Stolypin was more successful than Witte in improving the Russian economy

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Stolypin was more successful than Witte in improving the Russian economy

Advantages

  • Against Witte:
  • Population increased- more production needed anyway in order to provide for the expansion
  • Compared with other European powers and the USA, trade and national income was still limited
  • There was high military spending-45%; economy was designed for design rather than to provide for the people-'command economy' rather than 'command economy'
  • 1914- number of factory workers still less than 2%
  • Most industrial production took place in small factories- many workers went back to their villages to help with the harvest every year
  • Trade recession from 1900-08; heavy taxes, poor living conditions, wages couldn't keep up with inflation
  • 1900- in the capital, 40% of houses had no running water or system
  • Middle class made up nor more than half a million in 1897- vast majority remained 'peasant stock'
  • Railways incomplete by 1914
  • TSR was a drain of resources
  • Grain requisitioning for profit abroad led to inadequate grain supplies for the peasants
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  • For Stolypin:
  • By a Law of 9 November 1906, the head of a peasant family was given the right to convert his communal *****s of arable into private property on fully enclosed farms outside the village (khutora) or consolidated holdings within it (otruba).
  • 1906- 1917- about 15% of all the peasant households in European Russia consolidated their land as private plots, bringing the total of peasant farms in hereditary tenure to around 30%.
  • Peasant Land Bank- cheap loans to help peasants buy more land
  • Migration to Siberia- land available for settlement, especially dairy farms
  • Growth of non-agricultural employment
  • Spread of education- Zemstva supplemented church schools, and later on state schools, in education some peasants
  • Zemstva Agricultural Assistance- Advice on new crop rotations, fertilisers, financial arrangements etc

Disadvantages

  • For Witte:
  • Foreign investment poured in- France biggest backer; investment in mining and metal trades plus oil and banking
  • Russia became the 4th largest industrial economy in the world
  • Putilov works in the capital expanded as a factory, producing armaments
  • Moscow overtook St Petersburg as an industrial centre
  • Urban population swelled- quadrupled between 1867-1917
  • 8% annual growth rate 1894-1904
  • 1914- ranked 2nd in the world for oil production; 4th for gold
  • Lynch- 'a transport revolution'
  • Growing middle class of entrepreneurs
  • Railways expanded- ' a major engineering feat had been accomplished'
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  • Against Stolypin:
  • for every household that enclosed its land there was another that had tried and failed, either because of communal resistance or bureaucratic delays, with the result that they lost interest.
  • Inadequate land provision
  • Rural population explosion- doubled from 1861-1913
  • Inefficiency of Russian agriculture exposed in the word depression in agricultural prices in 1879- Russian estates were unprofitable and, as the nobility were seriously indebted, investment was low
  • Mir was an obstacle- Recquired the agreement of the entire village to introduce change. A peasant could not leave the mir without its consent, until the redemption tax was paid. PREVENTED INNOVATION
  • Backward methods- ***** farming was inefficient, lack of technology- solcha
  • Output from US farms 1.5x greater. Output from UK farms 4x greater

Evaluation

Witte had more visible success, yet he failed to meet the needs of the individual, demand rather than command economy. Stolypin faced a much more difficult battle due to the sheer backwardness of the peasantry, yet minimal progress was made- "the land reforms must be deemed a failure"- LynchNove- what was needed was continued growth, questions whether the Tsarist regime was capable- LINK BOTH POINTS

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