To what extent did the Russian economy and government change in the years 1881-1914?
Throughout the years 1881-1914 there were many different people in charge of certain aspects of the country and so many things were changed but not all the changes were good. Some things didn’t get changed and not all the people left in charge were as beneficial to the country as what they seemed.
The economy changed in many ways, the first real minister of finance was Bunge and he was in charge between 1881 and 1887, within these six years he managed to found a peasants land bank which offered them support and considering the majority of Russia were peasants getting them help and support was very beneficial, Bunge also reduced the tax they paid. The next minister of finance was Vyshnegradsky and he was apparent between the years 1887 and 1891, he was the first person to successfully encourage foreign investment and Russia’s economy wasn’t good at the time and so doing this was very useful, although he did things that were good for the country’s economy he didn’t have the peasants welfare at mind when he increased taxes upon them to help with the increase in exportation. Vyshnegradsky also managed to encourage the peasants to try to move out of central Russia and into Siberia. Witte took over from Vyshnegradsky in was responsible for the ‘Great Spurt’ that occurred in 1892 till 1903. Witte aimed to strengthen Russia economically, he saw the best way to do this by industrialisation, to do this he obtained loans from foreign countries such as France, between 1897 and 1900 Russia got 144 million roubles purely from foreign investment. In Russia the coal and iron production increased, in the 1890’s the industrial growth increased by 8% each year, this meant that the Trans-Siberian railways was almost complete by 1903. The resources in places like Siberia were rapidly increasing and due to the railways it was becoming easier to send and receive these resources. Witte was also behind the idea of developing more and more factories in the cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, he then instructed the peasants to go there to work, by 1897 he was increasing the taxes on the peasants to help gain more money for industrialisation and he also made their working day 11.5 hours. After Witte was the minister of finance Stolypin became the prime minister, he reigned from 1906 until 1911 and in that short time he helped the peasants to become free again. After all the industrialisation Stolypin made a law in 1906 which allowed the peasants to break free from the mir so they could own land. Stolypin helped to increase the agricultural production again, making it rise from 45.9 million tonnes in 1906 to 61.7 million tonnes in 1913. The economy did make many changes and between the finance ministers and Stolypin there were many sensible and useful decisions made that did ultimately help Russia to become more industrialised therefore more like the other countries at the time.
Some changes were not as efficient as what they’d probably hoped for, in Bunge’s six years as a finance minister he didn’t do a lot and so didn’t appear as effective. Although Vyshnegradsky helped the economy in many ways for example obtaining loans from foreign countries he was very harsh on the peasants and so was therefore sacked in 1891 due to the famine he ultimately caused, which resulted in between 1.5 and 2 million peasants dying. Witte can be seen as the most beneifical man when it comes down to the economy, he made many changes that resulted in great things but he didn’t help with when it came to the working and living conditions of the peasants, due to his extremity with the peasants work ethic and his taxation strikes become frequent as peasants were angry. Out of all the countries Russia was also in the most debt out of all the European countries in 1914, the debt was unmanageable and realistically Russia knew they would never be able to pay it back. At first Russia had the
