ASSIGNMENT QUESTION:

Why was Russia undeveloped in the 1900 s? Look at economic, social, and political reasons.

Russia covered over 8 million square miles. Due to this vast size Russia appeared to be an empire of great strength, however this is not the case. There were a wide variety of people of different race, language, religion and culture, and there were many problems controlling and maintaining such a population of people over this large territory. This was a major problem for the Russian government.

Russia traces its history back to a state that emerged in Europe during the 800's. Over time, large amounts of territory and many different people came under Russian rule. For hundreds of years, Tsar (emperors) and empresses ruled Russia. They had almost complete control over most aspects of Russian life. Under these rulers, the country's economic development lagged behind other countries in Western Europe in the 1700's. Most of the people were poor, uneducated peasants. Russia was undeveloped for a few reasons but the most obvious and main reason was the Tsar was unwilling to change and to modernise Russia, he was a very conservative man and was very unwilling to change.

In 1881 Russia adopted a policy of severe repression, which it retained until 1905. They did not let people have their say, earn money, and speak freely and kept the people from what they wanted due to restraint put on them by this policy. However a series of nationwide disturbances that were serious enough to call the 1905 revolution, forced the government to make some changes.

An opportunity was aroused for Russia to modernise itself, but modernisation required an economic progress and also a political progress, which the Tsar did not want.

Russia had a big problem with its money. It was very unbalanced and there would be people that would have palaces, servants and plenty of money to spare then there would also be lots of poor people that believed that money should be shared equally between the community. This meant that there was little land being purchased because a majority of the population was poor and therefor not many could afford land.

As middle class are the people that purchase land the most, there was little land being sold because Russia only considered a small part of the population to be in this class. The rich had land and rarely purchased more and the poor couldn t afford any.

The government of the Soviet Union controlled many aspects of life in the country. It exerted great influence over religion, education, and the arts. The independence of Russia following the breakup of the Soviet Union brought greater freedom and triggered many other changes in the lives of the people.

Eventually Russia did take a number of steps toward modernisation. Agricultural changes were made, important adjustments were made within the foreign policy hoping that an effort be made in increasing national security. These were however very small changes and had a lot to do to catch up with other countries. It was asked quite often if Russia would be able to keep up and if these new changes would be accepted among all of Russia, it was thought by many other countries that Russia was incapable to change. Russia had reacted to change rather than reform which was needed.

Until fairly recently, Russia had retained its image as dangerous, uncharted land but with a lot of potential in the long term. In Russia many Western companies have opened up offices giving jobs to young children and are paying them a small wage.

Parts of the Russian economy, particularly the underdeveloped services, have been growing at an astonishing pace. As the market has matured and the economy stabilised, many multinational companies have started putting down deeper roots in Russia and opened manufacturing plants.