How Successful Were The Agrarian Reforms of Stolypin 1906 - 1914?

Authors Avatar by laura-kerr97hotmailcouk (student)

How Successful Was The Agrarian Reforms of Stolypin 1906-1914?

During the years 1906-1914, Stolypin introduced many agrarian reforms some, like the implementation of a new farming method and the creation of a new type of farmer, saw more success than others, like the reform to establish independent land ownership. Mostly though, Stolypin’s reforms had little success due to the short time span, resulting from his assassination in 1911 and the outbreak of WW1. Despite this, some success was evident and if more time had elapsed, maybe more success would have been imminent.

The most successful reform was the creation of a new farming method and two new types of farmers. Firstly, Russia was still using the traditional three-field system in which each farmer had on or two strips in each of the three fields. Each field had a designated crop which was rotated each year- this included resting one field each year. This meant each peasant farmer had no choice in selecting the crops to grow. Stolypin changed this and introduced the method of consolidating the land which was used in the western world. Each farmer could consolidate any three strips and choose what they would farm. This then created the two new pes of farmers- Otrub and Khutor. Otrub would not live on the farm whereas the Khutors would this would then lead to the creation of the wealthy middle class- the Kulaks. The Kulaks then had enough money to buy out poorer peasants who would then move to urban cities which then improved the industry. This also meant the Kulaks could afford to buy more modern farming machinery which created a consumer demand for products. Also through the creation of the Kulaks, there was more support for the Tsar because the Kulaks didn’t want their wealth to disappear through the communist revolution. However, there were also significant failures with this reform. Firstly, the reforms didn’t address the key issue –the redistribution of noble owned land; a land hunger still remained. This meant there was still an unfair balance between the peasants and nobles. Secondly, most peasants were reluctant to change from the old, traditional methods and therefore by 1914, 90% of peasantry holdings were till based on the three-field system.

Join now!

Anther reform which saw reasonable success was the aim to improve agriculture through the consolidation land. This reform would rid Russia of its traditional three-field system and replace it with a new system. This would then create an incentive to work and to do well as success depended on the peasant farmers and not other people like the mirs. Through the new farming method, the larger strips would allow for more modern farming machinery to be developed as peasant farmers and Kulaks would create a consumer demand. One of the successes with this reform was that grin production rose annually ...

This is a preview of the whole essay