I Believe that even though Russia agriculture contributed to a greater part of the economy then the industrial side of Russia did, the little progress and new innovation’s in the way the Russian’s farmed hindered the country, and meant they were started to fall behind the rest of the world, also geographical…
During the period 1855 – 1956 Russia was involved in many major wars, all of which played an important role in its development. With the exception of the Second World War many of the wars Russia was involved led to defeats for them and these defeats exposed the weakness of the Tsar or government in charge. War outlined the flaws in the presiding system and highlighted Russia’s faults, and thus placed a spotlight upon the shortcomings of the Russian leadership. Such pressure prompted the Tsars and other leaders to react and change in order to appease a nation on the brink of an oncoming revolution therefore Trotsky’s statement that ‘war was a locomotive of Russian history’ is true as it led to significant changes such as the Emancipation of the Serfs and the Abdication of Tsar Nicholas.…
Serfdom worked so well for the Tsar because Russia was so backwards it kept the serfs “simple and loyal.” (Pipes 162) This is why reforms and advancements, like railroads and improved…
As Imperial Russia continued to expand, Serfdom took its place as a commonality in Russian culture. While social classes grew more and more apart, peasants were hit with the harsh reality of this class separation. As Kizhanich mentions in the source book; Medieval Russia, “in the middle of the fifteenth century, conditions of Russian peasants deteriorated rapidly. By the early seventeenth century the majority had become serfs of one kind to another.” Serfs did not live the best life, this can be seen in Alexander Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter, a story of a young Russian noble who ends up in the middle of the Pugachev rebellion fighting for his life .…
The emancipation of serfs would seem, to the other western powers, that the Tsar is doing good for his people and abolishing a morally incorrect system. At the same time it would help maintain the autocracy in Russia following the social unrest and growing economic problems which could be fixed by the emancipation. Additionally, serfdom was not entirely different to the feudalism which had been present in many areas of pre-modern Europe, although long abolished. The fact that Russia still had serfdom when other western countries had long moved on past feudalism showed Russia’s backwardness…
Direct evidence of this is under the NEP, introduced by Lenin, grain requisitioning was ended and a tax was introduced onto peasants, thereby allowing them to keep and trade part of their produce. This therefore increased the peasants’ incentive to produce, and in the response to this production increased by 40 %. Even with the introduction of industrialisation, the majority of Russians were peasants working the land. Therefore, it was clear that in order to remain in power, Russian rulers and leaders had to keep peasants on their side. Before 1861, serfs owned no land.…
A crisis of modernization was one of the many reasons that caused the collapse of the autocracy in Russia, and the first step to allowing Lenin and the Bolshevik party to eventually gain control of the state. In the 19th century, Russia was one of the largest and most backward states on the European continent. The peasants of the country remained serfs until the mid-1800s, and even when they gained their freedom, they were enslaved to debt and redemption payments to their landlords that they would never be able to pay back. When they gained their freedom and were given small plots of land, the legal ties peasants did have to the states were weakened as nobles enhanced their own rights. This left peasants feeling even more detached from their…
The Russian Revolution was a major turning point in Russian history. Destructive, dangerous, harsh, and cruel are words that characterize the Russian Revolution. The Russian Revolution caused major political changes in Russia. The Russian Revolution had many negative outcomes, but it also had some positive outcomes. The Russian Revolution was a failure because there was a loss of many freedoms such as press, speech, and equality.…
A quote from a peasant woman in the reign of Alexander II illustrates how the peasants were heavily taxed “O, wretched is our life, little our land, great are our taxes, and we do not know what to do”. The raised taxation made many peasants destitute, along with the poll tax which, according to Kotsonis, “remained the largest single direct tax, and by now it fell exclusively on peasants”. Alexander efficaciously made the peasants situation worse than when they were under serfdom. Leontovitsch deeply supports this suggesting that peasants had financial burdens after the emancipation as “Immediately after the emancipation, taxes and redemption payments were higher than the income that could be derived from the allotment land”. This can be viewed as superficial, Alexander II sought change, in his coronation Manifesto he planned reform, Karesh and Hurvitz state “Many poor people in Russia benefited: back taxes were cancelled, tax exemptions granted, better distribution of poll tax announced”.…
If one were to have asked a Russian peasant what revolution means to them, they might answer samovol’shchina, or, translated “doing what you want.” In Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book The Russian Revolution she traces three broad themes through the course of the revolution that existed before 1917 and would continue until about the time of 1934. She examines the class struggle that was an important part of the revolution as well as the leadership that lead the Russian citizens through these tumuloous decades and she also examines the modernization that Russia experienced. Fitzpatrick breaks her book down in a chronological order in which she spends her introduction writing about the immediate events that happened prior to the outbreak of the revolution so that the reader, whether an undergraduate student, graduate student or just a fan of Russian history, can gain a true understanding of the air of change that was happening in…
The Tsarist regime in Russia had begun deteriorating in the early 1900s due to widespread political, social, and economic instability. Both the Russo-Japanese War and WW1 exacerbated the situation, leading to higher levels of discontent amongst the people. Below I will analyse the fall of Tsarist Russia from 3 aspects: the political, social, and economic before and after the wars, and explain how each of these factors played a crucial role in the collapse of the Tsarist regime. The extent of political instability in Tsarist Russia became apparent in the 1900s.…
Peasants made up 80% of the Russian population at the time and although they manly were loyal followers of the Tsar, many supported the Social Revolutionaries as there was a large discontent over land as most of the land was owned by the aristocracy (who made up only 1.5% of the population) and the church. This strained relationship between the Tsar and his people was shown when in 1903 rules on censorship and repressive measures were relaxed, which lead to ‘an explosion of anti-government pamphlets, books and newspapers’ 8 this shows that many people were unhappy with the way the Tsar ruled. An example of the people protesting against the way the Tsar ruled was on Sunday, 22 January 1905, also known as Bloody Sunday. On this day 200,000 protesters who were mainly workers, led by the priest Father Gapon marched to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg with a petition for the Tsar, all carrying pictures of the Tsar to show respect.…
Dead Souls Euro Paper During the Nineteenth century in Russia, many people had serfs and land, which was a form of wealth just like the feudal system in Europe. There were also some people who tried to exploit the wealth like Pavel Ivanovich in the book Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. Some major points in the book include the Social class based around the amount of serfs and land a person owned, the poverty of serfs, and the ways wealthy children were treated. Pavel tries many times to buy a landowner’s dead peasants because even if he gets the dead souls, they are still worth money and power. Nikolai Gogol was born on March thirty-first 1809 near Poltava Ukraine which at the time was in the Russian Empire.…
As the first socialist country in the world, Russia had a lengthy and tough time to change and develop the country in 1917. The Russian Revolution of 1917 covers the major events such as the February Revolution and the October Revolution that result in the established of the Soviet Union. The Russian Revolution caused the encounter of labors and people. Their sacrifices and protests eventually made the revolution come true. Since the socialist government overthrew the czarist government, there were both political and economic exchanges occurred in the revolution.…
distinguishing itself two distinct classes, namely: The Nobleza, with the King at the helm, was with the aristocracy, the privileged class in Russia. They ran the government, were the largest owners, they enjoyed all their rights and, also, of all privileges. Others showed themselves and insensitive to the needs and sufferings of the people. The people, was made up of professionals, employees, workers and peasants, who cried because they recognize their freedoms and rights, because disappear exploitation, excessive hours of work and low wages; They asked also, a better distribution of land and the prevalence of justice regardless of class. They were the backbone of the Russian Revolution, because thanks to the triumph of this, they could transform a feudal state into a prosperous nation "USSR", eager to universal dominion.…