What were the social, economic and political conditions in Russia before 1905?
Answer:
Answer to be written
The following were the social, economic, and political conditions in Russia before 1905.
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Social Condition:
- The majority religion was Russian Orthodox Christianity – which had grown out of the Greek Orthodox Church – but the empire also included Catholics , Protestants , Muslims and Buddhists.
- The vast majority of Russia’s population were agriculturists .
- Most industries were the private property of industrialists .
- Workers were a divided social group.
- Some had strong links with the villages from which they came . Others had settled in cities permanently.
- Divisions among workers showed themselves in dress and manners too .
- In the countryside, peasants cultivated most of the land but the nobility , the crown and the Orthodox Church owned large properties.
- Like workers , peasants too were divided . They were also deeply religious .
- In the Russian empire, nobles got their power and position through their services to the Tsar and not through local popularity .
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Economic Condition
- Russia was a major exporter of grain because about 85 per cent of the Russian empire’s population earned their living from agriculture.
- The industry was found in pockets .
- Prominent industrial areas were St Petersburg and Moscow .
- There were large factories alongside craft workshops , but most of the production was performed by craftsmen.
- Many factories were set up in the 1890s when Russia’s railway network was extended , and foreign investment in industry increased.
- Coal production doubled and iron and steel output quadrupled.
- Most industries were the private property of industrialists .
- The year 1904 was a particularly bad one for Russian workers because the prices of essential goods rose so quickly that real wages declined by 20 per cent.
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Political Condition
- Russia was an autocracy.
- Before 1914 , all political parties were illegal in Russia.
- The Russian Social Democratic Workers Party was founded in 1898 by socialists who respected Marx’s ideas .
- Socialists were active in the countryside through the late nineteenth century.
- They formed the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1900.
- Even at the beginning of the twentieth century unlike other European rulers, the Tsar was not subject to parliament .
- Liberals in Russia campaigned to end this state of affairs .
- Strikes took place all over the country and universities closed down when student bodies staged walkouts , complaining about the lack of civil liberties.
- During the 1905 Revolution , the Tsar allowed the creation of an elected consultative Parliament or Duma .
