DEVELOPMENTS IN WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS
- 2 million factory workers by 1900 – six million by 1913
- 1867-1917 urban pop. quadrupled 7-28 million
- In Russia’s major cities, the arrival of new factories swelled the urban population, and by 1913, 6 million urban factory workers were living in cities. By 1914, 3 out of 4 people settled in St Petersburg were peasants by birth.
- Facilities to provide for growing urban class were grossly inadequate
- Workers lived in barrack-like conditions – dangerously overcrowded and lacked sanitation
- ST PETERSBURG – 40% of houses had no running water/sewage system – piled excrement in backyards (30l died of cholera 1908-9)
- High rents – those who couldn’t afford lived rough/ in the factories
- Women earned less than half the average indst. wage
- Wages did not keep up w/inflation price
- Working hours reduced to ten hours by 1914
- 85% rise in primary school provision by 194 & govt promoted uni’s
- Investment in education was less than indst. – 55% of people went into full time education by 1914
- It was easy for towns and cities to become breeding places for political discontent which was evidenced by the fact that strikes were now caused because of political frustration rather than economic or social matters. The Government chose to repress the strikes instead of addressing them which led to the murder of 270 workers and injury of 250 in 1912 at the Lena Goldfields when workers striked for better wages and conditions.
DEVELOPMENTS IN WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
- Gap between richest and poorest grew – kulaks
- Poorest peasants life grew harder – many became migrant labourers/ minority migrated to siberia (only 3.5 million of 97 million peasants were able to)
- Govt scheme was inadequate to relieve pressure
- Living standards varied across the country – areas in baltic & western siberia more prosperous
- Continuation of nobles landowning & backward farming in russian heartland
- Areas of bolshevik support in 1917/prosperous on counter revolution
- Areas of former state peasants tended to be better off post emancipation (granted more land)
- Mortality rates in russia were higher than any other european country
- Topo few doctors for rural population
- Lack of teachers
- 1914: 60% illiteracy
- Peasantry remained bottom of social ladder
- Loyalty to church and tsar remained
NOBILITY
- Some fell post emancipation but some thrived on arrangement of land/involvement in enterprise/military connections/serving in Govt. office
- ⅓ transferred to townsmen/peasants between 1861-1905 some nobles struggled to pay debts & failed to understand modern money management , investment for the future & the need to adjust living standards.
- No redistributive tax on wealthy = incomes not attacked = no change from traditional life
- Nicholas wanted to encourage noble influence in the zemstva
- Regularly appointed to provincial governorships
- Each district had a noble assembly which met once a year
- MAY 1906 first meeting of ‘united nobility’ took place- nobles determined to retain property rights and tra. Interest in face of change
- Strength & determination of class
- Some noblemen found adjustments necessary, most retained much of previous wealth and status
THE MIDDLE CLASSES
- Traditional structure of nobles merchants clergy & peasantry was challenged by new emerging middle classes – expanded as pace of economic change quickened
- New business & professional men were able to assure comfortable lives for themselves & offspring
- Nobles’ sons chose to join the business world/ peasant stock rose through hard work to join ranks of middle management & w/in a generation become factory proprietors
- Group grew as a force as management & professional position became more in demand in increasingly complex industrialising society
- w/in industrialising regions & and in development of Russia’s infrastructure, there were plenty of opportunities for enterprising
- Growth of education & demand for more administrators also fuelled a growing middle class
- Growing middle classes found their natural home on the councils of the zemstva & in the town & state dumas where they exerted an influence beyond their size
WORKERS AND PEASANTRY
- Population growth & economic development most affected the workers & the peasantry
- Countryside was where social developments were taking place
- Most peasant protest pre-1914 was the result of traditional grievances (failed harvest/unfair land allocation)
- Slow process of awakening peasantry from inertia to political activism was underway by 1914/ although took conditions of war to complete the task
- Urban areas: form peasants alienated from their families & roots gradually lost something of former identity & associated w/others who loved & worked in close proximity sharing grievances
- Became an easy target for the political agitators
One of the gravest mistakes of the tsarist government was failure to respond effectively to effects of social change in the cities – from the large & discontented urban working class that the impetus to overthrow the regime in 19197 would eventually come
CULTURE CHANGES
Government increased the expenditure of education from 5 million roubles in 1896 to over 82 million by 1914 meant that more people were becoming literate and contributed to the increasing influence of the middle classes. The relaxation of censorship and subsequent increase in literary texts helped Russian culture to diversify beyond just the intelligentsia as now more people were beginning to become educated and have their own opinions.
Patriarchal structure remained unchanged; women found greater independence through factory work
- DECEMBER 1908: All-Russian Congress of Women was attended by 1035 delegates
During the Romanov Tercentenary in 1913, it was outlined in a speech made by the Tsar that while the celebrations had been designed to reaffirm thoughts of ‘reverence and popular support for autocracy’, the underlying theme displayed an urge to retreat ‘to the past, hoping it would save them from the future’.
SUMMARY:
The years 1894 to 1914 brought social changes in both the towns and the countryside. While it was not always obvious at the time, changes in the position of the middle classes, workers and peasants in particular were to have political consequences during the war years. Culturally, there was some ‘modernist’ experimentation, which clashed with an in-built traditionalism. In 1914, Russia was a society of contrasts but the ‘old ways’ of seeing to be swept aside but coming of War.