IB MOCKS - RUSSIA Flashcards
Economic Argument for emancipation?
Needed for Russian Empire’s industrial development
Tied serfs could not move to cities to work in factories, where - free labour would be more efficient than forced labour
Serfdom kept standards of living low, reducing internal demand for goods
Serf-owning agricultural practices failed to produce a grain surplus for export
Tax debt - 54 Million Roubles - 1855
Military arguments for emancipation?
Rieber
Reforming the Russian army
Crimean War –> Russia desperate need of reorganisation
25 year conscripts –> inefficient
Empire could no longer afford a large peacetime army
It was customary to free serfs after their military service, assuming they survived it
Serfdom would end
Moral and intellectual arguments in favour of emancipation?
Intellectuals argued the need for change on morality
Bondage morally wrong
Westerners claimed that serfdom weakened the moral character of the upper classes, making them lazy and unable or unwilling to contribute to the well- being of the state
Turgenev - Sportsman sketches (serfs are normal human beings)
Results of Emancipation: good?
Terence Emmons - ‘single greatest piece of state-directed engineering in modern European History before the 20th Century’
Hard-working or lucky ones were able to supplement their allocations by purchasing additional land and even buying out other ex-serfs - Kulaks
1880 - serfs owned 30% of the agricultural land
Emancipating led to increased literacy rates –> Up by 50%
Emancipation led to urbanization –> 1914 1/3 of serfs lived in rural cities
How was the emancipation good for some landowners?
Those who used the compensation payments to write off their debts and invest in business increased their wealth
How did the Edict fulfil Alexander’s wider aims?
Russian industry expanded in the wake of emancipation, and cities, communications
Ukraine - Increase in Grain production
Grain exports - 31%-47%
from 1861 - 1865
How might emancipation be considered as a bad thing?
Peasants - received poor priced land allocations –> High redemption payments
Peasants generally lost around 20% of their former land
Land could be taken away and reallocated by the mir
1878 - 50% of peasants could produce a surplus to sell
Remainder forced to sell –> effectively migrant labourers
How did landowners face problems due to the emancipation edict?
4 months - 647 incidents of rioting
500 killed
50% landowners already mortgaged at least some of their land to banks before the Edict
By 1905, nobles had sold about 30% of the land held in 1861 and 50% of the remaining land was mortgaged.
Left nobility worse off
Criticisms of the Emancipation edict?
Emancipation manifesto proclaimed the emancipation of the serfs on private estates and by this edict more than 23 million people received their liberty.
1866 - 80% state serfs (but they freed private)
Serfs granted freedom would have to become ‘obliged peasants for 2 years from the publication of the edict.
Therefore, for
2 years, no changes were made and the economy was not immediately benefited.
Why can the Tsar Alexander the II be considered as a Tsar liberator?
Emancipation of the Serfs and the benefits of such Emancipation
That a ruler with absolute power was inclined towards reforms of a system that had thus far helped him subjugate many of his subjects was revolutionary and unheard of, which is what Tsar Alexander II hoped the peasants would see and be grateful for.
Criticisms against the idea that Alexander II was the Tsar liberator? DUE TO THE EMANCIPATION
Emancipation –>
134% of the free market price of land - peasants paid
Loss of security with the removal of landlord security, famine due to subpar plots of land, and therefore continued discontent.
What were the aims of Alexander II?
Preserve Autocracy
Placate the Peasantry
Modernise the Country
Stop Civil Unrest
Was Alexander II successful in the short term?
Reforms –> Decline in Peasant unrest that had been growing
Successful in getting the nobility to accept change and by insisting that they drew up measures for emancipation ensured that they had to take responsibility for the outcome
Political reforms under AII?
1864 - Zemstvos led by Milyutin
Made up of representatives of all classes responsible for local schools, public health, roads, prisons, food supply, and other concerns.
It gave people a taste of democracy and the right to vote.
Why were Zemstvas useful?
1864
There were over 500 of them
The zemstva contained people with local knowledge “enabling them to do a good job where a St. Petersburg official would have failed.” (Westwood).
Zemstvo doctors played a significant role in combating cholera and other epidemics that ravaged the Russian countryside.
Zemstvos also played a key role in the development of transportation infrastructure, including the construction of roads, bridges, and railways.
Why were Zemstvas not useful?
On the other hand, the zemstva were effectively figureheads who hardly did much for local communities – with nearly all problems stemming from the fact that they were dominated by the nobility.
Provincial governors had the ability to reverse any decisions of the zemstva if considered to be ‘contrary to the law or the welfare of the state’, leading to apathy within the zemstva’s and hardly any incentive for change.
What do we think about Zemstvas overall?
Zemstvas –> feeling of independence and autonomy within the peasant classes,
HOWEVER in the LR,
Redundant as they were still very much controlled by state ideology.
What made them beneficial to the peasants – their proximity and therefore familiarity with local issues – became the very thing that led to zemstva being used as instruments of censorship and repression later on, in the Tsar’s reactionary phase.
What were educational reforms like under Alexander II?
More accessible for serfs, and censorship law repealed
Increased the number of primary and secondary schools throughout the country, declaring them accessible to all classes, and even women.
1863 - Universities given independence
3600 students - 10000 students
What is the February Revolution of 1917 generally described as?
General feeling of outburst of feeling from the people of Russia
Why were educational reforms not as good as people make them out to be - hence why is AII not the tsar Liberator?
Government could ban student organisations
Increase in discontent –> Increase in rebellions –> Increase in censorship
.
Overall why do we believe that the Tsar is not a liberator?
Overall, Tsar Alexander does not deserve the title of ‘Tsar Liberator’, because, despite his actions which were seen as progressive’ and ‘reformative’, Tsar Alexander’s interests in liberating the serfs were purely self-interested, and therefore ineffective, and even harmful, in the long run. He only agitated for change before the 1860s because he recognised that peasants were getting increasingly disillusioned with the current system of serfdom such that it posed a threat to his absolute power – there were 712 peasant uprisings in the span of just 26 years.
What did Alexander III do regarding Education?
- Not all social classes could attend High School
- Universities not allowed to hire own professor
- History not allowed to be taught unless given permission by Education Minister
- 1884 - Unis deprives of independence
- 1887 - Uni fees raised
Did peasants increase their education under AIII?
Policies tried hard not to allow them
But from 1897–>1904
Population that could read and write went from 21 –> 27%
AIII Russification?
Extended this idea of Russification
Russian only language taught in schools
1891 (Jews forbidden to live in Moscow)
Ukrainian and Belorussian churches persecuted
1883 - Publication of Ukrainian abolished
AIII Economics? successes
Had a finance minister - Vyshnegradsky
1892 - Grain exports increased by 18%
1888 - Valuable loan negotiated with the French
1891 - highest tariffs in Russia’s commercial history were helping to protect developing internal industries, while contributing to the government’s taxation revenue.
AIII Economics? Weaknesses
Positive sounding statistics hid the suffering of peasants
Exports of grain earned the gold and foreign currency needed to guarantee repayments on foreign loans, but they left many of the most vulnerable members of society on the edge of starvation.
Peasants faced growth in indirect taxation
Achieved surplus for the first time ever between 1881 - 1885
Repression AIII?
1881 - Statue on Measures for the Preservation of Political and Social Order
Order said that any area which was under threat would be under extreme observation
Commander in Chief would then have the right to a full warranted search
The ‘untrustworthy’ would have no right to legal representation
Witte’s Reforms under AIII?
A
Rapid Industrial Expansion
Coal Production doubled
Iron and Oil soon became fastest growing sector of the Russian Economy
1900- Russia was entirely self-sufficient in petroleu
1885–>1913 Oil production troubled
1885-1913 –> Average annual rate of growth of industrial production –> 6.10% –> 6.25%
Building of the 7000 km Trans-Siberian Railway linking European Russia and Western Siberia
How did AIII re-establish noble Influence?
Land Captains controlled by the Minister of Internal Affairs
They were picked from heredITARY NOBLES
1890 - THE CONSTITUION OF THE ZEMSTVA WAS CHANGED TO GIVE THE NOBLES 57% OF THE PLACES AVAILABLE
1892 - Property Qualification for voters to the municipal dumas was also raised
In St Petersburg, the electrorate was reduced by 2/3s as a result
Counter Arguments to A III’s abillity to suppress the locals?
He did not abolish the Zemstvas and dumas created by AII
That said, he reduced their influcned by adjusting their membership to give more weight to the nobility
Criticisms of Witte’s Reforms?
Paul gregory questioned the idea of a decline rurual living standards
Avg Male –> 27.25 Avg Femake —> 29.38
Gregory argued that the economy was growing marginally than the population was rising
Therefore belueved that output rose fast enough to feed most of the population
How did WW1 lead to the February Revolution?
People angry about Tsar’s broken promises
Shortage of bread - Bread Riots
Soldiers dying on the front - 1.8 million
Ministers who defended the Tsar in 1905 had to save their skin as they knew a full revolution was coming
They advised him to abdicate which he did
economic and social causes of the 1805 revolutions?
- 1897 and 1901 - poor harvests
economic slump –> unemployment grew
- International monetary crisis –> Russia could not negotiate loans
After 1899 - Overall annual growth rate fell from %-8 - 1%
CONSEQUENTLY,
1894 - 90K stoppages
1890s - increase in peasant attacks on landlords
How did the Sino-Japanese war could the Revolution of 1805
Proved catastrophic for the tsarist autocracy
- Russo-Japanese war –> significantly undermined support for the tsardom.
- Not only did Russia fail at expanding its empire, but it lost to Japan.
- The fact that a tiny country like Japan managed to beat Russia in war caused a massive amount of humiliation
- Forced to hand over their Port Arthur naval base
Political causes of the Russian Revolution of 1805
Union of Liberation demanded a fairly elected National Legislative Assembly
Wanted constitutional monarchy
Organised 50 revolutionary banquets by 1904
Zemstva presented a petition to the tsar
Radical socialists –> helped prove unrest
- appealed to peasants’ desire for land
- SD’s promise of power attracted workers
- SR assassinated many officials including the Tsars uncle
Social causes of October Revolutions of 1917
Centuries of oppression towards the lower classes by the Tsarist regime.
While rural agrarian peasants had been emancipated from serfdom in 1861, they still resented paying redemption payments to the state, and demanded communal tender of the land they worked.
Farming peasants, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of the land.
Rapid industrialization of Russia -> urban overcrowding and poor conditions
- In 1890 and 1910, population of capital of St Petersburg increased from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600
- 1904 survey -an average of 16 shared each apartment in St Petersburg, with six people per room.
Western Liberal perspectives on the causes of the October Revolution?
- Nicholas was at fault
- Rasputin and Nicholas’ wife affair
- Poor leadership in WW1
Soviet perspectives on the causes of the October Revolution?
result of economic forces and class struggle
importance of the war and the role of the oppressed working class and the Bolshevik Party.
For them, the collapse of tsardom was part of an inevitable process of change
Agricultural reforms had made no obvious difference to the peasants
Political changes had also been very slight
