Agricultural policies of the Tsars Flashcards
What were the main problems facing Russian peasants under the Tsars?
-Famine
-Poor harvests
-poor technology
-poor land quality
-strip farming
-poor terms of emancipation.
What year was the famine under Alexander III?
-1891
How did the government/Alexander III respond to the famine of 1891?
-Held back food deliveries- statistical proof.
-cholera- miles from treatment
-hysteria when medical authorities arrived
-proposed ban of cereal exports until august (stock quickly sold aboard)
-newspapers could not print ‘famine’.
In terms of famine, what did the government do on the 17th November 1891?
-calling for the public to form voluntary organisations
-gov had no control
How did the Tsars fail to deal with land ownership?
-land ownership never met the rising expectations of the peasants.
What suggest that the emancipation of serfs did not have a positive impact on agriculture?
-still debates of peasant access to land in 1917.
Good round up sentence to describe how the government acted during the famine?
-deliberately slow to act.
How did the minister of finance under Alexander III propose to deal with the famine?
-raise taxes on consumer goods so that the peasants would be tortured to sell more that they had grown (which they did not have).
What were the major reforms under Nicholas II called?
-The Stolypin reforms.
What were the general aims of Stolypin’s reforms?
-use land redistribution to strengthen the more able and ‘best peasants’
What were Stolypin’s four main reforms?
-Abandon strip farming
-unused or poorly utilised- land bank- buy under favourable terms
-Large scale voluntary resettlement
-incentives given for farmers to return to individual farming.
When was the peasant land bank established?
1883.
What was the first significant step taken by Stolypin? (+quote)
-cancellation of redemptive payments- ‘wager on the strong’
-Suppression first and then… only then reform.
- wanted to strengthen Tsardom.
What did Stolypin arguably do to the Duma?
-Manipulated it into a protective force of Tsardom in times pf crisis.
What were the main problems facing Stolypin?
-No support from Russian government
-peasants resistant to change,
-Russian agriculture backwards- needed 20 years but assassinated by 5.
‘Creation of Kulaks’
