The 19 th Century Russian Economy

1. The 19th Century Russian Economy Eric Helmold

2. Overview • Progression of Russian Economy 19th Century • Influences on Crime and Punishment and Textual Appearances

3. Progression of Russian Economy 19th Century

4. Economy Early 1800s • Largely agrarian based • Limited industry, comparatively “backwards” • Social-Economic Classes • Nobles (Landowners) • Free Peasants (Tenant Farmers) • Serfs (Farmers tied to land) • Hundreds of serf uprisings

5. The Crimean War (1852-56) • Russia fought against western Europe • Russian industry was insufficient • Shortage of weapons, munitions, and machinery • Poor railway network • Ill-equipped army • Russia suffered terrible losses • Need for modernization clearly realized

6. 1861-Freeing the Serfs • Tsar Alexander II issues emancipation of serfs 1861 • 44% of population, 22 million serfs • Owned by 100,000 landowners (pomeshchiki) • Paid owners bonds, serfs owed collective debt • Motivation of modernization • Last European country with serfdom • Mobile industrial labor source • Easier conscription

7. Economic Analysis • Serfs gained economic freedoms • Small pieces of land distributed • Many formed village communes • Peasants struggled to pay 50 year debt • Landowners’ Gov. bonds devalued • Progress was not immediate • Most serfs not much better off • Emerging small, successful peasant class (Kulak)

8. 1870s-Rise of Industry • Large expansion of railroad network • Growth of urban centers and population • Moscow, Kiev, St. Petersburg, Baltic Coast • Coal, steel, and petroleum production increase • Mining and industrial development

9. 1890s – Sergei Witte • Finance/Transportation Minister of Russia • Encouraged foreign investment • Moved to gold standard (1897) • Heavy taxation of peasants • Trans-Siberian Railroad (1904) • Large deficit spending • Greater growth in 1890s than in entire previous century

10. Trans-Siberian Railroad • Moscow to Vladivostok (1904) • Connected east and west • Resource deposits in east • Factories and ports in west • Costly to build but good investment

11. Statistical Figures • 18501890 Population doubled • 18601890 Coal production up 1,200% • 1890 – 20,000 miles RR, 1.4 Million factory workers • 18901900 Coal, Iron, Oil production tripled • 19001/2 of heavy industry foreign owned • 4th in world steel production, 2nd petroleum

12. Influences on Crime and Punishment and Textual Appearances

13. Russian Urbanization-Setting • Serfs moved to cities  Industrial Proletariat • Rapid industrialization/urbanization • Poor grade housing, tenements, overcrowding • Unhygienic living conditions, pollution • Poor nutrition, crime, spread of disease • Pg.5-6 “accustomed to shabbiness” / “drunken men” / “house […] more like a cupboard” • Marfa’s Tuberculosis, people getting ill • Pg.120 “Soup and meat” / “spoonfuls of soup”

14. More Quotes • “A disgusting place – filthy, stinking” Pg. 143 Raskolnikov • “There have been many economic changes” Pg. 147 Zossimov • “Love yourself above everyone else, for everything in the world relies on self-interest” “Economic truth adds” / “We have been hindered by idealism and sentimentalism” Pg. 145 Luzhin

15. Revolutionary Idealists • Capitalism – Profits, free markets • Utilitarianism – Greatest good for majority • Socialism – Collective ownership of factories • Communism – Classless society of equality • Utopian Societies • Lebeziatnikov’s ideas Pg.351 “through communes” / “normal condition of women” / “protest against the organization of society”

16. Development of Worker’s Parties • Urban strikes and unionization • Russian Social Democratic Labor Party – 1898 • United Socialist Revolutionary Party • Petrograd Soviet in 20th Century • Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks • Siberian labor sentences used criminals and political dissidents • Raskolnikov sentenced to hard labor • Pg.507 “second-class convict Rodian”

17. Works Cited