6) Economic and Social Developments Flashcards
The beginning of state-promoted industrial growth under Reutern (AII’s Minister of Finance 1862-78)
Industrialisation driven by State trying to catch up w/ economic West. Reutern produced reforms to boost economy + drive industrial growth:
🔸Treasury + taxation reformed➡️tax-farming abolished.
🔸From 1863 tariffs ⬇️ to promote trade.
🔸Govt subsidies💵 offered to railway entrepreneurs🚂.
🔸State-guaranteed annual dividends encouraged foreign investment 💶.
🔸Regulations for joint-stock companies to protect investors🛡.
🔸Govt supported development of mining industries⛏.
🔸New Work Discipline rules for keep workers safe in factories (method of control) 🦺.
Strengths and limitations to Reutern’s reforms
✅Encouraged investment + enterprise💶.
✅Foreign expertise + capital supported industrial expansion🏭.
✅Railway network ⬆️ 7 fold🚂.
✅Developments in iron mining + coal extraction⛏.
✅6% annual average growth rate under Reutern💸.
❌R economy still comparatively weak.
❌1/3 govt expenditure on repaying debts.
❌R rouble unstable⚖️🚫.
❌Tariff ⬇️ caused ⬇️ govt revenues so ⬆️ from 1878.
❌Textiles still dominant industry🧵.
❌Peasantry still poor + domestic market small.
Bunge, Minister of Finance 1881-87
Wanted to make peasants better producers of crops + wealth to turn them into consumers who would spend more👨🏼🌾.
🔹⬇️ then abolished poll tax 1886 to ⬇️ tax burden on peasantry 💸.
🔹⬆️ state income from redemption dues by 30%💰.
🔹Resisted demands for substantial sums of money to maintain empire’s standing.
✅Tried to ⬆️ loyalty to Tsar through reform: introduced labour legislation to improve working conditions for women + children via factory inspection🦺.
❌Inability to overcome budget deficit led him to resign 1887.
Vyshnegradsky, Minister of Finance 1887-92
✅Introduced tariffs on foreign goods as high as 33% which ⬆️ govt income by almost 50%.
✅Negotiated a series of French loans🇫🇷➡️R’s gold reserves almost doubled💰.
✅Govt revenue had 18% ⬆️ in grain exports (“We shall ourselves not eat, but we shall export”).
✅1892 R budget achieved surplus💸.
❌Peasants had to pay taxes + give grain to State coinciding w/ bad harvest 1991-92 in Volga➡️widespread famine, 1.5-2m deaths☠️.
❌Famine attracted liberal opposition + cost V his job.
Problems with the rural economy
- Agr changed little after emancipation.
- 1900 only 50% peasants providing enough food for themselves🥖🚫(rapidly ⬆️ pop - free to marry👰🏻 + less military service💂🏻♀️).
- 1860-1900 indirect taxes ⬆️450% + direct taxed ⬆️200%.
- 1893 peasants banned from leaving their mir (1903 mir’s power ⬇️)🚷.
- R’s comparative yields lower than in West.
- 1911 R had 166 tractors, USA had 14,000🚜.
- R produced less artificial fertilisers than other countries - 1913 R pr 1/3 amount of ammoniac fertilisers that F did🇫🇷.
- Gap between rich + poor: Nobles’ Land Bank gave nobles double amount of land than peasantry🤵🏻👨🏼🌾.
Improvements to the rural economy
▪️Aided by land bank (1883), peasants started to take advantage of land put on market by nobility due to emancipation🏦.
▪️1877-1905 land owned by peasants ⬆️ from 6m➡️21.6m hectares 👨🏼🌾💰.
▪️1905 27% landlords’ land passed to peasantry.
▪️1913 peasants owned 66% arable land + rented more - yields higher on peasants’ land.
▪️On average grain pr ⬆️ 2.1% annually 1883-1914 so pr ahead of ⬆️ pop📈.
▪️Mir conservative but didn’t prevent too much change - some started using new methods: different crop rotations; new varieties of crops; fertilisers; iron plough (instead of wood)🚜.
How far was Russian society transformed 1855-1894?
Peasantry
✅-change ❌-limited change
✅Class of kulaks who benefited from emancipation + sold surplus grain for profit developed👨🏼🌾💵.
✅⬆️ peasant attendance in education at all levels👩🏻🎓.
✅Volost judges literate peasants elected by peasants👩🏻⚖️.
✅⬇️ military service + army less peasant-based💂🏻♀️.
✅Poll tax abolished💸.
✅Seasonal or permanent work in towns🏭 - 1890s 2% pop.
✅Peasants buying landlord land + renting more.
Peasants still inferior to nobility: ❌Educated ⬇️ military service. ❌Still few peasant officers💂🏻♀️. ❌⬆️ school fees exclude peasants from school. ❌Nobles more authority in zemstva🎩. ❌Volost courts inferior + segregating. ❌Nobles’ Land Bank gave double land🏦.
How far was Russian society transformed 1855-1894?
Nobility
✅-change ❌-limited change
✅Resentment of ⬇️ status + influence➡️criticism of regime from gentry👑💔.
✅Minority wanted gentry representatives to form national commission to prevent govt interfering w/ their interests again.
✅⬇️ landowners + landholdings - 1861 owned 80% land, 1905 40%.
✅Many nobles moved to towns🏙.
✅Many spent redemption dues frivolously➡️bankrupt within 20 years💰🚫.
✅Conscripted to army💂🏻♀️.
✅No longer word of nobility over peasants in law⚖️👩🏻⚖️
❌Some developed their estates using modern methods + agr machinery➡️high yields, money from selling crops @ market💰.
❌Income from military💂🏻♀️💵 or civil service.
❌1897 1,000/1,400 highest ranking civil servants were nobles.
❌Many became professionals in medical/legal/educational jobs💼.
❌Dominated zemstva.
❌Regained control over peasantry through Land Captains.
❌Education restrictions favoured nobility (classical subjects + fees)👩🏻🎓.
How far was Russian society transformed 1855-1894?
Third Element
✅-change ❌-limited change
✅Judicial reforms➡️more lawyers👩🏻⚖️; education reforms➡️more teachers👩🏻🏫; banking reforms➡️more bankers🏦.
✅Censorship reforms➡️could criticise govt + spread ideas🗞.
✅Judicial reforms➡️open hearings platform for anti-tsarist opinions.
✅Local govt reforms➡️zemstva talking shop for like-minded people.
❌Land Captains limit their authority in zemstva.
❌Censorship under AIII➡️can’t spread ideas or talk freely.
❌Okhrana➡️too scared to criticise regime🕵🏻♂️.
❌Under AIII churches⛪️ in charge of primary education instead of zemstva.
The importance of the Orthodox Church to the peasantry
- 70% R pop Orthodox believers.
- OC staffed by 100,000 clerics who played significant role in R society + exerted massive influence over peasants.
- Priests lived in villages, involved in lives + struggles of peasants. Villagers supported them👨🏼🌾⛪️.
- Religious observance big role in peasant life (especially in rituals connected to birth👶🏼, death☠️ + marriage👰🏻).
- Most peasants huts had icons in corner of room.
- Church means of info for mostly illiterate peasants.
Church reforms
1862 - Ecclesiastical Commission to organise church🗃.
1868 - reforms to improve education of priests👨🏼🎓.
AIII’s Russification policy promoted Orthodoxy or seen as disloyal to Empire. Offence to convert from or criticise Orthodoxy.
Under AIII, OC given control over primary education👩🏻🏫.
Did the role of the Orthodox Church change during 1855-1894?
Little change - under AIII it regained same amount of power it had before AII’s reforms.
Control of OC slowly weakening - less relevant for workers in industrialising towns👷🏼🏭. Countryside superstition sometimes stronger than trust in priests👨🏼🌾🔮.
