Chapter 6 - Economic and social developments

Question 1

When was Mikhail von Reutern the Minister of Finance?

Answer 1

1862 - 78

Under Alexander II

Question 2

What did Von Reutern want to acheive with his economic reforms?

Answer 2

Boost the economy

Funds to drive industrial growth

Question 3

What were Von Reutern’s economic reforms?

Answer 3

• New tax collection arrangements
• The publishing of budgets was put in place
• Tax-farming was abolished
• Reformation of tax system to include more direct taxation
• Esablishment of a state bank in 1860, municipal banks in 1862 and savings bank in 1869
• Reduction in import duties in 1863 to promote trade
• Government subsidies offered to private entrepreneurs to develop railways
• Foreign investment encouraged with a government-guaranteed annual dividend

Tax farming = the buying of rights to collect certain taxes

Question 4

What was the impact of Von Reutern’s reforms?

Answer 4

• Forced tax farmers to look elsewhere to invest
• Enterprise was encouraged by the use of government subsidies and trade treaties
• Industrial expansion
• Increase in railway networks
• annual average growth of 6% during Von Reutern’s time in office

Question 5

Developments in industry during Von Reuterns time in office

Answer 5

• Textiles was still the dominant industry
• Oil extraction in the Caspian Sea port of Baku in 1871
• Ironworks was set up in Donetsk in 1872, started mining the rich ironfields of the Krivoi Rog region
• Naphtha Extraction Company established in 1879 by the Nobel brothers to exploit coal and oil production futher

Question 6

What were some limitations with the economy during Von Reutern’s time in office?

Answer 6

• Russia’s economy remained comparitively weak
• 1/3 of government expenditure went on the repayment of debts
• The Rouble was subject to large variations in its value
• 66% of government revenue came from indirect taxation, which kept the peasantry poor and the domestic market small
• Tariff reductions led to a decline in government revenue, so in 1878 they were raised again

Question 7

When was Vyshnegradsky Minister of Finance?

Answer 7

1887 - 92
Under Alexander III

Question 8

What were Vyshnegradsky’s economic reforms?

Answer 8

• 30% import tariff to boost home production. It helped the iron industry and the development of industrial machinery
• increased indirect taxes
• increase in grain exports
• 1881-91 grain exports increased by 18% (% of total Russian exports)
• by 1892, the Russian budget was in surplus

Question 9

When was the Great Famine?

Answer 9

1891-92

Question 10

The Great Famine 1891-92

Answer 10

• affected 17 of Russia’s 39 provinces
• due to an early winter and a long, hot and dry summer, which ruined crops
• starvation left people more susceptible to disease, like cholera or typoid
• over 350,000 died from starvation or disease
• the government failed to organise adequate relief
• left to the volunteer groups to help the peasants

Showed that the average Russian peasant had too little land to become prosperous.

Question 11

Witte’s aims

Answer 11

Economic modernisation as a means to curb revolutonary activity.

Believed the only way forward was to continue with:
- protective tariffs
- heavy taxation
- forced exports to generate capital
- additional loans from abroad
- increase in foreign investment

Question 12

How much did foreign investment increase by due to Witte’s policies?

Answer 12

1880 - 98 million roubles
1890 - 215 million roubles
1895 - 280 million roubles

Question 13

**

Where was there investment?

Answer 13

• mining
• metal trades
• oil
• banking

Question 14

Who did Witte encourage and why?

people from other countries –> industial development

Answer 14

He encouraged:
- engineers
- managers
- workers
from France, Belgium, Germany, Britain, Sweden to oversee industrial development and advise on planning techniques.

Their help led to a huge expansion in the railway network.

Question 15

When did Russia become the world’s 4th largest economy?

Answer 15

1897

Question 16

By the mid-1860s, how much of the railway network was State-owned?

Answer 16

60%

Question 17

In the years 1891-95, how many km of railway was constructed?

during Witte

Answer 17

over 1200 km

Question 18

What did Aleksandr Engelgardt say about Russia in regards to Emancipation?

radical writer in the mid-1870s

Answer 18

“everything carries on as it was before the Emancipation”

Question 19

What factors hampered agricultural change?

Answer 19

• high taxes
• grain requisitions
• redemption payments
• traditional farming practices perpetuated by the mir

Question 20

When were Peasants’ Lank Banks established and what did they do?

Answer 20

Established in 1883

• held funds and reserves of land
• set up to assist peasants who wished to acquire land
• low interest rates
• helped increase peasant ownership
• between 1877-1905 over 26 million hectares passed to peasants
• However, helped support inefficient farms, which continued in traditional ways

Question 21

Comparison of grain production in the 1880s

Answer 21

Grain production:
Russia = 45 puds per desiatin
UK and Germany = 146 puds per desiatin
~
Rye production:
Russia = 54 puds per desiatin
France and USA = 68 puds per desiatin

Question 22

Industrial development led to the introduction of what?

Class

Answer 22

Middle class

People more focused on money, capital and wages.

Question 23

What were some of the changes in the landed elite?

Answer 23

• personal landholdings had declined considerably as some had debts to pay off and others abandoned farming in favour of more rewarding professional activities
• 1880, nearly 1/5 of university professors came from hereditary nobility
• by 1882, 700+ nobles owned their own business in Moscow
• by 1882, nearly 2,500 were employed in commerce, transport or industry
• Some found work in the zemstva
• although there were changes in position, most former serf owners retained much of their previous wealth and status
• divided according to wealth

Question 24

What were some changes in the middle class?

Answer 24

• introduction of middle class due to an expansion in industry and an increase in educational oppourtunities
• bankers, doctors, teachers etc in high demand, although their numbers added up to no more than half a million in the 1897 census
• government contracts to build railways, and state loans to set up factories provided oppourtunities

Question 25

What were some changes in the urban working class?

Answer 25

• growth in the urban population (only ~2% of the population = small number)
• common for peasants to move to towns to work temporarliy and return to their villages to help out at peak times
• by 1864, 1 in 3 living in St Petersburg were peasants by birth. increasing.
• poor living and working conditions
• reforming legislation in 1882-90. Regulation of child labour, a reduction in working hours, and the appointment of inspectors to check up on living and working conditions
• However, these contributed very little towards improving the lives of the working class
• Peasants were attracted by the prospect of regular wages, but payments were rarely generous
• around 33 strikes a year bewteen 1886 and 1894
• but this didn’t stop the move to cities

Question 26

What were some changes in the peasantry?

Answer 26

• peasants also divided like landed elite; kulaks at the top, they were doing well
• life for poorer peasants was getting harder
• in the 1880s, 2 out of 3 of the former serfs in the Tambov region were unable to feed their families without falling into debt
• areas of former state serfs tended to be better off as they had been granted more land than privately owned serfs - varied living standards
• some improvements in health care, provided through the zemstva
• however, a large proportion of the peasantry were turned down unfit for military service
• mortality rates were higher than those in anoy other European country
• average life expectancy are 27 for men and 29 for women: in England it was 45
• so, economic change failed to improve the peasantry and may have even affected them for the worse

Question 27

What did kulacks do?

Answer 27

• bought land with the aid of loans from the Peasants’ Land Bank
• employed labour
• bought grain off of the less fortunate in autumn to give them money for the winter, but sold it at inflated prices in the spring

Question 28

What was the cultural influence of the Church?

Answer 28

• 70% of the pop. was Orthodox = close to Tsarism
• Every peasant hut held its icon
• Mix of religion and supersition was an integral part of peasant culture
• Priests held close ties with the village. They were expected to keep statistics, root out opposition and inform the police of any suspicious activity
• in 1868, reforms were introduced to improve the education of priests
• Alex III gave the church increased control over primary education
• Church possessed strict censorship controls
• Church courts could judge moral and social ‘crimes’ and award punishments
• Alex III’s policy of Russification allowed him to promote Orthodoxy
• Became an offence to convert from Orthodox to anotehr faith, or even to publish criticisms of it
• More than 8,500 Muslims were converted to Orthodoxy during Alex III’s reign, as well as 40,000 Catholics and Lutherans in Poland and the Baltic provinces

Question 29

What evidence is there that church influence was actually weakening?

Answer 29

• the provision of Churches and priests had not kept pace with the growth of urbanisation
• Orthodox religion seemed to have little relevance for workers in factories; they were more attracted by the teachings of socialists
• in the countryside, superstition held more sway than Orthodox priests
• Orthodox priests were regarded as money-grasping and less than perfect role models
• some liberal clergy expressed the wish to regenerate the Church and reform its relations with the tsarist state. but their calls were silenced by the Over-Procurator, Pobedonostsev