At
the beginning of the twentieth century, the vast majority of Russia’s people
were agriculturists. About 85 % of the Russian empire’s population earned their
living from agriculture. This proportion was higher than in most European
countries. For instance, in France and Germany the proportion was between 40 %
and 50%. In the empire, cultivators produced for the market as well as for
their own needs and Russia were a major exporter of grain. The
government had experimented with laissez
faire capitalist policies, but this strategy largely failed to
gain traction within the Russian economy until the 1890s. Meanwhile,
"agricultural productivity stagnated, while international prices for grain
dropped, and Russia’s foreign debt and need for imports grew. War and military
preparations continued to consume government revenues. At the same time, the
peasant taxpayers' ability to pay was strained to the utmost, leading to
widespread famine in 1891."
laissez faire is an economic system in which transactions
between private parties are free from government interference such as regulations, privileges, tariffs,
and subsidies. The phrase laissez-faire is part of a larger French phrase
and literally translates to "let (it/them) go", but in this context
usually means to "let go".
Labour problem:
In the 1890s, under the minister of finance Sergei
Witte (Image: Left), a crash governmental programme was proposed to promote
industrialization. His policies included heavy government expenditures for
railroad building and operations, subsidies and supporting services for private
industrialists, high protective tariffs for Russian industries (especially
heavy industry), an increase in exports, currency stabilization, and
encouragement of foreign investments. His plan was successful and during
the 1890s "Russian industrial growth averaged 8 % per year. Railroad
mileage grew from a very substantial base by 40 % between 1892 and 1902."
Industry
was found in pockets. Prominent industrial areas were St Petersburg and Moscow.
Craftsmen undertook much of the production, but large factories existed
alongside craft workshops. Many factories were set up in the 1890s, when
Russia’s railway network was extended, and foreign investment in industry
increased. Coal production doubled and iron and steel output quadrupled. By the
1900s, in some areas factory workers and craftsmen were almost equal in number.
Industrial
workers began to feel dissatisfaction with the Tsarist government despite the
protective labour laws the government decreed. Some of those laws included the
prohibition of children under 12 from working, with the exception of night work
in glass factories. Employment of those who were between the ages of 12 and 15
was prohibited on Sundays and holidays. Workers had to be paid in cash at least
once a month, and limits were placed on the size and bases of fines for workers
who were tardy. Employers were also prohibited from charging workers for the
cost of lighting of the shops and plants. Most industry was the private
property of industrialists. Government supervised large factories to ensure
minimum wages and limited hours of work. But
factory inspectors could not prevent rules being broken.
In craft units and small workshops, the working day was sometimes 15 hours, compared with 10 or 12 hours in factories. Accommodation varied from rooms to dormitories. Workers were a divided social group. Some had strong links with the villages from which they came. Others had settled in cities permanently. Workers were divided by skill. A metalworker of St. Petersburg recalled, ‘Metalworkers considered themselves aristocrats among other workers. Their occupations demanded more training and skill . . . .’ Women made up 31% of the factory labour force by 1914, but they were paid less than men (between half and three-quarters of a man’s wage). Divisions among workers showed themselves in dress and manners too. Some workers formed associations to help members in times of unemployment or financial hardship but such associations were few. Despite divisions, workers did unite to strike work (stop work) when they disagreed with employers about dismissals or work conditions. These discontented, radicalized workers became key to the revolution by participating in illegal strikes and revolutionary protests. These strikes took place frequently in the textile industry during 1896-1897, and in the metal industry during 1902.
Agrarian problem:
Every
year thousands of nobles who found themselves in debt either mortgaged their
estates to the noble land bank or sold their land to municipalities, merchants,
or peasants. By the time of the
revolution, the nobility had sold off one-third of its land holding and
mortgaged another third. In the
countryside, peasants cultivated most of the land. But the nobility, the crown
and the Orthodox Church owned large properties. The government hoped to
make peasants — recently emancipated from serfdom — a politically conservative,
land-holding class by enacting laws to enable peasants to purchase land from
nobility, paying small installments over many decades. The land, known as
“allotment land”, would not be owned
by individual peasants, but would be owned by the community of peasants;
individual peasants would have rights to strips of land that were assigned to
them under the open field system. Unfortunately a peasant was unable to
sell or mortgage his piece of land so in practice he could not renounce his
rights to his land and thus he would be required to pay his share of redemption
dues to the village commune. The government had created this plan to
ensure the proletarianisation of the peasants would never happen, but the
peasants were not given enough land to provide for their
needs. "Their earnings were often so small that they could neither
buy the food they needed nor keep up the payment of taxes and redemption dues
they owed the government for their land allotments. As time went on, the
situation grew worse. Masses of hungry peasants roamed the countryside looking
for work and would sometimes walk hundreds of miles to find it. Desperate
peasants proved capable of violence."In the provinces of Kharkov and Poltava in 1902, thousands of them, ignoring restraints and authority, burst
out in a rebellious fury that led to extensive destruction of property and
looting of noble homes before troops could be brought to subdue and punish
them." These violent outbreaks caught the attention of the
government, so they created numerous committees to investigate the causes of
these violent outbursts from the peasants. The results of their investigation
found that there was no part of the countryside that was prosperous; some
parts, especially the fertile areas known as "black-soil region", were in a state of decline.
Like
workers, peasants too were divided. They were also deeply religious. But except
in a few cases they had no respect for the nobility. Nobles got their power and position through their services to the Tsar, not through local
popularity. This was unlike France where, during the French
Revolution in Brittany, peasants respected nobles and fought for
them. In Russia, peasants wanted the
land of the nobles to be
given to them. Frequently, they refused to pay rent and even murdered landlords. In 1902, this occurred on a
large scale in south
Russia. And in 1905, such incidents took place all over Russia. Russian
peasants were different from other European peasants in another way. They
pooled their land together periodically and their commune (mir) divided it according to the needs of individual
families.
The open-field
system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during
the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in parts of western
Europe, Russia, Iran and Turkey. Under the open-field
system, each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually
several hundred acres each, which were divided into many narrow strips of land.
The strips or selions were cultivated by individuals or peasant
families, often called tenants or serfs. The holdings of a manor also
included woodland and pasture areas for common usage and fields belonging to
the lord of the manor and the church. The farmers customarily lived in
individual houses in a nucleated village with a much larger manor house and church
nearby. The open-field system necessitated co-operation among the inhabitants
of the manor.
Chernozem (from Ukrainian: чорнозем,
translated as "black soil, dirt or earth") is a black-coloured soil containing
a high percentage of humus (7% to 15%), and high percentages of phosphoric
acids, phosphorus an dammonia. Chernozem is very fertile
and produces a high agricultural yield.
Nationality problem:
Russia was a multi-ethnic empire. Nineteenth-century
Russians saw cultures and religions in a clear hierarchy. Non-Russian cultures
were tolerated in the empire but were not necessarily respected. "European
civilization was valued over Asian or African culture, and Christianity was on
the whole considered more progressive and 'true' than other religions."
For generations, Russian Jews had been considered
a special problem. "The official view had come to be that they were enemies of
Christianity, exploiters of the peasantry, and the fountain head of the
revolutionary movement." Like other minorities in Russia, the Jews
lived in "miserable and circumscribed lives, forbidden to settle or
acquire land outside the cities and towns, legally limited in attendance at
secondary school and higher schools, virtually barred from legal professions,
denied the right to vote for municipal councilors, and excluded from services
in the Navy or the Guards."
Educated class as a problem:
The Minister
of the Interior, Plehve,
designated the schools as a pressing problem for the government.
Student were taking up problems that were unrelated
to their "proper employment", and were taking part in open disorderly
displays of defiance and radicalism. This was originally perceived by the
government as lack of proper training in patriotism and religion. The government
was disturbed by the widespread behavior but felt it could be fixed. In fact, when the official decision to overhaul the
whole educational system was finally made, in 1904, and to that end Vladimir
Glazov, head of General Staff Academy, was selected as Minister of
Education, the students had grown bolder and more resistant than ever.
