track to improve lives and is only going to exacerbate the terrible living situations of the penniless.
The Old Poor Law of 1834 was reformed because it could not cope due to the large numbers of people claiming poor relief. This was due to population rise, commercialisation of farming which left people with no jobs, decline of agricultural crafts, harvest failures, food shortages due to war, higher food prices and change in attitude to claiming social welfare as there was no stigma attached to being poor anymore. This led to different measures such as the introduction of the Speenhamland system of 1795. Having investigated the reasons for the reformation of the Poor Law, we will now focus on the reasons that led to the reform. There were six main reasons that led to the old Poor Law Reform to easily pass which were: a willing government, Tories were a minority, Climate change, objectors were not listened to, and a Report based on evidence collected by the commission of enquiry.
At this point grain was forcibly taken by communists due to a grain shortage that had began in 1927, this was referred to as the "Urals-Siberian method", which was named after the area the practice started in. This forced method had a negative effect on the economy as peasants were unwilling to exchange the grain for money as they did not think the communist currency was "safe" and therefore it resulted in peasants hoarding and hiding grain from their selves (to sell for profit at the private markets). Furthermore less than 2% of farms were collectivised by 1928 meaning very little was being contributed to the economy by this new regime at this point as although these farm were supposedly more efficient and modern farms there was such a small percentage that it is unlikely the state was able to collect enough produce to be able to sell abroad to help pay for industrialisation or feed the towns. It was also that by 1928 the amount of grain seized by the state was falling since prior years during the "war communism" policy. However
One aspect of the workers’ lives that needs to be considered in order to see whether the Communist leaders did less than the Tsars to improve them is their living standards. The quality of life generally declined for workers throughout the period, with the only period of significant change under Khrushchev, however even his reforms cannot out way the deterioration of standards earlier in the Communist period, whereby Lenin and Stalin seemed to show a complete disregard for the improvement of living standards; For instance, the amount of living space for a worker fell from 8.5m squared in 1905, to 5.8m squared by 1935. A significant motive for this seems to be due to ideology; Stalin in
His aim was to make Russia a super power. * But, he was faced with many problems; Russia had a very small business class, which was central to keeping up with Britain. Also the majority of peasants didn’t have complete freedom which limited migration. Plus, the Russian economy had insufficient funds to invest in industrialisation, as well as the rouble not being on the golden standard so not many people were willing to invest as the rouble wasn’t a safe investment. This was changed when the rouble was put on the golden standard, many people and countries invested such as; factory owners from Bradford as well as Belgium, France and Britain.
However, it proved deeply unpopular with the peasants, and although it allowed Stalin and the party to finally gain control over the workers in the countryside, it had devastating effects on this section of the Russian population. The creation of collectives angered many of the of the Russian peasantry. The dekulakisation squads meant that peasants were being forced into collectives, and their crops, livestock, supplies and building were seized as property of the collective. Once again peasants began feeling tied to the land in a similar way to that of serfdome, instead of working for themselves as they did under NEP policies, they were now working for the State, largely losing the independence they had gained. This unhappiness began to manifest itself in violent opposition from large numbers of peasant, particularly in the wealthier agricultural areas, as they had more to lose to the state that the poorer farmers.