Economic developments

Question 1

What banks were established?

Answer 1

1- 1860: establishment of a state bank
2- 1883: Peasant’s Land Bank established to help peasants buy their own land. It only helped 20% of peasant land purchases in its first years
3- 1885: Noble’s Land Bank set up to help nobles pay off debts and invest in land

Question 2

Who was Mikhail von Reutern?

Answer 2

1- 1862-78: Minister of Finance
2- 1/3 of government expenditure was spent on debts
3- 2/3 of government revenue came from indirect taxation, keeping the peasantry
poor

Question 3

What were Reutern’s attempts at increasing trade

Answer 3

1- 1863: import duties were reduced
2- 1878: import duties were raised, after a decline in government revenue

Question 4

How did Reutern develop the railway?

Answer 4

1- Government subsidies were offered to private companies
2- Sevenfold increase in the length of railway

Question 5

How did Reutern grow the economy?

Answer 5

1- Investment was encouraged through regulated joint stock companies
2- Average economic growth of 6%
3- 1865: the cotton industry was developed with government support to capture the former American markets

Question 6

Who was Ivan Vyshnegradsky?

Answer 6

▪ 1887-91: Minister of Finance

Question 7

How did Vyshnegradsky increase grain exports?

Answer 7

1) 1891: the Medele’ev Tarif increased grain exportation by 18%
2) 1891-2: a famine killed 400,000 peasants who had no winter reserve grain
stores
3) 1914: grain production expanded 2.1% annually

Question 8

How did Vyshnegradsky impact taxation?

Answer 8

1- Indirect taxation increased, exacerbating the peasant financial burden
2- 1892: the budget was in surplus
3- Import tariff of 30% on raw materials is introduced

Question 9

What was the famine of 1891-2?

Answer 9

1) The harvest failure was ignored by the government, who carried on exporting
grain, and banned the use of the word ‘famine’
2) Nov 17th 1891: the government asked the people to form voluntary anti-famine
organisations
3) Russian railways could not redistribute grain
4) Zemstvos could only lend money to peasants who could repay them

Question 10

Who was Sergei Witte?

Answer 10

1- 18193-1903: Minister of Finance
2- Believed economic modernisation would curb revolutionary sentiment

Question 11

How did Witte impact heavy industry?

Answer 11

1- Increased foreign and state investment
2- 1880-1914: Coal output increased 400%, iron ore production increased 1000%
3- Agriculture and light industry were neglected

Question 12

How did Witte impact the economy?

Answer 12

1- 1897: Gold-backed rouble was introduced
2- 20% of the budget was used to pay off foreign debt

Question 13

What were the social impacts of the industrialisation?

Answer 13

1- Overcrowding in cities
2- Widespread unemployment after a recession in late 1890s
3- Industrial workers were not unionised, and had low wages
4- Per-capita income was 1/10th that of an average American worker, and 1/2 that of an average worker in the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Question 14

How had Russian industry transformed by 1914?

Answer 14

1- 1914: Russia was the 5th largest industrial power in the world and had the 2nd largest railway network in the world,
2- The state managed industrial growth. By the 1900s, the state controlled 70% of railways and had extensive holdings in heavy industry)
3- 1894-1914: the annual growth of the economy was greater than 8% p.a.

Question 15

How had Russian industry stagnated by 1914?

Answer 15

1-The Russian industrial growth rate remained behind Western countries
2- Agriculturally, Russia was less modernised, so less grain exports could be sold to
fund the industrial drive

Question 16

What were the long-term effects of the emancipation of the serfs?

Answer 16

1- From 1861–1900, the amount of land owned by nobles fell by almost 50%
2- Agricultural productivity rose slightly from 1861 to 1900, by which time it was still
less than 25% of that in Britain.
3- The Russian population increased annually by 1.5%, while agricultural production increased by 2.1%: sound but not spectacular progress.

Question 17

Why did peasant unrest increase?

Answer 17

1- Between 1875–1900, the rate of redemption payments fell from 78% to 0%
2- 1911: freed serfs, who were liable for local and central taxation, paid the same amount of tax after the abolition of redemption payments
3- 1885–1901: peasant consumption of grain doubled – if they had been desperate, they would have sold it

Question 18

How had Russian agriculture transformed by in 1914?

Answer 18

1- 1877–1905: land owned by peasants grew from 6 million to 21.6 million hectares
2- 1877–1905: the average land-holding a peasant owned fell from 35 acres to 28 acres
3- Peasants owned 66% of arable land, where yields were higher
4- Grain production grew 2.1% annually, above the population increase
5- 1909: Russia was the leading exporter of cereal
6- Kulaks prospered

Question 19

How had agriculture in Russia remained stagnant by 1914?

Answer 19

1- The peasantry remained unwilling to accept reform. Stolypin felt compelled to use hangings (nicknamed neckties) and exile sentences (nicknamed carriages)
2- 1914: 90% of peasant holdings used strip farming techniques
3- 1913: only 1.3 million of 5 million applications for separate farms had been dealt with