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Russian History > Economy and Society of Russian Empire and the USSR > Flashcards

Economy and Society of Russian Empire and the USSR Flashcards

1
Q

what did the Tsars do for industry?

A
  • Reutern reforms 1862-1868
  • Railways: Trans-Siberian line
  • Medele’ev Tariff 1891
  • Witte’s ‘Great Spurt’ 1893-1903
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2
Q

what did the Tsars do for agriculture?

A
  • Emancipation 1861
  • Peasant Land Bank 1883
  • Stolypin’s reforms 1906-1911 ‘wager on the storm’ / land reforms
  • emergence of Kulaks and commercial farming
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3
Q

what did the Communists do for industry?

A
  • State Capitalism
  • War Communism
  • the NEP
  • centralised planning
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4
Q

what did the communists do for agriculture?

A
  • dekulakisation and collectivisation from 1929
  • the kolkhozy, sovkhozy and MTS
  • the Virgin Lands scheme 1954 onwards
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5
Q

what were the Reutern reforms?

A

1862-1878 reforms encouraged foreign investment and foreign technical expertise

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6
Q

what did the Medele’ev tariff (1891) do?

A

raised government revenues

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7
Q

what was State Capitalism?

A

central control of the economy through the SEC December 1917

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8
Q

what was the SEC?

A

Supreme Economic Council

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9
Q

what was War Communism?

A

nationalisation, partial militarisation of labour and grain requisitioning

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10
Q

what was the NEP?

A

denationalisation of small-scale enterprise and a return to private ownership

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11
Q

what is Centralised planning?

A

the seven Five-Year Plans under Khrushchev and the aim of economic autarky

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12
Q

Whats MTS?

A

Motor Tractor Stations responsible for loaning tractors to peasants, distributing seed, collecting grain and deciding what farmers could keep for their own consumption

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13
Q

Virgin Lands scheme from 1954?

A

by 1964, 165 million acres had been given over to the production of wheat

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14
Q

what reasons were there for social change?

A
  1. population growth
  2. urbanisation
  3. decline of nobility
  4. communist ideology
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15
Q

population growth?

A

1858 - 74 million

1960 - 212 million

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16
Q

decline of nobility?

A

in the 1870s gentry owned 200 million acres of land, fell to 140 million acres in 1914

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17
Q

rise of middle class

A

by 1914 there’s about 2 million people who fell into middle class bracket

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18
Q

how much of population was still reliant on agriculture by end of 19th century

A

80 percent

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19
Q

proof of hierarchical bureaucracy in communist society?

A

by early 1930s supposedly 1.5 million promotions of ordinary workers to managers

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20
Q

Tsar changes to primary education?

A
  • education under Zemstva
  • 1877 Ministry of Education in control; school inspectors
  • number of primary schools rose from 23,000 in 1880 to 81,000 in 1914
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21
Q

Communist changes to primary education?

A
  • 1930: attendance made compulsory to the age of 12

- by 1930, 18 million children attending

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22
Q

All changes to primary education?

A
  • 1877 Ministry of Education in control; school inspectors
  • number of primary schools rose from 23,000 in 1880 to 81,000 in 1914
  • 1930: attendance made compulsory to the age of 12
  • by 1930, 18 million children attending
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23
Q

Tsar changes to secondary education?

A
  • Alexander II’s ‘new code’: numbers attending doubled by 1865
  • Alexander III reversed his father’s policy, banning lower class children from secondary schools
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24
Q

Communist changes to secondary education?

A
  • ‘bourgeois’ gymnasia scrapped, replaced with polytechnic (vocational) schools
  • by 1932 6.9 million attending secondary schools
  • 1939 Stalin scrapped school fees
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25
Q

All changes to secondary education?

A
  • Alexander II’s ‘new code’ meant number attending doubled
  • Alexander III banned lower class children from attending
  • Communists scrapped ‘bourgeois’ gymnasia for polytechnic (vocational) schools
  • By 1932, 6.9 million children attending
  • 1939, Stalin scrapped school fees
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26
Q

Tsar changes to higher education?

A
  • under Stolypin all non-academic meetings of students at unis made illegal
  • Alexander III took away autonomy of universities
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27
Q

Key changes to education

A
  • Alexander II’s ‘new code’ - attendance of secondary schools doubled by 1865
  • Number of primary schools rose from 23,000 in 1880 to 81,000 in 1914
  • Alexander III banned lower class children from attending secondary school, took away autonomy of unis
  • by 1930 attendance at primary compulsory until 12; 18 million children attending
  • gymnasia replaced by polytechnics, 6.9 million attending by 1932
  • 1939 Stalins crapped school fees
28
Q

How much of the russian population were peasants?

A
  • 90 per cent (1855)

- 70 per cent (1950s)

29
Q

standard peasant house?

A

Izba; a single-room wooden hut heated by an oven which also acted as a sleeping platform.

30
Q

what rural housing changes did Khrushchev introduce?

A

constructed self-contained ‘agro-towns’

31
Q

Key changes to Peasants

A
  1. Emancipation and Stolypin’s ‘Wager on the Strong’
  2. War Communism - Grain requisitioning
  3. NEP - kulaks ‘cultured and educated’
  4. Stalin’s Collectivisation - Dekulakisation
  5. Pressure under Stalin and Khrushchev’s Virgin Lands Scheme
32
Q

Stalin’s dekulakisation?

A

1928-1930 1-3 million kulak families (6-18 million people) deported to work camps

33
Q

what did Stolypin’s ‘wager on the strong’ do?

A

from 1906 led to a new class of independent, surplus-producing peasants (kulaks)

34
Q

changes for Kulaks under NEP?

A

attitude changed as they were seen as ‘cultured and educated’
BUT still persecuted;
- paid higher taxes
- disenfranchised
- their children prevented from attending state schools

35
Q

Key famines:

A
  • 1891 (350,000 died)
  • 1921 (5 million died)
  • 1932-34 exacerbated by Stalin’s repression
36
Q

how many people died in the 1891 famine?

A

over 350,000 people

37
Q

what was the cause of the 1891 famine?

A

adverse weather coupled with panic selling of grain surpluses to counter impact of new consumer goods tax; peasants sold surpluses for income to pay for increases in tax

38
Q

what was the cause of the 1914-1918 foot shortage?

A

WW1

  • disrupted trade and transport
  • exacerbated by Treaty of Brest Litovsk as valuable grain producing areas in the Ukraine were lost
39
Q

how many people died in the 1921 famine?

A

5 million

40
Q

what was the cause of the 1921 famine?

A
  • terrible winters, severe droughts
  • destruction of transport infrastructure due to the Civil War
  • Lenin’s reluctance to accept aid from the American Relief Agency
41
Q

what was the Holodomor?

A

famine-genocide of Ukraine, 1932-1933

- In June 1933 28,000 men, women and children in Ukraine were dying of starvation each day.

42
Q

How many people died in the 1932-34 famine?

A

6-8 million people, 4-5 million of whom were Ukrainians

43
Q

How did Stalin exacerbate the 1932-34 famine?

A
  • severe repression; death penalty for stealing grain even when it was their own
  • policy of exporting grain
44
Q

when was there a turning point for food production under the communists?

A

Mid 1930s as food production increased slowly

45
Q

Give an example for how workers conditioned worsened under Communists

A

by late 1930s, the consumption of meat and fish had fallen by 80 per cent

46
Q

How many people died in the 1946-1947 famine?

A

Michael Ellman claims that the famine resulted in 1 to 1.5 million lives lost

47
Q

Who should be blamed for the 1946-1947 famine?

A

Economist Steven Rosefielde claims that the Soviet government bore responsibility for the conditions.

Economist Michael Ellman: had the policies of the Soviet regime been different, there might have been no famine at all or a much smaller one.

48
Q

how much of the population was urbanised by end of the 19th century:?

A
  • only about 15 per cent of Russian population lived in towns and cities (compared with 80 per cent in Britain)
  • only 19 cities had more than 100,000 inhabitants
49
Q

how many inhabitants did the two largest cities St Petersburg and Moscow have in 1900?

A

St Petersburg - 1.25 million

Moscow - 1 million

50
Q

urban housing conditions 1914

A
  • 50 per cent+ of housing made from wood and prone to fire damage
  • houses and streets lit by kerosene lamps
  • only 74 towns had access to electricity
  • only 35 to gas
  • only 200 towns had piped water
  • only 38 had a sewage system
51
Q

Example of disease because of urbanisation?

A

in 1910, there were over 100,000 deaths from cholera in St Petersburg alone

52
Q

what did the Decree on Land 1917 (Bolsheviks) say about urban housing?

A

dwellings in towns and cities were to be taken from private owners and handed over to the proletariat under the guidance of the soviets

53
Q

what was the Stalinist housing policy?

A

allocated space rather than rooms to families within new high-rise tenemants so over crowding became the norm

54
Q

how many people were made homeless by WW2

A

25 million Russians

55
Q

what changed 1955-1964?

A

Housing stock doubled and principles of communal living were abandoned

56
Q

What did the Tsars do to address urban working conditions?

A
  • 1882: introduced factory inspectorate; employment in factories under the age of 12 banned
  • 1896: an 11-hour working day fixed by law
  • internal passports (revamped by communists in 1917 and 1932)
  • 1914: most employers operating a nine-to ten-hour working day
57
Q

ironically, working conditions for the proletariat seemed to worsen under the communist. How so?

A
  • hours of work per day were extended e.g. under Stalin 10-12 hours
  • pay was relatively low
  • a ‘new work’ discipline was enforced harshly
  • Stalin imposed heavy fines for breaking work rules (about 10 per cent of wages)
  • workers threatened with being ‘purged’ if they were ‘wreckers’ (slowed/ disrupted production)
58
Q

What key changes did Lenin and Stalin make for workers?

A
  • 1920: Rabkrin was established
  • 1932 onwards: Stalin demanded workers operated a 10-12h working day to fulfil requirements of his Five-Year Plans
  • 1949: average working day went down to seven hours. Bonus schemes + Stakhanovite movement popularised.
59
Q

Voting changes?

A
  • 1864: Zemstva
  • 1905: elections to Duma
  • Central Committee of Congress elected at annual party congress
60
Q

what was the Central Committee?

A
  • collective body elected at the annual party congress
  • authorised to meet at least twice a year to act as the party’s supreme governing body
  • membership increased from 71 full members 1934 to over 200 by the end of the period.
61
Q

Trade Unions?

A
  • banned before 1905
  • from 1905 soviets (workers’ councils) appeared adn were tolerated
  • existed with limited powers 1905-1917
  • ‘Dual Authority’ PG + Petrograd Soviet 1917
  • valued but subordinate to needs of government rather than needs of proletariat under communists
62
Q

Media?

A
  • Ruskii - Tsars’ newspapers
  • Kopek -Relaxation of control under Nicholas II meant newspapers aimed at proletariat appeared
  • ‘socialist realism’ under Stalin
  • Pravda and Izvestiya
63
Q

What is pravda?

A

paper of the comtmunist party

64
Q

What is Izvestiya?

A

Paper of the government

65
Q

Religion?

A
  • Russian Orthodox Church under the Tsars
  • Communist ‘Decree on the Separation of the Church from the State and the School from the Church’ - withdrew state subsidies and prevented religious groups possessing property
66
Q

What did Stolypin’s ‘wager on the strong’ involve?

A
  • unused land made available to the Peasant Land Bank so peasants could buy the land from the bank on favourable terms
  • Peasants who were still farming strips were given the right to consolidate their land into smallholdings (small farm units)
67
Q

Exodus of peasants?

A

By 1914 about 2 million peasants left the village communes, leaving some regions v. short of rural labour; accelerated by WW1.

Russian History (11 decks)

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