Economic and social developments

• • It removed a barrier to industrial growth as it didn't allow for an industrial society to emerge, leaving them in this cycle of internal market and agricultural lifestyle. 


  How was the emancipation an economic turning point?
• Due to an absence of a middle class, it had to be driven by the State to match the economy of the West. 


  What was the Russian economy driven by
• • First railway competed in 1837 linking St Petersburg and Moscow, opening in 1851.
  • Due to state support, there was a huge expansion of it in 1855-94 and by the mid 1890s 60% of the railway system in Russia was owned by the state. 


  Railways:
• • everything in terms of the practice remained pretty much the same since the emancipation and the only difference is that the quality of the ploughland was reduced.
  • The average peasant received less than 4 hectares of land
  • High taxes, grain requisitioning, redemption payments and traditional farming methods hindered the change in agriculture.

  Agriculture
• Peasants' (1883) and Nobles (1885) Land Bank to help with land purchase and the loans often increased debts.

  Loans
• • held funds and reserves of land
  • set up to help peasants who wanted to buy land so they could do it directly from the nobles.
  • interest rates were held deliberately low which helped to increase peasant ownership 1877-1905, over 26 million hectares passed into peasants hands.
  • They also helped to set up inefficient farms and were set up in the first place to help with legal costs of land transfer to benefit the nobles.

  Land Banks
• Most private industrial enterprises were held by traditional nobility during Alex II's reign but from the 1890s non-nobles could become new niche factory-owners which is what highlighted the mistreatment of the workers as they felt a moral obilgation to look after them.

  Factory ownership
• Small but diverse group of nobles and after the emancipation their landholdings declined. They had to pay off their debt and some even abandoned inefficient farms to turn to more beneficial methods.

  • 1880: 1/5 of uni professors came from hereditary nobility
  • 1882: more than 700 nobles had their own businesses in Moscow
  • Overall, most serf-owners retained their wealth and status after the emancipation. 


  Landed elite
• There was a growth in this class due to the rise in education. Bankers, teachers and admin grew in demand but their numbers added up to 1.5 million by 1897. Contracts to build railway and loans that set up factories provided opportunities for enterprises.

  Middle class:
• • very small number of them (2% of the population)
  • it was common for peasants to move into towns temporarily then move back in times of harvest
  • Some did sold up and left the countryside
  • conditions of cities would be grim and factories paid workers very little
  • 1882-90 reforms on regulation on child labour, working hours reduced, excessive fines and payments in kind but these contributed very little.

  Urban working class
• • Also divided. At the top there is kulaks who bought up land by using the loans from the Peasant Land Bank. They also employed labour and acted as 'pawn brokers' to buy grain of the poorer peasants to get them through the winter but selling it back in the spring at inflated prices.
  • Poorest peasants turned into landless labourers and according to a zemstva survey in the 1880s found that two of every 3 former serfs in the Tamov region were unable to feed their household without falling into debt. 


  Position of the peasantry
• • Varied throughout the country
  • Areas where there were former state peasants were better off because in comparison to former privately owned serfs, they were granted more land.
  • Despite improvement of healthcare by the zemstva, a large proportion of peasants were classed as being too unit for the military and the mortality rate was higher than in other EU countries.
  • Average life expectancy: 27 yrs for males and 29 yrs compared to 45 yrs in England.

  Living standards
• Not connected with religious or spiritual matters. 


  Secular:
• • 70% of the population was subscribed to it
  • It had a close bond with the tsarist regime and believed that the Russian Land was chosen by God to save the world.
  • Tsar believed to be a saint on the world.
  • By late 19th tsar's position became more secular but Russia was still a strongly Orthodox state and was a beneficial means of control of the peasants who were ill-educated and superstitious. 


  Why was the Orthodox Church so significant
• • Every peasant hut had it's icon and superstition and religion was a part of the peasant culture
  • Priests had close ties with their village and were expected to read out Imperial Manifestos and decrees, keep stats (such as birth rates), fish out opposition and inform to the police.
  • They were even encouraged to pass statements given in Holy Confession to authorities even thought this is against the rules of the Church.

  Religion and the countryside
• • Minister of Internal Affairs set up an Ecclesiastical Commission to look into the Church organisation and practice in 1862
  • 1868: reforms introduced to educate priests better 


  Church influence during Alex II
• • Given increased control over primary education
  • Strict censorship controls and Church courts which judged moral and 'social' crimes to which if they were found guilty, they would be given punishments. 


  Alex III and the Church
• • Enabled to promote Orthodoxy and it became an offence to convert from Orthodoxy to another religion or criticise it through publications
  • Radical serfs (old believers) settled in parts of Serbia were persecuted
  • Ukrainian and Armenian church were subject to persecution.
  • More than 8,500 Muslims and 50,000 pagans were converted to Orthodoxy.


  Russification and the church
• Rejected the reforms to the Orthodox liturgy in 17th century and fled to Siberia to escape persecution, some remain there to this day.

  Old believers
• • They had not kept with the pace of urbanisation so they had less relevance for those who worked in factories and tenement blocks who were attracted to the teaching of socialism.
  • Even in the countryside, superstition held precedent over religion as priests were viewed as money-grasping and less than perfect role-models. 


  Did the orthodox church influence everyone equally?
• • Enjoyed higher standards of living, quite a lot of them were producing foodstuff for the market
  • They were able to pay their mortgages, taxes and even have some money to spare which may have been explained by the rise is demand for consumer goods
  • Younger peasants who were more literate were able to deal with new agricultural technologies and money economy such as loans
  • They were more likely to go to cities, want education and social betterment 


  Changes in countryside