19th Century Russia

Geography
1. Largest continuous land empire
2. Sparsely populated
  1. Towns and cities concentrated in West
3. Poor transport infrastructure
  1. 1900 - Trans-Siberian Railway
    1. 90,000 workers
    2. 12 years
    3. 6,000 km
    4. Moscow to Vladivostok
4. Multinational
  1. in 1897 44% Russian
  2. 6% Poles
  3. Russian Orthodox Church
    1. Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod
    2. Empire also contained Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Animists
Tsarist Regime
1. Autocracy
  1. One person has supreme and unlimited power (Tsar)
  2. Laws made by ukase (imperial decree)
2. Huge bureaucracy
  1. Inefficiency and corruption
3. Only 4 state officials for every thousand people
4. Okhrana
  1. By 1898 nearly 300,000 people had been exiled to Siberia
Society
1. Upper class
  1. 1% of population
  2. Owned 25% of land
  3. Relied on Tsar for wealth and position
2. Small 'middle class'
  1. Businessmen, industrialists, doctors, lawyers and teachers
  2. Educated and politically aware
    1. Resentment of autocracy
3. Industrial workers
  1. <5%
  2. Bad working conditions
  3. Mostly ex - peasants
    1. By 1900 almost 1/3 had fathers who had been workers
  4. 57.8% literacy rate
  5. Massive strikes 1896 and 1897
4. Peasants
  1. 80%
  2. 1861 emancipation
    1. Redemption payments
  3. Subsistence farming
  4. Mir
    1. Assembly made up of heads of each household in a village
  5. Poor, illiterate and uneducated
  6. 400,000 died of starvation 1891
  7. Kulaks
    1. Wealthier class of peasants
Economy
1. Agrarian
  1. Weak compared to industrial Europe
  2. Subsistence agriculture
2. Poor road and rail networks
  1. Limiting communication and trade
3. 1860-1900 population of cities had doubled
  1. Only 15% lived in cities and towns
4. Not enough money to finance industrial growth

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19th Century Russia

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	Created by Charlotte Delaforce over 9 years ago