★ Introduction to Russia Flashcards
What is Marxism?
★ Marxism is the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, forms the basis of Communism
★ Sees communism as a form of liberation
What is Socialism?
★ A political and economic theory of social organisation which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
★ (in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.
Pre-1905 Russia: Key Statistics
★ 125,000,000 People
★ Peasants made up majority of the population
★ Not united
★ 100 different nationalities, all with their own different languages and religions
★ Wide ranging climate
Why was Russia Hard to Govern?
★ Transport ( Few paved roads, roads outside main cities were made out of packed earth )
★ Only line of communication across the eastern expanse was the Trans-Siberian railway
★ Russian Empire covered 1/6th of world’s total land
★ Most people lived in European Russia
★ ‘ Backwards Society ‘ based on agriculture
★ A lot of national minorities
What is Russification?
★ Russification was forced cultural assimilation of minority groups within the Russian Empire
★ Had policies designed to spread Russian culture and language among Non-Russians
What were some minority groups in the Russian Empire that were forced to undergo Russification?
★ Cossacks
★ Nenets
★ Mongols
★ Kazakhs
★ Tatars
Key facts about the Peasantry in Pre-Revolution Russia
★ 4/5 people in Russia were peasants
★ Main food was rye bread, porridge or cabbage soup
★ When harvests were bad, there would be starvation and disease: 400,000 people died in 1891 when crop failure and cholera hit
★ Average life expectancy ~40 years
What was the main problems for peasantry?
★ The peasants’ main concerns was around land
★ Until 1861, the majority of peasants had been Serfs owned by their masters
★ Freed in 1861 but had to pay off loans given by the Government for an allocated share of land
★ Left a lot of previous Serfs in debt
★ Angry that landowners kept much of the land, wanted more land to farm
Facts about the Nobility
★ Only made just over 1% of the population but owned almost 1/4 of the land
★ Extremely rich with county estates
Facts about the Middle Class
★ Bankers, merchants, rich capitalists who owned industrial works
★ St. Petersburg and Moscow main centres of industry
★ Links between rich businessmen and government very strong
★ Large houses that were lavishly decorated
Facts about the Working Class
★ Lived in cheap wooden lodging houses or large tenement buildings
★ In Industrial centres away from the cities, workers often lived in barracks next to the factories
★ Given almost no privacy
The Orthodox Church
★ Very important in Pre-Revolution Russia, many houses had holy pictures or icons
★ Closely linked with Tsar and supported his way of ruling, that he was God’s chosen representative to rule
★ Divine Right to Rule
What is the Divine Right to Rule?
★ The Divine Right to Rule is an idea that the specific monarch or monarchial family was chosen by God to rule the country, and that it would be a sin for anyone else to rule.
