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May 2011 Paper 3 IBDP History Exam:
To what extent were Stolypin’s political and economic policies successful in the years 1906–1911?
May 2022 Paper 3 IBDP History Exam:
Evaluate the effectiveness of Stolypin’s policies in stabilising Russia after the 1905 Revolution.
From the markscheme:
The question requires that candidates make an appraisal of Stolypin’s policies after the 1905 Revolution and assess whether they resolved the underlying problems in Russia. Responses may point out that Stolypin’s policies were a mixture of repression (Stolypin’s Necktie) and reform. He introduced land reform, freeing peasants from the Mir and establishing the Peasants Land Bank in an attempt to form a loyal kulak class. Some may argue that this was too little, too late and that peasant discontent pre-1914 indicated the limits of this policy. Politically, the empire appeared stable but it could be argued that this was a consequence of the alteration of electoral law to produce a compliant Duma and the suppression of radical opposition. In the pre-war period after Stolypin’s death there were many outbreaks of discontent (Lena Goldfield Strike) supporting the view that Stolypin’s policies were only effective to a limited extent. Candidates’ opinions or conclusions will be presented clearly and supported by appropriate evidence.
EXAMPLE 1
By 1905, riots and violence had stopped in the cities and Tsar Nicholas II had survived the revolution with the promise to make changes and improve life for all Russians. However, only 12 years later, in 1917 after another revolution, he was forced to abdicate, clearly having failed to make any real improvements. How did the changes introduced by the Tsar lead to this, and how were Russians affected? This essay will argue that life in Russia got significantly worse after 1905, particularly analysing the social, political and economical factors that caused this.
The most significant political change brought about by the Tsar was the introduction of the Duma (parliament) at the end of 1905 which was elected by the people. Although this looked like a potential improvement for the Russians, its powers and significance in running the country were yet to be determined, and its inefficiency and unfairness rapidly became clear by 1906. The Duma could not pass laws, appoint ministers or make any important financial decisions, the Tsar could also dissolve the Duma whenever he pleased. To make matters worse, the elections for the parliament heavily favoured the nobles, as there was one representative every 2000 nobles but only one representative every 90000 workers. This clearly shows the Tsar was not willing to listen to workers and peasants although they made up pover 85% of the population. Furthermore, although the first two Dumas of 1906 and 1907 were extremely radical and demanded for more power as well as some basic rights, such as freedom to strike, free education and more land for peasants the Tsar would firmly refuse this, dissolving them after only a few weeks, showing once again he had no intentions to make any real improvements for the Russians. With the third Duma, Stolypin ( the prime minister), decided to make a change in the election process, further favouring the gentry and nobles. This resulted in a more conservative Duma, lasting from 1907 to 1912, and although it managed to introduce accident insurance for workers, nothing was done for the peasants who still made up the vast majority of the population. The fourth and last Duma failed to achieve anything significant before the start of WW2 in 1914. Overall, the Dumas were a failure, not having brought about and significant change for the russian people, and clearly illustrated the unwillingness of the Tsar to listen to his country, as even he admitted in 1908 : “I created the Duma not to have it instruct me, but to have it advise me”, implying he felt in no way obliged to listen to what the Duma had to say.
Between 1906 and 1914, Russia's economy experienced an industrial boom, increasing production by 100%. Russia became the world’s fourth largest producer of coal, pig iron and steel. However, the workers did not benefit from this boom, and arguably, their lives were negatively affected by it. This is because working conditions in factories did not improve, average wages when considering inflation were even lower than 1903 and the prices had risen to such an extent that workers barely managed to buy the bread required to feed themselves. In addition to this, in 1912 an important strike organised by workers in the Lena goldfields in Siberia took place. Workers protested about the inhumane working conditions, low wages and the 14 hours long working day, which lasted from 5am to 7pm. A total of 170 workers were killed along with 375 wounded, and the protest became known as the Lena Goldfield Massacre. This is a clear indication of Russia’s corruption and poor standard of living, as the economy was growing at the expense of poor, exploited workers. On the other hand, in the countryside Stolypin introduced reforms to make agriculture more efficient. Peasants were now allowed to buy small strips of land from their neighbours and a peasants’ bank was also set up to provide loans. This was done with the intention of creating a new class of prosperous landowning peasants (Kulaks) who were loyal to the government, however, the breakout of WW1 prematurely ended these reforms before they could reach their full potential. Furthermore, the reforms made the poorer peasants sell their land and become labourers, forced to wander the countryside looking for work and unable to support their families. Four million peasants were also encouraged to occupy new lands along the Trans-Siberian Railway, after a long journey crammed into wagons the peasants arrived to these new lands only to find out they had already been taken by rich land speculators. This once again portrays Russia’s corruption and disregard for peasants' lives, which were always sacrificed in favour of the richer, noble minority of the population.
After 1905 the life of Russian people was still heavily controlled and influenced by the government. The Okhrana (secret police) was extremely active and had thousands of informers, all citizens also had to carry internal passports and travellers had to be registered with the police. Furthermore, although freedom of the press had been guaranteed in 1905, in practice newspapers were still heavily censored and fined for writing articles criticizing the government, with whole pages appearing blank after being censored. These restrictions on people’s lives highlight how there was no attempt made in improving standards of living and freedom for the russian people. During these years, many people also moved from the countryside to the cities, for example Moscow’s population increased by 700000 people between 1897 and 1914 while St Petersburg saw an increase of almost one million people in its population. This clearly shows people were unable to survive in the countryside and were forced to move to the city, where they found even worse conditions.
In conclusion, when considering political, economic and social factors, life for Russians did not improve after 1905 and undeniably got worse for the peasants and workers. This was due to the Tsar unwillingness to listen to his people, the start of WW1 and the unfairness of the Russian political system.
EXAMPLE 2
Did Life In Russia Improve After 1905?
Russian Empire was always a conservative country, since the times they fought Swedish in the 18th century, Napoleon both times up in the end 18th and in the “Great Patriotic War” to the time of the last Crimean War and First World War. This conservatism started moving people away from the Tsar long before the revolution of 1905 happened. But it was the 1905 revolution which finally showed the Tsar that it couldn't go on like this anymore and that changes were necessary. Yet, all reforms made after 1905 were targeted or at least were supposed to be targeted to make an improvement in people’s quality of life; it is questionable whether they succeeded or not.
1905 has left the Tsar Nicolay II with no choice but to go to concessions. Outraged people wanted changes and only by making these changes Nicolay II could stay in power. One of these changes was “Duma” or parlament. It was important, but Stolypin’s economic reforms really made a big difference. Stolypin agrarian reform was a big range of economic reforms, which were made to increase peasant’s income. First it made peasants own their land, it allowed peasants to take credit for buying land from their landlords. Not only that, the government was buying land from landlords and sold it to peasants on preferential terms. This allowed peasants to better manage their land, improved their harvest and 1913 showed that by hitting a record in harvests. Between 1906 and 1914 Russia’s economy was growing 9% a year on average. The industrial production reached numbers twice bigger than they used to be before 1906. Baku oil fields became one of the biggest oil producers in the world. Russian economy was skyrocketing and Russia was hitting records of internal industrial, agricultural and economic developments. Therefore one could conclude that life was getting better. All these facts just couldn’t be bad in any sense.
Although Russia was developing and the economy was growing, Russian life was improving only on paper. If Stolypin’s reforms were effective to a big extent in terms of improving working class quality of life, everything else focused on making rich people richer. Russian economy was growing as mentioned earlier, but people’s wages were growing unproportionally slowly. In fact in some areas they became even less than they used to be before 1903. Working class could barely afford food and as for the rest it was out of their budget. Furthermore working conditions in factories were just horrific. It wasn’t rare for a person to start his workday at 5.00am and finish it only by 7.00pm. Only in 1913 there were more than 2 and half thousand strikes recorded which is incredibly a lot. It shows that people simply couldn't stand the conditions they have been working in. Not to mention one of the bloodiest strikes on Lena goldfields in Siberia. The strike was suppressed by government troops and as a result of that 170 workers lost their lives and 373 workers were wounded. Lena goldfield massacre, as some historians argue, has put a final nail in Imperial’s Russia coffin. And they wouldn’t be completely wrong because this event had a similar effect to Bloody Sunday in 1905 and triggered many other strikes and riots after.
In conclusion, one would like to say that even though Imperial Russia might have had a future, it didn’t meet people’s expectations of a new Russia. Russian government may have had some bright beginnings, but they didn’t work out as people in charge favoured the elite of Russian society and almost forgot about the working class who they were supposed to favour by making these changes. After all, if Nicolay II had made the lives of the working class better, 1917 wouldn’t have happened. That is why one would like to conclude that if life in Russia would have improved after 1905, people wouldn’t have turned to Lenin in 1917.
EXAMPLE 3
Did life improve for the Russians after 1905?
In 1905 Russia went through a revolution which claimed the lives of around 15 000 people. The aim of the revolution was to overthrow the Tsar and build a constitution, but since the revolution was ineffectual, the Tsar stayed in power. However, there were some changes made to the Russian governance hierarchy and the Duma was created. This essay will be answering the question “Did life improve for the Russians after 1905?”. This essay will use the argument that only the already successful gained anything from the changes done after the 1905 revolution.
On 6th of August 1905 the Tsar issued a manifesto which created the Russian parliament, state Duma. However, even though a parliament was created, unable to pass any laws, to appoint any ministers nor to control any finance of the state, the Duma held close to no power. The Duma was also very unfair with it’s representatives, one representative for 2,000 nobles and one for 90,000 working class people. This meant that even though workers had spokesmen in the Duma to represent their issues, with so few people on the same side they could never have the majority for any of the decisions. The Duma's decision very rarely favoured the labourers, like we can see in the land reforms made in 1906 that this essay is going to discuss later on. The little control the Duma had can also be seen in how the Tsar dissolved the first two Dumas after just weeks of being in action. The first two Dumas of 1906 and 1907 had been too extreme to the Tsar, demanding for too much control and power. The next two Dumas (1907-1912 and 1912-1914) were a lot more to the Tsar’s favour, since they were more consistent with aristocrats and bourgeoisie due to the changes made in the election ways by the Prime Minister Stolypin. Unlike the Duma, the Prime Minister of Russia had a strong grip on the Russian people. Stolypin is known for a couple of things, other than being the Prime Minister, and kindness was not one of them. Immediately after gaining the power of the Prime Minister, Stolypin took to action and created military courts that would hang people without much evidence. It is said that Stolypin had police records on every man around
him. And this would be no wonder, since the Okhrana, the secret police, had informers everywhere. The freedom of the Russians was far from existing. With the Okhrana, travelling in the country was heavily monitored. People had to carry passports with them, and if leaving their own districts, people would have to register with the police. The press was censored, even though in 1905 the freedom of press was promised. The police and government were in total control.
After the attempted Russian revolution of 1905 life got better for people who already were wealthy.To explain this point better I am going to use my great-great-grandfather as an example. In the beginning years of the 1900’s, my great-great-grandfather Ivan Sihvoin worked as a bookkeeper at a metalwork factory in Saint Petersburg, where he had moved with his mother as a child from Karelia in hopes for a better life. Ivan had been present in the Bloody Sunday massacre and was shot in the leg multiple times, causing an awful limp in his walk, even after the leg was well healed. Despite this awful event and injury, later his life improved well, since he was promoted to go work in a high position as a quality inspector into a leather factory in Oulu, a small city in the far west of Russia, which after 1917 we now know as the country Finland. This was all due to the industrial boom that happened in Russia between 1906 and 1914. This kind of development and “upgrade” was to be seen in the lives of landowners and people who were working in higher positions.
The biggest change that was supposed to help the peasants were the Stolypin’s land reforms. The point of the land reforms was to allow peasants to buy themselves land with the help of peasant’s banks and be more independent, to create a new class of peasants, kulaks. This did help some families and they were able to buy bigger lands and so grow more food, and so in 1913 Russia had it’s record harvest year. But what the land reforms actually caused was millions of people without any own land, since they either had to sell it, since they could not afford it, or the peasants were encouraged by the government to get new land along the Trans-Siberian Railwayroad. The new land along the railroad caused even more problems for the workers, since when arriving at the land, they came to the realization that the only land left was no good for harvesting. The rich got there first. The workers in the cities weren’t living life much better. Industrial development was big in Russia during the 1910’s, but this had no benefits for the workers. The working conditions were the same, inhumane working hours, wages so low people were only able to buy the minimum necessities. Workers again tried to get their right acknowledged with strikes, but with little success.
In Russia, life improved for the rich, for the fortunate and victorious. For the aristocrats and bourgeoisie. Even for people like my great-great-grandfather. But for the peasants, the workers and farmers, things stayed the same. Maybe things even turned worse. In 1912 the Lena massacre caused by a strike held by the goldfield workers in Bodaybo killed 170 people, wounding 373. It’s almost as if nothing changed.
EXAMPLE 4
In January 1905 the situation inside Russia had faced critical consequences within the government and citizens, caused by the First Russian Revolution. Reasons are resolved, however were the consequences after 1905 worth for increasing the condition of life for Russian people? Russian historian Konstantin Morozov shares a similar viewpoint on Russian Revolution as “The political system of the country after the first Russian revolution remained under-reformed, therefore one cannot speak of any new quality of it. The State Duma never became a full-fledged parliament, although it was more like it than the current one.”This essay will question the unreliable new parliament Duma and what opportunities this revolution carried for changes in people’s life.
In social aspects, life has improved in agriculture. Although people had to pay land payment, Tsar Nicholas II agreed to decline the payment agreement for peasants. It also was led with giving loans to peasants for the purpose of improving their farming system and adding innovations.This way Stolypin believed that peasants would want to improve their own land and use more modern solutions in order to keep up producing quality food. These brought good impacts on more rich people coming from the countryside and creating a class known as “Kulaks”.Kulaks though were another object of government to keep members of this class loyal to the Tsar. Consequences were quite satisfied, although only fifteen percent agreed to this offer, production of grain did increase and caused a record harvest in 1913. This, however, was not enough for the russians. Because the landform was a long- term plan to improve life in general- for the whole community. Tsaar guaranteed and believed in a long- term scheme, and as planned it achieved the results of increasing agricultural production. To provide even more support towards the government, Tsar proclaimed Stolypin to build educational institutions available for free. This led to the development of russian literature. However, failures occurred for the working class. Since Tsaar still didn’t pay the needed attention in the working class. The reforms had affected poorer peasants in an opposite way. After adding land reform, more poorer peasants were forced to sell their own land and become labourers. More people would move to cities to find subsistence for lives, which affected the problem of overpopulation even more. Not only it brought issues within the city, classes of alienated poor peasants grew and the anger of the people was dangerous. Especially, because of the lack of stability and material wealth therefore capable of radicalism and violence. Despite the fact that the government made promises, agreements addressing life’s of all Russian people. In the significance of social reform we cannot highlight that it was beyond successful. Mostly succeeded only in parts as changes in countryside and education. However, it does not mean life got better for every citizen, especially the failure inside of the working class.
Moving on to economic aspects of life improvement for russians. Tsar had focused and encouraged industrial development in the cities. This has affected the industrial boom between 1906 and 1914 in Russia. Industrial production increased to 100 percent, and Russia became the world’s fourth of largest production of manufactured goods as: coal, steel and pig iron. On this patch grew the trading system. In order to keep up the level of production, factories were the most efficient methods. However, if we look more in depth of the great increase of Russian industrialization success did it really benefit the greater lives of people? Data shows that working conditions in terms of wages were unfortunately almost the same as in 1903. Moreover, if we compare prices for living conditions in 1903 and the time of the industrial boom by 1914 prices had increased and had risen for the worst effect for workers. Because of it workers could only just manage to sustain themselves on bread. This led to strikes happening more often by 1913 and 1914. The greatest strike was captured in 1912. It took place in the Lena goldfields in Siberia. Protests were simply about the lack of abnormal working conditions, labourers could not keep pace with conditions of: low wages and working day of 15 hours. Therefore, Russia had succeeded in industrialization and improved livelihood for other classes other than the working class. Still the whole industrial reform was not enough to increase the living standards of all Russians.
Evaluating the impact of the reforms and the effect and consequences of all it made for the benefit of the country, we can analyse that it did not reduce the asked deficiency of russian people. The deeper issue with improvement of lives for Tsar could explain his different views to give better life for his people. It might be coming from his point of view to focus more on financial stability, education or increase of trade and production in the country, but not possible improvements with the working class, prices for living, overpopulation etc. This was felt from the environment Tsar created around the government. This statement can be proved by Duma. Since people other than rich and nobles had no rights to contribute or vote, Tsar could resolve it whenever he felt to. This shows the disconnect it created between peasants and the Tsar. In conclusion, life for Russian people has not fully improved very efficiently. Tsar survived the revolution, but did not succeed to work on the promises on the benefit of every russian after the 1905 Revolution.
EXAMPLE 5
Evaluate the effectiveness of Stolypin’s policies in stabilizing Russia after the 1905 Revolution.
The aftermath of the 1905 Revolution in Russia demanded a balance between reform and repression to restore stability. Pyotr Stolypin, the Prime Minister of Russia from 1906 to 1911, implemented a series of policies aimed at achieving this equilibrium. While some elements of his reforms were truly aimed at addressing underlying issues in Russia, such as the agrarian problem, the effectiveness of these measures in stabilizing the country was questionable. This essay will argue that while Stolypin’s reforms did represent a combination of repression and reform, their effectiveness in stabilizing Russia after the revolution were limited.
One of Stolypin’s most prominent strategies for keeping the revolutionaries under control, which was crucial for stabilizing Russia after the revolution, was the policy of repression he ordered after the 1905 revolution. The policy was ultimately a response for the increasing incline towards rebellion amongst the people, meant to keep the events in 1905 from repeating. However, the policy was extremely violent, using a combination of arrests, trials, and executions in order to maintain order. Although this reform was successful at earning the fear of the revolutionaries. Some argue that the fear triggered by Stolypin’s repression policy was the only way to keep the revolutionaries from taking action against the Tsar. In fact, the policy did prove its usefulness during instances such as the 22 December, 1905 Moscow Uprising where it allowed the Smyonovsky Regiment to make the decision to destroy the uprising through violent means, and suppress the opposition successfully, despite resulting in more than a thousand deaths. Nevertheless, this argument does not suggest that repression was a long term solution. The reason why the repression policy wasn’t effective in the long term was because it hadn’t only caused fear in people but a simultaneous increase in mistrust and hatred towards the government. For example, thousands of executions took place between 1906 and 1909, and the phrase “Stolypinskie galstuki” (Stolypin’s necktie) was used to describe the hangman’s noose. Yet, even though the phrase was a reminder and threat for revolutionaries to not step out of line during Stolypin’s rule, it was also a memorial for the slaughter of their friends and families. This caused growing resentment towards Stolypin and led to revolutionaries to make 11 attempts at taking his life, resulting in his assassination in 1911. This suggests that his repression policy was not effective enough that revolutionaries found the courage to continuously attempt to take his life, and that it had only lasted 5 years, which indicates that revolutionaries were once again able to emerge after his death.
Similarly, Stolypin’s land reforms suffered from a similar extent of lack of effectiveness. His agrarian reforms were meant to encourage the ‘best elements’ amongst the peasantry by allowing them to buy lands from their less enterprising neighbors where they could produce their own food, increasing harvest within the country to achieve a more stable Russia. Additionally, he hoped that this would create a new class of prosperous landowning peasants, the Kulaks. This suggests that Stolypin wanted to ‘hit two birds with one stone,’ developing agriculture and gaining supporters to prevent another revolution. Parts of these reforms were successful which was indicated by the gradual increase, and 1913 record harvest of grain despite only 15 percent
of peasants taking up his offers. However, the consequences of these land reforms overshadowed their success. One of the major consequences was how many of the poorer peasants were forced to sell their lands and became laborers, seeking work around the countryside. This suggests that Stolypin likely wasn’t able to gain the support of the peasants except the 15 percent who participated to become Kulaks. Not only did they not gain anything from the reforms, but they also lost a significant portion of their already limited possessions, which would’ve triggered even further resentment towards the government. Therefore, Stolypin’s agrarian reforms were almost ineffective in gaining the support of the peasants. This argument can be further strengthened with the event of approximately 4 million peasants being encouraged by the government to make long journeys and settle on new lands along the Trans-Siberian Railway, only to discover that the lands were taken by rich land speculators. This highlights the mistrust that was caused towards the government, and indicates the possible increasingly diminishing support for the Tsar, suggesting that these land reforms weren’t only ineffective at achieving stabilization of the country, but that they even had the opposite effect from the one Stolypin intended.
However, while his reforms regarding industrialization also lacked effectiveness, they were more successful compared to the land reforms and repression policy. Stolypin’s aim with the industrial reforms was to focus more on the industrial development of Russia compared to keeping revolutionaries and peasants under control like he aimed to do with his other reforms. Indeed, the growth of industrialization was a significant step towards the stabilization of the country in the long run, increasing industrial production by 100 percent, and allowing Russia to become the world’s 4th largest producer of coal, pig iron and steel. Due to his German descent, Stolypin used Germany as a comparison, realizing that Germany had 10 miles of railroad to every one of Russia’s and 100 factories of every one of theirs. Therefore, when his reforms increased the number of workers in each factory with over 1000 workers per factory, he was also able to increase Russia's efficiency and development in industrialization. Yet, despite this, these reforms still didn’t qualify for complete success. This was due to the lack of improvement in the working conditions and average wages of the workers which suggests the motivation to why more people would want to join the revolution. Although it could be argued that Stolypin’s industrialization reforms were aimed mainly towards the development of Russia’s industry, his core reason for coming up with these reforms were to stabilize the country after the 1905 Revolution. This indicates that his neglect of the workers was leading to conclusions he was aiming to prevent in the first place. Nevertheless, it would be inaccurate to argue that the industrialization reforms were a complete failure, but had consequences that opposed Stolypin’s goals of stabilizing the country. His reforms regarding the third Duma were the same as well. It could be argued that the way that Stolypin changed the way that member elections would favor the gentry and the rich even more resulted in the third Duma being much more conservative compared to previous ones where representatives of the ordinary people demanded more rights and power for themselves. However, this is a simplistic argument as it only considers one element that is needed for Stolypin’s reform to succeed. Nevertheless, when analyzed from a different perspective, this Duma was surprisingly critical of the government, and therefore the Tsar and Stolypin, which suggests that this reform was also not as successful as it seemed to be from the outside. Therefore, although Stolypin’s policies in the new Duma allowed him to
silence the lower classes and kept them from gaining power, they began causing issues, now by the higher classes in the country, proving the reforms’ limited effectiveness.
In conclusion, although Stolypin’s reforms were successful at achieving certain aspects of their intentions, they antagonized the government further in the eyes of the revolutionaries, workers, and the peasantry. This, therefore, suggests that the effectiveness of his reforms in stabilizing Russia were limited. The people’s resentment that is increased by these reforms indicates why the 1917 Revolution was successful as they motivated more people to join and support the revolutionaries.
EXAMPLE 6
Evaluate the effectiveness of Stolypin’s policies in stabilizing Russia after the 1905 Revolution.
When Pyotr Stolipin was appointed as Prime Minister of Russia in 1906, the country had just endured a year-long revolution in the aftermath of the Tsar’s rejection of St Petersburg workers’ demands on Bloody Sunday. Were his policies able to acquiesce in the Russian people’s demands while maintaining the spirit of autocracy that the Tsar demanded? This essay will evaluate Stolypin’s policies, arguing that politically, in the countryside and in the cities his reforms were almost entirely a failure in that they only agitated Russian society further.
Politically, Stolypin’s reforms did little to stabilize a working class Russia that had “no voice” and sought “salvation” from their Tsar, as stated by Father Gapon in the January 1905 petition that would lead to Bloody Sunday. This can be observed in the failure of the Duma, the first elected parliament, after its establishment in 1905. The Duma, the first of which met in April 1906, could not pass laws, appoint ministers or control finance in meaningful sectors such as defense. Further, its underlying injustice was such that there was one representative for every 2,000 nobles, yet only one for every 90,000 workers and, in any case, the Tsar could dissolve it at any moment - as he did after only 73 days. This clearly shows that Stolypin’s new policy failed to concede sufficient power to the working class and, indeed, even the Tsar - who could hardly be described as attuned to his people - wrote his mother in 1906 that “the people are starting to get restive again”. On the other hand, one could perhaps argue in favor of the third Duma - the only one to last the full five-year term, likely due to its conservative nature, which Stolypin had ensured by favoring the gentry and urban rich even further - because it passed accident insurance measures for workers. However, as will be explored later, workers’ conditions, particularly in the growing industrial sector, were so abysmal that such a minor concession is simply testament to the Duma’s ineffectiveness. Moreover, civil unrest had evidently not ceased after 1905. Killing 7,239 people, 2,640 of whom were officials, and wounding an additional 8,061 between 1906 and 1909, revolutionaries clearly still marked Russian society. In response, some 2,118 executions were carried out between 1905 and 1908 by way of hanging, a method that subsequently obtained the nickname “Stolypin’s necktie”. Further clarifying Russian people’s discontent, Stolypin himself was murdered on 5 September 1911 at the Kiev Opera House, although the origin of this homicide has been disputed. The sheer amount
of violence in post-1905 Russia not only displayed Stolypin’s utter failure to stabilize his country, but also that a second revolution was imminent.
In the countryside, too, new reforms were largely unsuccessful and historian Orlando Figes has even deemed them an outright “failure”. After redemption payments were abolished in 1905, Stolypin attempted to restructure rural Russia. He introduced the Peasant Land Bank, which granted low-interest loans to buy land, establishing a new class of prosperous land-owning peasants: the kulaks. As of November 9 1906, peasants were also freed from the mir, the village commune, allowing them to buy land in fully enclosed farms outside the village, known as khutora. This also gave way to more modern farming methods, diverging from the outdated strip method used throughout agrarian Russia. Yet, as Figes points out, this was hardly a successful policy as, by 1917, a mere 15% of peasants had actually received consolidated plots of land, bringing the total of peasants with hereditary farms to 30%. Further supporting his argument, one must note that many of Stolypin’s agrarian policies were even greater failures. For one, peasants whose land had been bought now roamed around the countryside looking for temporary labor, while around four million European Russian peasants were incentivized to move to remote areas of Siberia, only to return in large numbers (over two million) after discovering that much of the arable land had already been bought by wealthy landowners. Although it is easy to criticize Stolypin from a humanitarian point of view, his reforms were certainly successful from an economic perspective. As a result of his policies, agricultural output increased by a third and there was a record harvest in 1913. Between 1906 and 1914, the Russian economy was also growing by 9% per annum on average, although this was certainly due in large part to the industrial boom that it experienced.
As argued by Martin Sixmith, the period of 1905-1914 was a “brief golden age for Russian industry”. Indeed, heavy industry increased dramatically. In the South, iron and steel production increased by 50%, while St Petersburg became the industrial center for metalworking, textiles and shipbuilding. At the same time, coal output more than doubled, ultimately establishing Russia as the fourth largest producer of steel, coal and pig iron. However, such a statistic is misleading: the only real industrial boom was observed in the production of steel, which increased rapidly between 1905 and 1914 and of which Russia was the third largest producer in Europe by 1912. Pig iron and coal production increased consistently but at very similar rates as those before 1905 and, when compared to the rest of Europe, Russia’s rate of
increase paled in comparison to, for instance, that of Germany during the same period. Nonetheless, Russia’s total industrial production between 1905 and 1914 doubled and the growth of oil production was also significant, namely in the Baku oil fields - which were second only to those in Texas. Yet again, however, a humanitarian perspective of Stolypin’s policies paints a rather different picture. In fact, conditions for workers did not improve and wages were lower than in 1903, and this was exacerbated by inflation, meaning that workers could barely afford to buy bread. A shorter work day, which had been among the requests of Father Gapon’s petitions, also still did not exist, with the average working day lasting from 5am to 7pm. That Stolypin had failed to stabilize Russian society was clear by 1912, when a wave of strikes lasting two years began with the ‘Lena Goldfield Massacre’ - a strike in which 170 workers were killed and 373 wounded. Indeed, in the year of 1913 alone, there were over 2,500 strikes throughout Russia, further displaying the widespread civil unrest of those years.
In conclusion, although many of Stolypin’s policies had success, albeit limited, economically, they often came at the cost of workers’ rights or simply failed to address them. From the almost negligible power of the workers in the Dumas, to the ineffective Agrarian Reforms in the countryside and staggering disregard for workers’ rights in the cities, Stolypin mostly worsened life for Russians and agitated them in a long preamble to the revolution of 1917.
EXAMPLE 7:
Pyotr Stolypin gained his reputation as the youngest and only governor who was able to have a firm grasp on his province during the 1905 Russian Revolution. After a brief stint as interior minister in 1906, Stolypin was appointed by Nicholas II as prime minister of Russia. This prestigious appointment however, was not without its problems as the tumultuous revolution less than a year earlier has left monarcarial Russia on the brink of collapse. This prediceament manifested itself in the form of social unrest as a result of an inefficient communal land ownership system, thus further angering disgruntled and poverty-stricken peasants, who Stolypin hoped to appease through policies built on a basis of incentivization to create a class of loyal farmers. He also tried to quell the stark popularity in revolutionary ideas caused by economic disparities and the Tsar’s repressive policies through a widespread use of capital punishment and thousands of executions. This essay will argue that while Stolypin’s policies were effective in stabilizing Russia by addressing the agrarian issue and suppressing revolutionary tendencies, their effectiveness was limited due to Stolypin’s excessive use of capital punishment and his disregard for the people’s demand for greater political representation, allowing the Bolsheviks to garner the support they needed to topple the 370 years long Russian monarchial reign.
The success of Stolypin’s policies can be largely attributed to his land reforms which facilitated the breakup of the communal landholding system, as well as his policy of political repression, infamously called “Stolypin’s Necktie”. In terms of his agricultural reforms, the introduction of the Peasants Land Bank in 1906 and the Stolypin land reforms enabled peasants to become private landowners, allowing Russia to step into modernization by allowing peasants to consolidate their land and improve agricultural productivity and overall wellbeing. This can be clearly shown through a 15% decrease of peasant households in European Russia which participated in the communes, and Russia’s national income growing by an average of 8.5% between 1908 and 1913. Thanks to these policies, the pro-Tasrist support of this new class of conservative, landowning peasant as well as the higher life-satisfaction of the population most likely quelled social unrest and postponed Nicholas II’s abdication by reducing the Bolshevik’s communist appeal. Stolypin’s repression of revolutionary activities was also instrumental in curbing the influence of radical Bolsheviks and extending the stability of the Tsarist regime. This is evident through the massive reduction in political assasination and the successful suppression of the 1906 uprising in Moscow, which can be largely attributed to Stolypin’s establishment of field courts-martial, which expedited the trial and execution process for those merely accused of political crimes. These courts sentenced thousands of people to death or exile, significantly reducing the number of revolutionaries and potential agitators. As a whole, the combination of land reform and capital repression under Stolypin's policies, therefore, was successful in addressing the immediate threats of social and political instability which threatened the Tsarist regime.
However, it is also important to recognize the fundamental limitation of Stolypin's policies to address the deep-rooted structural problems in Russian society and governance, ultimately unable to solve Russia’s continued socio-political instability, and eventually precipitating in the collapse of the Tsarist regime 6 years after Stolypin’s assasination. One of the most significant flaws in Stolypin's approach was the insufficient nature of his land reforms. While the establishment of the Peasants Land Bank and the Stolypin land reforms did alleviate the issue of land scarcity among peasants, they did not go far enough in redistributing land from the wealthy landowners to the peasants. This meant that the majority of peasants continued to struggle with poverty and inadequate access to land, thereby sowing seeds of discontent and frustration that would later fuel revolutionary sentiments which can be clearly demonstrated through the Bolshevik’s party’s exponential growth in membership up until the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. It is also important to recognize how role that Stolypin’s June 3rd coup which attempted to consolidate their power by neutralizing the radical socialists and liberals opposition which dominated the Seocnd Duma through changing the electoral system to reduce the representation of peasants and urban workers in the Duma and increase that of the nobility, a superficial solution that did not address the underlying political tensions in the empire.
As a result, the new parliament was seen as a puppy to the Tsar and as a result was unable to effectively tackle the significant social and economic challenges facing Russia, thereby further exacerbating political instability in the empire, thereby contributing to the waves of strikes and protests that continued to occur throughout all components of Russia, namely the Baltic Mutiny 1912 and the Goldfields strike April of that same year, where the Tsar’s “bring out the machine guns” mentality led to more than 200 dead at the hand of the loyalist Cossacks, leading to widespread press slander and became a symbol of the Tsarist regime's brutality and disregard for the welfare of its people, intensifying political unrest in Russia, and leading to the October revolution 5 years later.
Ultimately, Stolypin's policies, while successful in addressing some of the immediate causes of social and political instability in the aftermath of the 1905 revolution, were fundamentally flawed in the long run as they did not tackle the root causes of peasant discontent and political instability. Instead, these policies exacerbated existing social and political tensions, divisions, and contentment, contributing to the revolutionary fervor that would culminate in the downfall of the Tsarist regime in 1917.
