Economics: 1905-1914

Economics: 1905-1914

1. Stolypin and land reform

   • De-relovutionising the peasants: peasants crippled by mortgage repayments, led to inefficient farming and social unrest thus repayments were cancelled to restore peasant sense of security
   • 'Wager on the strong': replaced strip system with independent farming, land bank established to provide funds for setting up independent farms, intended to create a new wealthier peasant class, also included schemes to populate remoter areas such as Siberia
   • Strengths: Tsarist tax returns show that peasants were paying higher taxes in 1890s, sign that their farming was producing high profits, Stolypin's land policy showed co-operation within the duma,
   • Failures: Peasantry still remained conservative thus unwilling to change, progress wasn't enough modernise Russian agriculture, Stolypin's assasination led to decrease in peasants setting up farms

2. Economy after Witte

   • Economic spurt of 1890's resulted in increase in population of towns and cities, govt did not effectively deal with this which lead to poverty in cities
   • Economic expansion however not much benefitted workers the number which was rapidly increasing, led to increased strikes and disturbances
   • Some suggest that before WW1, Russia was in process of developing into a modern industrial state, therefore economic expansion was interrupted by WW1 and political problems
   • Russia's economic was relatively stable yet not strong enough to deal with the rising social and political pressures of the time such as striking