Chapter 8 - The economic development of Russia to 1914

Question 1

What was the annual growth rate from 1894 to 1913?

Answer 1

8%

Question 2

The value of foreign investment in the years 1895 to 1914

Answer 2

1895 = 280 million roubles
1914 = 2000 million roubles

Question 3

How did the increase in Russian businessmen help the economy?

Answer 3

• capital used to fund public works
• develop Russia’s infrastructure - railways, telephone lines, electric plants
• develop mines, oilfields and forests for timber

Question 4

How much railway did the State control by the early 20th century?

Answer 4

70%

Question 5

In the years 1903-1913, what was the % of income the government recieved from its industrial investments?

Answer 5

25%

Question 6

What did the building of railway lines contribute to?

Answer 6

• stimulus of development of the iron and coal industries
• permitted the development of new industries
• transport costs fell, which brought down the price of goods while to government made money from freight charges and passenger fares.

Question 7

By 1913, what was Russia’s railway?

Global scale

Answer 7

2nd largest railway network in the world.
62,200km

Although USA = 411,000km

Question 8

What did Witte believe focusing on would lead to industrial development?

Answer 8

Developing production in key areas.
Heavy goods production.

Question 9

How much coal was the Donbas region supplying by 1913?

Answer 9

87% of all Russian coal

Question 10

By 1914, what was Russia the 4th largest producer of?

Answer 10

• coal
• pig iron
• steel

Question 11

Russian oil prodction between 1885 - 1913?

Answer 11

153 million puds to 570 million.

Russia became internally self-sufficient and was able to compete with the US on the international market

2nd place in the world for oil production.
4th in the world for gold production.

Question 12

What was the Putilov Iron Works?

Answer 12

• by 1885, provided nearly 1/4 of all state orders for locomotives, wagons and rails
• the company later specialised in machiney, artillery and products made of high quality steel
• between 1891-94 the workforce grew by 2,000
• by 1903, it was dedicated to armaments production, supporting Russia through WWI

Question 13

Number of factories and factory workers in the years 1887 to 1908?

Answer 13

1887:
- factories = 30,888
- factory workers = 1.3 million

1908:
- factories = 39,856
- factory workers = 2.6 million

Question 14

Statistics of industrial production from the years 1890 to 1910

Answer 14

Coal:
- 1890 = 5.9 millions of metric tons
- 1910 = 25.4 millions of metric tons

Pig Iron:
- 1890 = 0.89 millions of metric tons
- 1910 = 3 millions of metric tons

Crude Oil:
- 1890 = 3.9 millions of metric tons
- 1910 = 12.1 millions of metric tons

Question 15

What % of industrial output did light industry account for?

Answer 15

40%

Question 16

By 1914, Russia was the worlds’ —- largest industrial power

Also talk about the impact of this on Russia’s involvement in WWI

Fill in the blank

Answer 16

5th.

German generals urged war against Russia in 1914 because they feared that delaying war any longer would allow a massive growth in Russian industrialisation, overlapping with the massive German economy

Question 17

Evidence of industrial development in the years 1908-14

State revenue and the number of banks

Answer 17

State revenue:
2 billion roubles to 4 billion roubles

Number of banks:
1,146 to 2,393

Question 18

Growth in national income 1894-1913

Inclu. Italy and Austria

Answer 18

Russia = 50%
Italy = 121%
Austria = 79%

Question 19

Foreign trade in 1913

Inclu. Britain, Germany and France

Answer 19

Russia = £190 million
Britain = £1,223 million
Germany = £1,030 million
France = £424 million

Question 20

What happened to Russian agriculture when Stolypin was appointed Minister of Internal Affaris?

Answer 20

• ignored
• sacrificed in the interests of industrialisation
• even though the rural economy provided a livelihood for 80-90% of the Russian population

Question 21

What % of the Russian population did the rural economy provide for?

Answer 21

80-90%

Question 22

How did the government intervene to alleviate pressure of a growing population on resources?

Answer 22

• 1896, government-sponsored emigration to new agricultural settlements in Siberia
• able to take place due to the Trans-Siberian railway
• however, insufficient to alleviate the pressure

Question 23

Were there changes in agricultural practices?

Answer 23

No.
- traditional practices continued
- perpetuated by the mirs
- solcha (wooden plough) still widely used
- medieval rotation systems, which left fallow land each year

Question 24

Grain output in Russia compared to the US and GB

Answer 24

A lack of husbandry meant that grain output on:
- American farms was (on average) x1.5 that of Russian farms
- and x4 on British farms

Husbandry - care of crops and animals

Question 25

How were some peasants able to improve themselves?

Answer 25

• after the Emancipatoin Edict
• buy up land
• farm more efficiently
• kulaks
• Stolypin wanted to produce more of these kulacks
• He wanted their loyalty to tsardom and to develop the economy by improving agriculture and creating an internal market for the products

Question 26

How did Stolypin want to reform the land?

Answer 26

• peasants to become permanent owners of their land
• each peasant’s land should be held in one piece, rather than a collection of scattered strips across the village
• each peasant should develop as he wished without interference from the mir
• this demanded the complete transformation of the communal pattern of Russian rural life

Question 27

When and how did Stolypin begin his land reforms?

Answer 27

1903
The mir’s responsibility to pay taxes on behalf of all the peasants in the village was removed.

Question 28

What limited a quick effect of Stolypin’s reforms?

Answer 28

the outbreak of the 1905 revolution

Question 29

Legislation for land reform under Stolypin

Answer 29

Sept 1906:
- More State and Crown land available for peasants to buy.
- Government subsidies to encourage migration and settlement in Siberia are increased.

Oct 1906:
- Peasants are granted equal rights in their local administration

Nov 1906
- Peasants are given the right to leave the commue
- The collective ownership of land by a familiy is abolished
- A peasant can withdraw land from the commune and consolidate the scattered strips into one compact farm
- Peasants’ Lank Bank is established

1st Jan 1907:
- Redemption payments officially abolished
- in reality they have long since ceased to be paid in full

June 1910:
- All communes which had not redistributed land since 1861 are dissolved

Question 30

Impacts of Stolypin’s land reforms

Answer 30

• grain production rose annually from 56 million tons in 1900 to 90 million tons by 1914
• by 1909, Russia was the world’s leading cereal exporter

Question 31

Emigration to Siberia

Answer 31

• 3.5 million from over-populated rural districts of the south and west to Siberia
• helped Siberia develop into a major agricultural region
• specialised in dairy and cereals by 1915

Question 32

Issues with Stolypin’s land reforms

Answer 32

• by 1913, only 1.3 millions out of 5 millions applications of individual farms had been dealt with
• by 1914, only around 10% of land had been transferred from communal to private ownership
• by 1914, 90% of peasant holdings were still in traditional strips as peasants were reluctant to give up traditional practices and the security the mir provided for them
• landowners were reluctant to give up land –> legal battles
• 50% of the land remained in the hands of the nobility
• less than 1% achieved kulak status