Social Divisions

• Peasants continued to live at the substience level because of the Great Famine of 1891-92.
• Grain output per acre in Russia was 1/3 of that compared to Britain and Germany.
• Peasants were driven hard to produce surplus for export and they were forced to pay high taxes.
• The rural population made living conditions worse and their holdings were divided by the sons and the amount of land families had.
• Kulaks could afford to employ labour and the gulf between kulaks and labourers widened in society.
• Mortality rates for peasants were high and they had limited access access to doctors.
• Living standards varied in Russia but there was prosperity in Ukraine.
• Backward farming methods were still favoured in Central Russia which is where Bolshevik support mostly came from.
• 1/3 of nobility land was transferred to peasants and dwellers between 1861 and 1914 but most nobles retained their wealth and positions in government.
• A middle class emerged as industrialisation gained pace with many of them serving on the zemstva.
• The Orthodox Church had close ties with Tsarism because the Tsar allegedly ruled by "divine right">
• The Orthodox Church exercised sway over a superstitious peasantry which benefitted the Tsarist regime.
• Priests had close ties to the village and they were expected to read out decrees.
• The Church exercised censorship and the courts would hand down punishments for social and moral crimes.
• The Church had increased control over primary education under Alexander III and it became a crime to convert to another faith.
• The Church had less hold of the growing working class in the cities where socialist ideas had more appeal.
• Economic developments brought new opportunities for women and education was expanded.
• 45% of children between the ages of 8 and 11 were in primary school by 1914.
• Popular press flourished after censorship ended in 1905.
• Novels by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were cheaply produced for the newly literate.
• Russia culture by 1914 had embraced more than the elite.
• Millions of people remained respectful to autocracy and the Orthodox Church even after cultural changes.
• Millions went out on the streets for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty in 1913.