Economic and Social Developments

THE BEGINNINGS OF STATE-PROMOTED INDUSTRIAL GROWTH

Industrialisation in Russia was driven by State in attempt to match economic development of Western Europe

MINISTER OF FINANCE 1862-78 MIKHAIL VON REUTERN REFORMS

  • Treasury formed & new arrangements for collecting taxes
  • Tax-farming (groups bought rights to collect tax) abolished & new indirect tax system
  • Govt subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build the railways
  • Est State bank 1860, municipal banks 1862, savings bank 1863
  • Encouraged foreign investment
  • Gov support offered for cotton and mining

Foreign technical expertise & capital supported industrial expansion & marked exp in railways – 6% growth P/A

Textiles were dominant, Oil extraction in Baku 1871, and mining in Krivoi Rog region.

⅓ Gov expenditure = debts & Russian rouble varied dramatically

Indirect taxation = 66% Govt revenue – kept peasantry poor & domestic market small

  • Peasantry forced to support industrialisation by the drive to export grain and an increase in direct taxation – Vyshnegradsky policy ‘we ourselves shall not eat but we shall export’ = GREAT FAMINE 1891-92
  • – Grain requisitions meant there was no store for winter = famine

AGRICULTURE AND THE LAND ISSUE

  • Emancipation failed to bring any change in agricultural practice
  • Peasant only received less than 4 hectares
  • High taxes, grain requisitions, redemption payments & trad. Farming practices hampered agricultural change
  • Yields remained low in comparison to West
  • Nobles’ est 1882, and Peasants 1855 LAND BANKS’ loans increased debt
  • Some peasants became kulaks but the avg. peasant had too little land to become prosperous

SOCIAL DIVISIONS: NOBLES, LANDOWNERS AND THE POSITION OF THE PEASANTRY

  • Industrialisation brought social change affecting landowners, a growing ‘middle class’, expanding the ranks of urban workers and causing greater social division in the countryside
    • Landed Elite

After Emancipation; some sold up to pay off debts and got out of farming

1880: ≈ ⅕ of uni professors came from nobility

1882: more than 700 nobles owned their own business in Moscow & ≈ 2500 employed in commerce/transport/industry

Some found places in zemstva/provincial governorships

SOME CHANGES TO POSITION, MOST FORMER SERF-OWNERS RETAINED PREVIOUS WEALTH & STATUS & SOCIETY REMAINED HIGHLY STRATIFIED

o    THE MIDDLE CLASS

Increase in educational opportunities = rise of middle class

Bankers, Doctors, Teachers & administrators were in greater demand

BUT only ½ a million in 1891 census

Govt. contracts to build railways & state loans to est. factories = tremendous support for those who were enterprising

o    THE URBAN WORKING CLASS

# of urban workers was v. small in this period (no more than 2%)

Common for peasants to move to towns to work temp. &n return to villages to help out at peak times e.g. harvest`

Some peasants sold up & left the countryside (migrant/urban workers)

1864 ⅓ St.Petersburgians were peasants by birth

Working conditions were bad – no heed paid to welfare

1882-90- series of reforms: regulation of child labour, reduction in workers hours & appointment of inspectors with powers to check on working and living conditions – contributed little to improving lives

Payments were rarely generous

33 strikes are year – 1886-1894

Nothing stopped drive from country to city

o    THE POSITION OF THE PEASANTRY

Divided – some like kulaks were rich: acted like ‘pawn brokers’ to poorest (bought grain in autumn = resold it to them in the spring at inflated price) – would take land if could not afford

Poorest peasants found life getting harder –1800’s 2:3 former serfs were unable to feed the household w/out falling into debt

Areas of former state peasants tended to be better off post emancipation (granted more land)

Despite zemstvo health care improvements; large prop of peasants were unfit for the military service & mortality rates were higher than those in any other European country

Avg. life expectancy was 27 males & 29 females – in Eng., avg age = 45

Economic change failed to improve the lot of the peasantry & may have even affected them for the worse

THE CULTURAL INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH

Orthodox Church (70% of pop subscribed to) had a close bond w/tsarist regime

Trad said that Russia was holy land chosen by God to save the world

Tsar – divine right to rule

LATE 19TH CENT:  Tsar’s position had become had secular; Imperial Russia still remained a strong orthodox state

Moral domination of the church helped keep control – ill-educated peasantry

Religious observance was a sig. Part of life – integral; to peasant culture

Priests had close tie to villages – rooted our opposition #& informed police of suspicious activities

  • Encourage to pass on statements in confession to authorities, even when not supposed to

1862: Church given increased control over primary education

Church had strict censorship control & church courts judged moral & social ‘crimes’ & awarded punishment like ‘spells’

Russification enabled A III to promote Orthodoxy -and became an offence to convert from to Orthodoxy to another faith

Enforced post 1863 – 8500 Muslims 50,000 pagans & 40,000 Catholic & Lutherans from Baltic regions

SUMMARY:

  • The backward Russian economy began to develop after defeat in the Crimean war and emancipation
  • The State played an active role in promoting industry. Financial policies and encouragement of overseas investment and expertise were crucial
  • The peasantry was forced to support industrialisation by the drive to export growth and increase in indirect taxation
  • Railway development mother cruise your first step and, in addition to traditional textiles, heavy industry and oil grew more important
  • Emancipation industrialisation also but first change affecting landowners, a growing ‘middle class’, expanding the ranks of urban workers and causing greater social division in the countryside

Throughout this period the Orthodox church maintained strong cultural influence and was used by the state to help keep the population under control