Once all the main factors are evaluated, it becomes clear that the life of the peasants did not improve so it remained uniformly bleak throughout the period of 1855-1964. For majority of the period, the living conditions for the average peasant remained uniformly bleak. Especially when considering 1917, under Nicholas II, accommodation was often a low standard as demand outstripped supply following an influx to the cities, such poor living conditions had a detrimental effect in their quality of life which was also the same under the communist leaders, where living conditions remained in an equally bad, if not worse when compared to the Tsars. Some may suggest that Nikita Khrushchev did try to improve the living conditions by building more social housing but he was more interested in competing in the Cold War than improving the living conditions of the peasants. Therefore, lack of care led to his housing policy to be unsuccessful and proving that live of the peasants under Khrushchev did not improve.
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.
There was a massive divide in the North from the South. The North had an industrial revolution in the late nineteenth century, although Italy’s industrial development was always going to be limited, as they did not have enough key resources such as iron and coal. The poorer side of Italy, the South, was full of peasants and no industrialisation, therefore the South suffered from a bad economy and poor living conditions. In the South, 0.01% of the population owned 50% of the land. That agricultural industry in the South was so corrupt that farmers gained no profit from their livestock and crops, therefore was inefficient and moving backwards.
This meant trade to other countries went down bringing the economy to yet another low and this lack of agricultural workers meant a lack of food across Russia, especially in towns and cities where there was no easy access to farms; and as is with most things in demand, the prices went through the roof, leaving peasants starving on a mass scale. The only short term fix that was established for this whole issue, was a series of loans from Russia’s allies, Britain and France; these loans are especially important when it comes to the provisional government’s role in the second revolution in 1917. The other major issue that was gained from the World War is the amazing show of incompetence from Russian military leaders, most notably Nicholas II. This led to a decreasing
With a lack of communication on both sides and an unhappy country, it would have been very difficult to govern such a hostile environment as no members of public would have followed the laws or asks of their leader. Finally, the diverse economy makes laws very hard to put into place because certain introductions are going to benefit some whilst disadvantaging others e.g. The introduction of taxes for the rich to pay for the peasants would not have gone down well with some, but helped others back into a quality of life. For the above reasons, Russia was extremely hard to govern in the 19th Century. “Why was Russia so hard to govern in the 19th Century?” Russia was so hard to govern in the 19th Century due to the political situation, angry people and diverse economy.
As Strayer, Gatzke, and Harbison state in their textbook The Course of Civilization states “The basic trouble was that very few inhabitants of the empire believed that the old civilization was worth saving… the overwhelming majority of the population had been systematically excluded from political responsibilities. They could not organize to protect themselves; they could not serve in the army… Their economic plight was hopeless. Most of them were serfs bound to the soil, and the small urban groups saw their cities slipping into an economic decline.”(DBQ 2, Doc 1) What these men mean is the majority of the people (which were poor serfs) were excluded from political responsibilities. In addition, they could not protect themselves or serve in the army mainly because they were too poor (in order to be in the army, the people had to be wealthy) and the urban patricians saw their city fall into an economic downfall. What also led the downfall of the Western Roman Empire were the rise of Christianity and the large size
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.
These Factors started to turn everyone against the Tsar as they could see how terrible he really was and how much he wasn’t helping the country or its people which finally lead the end of the Tsar. In 1917 people started to lose faith in terms of reforms as the October Manifesto set up by Witte to help people and try to get the country back on track was removed after only a few years of it being in place not long enough for it to have an impact on Russian life. As in 1905 there had never been any real big reforms like on the October manifesto so people where excited as they thought something new and good would be
They had no decent terrain to grow crops and the Native Americans were hostile to some colonists. It seemed that things were just not going to go right for them. Then, when the Native Americans accepted the colonists and gave them their own land, the colonists formed the thirteen American Colonies. But, the colonies were still oppressed under the king’s rule. This made almost every American upset, almost to the point of revolt, but
The lack of usable land in Russia and the subdivison of land between families both resulted in an incredibly low income, especially for larger families. This combined with the illiteracy of the people and refusal of the Tsar to provide basic education meant that there was no way to escape the misfortunes of life as a peasant. The poor harvests of 1900 and 1902 worsened matters even further and fuelled the peasants anger. The famines and starvation that followed provided sufficient evidence that the Tsar was not a born leader, “gifted and sent from God” as they had been taught to believe, but a weak and incompetent leader, incapable of making decisions or change. 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.