Economy and Society of Russian Empire and the USSR Flashcards
what did the Tsars do for industry?
- Reutern reforms 1862-1868
- Railways: Trans-Siberian line
- Medele’ev Tariff 1891
- Witte’s ‘Great Spurt’ 1893-1903
what did the Tsars do for agriculture?
- Emancipation 1861
- Peasant Land Bank 1883
- Stolypin’s reforms 1906-1911 ‘wager on the storm’ / land reforms
- emergence of Kulaks and commercial farming
what did the Communists do for industry?
- State Capitalism
- War Communism
- the NEP
- centralised planning
what did the communists do for agriculture?
- dekulakisation and collectivisation from 1929
- the kolkhozy, sovkhozy and MTS
- the Virgin Lands scheme 1954 onwards
what were the Reutern reforms?
1862-1878 reforms encouraged foreign investment and foreign technical expertise
what did the Medele’ev tariff (1891) do?
raised government revenues
what was State Capitalism?
central control of the economy through the SEC December 1917
what was the SEC?
Supreme Economic Council
what was War Communism?
nationalisation, partial militarisation of labour and grain requisitioning
what was the NEP?
denationalisation of small-scale enterprise and a return to private ownership
what is Centralised planning?
the seven Five-Year Plans under Khrushchev and the aim of economic autarky
Whats MTS?
Motor Tractor Stations responsible for loaning tractors to peasants, distributing seed, collecting grain and deciding what farmers could keep for their own consumption
Virgin Lands scheme from 1954?
by 1964, 165 million acres had been given over to the production of wheat
what reasons were there for social change?
- population growth
- urbanisation
- decline of nobility
- communist ideology
population growth?
1858 - 74 million
1960 - 212 million
decline of nobility?
in the 1870s gentry owned 200 million acres of land, fell to 140 million acres in 1914
rise of middle class
by 1914 there’s about 2 million people who fell into middle class bracket
how much of population was still reliant on agriculture by end of 19th century
80 percent
proof of hierarchical bureaucracy in communist society?
by early 1930s supposedly 1.5 million promotions of ordinary workers to managers
Tsar changes to primary education?
- education under Zemstva
- 1877 Ministry of Education in control; school inspectors
- number of primary schools rose from 23,000 in 1880 to 81,000 in 1914
Communist changes to primary education?
- 1930: attendance made compulsory to the age of 12
- by 1930, 18 million children attending
All changes to primary education?
- 1877 Ministry of Education in control; school inspectors
- number of primary schools rose from 23,000 in 1880 to 81,000 in 1914
- 1930: attendance made compulsory to the age of 12
- by 1930, 18 million children attending
Tsar changes to secondary education?
- Alexander II’s ‘new code’: numbers attending doubled by 1865
- Alexander III reversed his father’s policy, banning lower class children from secondary schools
Communist changes to secondary education?
- ‘bourgeois’ gymnasia scrapped, replaced with polytechnic (vocational) schools
- by 1932 6.9 million attending secondary schools
- 1939 Stalin scrapped school fees
All changes to secondary education?
- Alexander II’s ‘new code’ meant number attending doubled
- Alexander III banned lower class children from attending
- Communists scrapped ‘bourgeois’ gymnasia for polytechnic (vocational) schools
- By 1932, 6.9 million children attending
- 1939, Stalin scrapped school fees
Tsar changes to higher education?
- under Stolypin all non-academic meetings of students at unis made illegal
- Alexander III took away autonomy of universities
Key changes to education
- Alexander II’s ‘new code’ - attendance of secondary schools doubled by 1865
- Number of primary schools rose from 23,000 in 1880 to 81,000 in 1914
- Alexander III banned lower class children from attending secondary school, took away autonomy of unis
- by 1930 attendance at primary compulsory until 12; 18 million children attending
- gymnasia replaced by polytechnics, 6.9 million attending by 1932
- 1939 Stalins crapped school fees
How much of the russian population were peasants?
- 90 per cent (1855)
- 70 per cent (1950s)
standard peasant house?
Izba; a single-room wooden hut heated by an oven which also acted as a sleeping platform.
what rural housing changes did Khrushchev introduce?
constructed self-contained ‘agro-towns’
Key changes to Peasants
- Emancipation and Stolypin’s ‘Wager on the Strong’
- War Communism - Grain requisitioning
- NEP - kulaks ‘cultured and educated’
- Stalin’s Collectivisation - Dekulakisation
- Pressure under Stalin and Khrushchev’s Virgin Lands Scheme
Stalin’s dekulakisation?
1928-1930 1-3 million kulak families (6-18 million people) deported to work camps
what did Stolypin’s ‘wager on the strong’ do?
from 1906 led to a new class of independent, surplus-producing peasants (kulaks)
changes for Kulaks under NEP?
attitude changed as they were seen as ‘cultured and educated’
BUT still persecuted;
- paid higher taxes
- disenfranchised
- their children prevented from attending state schools
Key famines:
- 1891 (350,000 died)
- 1921 (5 million died)
- 1932-34 exacerbated by Stalin’s repression
how many people died in the 1891 famine?
over 350,000 people
what was the cause of the 1891 famine?
adverse weather coupled with panic selling of grain surpluses to counter impact of new consumer goods tax; peasants sold surpluses for income to pay for increases in tax
what was the cause of the 1914-1918 foot shortage?
WW1
- disrupted trade and transport
- exacerbated by Treaty of Brest Litovsk as valuable grain producing areas in the Ukraine were lost
how many people died in the 1921 famine?
5 million
what was the cause of the 1921 famine?
- terrible winters, severe droughts
- destruction of transport infrastructure due to the Civil War
- Lenin’s reluctance to accept aid from the American Relief Agency
what was the Holodomor?
famine-genocide of Ukraine, 1932-1933
- In June 1933 28,000 men, women and children in Ukraine were dying of starvation each day.
How many people died in the 1932-34 famine?
6-8 million people, 4-5 million of whom were Ukrainians
How did Stalin exacerbate the 1932-34 famine?
- severe repression; death penalty for stealing grain even when it was their own
- policy of exporting grain
when was there a turning point for food production under the communists?
Mid 1930s as food production increased slowly
Give an example for how workers conditioned worsened under Communists
by late 1930s, the consumption of meat and fish had fallen by 80 per cent
How many people died in the 1946-1947 famine?
Michael Ellman claims that the famine resulted in 1 to 1.5 million lives lost
Who should be blamed for the 1946-1947 famine?
Economist Steven Rosefielde claims that the Soviet government bore responsibility for the conditions.
Economist Michael Ellman: had the policies of the Soviet regime been different, there might have been no famine at all or a much smaller one.
how much of the population was urbanised by end of the 19th century:?
- only about 15 per cent of Russian population lived in towns and cities (compared with 80 per cent in Britain)
- only 19 cities had more than 100,000 inhabitants
how many inhabitants did the two largest cities St Petersburg and Moscow have in 1900?
St Petersburg - 1.25 million
Moscow - 1 million
urban housing conditions 1914
- 50 per cent+ of housing made from wood and prone to fire damage
- houses and streets lit by kerosene lamps
- only 74 towns had access to electricity
- only 35 to gas
- only 200 towns had piped water
- only 38 had a sewage system
Example of disease because of urbanisation?
in 1910, there were over 100,000 deaths from cholera in St Petersburg alone
what did the Decree on Land 1917 (Bolsheviks) say about urban housing?
dwellings in towns and cities were to be taken from private owners and handed over to the proletariat under the guidance of the soviets
what was the Stalinist housing policy?
allocated space rather than rooms to families within new high-rise tenemants so over crowding became the norm
how many people were made homeless by WW2
25 million Russians
what changed 1955-1964?
Housing stock doubled and principles of communal living were abandoned
What did the Tsars do to address urban working conditions?
- 1882: introduced factory inspectorate; employment in factories under the age of 12 banned
- 1896: an 11-hour working day fixed by law
- internal passports (revamped by communists in 1917 and 1932)
- 1914: most employers operating a nine-to ten-hour working day
ironically, working conditions for the proletariat seemed to worsen under the communist. How so?
- hours of work per day were extended e.g. under Stalin 10-12 hours
- pay was relatively low
- a ‘new work’ discipline was enforced harshly
- Stalin imposed heavy fines for breaking work rules (about 10 per cent of wages)
- workers threatened with being ‘purged’ if they were ‘wreckers’ (slowed/ disrupted production)
What key changes did Lenin and Stalin make for workers?
- 1920: Rabkrin was established
- 1932 onwards: Stalin demanded workers operated a 10-12h working day to fulfil requirements of his Five-Year Plans
- 1949: average working day went down to seven hours. Bonus schemes + Stakhanovite movement popularised.
Voting changes?
- 1864: Zemstva
- 1905: elections to Duma
- Central Committee of Congress elected at annual party congress
what was the Central Committee?
- collective body elected at the annual party congress
- authorised to meet at least twice a year to act as the party’s supreme governing body
- membership increased from 71 full members 1934 to over 200 by the end of the period.
Trade Unions?
- banned before 1905
- from 1905 soviets (workers’ councils) appeared adn were tolerated
- existed with limited powers 1905-1917
- ‘Dual Authority’ PG + Petrograd Soviet 1917
- valued but subordinate to needs of government rather than needs of proletariat under communists
Media?
- Ruskii - Tsars’ newspapers
- Kopek -Relaxation of control under Nicholas II meant newspapers aimed at proletariat appeared
- ‘socialist realism’ under Stalin
- Pravda and Izvestiya
What is pravda?
paper of the comtmunist party
What is Izvestiya?
Paper of the government
Religion?
- Russian Orthodox Church under the Tsars
- Communist ‘Decree on the Separation of the Church from the State and the School from the Church’ - withdrew state subsidies and prevented religious groups possessing property
What did Stolypin’s ‘wager on the strong’ involve?
- unused land made available to the Peasant Land Bank so peasants could buy the land from the bank on favourable terms
- Peasants who were still farming strips were given the right to consolidate their land into smallholdings (small farm units)
Exodus of peasants?
By 1914 about 2 million peasants left the village communes, leaving some regions v. short of rural labour; accelerated by WW1.
