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Russia: Industrial
Development and the Birth of
Bolshevism
• 1890s – Russia entered the industrial age
• Tsar Alexander III(1881 – 1894) and
Nicholas II(1894 – 1917)
– They were determined to make Russia an
industrial power
– This was the only way for Russia to maintain
its position as a great power
• Count Sergei Witte was appointed finance
minister in 1892
– Implemented protective tariffs, high taxes, the gold
standard, and efficiency in government and business
– Established strong financial relationship with the
French money market – this enabled Russia to
finance its modernization (French loans)
– Increase in railroads, steel production, textiles, and
pig iron (what is pig iron?)
• Witte did little to improve the living and working
conditions of the industrial proletariat
• Peasant farmers had to work on farms owned by
other more prosperous peasant farmers, known
as kulaks
• Because of the immense poverty and discontent,
numerous political organizations formed
– Social Revolution Party 1901
– Constitutional Democratic Party 1903
• Enter Lenin:
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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) 1870 – 1924
Marxist
St. Petersburg law student
Essential Concept: “He substituted the small,
professional, nondemocratic revolutionary party for
Marx’s proletariat as the instrument of revolutionary
change.”
• Lenin created factions within the London Congress of the
Russian Social Democratic Party in 1903
– Lenin’s faction? Bolsheviks “Majority”
– All the rest? Mensheviks “Minority”
• Professional Revolutionaries – Read page
789 answer questions