Economy

Question 1

What continuity was there in industry throughout the period 1855-1964

Answer 1

A focus on heavy industry e.g. iron coal and steel
An aim to catch up with the West
Development and its relationship with agriculture

Question 2

What was the New Work Discipline under Alexander II?

Answer 2

Factory owners introduced strict rules and regulations that were required for employees to work safely and efficiently with machines

Question 3

What impact did Alexander II have on industry?

Answer 3

Appointed Mikhail Reutern as minister of finance;
continued railway construction
attraction of foreign expertise and investment
development of industries

Question 4

Describe railway construction under Alexander II

Answer 4

increased from 2100 miles in 1862 to 13,980 miles in 1878
Followed by St Petersburg to Moscow line inspired by UK’s Manchester to Liverpool railway

Question 5

What was Reutern’s impact on industry?

Answer 5

Doubling of industrial output
average annual growth rate of 6%
1865; 8912 tons of oil produced
1887; 244,000 tons of oil produced

Question 6

What methods did Reutern use to secure foreign investment?

Answer 6

Issuing of government bonds
Taxation exemptions
Monopoly concessions
Wherever possible construction was placed in the hands of private contractors

Question 7

Who was the Finance Minister under Alexander III?

Answer 7

Nikolay Bunge (1882-1886)
Ivan Vyshnegradskii (1887-92)

Question 8

What changes to industry were there under Alexander III?

Answer 8

Abolition of Salt Tax in 1881
1886 the Poll Tax based on the number of people in a household
1883 Peasant’s Land Bank - a bank for peasants to borrow money at relatively cheap rates to purchase land
Medele’ev tariff of 1891- raised revenue
Exporting large amounts of grain when there was the prospect of domestic starvation e.g. 1891 famine

Question 9

Who was Count Witte?

Answer 9

Finance Minister 1893-1903
“Great Spurt”

Question 10

How was Witte different from previous ministers?

Answer 10

1893- mostly agricultural production
Witte committed to industrialisation (attempting to compete with other industrialised nations and increase Russian military capability)

Question 11

What was Witte’s Plan?

Answer 11

Reverted to taking out foreign loans, raising taxes and interest to boost capital for investment in industry
Foreign experts
Placement of the rouble on the gold standard
Insisted investment went on heavy industry
Industrialisation planned by the state with a move away from private enterprise

Question 12

What was the result of Witte’s Plan?

Answer 12

The Great Spurt
Coal production doubled, iron and steel increased seven fold
Railway from 17200 in 1891 to 31,125 miles in 1901
Growth in capital from abroad increased on average 120% every year from 1893-1898

Question 13

Why was Witte’s plan significant in the period?

Answer 13

Russia had started to catch up with other countries
Annual average growth rate in industrial production of 7.5% was the greatest in any years before 1914

Question 14

What are the criticisms of Witte’s Plan?

Answer 14

Reliance on foreign loans is dangerous
Trans-Siberian railway was never finished (although it greatly aided industrial and agricultural expansion into Siberia)
No attention to agriculture caused discontent
“dress rehearsal” for Stalin

Question 15

What was the impact of Stolypin as finance minister?

Answer 15

1909 to 1913 industrial output increased on average by 7% a year and GNP by 3.5% a year
Followed Nicholas’s expansionist foreign policy which was preparing for WW1

Question 16

What was Russia’s industry like compared to its competitors before WW1?

Answer 16

lagged behind
had the largest stock of gold reserves in Europe 1914 but could not pay for the armaments to fight successfully

Question 17

Why did Russian economy fall apart during WW1?

Answer 17

Factories had employed vast amounts of labour to compensate for lack of modern technology.
Production gains were masked by a substantial population increase
gold standard was abandoned, taxes were increased

Question 18

What was the impact of WW1 on the Russian economy?

Answer 18

Price of fuel and food quadrupled in the first two years, wages failed to keep up
Inflation - by 1916 200%

Question 19

What is State capitalism?

Answer 19

The state taking complete control of the economy until it could be “safely” handed over to the proletariat

Question 20

How was State capitalism enforced?

Answer 20

November 1917 Decree on Land, involved the divison of private land holdings which were then handed over to the peasants
November 1918 Decree on Worker’s Control; Worker’s Committees were given “extra powers” to run factories
December 1917 Formation of the Supreme Economic Council

Question 21

What was the SEC?

Answer 21

Supreme Economic Council- formed to manage key industries that were nationalised by the Bolsheviks. This did not prevent “local nationalisation” occurring via workers councils. But two further decrees tightened the nationalisation process which resulted in nationalisation of all enterprises employing more than 10 workers without compensation

Question 22

What was the impact of State capitalism?

Answer 22

The Civil War nullified any impact it may have had. E.g. coal production fell from 29 million tonnes in 1913 to 8.9 million in 1921. Inflation had gotten out of hand so that by 1921 90% of wages were paid in kind

Question 23

When was War Communism introduced?

Answer 23

During the Civil war, it was the use of state capitalism alongside grain requestioning

Question 24

What were the key features of War Communism?

Answer 24

Nationalisation of larger enterprises and state monopoly of markets
Partial militarisation of labour as people were forced to work solely to meet the needs of war
Forced requestioning of agricultural produce, was the most hated policy and a disincentive for peasants to farm food

Question 25

Why was War Communism abandoned?

Answer 25

Krunsdadt Mutiny 1921 and NEP was introduced

Question 26

What were the key features of the NEP?

Answer 26

Denationalisation of small-scale enterprise and return to private ownership
Continuation of state control of heavy industry
removal of restrictions on private sales of goods and services
Return to the encouragement of foreign trade
End to grain requestioning
Peasants had to pay a tax to the government of 10% of their cropo

Question 27

What were the impacts of the NEP?

Answer 27

Industrial output increased rapidly e.g. grain harvest increased from 37.6 million tonnes in 1921 to 72.5 million tonnes in 1925
Coal production increased from 8.9 million tonnes in 1921 to 18.1 million tonnes in 1925

Question 28

When did the NEP end?

Answer 28

after the death of Lenin in 1924 then Stalin leadership in 1929

Question 29

How was Five Year Plans structured?

Answer 29

Initial targets were stipulated by Gosplan, which were then passed to industrial commissariats to form a plan and then the “plans” were passed onto regional managers.
There was detailed instructions about what had to be produced but little guidance on how

Question 30

When was the first Five Year Plan introduced?

Answer 30

1929, but ended in 1932. This was because of the government exaggerating the achievement and claiming the plans were too successful

Question 31

What was the result of the Five Year Plans on oil production?

Answer 31

1928- 11.6 million tonnes
1940- 31.1. million tonnes
1945- 19.4 million tonnes
1960- 148 million tonnes

Question 32

What achievements did Khrushchev have regarding economy

Answer 32

Khrushchev’s continuation of centralised planning resulted in further economic growth and more diversification in what was produced. But his first plan was abandoned and his second correlated with a slowdown in the rate of growth

Question 33

What were the success of the First Five Year Plan?

Answer 33

Significant increases in heavy industry.
New specialised industrial centres emerged for example Magnitogorsk
Agriculture was stimulated as tractor works expanded

Question 34

What were the limitations of the first Five Year Plan?

Answer 34

Consumer industries were neglected.
Small specialist workshops disappeared and a shortage of skilled workers was apparent due to purges
Production levels rose but targets were not met

Question 35

What were the successes of the Second Five Year Plan? 1933-1937

Answer 35

Electricity industry took off. Over 4500 new enterprises started
Engineering became self sufficient and no longer relied on the imports of specialist equipment

Question 36

What were the limitations of the Second Five Year Plan? 1933-1937

Answer 36

Consumer industries continued to decline.
Oil industry was slow to expand compared to Western countries

Question 37

What were the successes of the third Five Year Plan? 1938-41

Answer 37

Notable improvement in the quantity and quality of armaments produced

Question 38

What were the limitations of the third Five Year Plan? 1938-1941

Answer 38

Russias entry into the war (1941) led to a diversion of resources to fuel the war effort.
Shortage of raw materials
Slow down in the pace of progress
e.g. Steel production in 1940 was 18.3 million tonnes by 1945 it was 12.3
There were many features of a lack of planning

Question 39

What were the successes and limitations of the forth Five Year Plan?

Answer 39

Rapid recovery. Pre-war production levels were reached within three years. But the Russian people were placed under extreme pressure to ger Russia back on its feet

Question 40

What were the similarities between tsars and communists when it came to agriculture?

Answer 40

Agriculture was seen as subservient to the needs of industry.
Government policies focused on reforms that increased food production and productivity to provide sustenance for the expanding proletariat.
peasants were seen as second-class citizens
Land question was never answered

Question 41

When were stolypin’s reforms?

Answer 41

Rural unrest in 1905-1907 led to Stolypins polices on land distribution

Question 42

What were the aims of Stolypin’s reforms?

Answer 42

Build and strengthen the peasant class. Create the wealthy “kulaks”

Question 43

What did Stolypin’s reforms include?

Answer 43

All State and Crown lands were made available to the peasants land bank for purchase
Peasants were allowed to withdraw from their commune (mir) without needing its consent
Peasants who left the mir could have their land together rather than farm in strips
The end to redistribution of land

Question 44

How many peasants left the mir?

Answer 44

1907- 48,200
1909-579,400
By the outbreak of WW1 almost 2 million peasant families had left their communes

Question 45

What were the limitations of Stolypin’s Reforms?

Answer 45

Led to an expansion in wealthier peasants that were less satisfied with the reforms as they believed the best land was still inaccessible to peasants
Some regions were short of rural labour which was accelerate by WW1

Question 46

What was the impact of the prov gov on agriculture?

Answer 46

Did little to resolve land issues. During the July Days peasants seized land by force

Question 47

What did the Bolsheviks do for the land issue immediately?

Answer 47

The Decree on Land
Abolished landlord’s rights of property and confiscated large estates from monasteries churches etc to be redistributed by the peasants soviets

Question 48

How did War Communism affect kulaks?

Answer 48

Committees of the village poor were set up with the sole aim of denouncing kulaks.

Question 49

How did Lenin treat kulaks under the NEP?

Answer 49

Higher taxes, and their children were refused entry to state schools

Question 50

What was collectivisation like under Lenin?

Answer 50

Gradual approach, only about 3% of peasant farmers were working on a collective before Stalin emerged as leader

Question 51

When did mass collectivisation begin?

Answer 51

1927-8 but was forced in 1929 summer.
E.g. between November 1929 and March 1930 60% of all farms were collectivised

Question 52

What was the Urals-Siberian method?

Answer 52

used during the 1928-1929 winter. Poorer peasants were asked to point out kulak families and offered a reward of 25% of any grain confiscated

Question 53

How were kulaks treated under Stalin?

Answer 53

estimated from 1928 to 1930 6-18 million kulaks were deported. and 30,000 were shot