PETER STOLYPIN

1. PETER STOLYPIN • 1906 – Tsar appointed new Prime Minister. • 3 main aims: • End unrest • Get the peasants to support the Tsar • Get the middle class to support the Tsar

2. End Unrest • First action as PM was to clamp down on terrorism. • 1906 – over 1000 terrorists were arrested, tried and executed. • Stolypin necktie

3. People had to carry internal passports. • 1906 – 21,000 people exiled.

4. Appeal to the Peasants • Land reform crucial to restoring order. • If peasants owned the land they worked on they would be more grateful, harder working and loyal to the Tsar. • Created a new social group – Kulaks (land-owning peasants)

5. Needed to break up the Mir. To do so he and the third Duma passed the following: • 1906 – restrictions on peasant movement were removed. • Peasants allowed to sell their plots of land. • 1907 – outstanding redemption payments abolished. • Peasant Land Bank. • Resettlement programme.

6. Industry and Education Reforms • 1905 had disrupted the process of industrialisation. • Stolypin borrowed money. • Increased output of 50% between 1909 – 1913. • However, did little to improve working conditions. What effect did this have?

7. Grants to improve primary education in towns and cities. • 1908 – free university in Moscow. • Censorship eased. • However, restrictions on Jewish university students. Students expelled if deemed to be involved in revolutionary activities.

8. Success? • Short term – decline in peasant protest. • 22% of peasants applied for private ownership of land. Majority stuck to the traditional methods and resented the Kulaks. • Agricultural techniques remained backwards – crop yields remained low. • Those who were resettled struggled to cope.

9. Reforms were not hugely successful. • The Tsar remained convinced that the pillars of autocracy were more important than reform with regard to holding onto his power and creating loyal servants.