- 07 Nov 2005 23:10
#751130
It's less factual errors, than focus.
One of the pro-USSR arguments is that the Bolsheviks were the only ones that had the support and the plan to move Russia forward in terms of welfare reform, increasing production, increasing agricultural harvests etc. The counters to this are often either that the provisional government or that the tsars were intent on achieving all these aims and would have also had widespread support...
To run this counter, you essentially need to show three things (a) that Russia wasn't terrible under the tsars (b) that they were intent on making it better (c) that they would retain the support to do this. Now, (b) and (c) are very difficult arguments - with some glitches (like the unpopular Stolypin reforms) the tsars weren't particularly reformist and they had really lost a great deal of support - to a terminal degree - in the cities. Even the provisional government with tsarist sympathies became deeply unpopular in the space of six months...
But, your link is mainly on (a) - the idea that life under the tsars was pretty okay. To say a few quick things, without knowing too much on the subject:
(a) LOW TAXES: are indicative of poor countries, which Russia was. I think its GDP in around 1910 was absurdly low - equal to that of Denmark or something, for instance. In a modern economy, low taxes can spur on growth and competition, but the structure of Russian society was very different.
(b) DIVISION OF LAND: I am highly skeptical of their figures on peasant 'control' of land. After all, peasants were responsible for harvesting basically all the crops, but I'd be surprised if they had title over the land. In regards to agriculture, most wealthy estate owners couldn't be arsed, although some had the interest in modern agricultural techniques and the capital to try implementing them (generally with little success, due to the poorly educated work force who wrecked the machinery). Peasant control of land actually meant no real advance in agricultural techniques - peasants had next to no capital, ancient farming methods, little literacy and awareness of agricultural best practice. Incidentally, I don't think they mention that the terms of the 1861 Emancipation Act basically bled the peasants dry - in return for more 'control' over the land, the peasants were responsible for paying back a 99-year or so loan for the land they were getting. Lots of people were kept in perpetual debt for this payment (which finally had to be abolished after about 50 years - you could compare it to loans given in the recent past to third world countries that have kept them in debt).
(c) INDEPENDENCE: With the exception of peasant revolts, the peasants posed no real threat to the tsars: policing them and their pitchforks, having the courts tied up with petty disputes wasn't worthwhile. Having peasant communities that were semi-autonomous and democratic was a good thing, but it wasn't a policy of anything much more than opportunism - there was no need to interfere in the villages unless you wanted to raise yields etc.
(d) INDEPENDENCE II: Which left, of course, the tsarist police free to concentrate on more worthy targets. Part of the problem of all the figures in that article is that they spread tax and police rates over the whole country, when really both were much higher in the cities and almost non-existent in the country. The tsarist secret police were quite *big*, they infiltrated a great number of literary and political groups, they had lots of people being tracked on a daily basis, a great number of files. They were the closest thing to the Stasi at the turn of the century. Most of the pre-revolutionary Bolsheviks were in jail and/or exile for anywhere between 1 and 15 years, mostly just for organising strikes (of which there were a great deal) or distributing tracts. Censorship and repression extended to 'normal' intellectuals' - the great authors of the 19th century all had their works censored. Dostoyevsky was tied to a stake, faux-executed, taken to Siberia and stuck in prison all for meeting in a literary group which were suspected of perhaps having access to a printing press...
(e) LABOUR LAWS: Were non-existent or actually made in the interests of industry. There were great numbers of people flocking to the towns from the countryside and a huge potential workforce. Industrialists had no need to be kind to their workers, who could always be replaced. pre-war Russia had the highest participation rates for women at the time, for instance, but only because industrialists didn't have to pay them as much. When they introduced a restricted working day for women, this was actually not a reprieve for women, but a push by male workers who were sick of women taking their jobs. Industrial discontent was ENORMOUS. From about 1903 onwards, days off over strike action were large - 1917 wasn't a bolt from the blue when it came to strikes. And the government would lend out its troops to attack strikers.
I can see how low taxes, lack of labour regulation, a not-so-large police force and other similar measures might be a libertarian's wet dream on the surface. The fact is they occurred in the context of a very unproductive, conservative, authoritarian, repressive, unstable, anti-democratic society.
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