Czarist Russia essays

Czarist Russia essays In the early czarist age/ pre-Revolutionary era Russia was a feudal land system and there was a growing gap between agricultural Russia and industrial Europe. Russia under the czars was growing out of the feudal system, but it was a slow process because the czars were afraid of losing power and control. The czars were just large landowners themselves, so they tried to resist turning Russia into an industrial capitalist state. However the czars did many things to start the process, they initiated all kinds of land reforms, such as the Stolypin reforms which weakened the communal agricultural land and allowed peasants to own small pieces of land. Allowing the private ownership of land allowed for some peasant families to become wealthy, and allowed them to use land as a commodity. Peasants could now buy and sell land to settle debts, and those that had to sell their land moved into the cities and started to create a labor force. Under the czars Russia was able extensively expand their railroad system. IN 1861 they had about 2000 kilometers of rail ,by 1913 they had increased the rail line to 70,000 kilometers. The expansion of the rail allowed for the Russians to transport their military more easily, and it opened up the coal and iron resources in the Ukraine. The rail also helped in the transporting of grain and other agricultural outputs. The czarist government also created a conservative monetary policy that allowed Russia, in 1897, to join the international gold standard. Industry took advantage of their countries backwardness by adopting already existing technology instead of trying to create their own. Industrial outputs at this time increase, grain out put triples, labor force grows and the GDP increases. However even with the major increase Russia is still well behind the other European countries. The czars helped to increase the foreign involvement in Russia through trade and through increase in foreign capi ...