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Hard
Conditions of the Working Class |
At the beginning of the twentieth century the Russian working class
remained the most oppressed and impoverished in Europe representing
an excellent example of a destitute and exploited labor force,
characteristic of the early stages of capitalist development and
described so powerfully by Marx in Capital. Workers’ wages
were a quarter to a third of those in Western Europe. The proportion
of well-paid workers was very small, the majority worked and lived
in equally squalid conditions. Hours of work were long, accident
rates were high, and discipline was harsh.
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Not surprisingly, the
Russian workers began to organize to better their lot. They
developed monolithic social solidarity and were open to
revolutionary agitation. This restricted even further the
bourgeoisie’s freedom of maneuver and made it even more cautious as
a would-be agent of political change. It saw the autocracy as less
of a threat to itself than the revolutionary-minded
working class.
In the final
decade of the nineteenth century Russian government’s strategy of
economic development yielded spectacular rates of industrial growth,
which have rarely been equaled in the industrial history of any
country: about 8 per cent a year. However, Russia’s big strides in
developing her industrial capacity led to structural imbalances in
economy which adversely affected the agricultural sector. |
Of all
groups of the population, peasants paid a particularly heavy price
for the government’s industrial policy. To finance economic
modernization, Witte relied on Russia’s traditional fiscal
structures, such as the village commune which played a crucial role
in the collection of government taxes and redemption dues. On top of
the heavy fiscal burden of direct taxes, peasants also paid for the
industrialization as consumers, through high tariffs on imported
goods and rising indirect taxes on consumer goods such as vodka. There was no welfare program to help cushion the ruinous effects
of home-grown capitalism on peasant economy. Lack of social
provisions, combined with bad harvest and an epidemics of cholera,
resulted in the mass hunger of 1891-1892. The neglect of social
consequences of the rapid capitalist development was, clearly, a
weak side of the government-sponsored industrialization.
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Tsarist Russia |
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