The relationship between agriculture and industry

 

This simple relationship shows the problem that faced Russia from the time of the Tsars to Gorbachev’s fall from power. The abolition of serfdom didn’t solve it, War Communism nor the NEP did, and ultimately neither did any of Stalin’s Five-Year Plans. It is a constant them running through the history of Russia and the Soviet Union. So it is something you want to understand.

 

Agriculture, needed to:

Industry

 

Provide food for the growing urban population

 

Pay for industrialisation through exports

 

Therefore, it needed to become more efficient

 

 

Provide goods for the agricultural workers

·        Better equipment, eg tractors

·        An improved standard of living

·        Giving an incentive for agriculture to be more efficient

 

As Russia was still essentially an agricultural country at the end of the nineteenth century (85% of its population were still peasants), if Russia was to catch up with powers like Britain and its huge navy and Germany and its all-conquering army, and Japan that had defeated it in 1905, Russia simply had to industrialise. Not only that, but if Russia was to provide its people with the standard of living, the material goods and the welfare support, that other countries were providing for their people, Russia had to industrialise.

 

You have to understand this to understand Russian history.