Working conditions

• Emancipation of the serfs was in 1861
• Under AII, Peasants' land was poorer quality and received less than they had been farming before emancipation
• After the emancipation decree, they struggled to earn enough from land to make redemption payments. (6% interest over 49 years)
• Peasants only had legal rights to the land after the last payment (AII)
• AIII- the Peasant land bank was set up in 1883 and allowed enterprising peasants to buy up land. Peasants continued to be exploited and agriculture remained underdeveloped
• NII- Stolypin aimed to use land distribution to build and strengthen class of more able people and so more land was available to the Peasant Land Bank
• In WWI 15 million peasants mobilised for the war effort
• Under NII, peasants were able to consolidate their strips into small landholdings
• Stolypin was largely unsuccessful in achieving his aims and whilst there was some increase in productivity and more peasants owned land, they continued to strip farm
• (Lenin) introduction of Rabkrin in 1920. Collectivisation resulted in the requirement that peasants worked cooperatively to set targets which were rarely achieved
• In 1941, 98% of all peasant households worked on collectives.
• (Stalin) investment in tractors increased productivity
• (Stalin) post WW2 there were high grain quotas and collectivisation was reimposed which led to famine. Many peasants left rural for urban areas
• Collective farms were established during Lenin's time but it wasn't until Stalin came into power that he forced peasants onto them. He saw this as necessary to increase agricultural production and make the country self sufficient.
• (Khrushchev) virgin land campaign influenced conditions under which peasants worked
• Peasants were provided with more incentives to produce food via raising prices or state procurements.
• (Khrushchev) investment made in new techniques and technology increased productivity and work was more regulated
• NII- (1905 revolution) Stolypin Land reforms; the power of the mir was reduced so that peasants could own land individually and could consolidate their strips into on farm and leave the village if they wanted to
• By 1914, 2.5 million households owned land
• BUT by 1914 only 10% of peasants had left the mir
• In 1917 after the Feb revoltuion, 95% of the peasants returned to the mir
• BY 1916, less than 10% of land was noble landholdings
• (NII) Some communes did use new methods such as crop rotation and fertiliser. Grain production increased by 2.1% annually
• Lenin- (RCW) the introduction of the NEP meant that peasants had to give up part of their crop as a tax but could sell the rest for a profit