book

Russia's Economy and World War I

21 Pages 1203 Words 1557 Views

In August 1914 Russia had gone to war against the Germans until 1917. Germany was already going through hardship at the time with the working conditions, workers getting sacked, strikes and the Bloody Sunday Massacre. World War I, even though not a positive thing, had some positive outcomes to the workers and farmers of Russia. With such a large army, Russia needed a lot of supplies and food to feed them which supplied more jobs for the farmers and workers. It brought a sense of nationalism amongst the country to put the country's wellbeing in front of theirs, giving them a desire to protect their country which had seized strikes for the time being. Russia had the largest gold reserve and was financially stable. But as the war progressed on, these positives became negatives as working conditions hadn’t change. The army started taking supplies from farmers and the sense of nationalism was well gone by the end as bad news of loss kept coming through. Russia’s economy broke as too much was spent on the army and inflation had come about. Life for the workers and farmers had been good for a short period of time but had taken the turn for the worst. Before 1914 Russia had a lot of people unemployed. Workers would get hired one day and get sacked the next but with Russia going to war, it provided more jobs for everyone - farmers, workers and people wanting to join the army. The Bloody Sunday massacre had thousands of people rallying about the sacking of people from the steel factory as everyone was worried about losing their jobs. But because of the war, anyone who didn’t have a job had the choice of joining the army. With Russia having such a large army and had spent more on their military than any other country, factories were getting big orders and were even having trouble producing military equipment fast enough (which was one of the reasons they lost the war). This had provided more jobs and longer hours for workers to provide for their family. The Army needed feeding so this

Read Full Essay