Evaluation of the agricultural
Evaluation of the agriculturalEVALUATION OF THE AGRICULTURAL, POLITICAL, INDUSTRIAL AND MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS IN RUSSIA
1906-1913
The agricultural, political, industrial and military situation in Russia during years 1906-1913 had to over cope with huge reforms and developments.
Agriculture was in very bad stage due to the backward farming. This often caused famines and food shortages. The political situation was changing very quickly due to the Government problems, the Tsar was an absolute ruler. Others wanted to share the power. Russian industry was undergoing great changes. An industrial revolution was happening. After the disaster war with Japan there was a navy plan which would have made Russia the third world greatest naval power in the world by 1931. All of this led to certain changes in the regime that was used.
A new chief minister Stolypin planned important changes in the countryside. He wanted to prevent another revolution carried out by peasants and he wanted to turn Russia into modern industrial country. For this to happen Russia would had to be more efficient to produce the extra food for the increasing numbers of industrial workers. In 1906 he introduced measures which allowed peasants to leave the mir. The mir operated a system like England in the Middle Ages.
Every village had a number of fields which were divided into long thin strips. Each family would have at least one strip in each field so that everyone got a share of the best and the worst land. However, this system was very inefficient, because of the following facts. A lot of time was wasted by travelling between the stripes. Also all farmers didn't like the idea of growing the same crop in each field.. The small field area of the stripes didn't encourage an ambitions of peasants to buy machinery. The old techniques were used, mostly the wooden plough. Only few animals were kept, so without manure to fertilize the crop the mir used a rotation system. Stolypin hoped that if peasants left the mir they would buy the stripes around them and create efficient modern farms which would produce more food per hectare. Furthermore, these rich peasants or kulaks would want to spend their new wealth on consumer goods which would then stimulate Russian industrial production. He also thought that the kulaks would be thankful that Tsar allowed them to became wealthy, and that in return, they would support him. In 1911 he was assassinated and the new minister didn't support his Stolypin's ideas.
In the October manifesto the Tsar had won the support of many liberals with his promise of an elected parliament or Duma. Therefore elections were held and in 1906 the Duma met for the first time....
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