Agriculture and Peasantry Flashcards
Working Conditions- Alexander II- Successes
None
Working Conditions- Alexander II- Failures
Emancipation left most in debt- redemption payments for 49 years
Land given sub-par, 75% given 4 dessyatinas instead of 5
Mir a barrier for agricultural innovation
Working Conditions- Alexander III- Successes
Peasant Land Bank created- provided funds for peasantry
Working Conditions- Alexander III- Failures
Agriculture remained largely stagnant, little change to problems caused by Alexander II
Working Conditions- Nicholas II- Successes
Stolypin’s reforms- strips could be consolidated, 2.8m households made private
Working Conditions- Nicholas II- Failures
Mir remained resilient despite Stolypin reforms
Working Conditions- Lenin- Successes
Decree on Land, 1917- peasants given right to seize and claim noble lands
NEP- end of grain requisitioning, free market for surplus, agricultural freedom from government interference- ‘Golden Age’
Working Conditions- Lenin- Failures
Grain requisitioning- peasant resistance met with violent oppression
Working Conditions- Stalin- Successes
More mechanisation
Working Conditions- Stalin- Failures
Collectivisation meant end of agricultural freedom from government interference- second serfdom
Working Conditions- Khrushchev- Successes
Investment in agriculture rose 250% from 53-58
Virgin Lands Scheme introduced- additional 36 hectares cultivated
Working Conditions- Khrushchev- Failures
Little incentive to work on collective farms
Working Conditions- Evaluation
Khrushchev lone successor in this area- NEP was Golden Age, but we cannot discount grain requisitioning
Communists > Czars
Living Conditions- Alexander II- Successes
Emancipation- freedom to own property, marry, establish businesses, etc.
Educational improvements
Living Conditions- Alexander II- Failures
Emancipation left most in debt- tied to land, insufficient land resulted in Land Hunger
Heavy taxation
Living Conditions- Alexander III- Successes
Abolition of Poll Tax
Living Conditions- Alexander III- Failures
Famine of 1891- 350k dead, no government action
Population increase- resulted in impoverishment
Living Conditions- Nicholas II- Successes
Support for migration to Siberia to solve Land Hunger
Stolypin- abolished redemption payments and peasant passports- freedom to create holdings independent from Mir
Educational improvements
Living Conditions- Nicholas II- Failures
Land Hunger- 52% unable to survive on land on 1900
Heavy taxation
Living Conditions- Lenin- Successes
Decree on Land- peasants given right to seize and claim noble lands
NEP- end of grain requisitioning, free market for surplus, good recovery after famine, benefited from trade through Nepmen- Golden Age
Living Conditions- Lenin- Failures
Grain requisitioning- peasant opposition met with violent repression- famine of 1921- 5 million starved
Living Conditions- Stalin- Successes
Educational improvements- male illiteracy at 4% in 1939
Campaign against Church had limited success
Living Conditions- Stalin- Failures
Collectivisation- no agricultural freedom, second serfdom
1 million kulaks shot or imprisoned
Famine of 32-4, 4/5 mil dead
Attack on Church- 1 in 40 functioning by 1939
70k villages destroyed and millions dead from WW2
Living Conditions- Khrushchev- Successes
Investment in agriculture rose 250% from 53-8
Taxation improved
Virgin Lands- 36 hectares cultivated