Russia Living Conditions

In the 19th century, Russia was a huge country with millions of extremely poor farming peasants called serfs. They believed that the Tsar was second only to god in power, and that tsar had control over everyone.

Food is one of their main struggles. There is nothing much left to eat in Russia during that time because the government only has a limited supply of food so they can only give out a small number of ration cards to their people. This disturbs normal daily life and happiness like bread for example. Lev narrates “The entire city was starving, no one had enough to eat, and still, everyone cursed the bread, the sawdust. flavor, how hard it got in the cold. People broke their teeth trying to chew it” (Benioff, 11). The bakeries have to make bread with cottonseed, cellulose, and sawdust as the flour and grain grew scarce. This is not right because people can’t have real food. Meanwhile, the delicious tasting, beautiful sight, and good touch of actual food bring true happiness on people face. Yet, making bread is not the only thing that people can’t enjoy.

Russia struggled to provide food for its populations. Citizens took control into their own hands, Ludovic Naudeau wrote in October 1917, “One morning recently I was awakened by the cries of my neighbor in the next room. His boots had been stolen. The same day the manager of a newspaper office told me that he had been robbed six of pairs of pantaloons, … “Four hundred thefts every night!” he cried; that is the average for the last two weeks,”(One Aspect of Bolshevist Liberty). Russia could not even uphold itself because the economy was not successful compared to other countries. This led people to desire a change in the government; therefore this led to the Russian Revolution. People went to different maters to get what they wanted such as stealing since they were not getting the aid that they needed and they needed financial support. This caused them to protest against their government because many people from the lower class could not take care of their families. This cause led to a greater impact compared to Tsarist weak authority.

Stalin’s policy priorities were not building a ‘worker’s paradise’ or a classless society, but protecting Russia from war and invasion. In 1928, Stalin launched the first of two ambitious five-year plans to modernize and industrialize the Soviet economy. These programs brought rapid progress – but also significant death and suffering. Stalin’s decision to nationalize agricultural production dispossessed millions of peasants, forcing them from their land to labor on gigantic state-run collective farms. Grain was sold abroad to finance Soviet industrial projects, leading to food shortages and disastrous famines in the mid-1930s. Soviet Russia was dragged into the 20th century, transforming from a backward agrarian empire into a modern industrial superpower – but this came at extraordinary human cost.

Russia's overthrows and shortage caused revolutionary upheaval and massive inflation, which led to deprived infrastructure. During World War I, Russian society naturally caused great dissatisfaction among the serfs. As the revolution wore on, numerous reform and Tsar Nicholas II, a ruler, tried to change Russia's social structure and government. Among the masses, there was discontentment with Russia's social system and living conditions. Laborers worked and lived in horrendous conditions, which played a crucial role in aggravating the condition of workers and peasants. As a result, peasants starved and Russia’s armies were overpowered on the battlefield because much of its terrain was occupied by enemies. Hence, Imperial Russia was a

The peasantry made up a huge proportion of the population and the stability of the Russia depended on their compliance. There had been growing peasant resentments over noble ownership and this resulted in the peasants trying to overthrow the landowners. The commune were poorly organised and

The reforms Stolypin introduced did have an immediate impact. 15% of the peasantry took on new opportunities. In fact by 1914 10% had consolidated their holdings and 25% had left the communes However after their initial rush, the significance and success decreased quite considerably. Moreover black earth regions were still very backward. As well, it made the Marxist unhappy. Making the Peasant content meant no revolution. Subsequently there was only a certain extent that Russia could be stable to.

Money was required for Russia to build their own industrial base to support themselves. To build this infrastructure they had to borrow money from other countries. In exchange Russia would give them grains. Hence, Russia’s economy depended on the peasant who had to feed themselves & the bourgeoisie.The peasants weren’t productive enough. As a result, Stalin started to collect agriculture to finance industrialization (New World Encyclopedia contributors, 2014). Economics historians believe it to be the fastest economic growth rate ever achieved. In 1932-1933 the 4th greatest famine occured in the USSR due to collectivication (Fitzgerald, 2013). The workers building and working in these industries were unpaid laborers and prisoners (New World Encyclopedia contributors, 2014). Because there was about ~7 million - 15 million prisoners in labor camps and they were working in industries, those camps were now necessary for the prosperity of Russia’s economy (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d.). With all those measures in place the productions of coal, pig iron & steel increased (New World Encyclopedia contributors,

What were the social circumstances that gave rise to the Russian Revolution? Explain why the revolutionaries adopted a form of communism grounded in rapid industrialization and central planning? Poverty seems to be the biggest driver for social circumstances leading up to the Russian Revolution. There were few rich and many poor including those that were considered serfs. Serfs were individuals that lived and worked on farms and when the farms were sold, were included in the sale. It is very much like slavery. The revolutionaries adopted communism because they were following the idea of Karl Marx. The revolutionaries saw capitalism as being similar to what they had before the revolution. They felt that communism worked towards the common good as everyone worked together and share what was

These effects however were more severe under Lenin and Stalin as they sought to increase grain production by coercion. While Lenin under War communism used grain requisitioning to forcefully collect peasant surpluses from them Stalin used collectivisation to force peasants to collaborate to produce as much food as possible. Similarly in both cases the peasants refused to conform; knowing that any surplus would be confiscated the peasant produced the barest minimum to feed themselves and their family and even less food was available for Russia. One of the greatest impacts were the famines that occurred in 1921 under Lenin where the grain harvest produced less than half the amount gathered in 1931 and Russia had international help from countries such as the USA. However these impacts were the greatest under Stalin. The amount of bread produced fell from 250.4 (kilograms per head) in 1928 to 214.6 in 1932. The impacts of collectivisation were at its worst in 1932-32 when occurred what many people describe as a self-made national famine. Stalin’s ‘’official silence’’ of the situation meant it wasn’t addressed and thus collectivisation killed between 10-15 million peasants and failed to increase agricultural output. Though a similar devastating famine occurred under

The people saw a time of unification and of increased economic profits.  For about 175 years, the Russian Empire experienced a little bit of everything, from Industrialization to revolutions, to social changes, to numerous wars. At the beginning of this time period, the Russians found themselves struggling with some of the most basic things the rest of Europe had--roads.  Russia had been lacking the infrastructure to connect its' large territory, and help bridge the gaps between the people in the empire.  Not only that, but after all of the famines and other difficulties Russia was having, there was a large migration into urban areas, leaving many places along the countryside to fend for themselves.  And the peasants in these areas were often burdened with such heavy taxes, they could not afford to feed their own family, let alone get to a market in an attempt to make a

Russia was a country rich in raw materials that had been undisturbed by modern extraction and refining techniques until then, however, the majority of the countries resource rich areas were nowhere near any railways, with the bulk of the heavy materials such as steel, iron, coal and copper being in the Urals, almost 1,000km away from the nearest railway system in 1860. Oil, another key ingredient in industrialisation was almost 1,500km away to the south, in the Caucasus area3. This lack of transportation in a period when steam powered machines were producing the goods and steam powered trains were delivering them and leading the industrialisation in other countries like Britain, the USA and a future foe in Germany is an indicator of the distance that Russia was behind its rivals under the leadership of the Tsar. So the Tsar’s Russia was largely an agrarian one, but even in the agricultural sector Russia was lagging far behind the rest of the West in terms of the methods employed by farmers, little fertiliser was used and the labour saving machines used in countries with enormous agricultural output like the US were nowhere near as widespread in Russia. The weaknesses of the Tsar’s management of the agricultural sector were highlighted in 1891 when famine hit. Due to the heavy tax on consumer goods, peasants had been forced to sell more of their

In their society and circumstances both slaves and serfs were the bottom of the social class. They were unfairly treated, and punished if they did something wrong. “...he was deprived of all protection against the abuse of seignorial authority, which was exercised without restraint…” (Melbourne) Both also worked long hours and needed to do whatever their owner or master told them to do. If they had children, they automatically became either slaves or serfs. When the factory industry in Russia was introduced and domestic and foreign trade increased, the area and population of Russia also increased, making landowners wanting to have more land, and therefore needing more serfs. (Blum, 3-12) The serfdom population of Russia was over one-third of its total population.

A large part of the problem was serfdom - Russia needed millions of industrial workers, to free up land and to force the nobility to relinquish power to a certain extent. The Tsar was also aware that much of western Europe looked on serfdom as being akin to slavery, and looked down on Russia as a result. As one historian has remarked: 'The strip system, involving the use of antiquated farming implements and techniques, had long ago been abandoned on the agriculturally advanced nations. Its continued use in Russia was a major reason why the nation could not meet it's food needs. '[1]

In serfdom system of Russia, the Russian czar needed revenue to rule his country such as infrastructure projects, businesses and supplies for the war. The only source of revenue is through the people. Since the land was vast and needed constant control, the Czar granted lands to nobles, in which their production would generate revenue for the czar. The nobles needed to cultivate the land they were allotted and therefore needed people to grow crops and secure the land from other nobles.