CHANGING TO LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS OF RURAL AND URBAN PEOPLE Flashcards
What percentage of the Russian population lived in towns and cities at the end of the nineteenth century? How does this compare to Britain and USA?
R: 15%
B: 80%
USA: 40%
Where had the population doubled by 1914?
Riga and Kiev
What did overcrowding lead to?
Spread of disease such as cholera.
What did a survey of 12,000 St Petersburg workers present?
93% drank heavily and developed this habit before their seventeenth birthday.
How many towns and buildings were there at the start of WW1?
Over 1000 towns and 2 million buildings.
How many deaths were due to cholera in St Petersburg in 1910?
100,000
What was the Decree on Peace?
Issued after the Bolsheviks seized power partly focused on what the party intending to do about property, including housing.
What happened to the population in Moscow in the mid-1930s regarding overcrowding?
25% of the population was living in one room that was shared between two or more households.
How much had the living space fallen from in 1905 and to in 1935?
8.5m in 1905 to 5.8m by 1935.
What did the second world war resulted in for urban housing?
Swathes of Russia becoming depopulated and over 25 million Russians being made homeless.
What happened to the housing stock between 1955 and 1964?
The housing stock doubled and the principles behind communal living were abandoned.
What benefitted better off professionals in Khrushchev’s time?
The emergence of housing cooperatives.
What was the ‘average’ peasant home over the whole period?
Izba
How was peasant housing changed under Stalin?
Construction of ‘special’ housing blocks located on the periphery of collective farms.
What rural housing did Khrushchev construct?
Self-contained ‘agro-towns’.
What was the issue with ‘agro-towns’ under Khrushchev?
Built quickly and cheaply and was subsequently of poor standard.
What were the main four reasons for famines across the period?
- a tendency towards monoculture.
- the restrictive practices of the mir.
- severe weather conditions in particular years.
- governmental policies.
What had AII done in an attempt to end food shortages and famines?
1864: he placed the Zemstva in charge of drawing up emergency measures to deal with famines.
How many deaths resulted from the 1891 famine?
350,000
How did AIII attempt to counter criticisms over the 1891 famine?
Banning exports of grain, setting up a Special Committee on Famine Relief and funding emergency help from two ‘extraordinary’ lorries.
What did the Zemgor do in WW1?
Transported food to soldiers.
What was grain used for in WW1? What did this result in for ordinary civilians?
Feed troops.
Issues getting foodstuffs into urbanised areas and bread queues of 8 hours or longer were the norm.
Why did peasants continue to hoard in 1918?
Valuable agricultural land had been lost as a result of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk.
How did the Bolsheviks respond to grain hoarding in 1918?
Introducing grain requisitioning.
What had the Cheka and Red Army been instructed to do by 1920?
To seize all food supplies for redistribution and not simply surpluses.
How much did Ukrainian food production fall in the famine of 1921?
Fell by 20%
Why was Lenin partly blamed for the famine of 1921 as AIII had been in 1891?
Slow in his response and reluctant to accept aid from the American Relief Administration.
What were kulaks blamed for by the mid-1920s?
Hoarding grain.
How did the treatment of kulaks worsen by 1928?
The introduction of the Urals-Siberian method.
What were three elements of the Stalinist regime that made the famine of 1932-4 worse?
- the death penalty was imposed for stealing grain.
- discussion of the grain crisis was banned.
- animals were slaughtered in preference to handing them over to the authorities.
How much had the consumption of meat and fish fallen by the late 1930s?
By 80%
What were the five main events that impacted the conditions in which peasants were working?
- emancipation of the serfs.
- appointment of land captains.
- grain requisitioning.
- collectivisation.
- virgin lands scheme.
When was the factory inspectorate introduced?
1882.
What did the 1882 banning of child employment (under age twelve) in factories mean?
It was possible for employers to continue to use child labour as they were unlikely to be found it.
What was introduced in February 1920? Why was this a backward step?
Rabkrin (the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate), however this became a talking shop rather than one that enforced industrial law.
What were workers threatened with? For what?
Being purged if they were considered to be anti-revolutionary.
What were the workers hours in 1896? Compared to 1939? Compared to 1958?
1896 - 11 hour working day (10 hours on Saturday).
1939 - 7 hour working day
1958 - 7 hour working day
Where was there evidence of the gender pay gap?
Women received less than men on average even when they were employed in the same work.
How was low pay partly offset?
By the introduction in 1903 of a workers’ insurance scheme, and under the communists, bonus schemes.
How much did real wages fall from the beginning to the end of the first 5YP?
50%
When did real wages begin to reach the levels of the early 1920s?
Not until 1954.
