How far do you agree that the economic position of the peasantry in Russiawas stronger in the period between the Emancipation and the Revolution than it was under Lenin and Stalin?

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Thursday, 3rd October 2003                                                                                    Jad Salfiti

A2 History Coursework: Unit 5c ‘The Making of Modern Russia’, 1856-1964

b) How far do you agree that the economic position of the peasantry in Russia was stronger in the period between the Emancipation and the Revolution than it was under Lenin and Stalin?

Agricultural policy in Russia throughout Russia between 1856 and 1964 has always been characterised by a hidden agenda. The Tsars used agricultural policy to obstruct a revolution, while Stalin used agricultural policy to facilitate industrialisation. The peasantry were limited in reaping the benefits from agricultural policies introduced by either regime. However, while both governments used agricultural policies to sustain their power, the Communist regime under Lenin and Stalin was significantly more ruthless than the former. The Tsarist regime needed the peasants on side in order to block latent revolutionary threat. Therefore, it can be said the peasants were in a better economic position under the Tsars than the Communist regime. Additionally after the emancipation, the peasantry no longer existed because of egalitarianism.

In 1861 Tsar  introduced the first economic policy ‘intended’ to benefit the peasantry. The Emancipation Edict was a mechanism implemented to free all , who made up more than one third of the total population. The Emancipation edict abolished all personal serfdom, and the peasants were to receive land from the landlords and pay them for it. This gave the peasantry the opportunity to achieve limited economic success. However in reality, the peasants were effectively transferred from one owner to another. The state advanced the money to the landlords and recovered it from the peasants in 49 annual sums known as redemption payments. That initial stage dragged on for nearly 20 years in some regions. In many areas the peasants had to pay more than the land was worth. While in other areas they were given small plots, and many chose to accept “beggarly allotments”. The peasants’ landholdings were controlled by the mir, or village commune. The mir was responsible for redemption payments and periodically redistributed the land to meet the changing needs of the various households. This system meant that peasants could not leave their villages, and actually lost rights to the use of some land. (WHICH?) This policy aimed to circumvent revolution and hence actually worsened the economic plight of the peasantry. The emancipation was a failure in terms of the economic success. What is more, the provisions concerning land redistribution produced the peasant discontent that eventually helped the Russian Revolution to succeed, despite the later land reforms of  after the 1905 revolution. These plans involved allowing peasants to own their own land, removing the system in which peasants only farmed strips of land and allowing peasants to trade land freely. These proposals would have warranted more economic security for the peasantry if there wasn’t a lack of enthusiasm to adopt them. Having enjoyed a sense of collective security at the time, the Bedniaks were unwilling to run the risk of setting up farms individually. For this reason, Stolypin’s reforms were fruitless. By and large, the same problems created after emancipation was still present in 1914. However, many historians have argued that if given more time Stolypin may have been able to implement them successfully.

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Overall, the main agricultural policies implemented to improve the economic success of the peasants at the time were aimed at trying to keep the Tsarist regime in power. This is why both the emancipation edict and Stolypin’s reforms failed. M. Lynch states that ‘in a country as relatively backward as Russia, reforms would take even longer to be effective’ this refers to Stolypin’s ‘gamble on the strong. This suggests that Stolypin’s reforms may have worked if given time, but the peasants were still in a backward agricultural economy and were averse to risk. This is the reason for the ...

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