Economic Change

Emancipation Edict (1861)

• Freedom for over 23 million privately owned serfs
• Emergence of the kulaks
• Landownders out of debt
• Freedom of marriage
  • H: No civil marriage until after the October, 1917, Revolution

HOWEVER: Resentment remained

• Unfair land allocations
• Resentment from landowners
• Redepmtion payments
  • Tax on land sales to compensate landownders
• Lack of fertile land
• Ex-serfs couldn't afford to buy land
  • Could borrow from a special government fund, but were left with the burden of mortgage payments

Witte's 'Great Spurt' (1890s)

Considerable industrial development

• Increase in railways
• 1890: Foreign investment reached 215 million roubles
  • H: Became too dependent
• Legislation improved working conditions
  • E.g. 1892: Children under 12 prohibited from working
• Increase in coal output (Ukraine) and oil output (Caucasus)
  • Result of private enterprise, sustained by government policies
• Improved the strength of the Russian army
• Led to Witte's economic reforms
  • Brought in foreign experts from France, Sweden, Belgium, Britain, and Germany

Witte's Economic Reforms (1890s)

• State capitalism
• Tarrifs on imported goods to protect domestic trade
• Currency put on the gold standard
• Investment in the railways
  • 13,000 miles (1881) > 44,000 miles (1914)
• Foreign loans and investments
• High taxes, interest rates, and tarrifs
• Coal output increased
  • 6 million tonnes (1890) > 34 million tonnes (1916)

HOWEVER:

• Became too dependent on foreign loans
• Neglected light engineering
• Ignored agricultural needs
• Increased discontent
  • Worsened living and working conditions

Stolypin's Agrarian Reforms (1906-1907)

'Wager on the strong'

• Abandoned ***** farming
• Discouraged obochina (collective farms) and encouraged competitive farming
• Peasant Land Bank
  • Loans for the poor to buy land
• Large scale voluntary resettlement in Siberia to reduce overcrowding
• 1912: Legislation for sickness and accident insurance

Failed to address the land issue

Food shortages continued

Country was on the verge of bankruptcy

July Days (1917)

Caused by a ministeral crisis over Ukrainian independence and demonstrations in Petrograd

• Peasants began seizing land by force
• Soviet members attacked
• Bolsheviks exploited this by promising 'peace, bread, and land'

HOWEVER: Unorganised and disorderly

• Troops scattered rioters and restored order
• Opposition was disunited
  • Bolsheviks arrested

Decrees on nationalisation, workers control, and land

War Communism

Harshly restrictive measures to deal with the strain of the Civil War

• Grain requisitioning
• Army got priority for food
• Widespread starvation
• Peasants began producing only enough grain for themselves
  • Further shortages
• People began moving to be closer to food supplies
  • Shortage of labour in the towns

New Economic Policy (1921)

• Money and markets restored
• End to grain requisitioning
  • Replaced by the tax in kind
• Central economic control relaxed
• Grain production increased
  • 37.6 million tonnes (1921) > 50.3 million tonnes (1922)
• Industry didn't expand as rapidly
• 10 million deaths
• High unemployment in urban areas
• Emergence of the Nepmen
  • A new type of businessman

Collectivisation

• Replaced the NEP
• Social upheaval
  • Collective farms
• Peasants ate corn and killed livestock instead of handing them over
• National famine

Dekulakisation

• Kulaks declared enemies of the state
• Deported, killed, robbed, and sent to gulags

Five Year Plans

• Industry increased threefold
• Coal increased fivefold
• Gargantuan projects didn't yield
• Agriculture neglected

Focus on consumer goods

• Plastics
  • 21.3 thousand tonnes (1945) > 312 thousand tonnes (1960)
• Clocks and watches
  • 0.9 million (1928) > 0.3 million (1945) > 26 million (1960)

Heavy Industry

Saw the biggest expansion under Khrushchev

• Iron
  • 19.2 million tonnes (1950) > 66.2 million tonnes (1965)
• Steel
  • 27.3 million tonnes (1950) > 91 million tonnes (1965)

Agricultural Reforms

AIM: To encourage peasants to produce more grain

• Peasants paid more for grain
• Taxes on peasants reduced
• Amount of grain requisitioned reduced
  • More left for peasants to sell for profit

AIM: To increase efficiency

• Tractor stations disbanded; tractors sold to state farms
  • Peasants worked harder to buy them
• Ministry of Agriculture moved away from Moscow (regionalisation)
  • Regions had greater control
• Collective farms amalgamated into larger farms
  • Kolkhozy to sovkhozy

The Virgin Lands Scheme

• 36 million hectares of land cultivated
• Agricultural output increased
  • 80 million tonnes (1949-1953) > 110 million tonnes (1954-1958)

HOWEVER:

• Much of the land was infertile and abandoned
• Lack of skilled workers
• Social needs neglected
• Lack of equiptment