Witte's reform as one of the causes of the First Russian Revolution

In 1897, the Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire, Sergei Yulievich Witte, carried out a reform, according to which our country, following the rest of the world, except Mexico and China, joined the gold standard and transferred the ruble to a gold basis.

It is worth noting that gold coins in Russia went before. However, their turnover was insignificant and they used such money mainly as a means of accumulation.

Actually, this played a cruel joke on Witte's reform. When money in Russia became gold, the people, instead of carrying it to banks or savings banks, simply began to store gold in a "jug".

So, if in 1897 the population had 36 million rubles in gold in their hands, then by the end of 1901 the volume of precious coins in the people's "pods" exceeded 645 million rubles.

As a result, banks simply had nothing to issue loans, and they began to encourage the population to put money on deposit at high rates. However, in order to keep the balance, lending rates had to be raised as well.

The latter were mainly used by merchants, who immediately raised the cost of their goods.

This led to the fact that workers began to demand higher salaries from employers. Employers satisfied the requests of their workers, but included the costs in the cost of the final products manufactured at the enterprises. Inflation thus only accelerated.

Despite the gold standard, the ruble was still losing its purchasing power.

But that's not all. Not all enterprises could raise the price of their products. Consequently, the salaries of workers in such cases also did not increase.

As a result, protest moods began to grow among the latter, which led to the First Russian Revolution.

Comments

[Vladimir80]

As a result, protest moods began to grow among the latter, which led to the First Russian Revolution.

Is this some kind of new take on history? War, war led to the first revolution. As they say, let's draw parallels with today and think

[Sugar Honeyovich]

Not only war. The crisis of the early 1900s, too.

[Vasilenko Vladimir]

Quote: Sahar Medovich

Not only war. The crisis of the early 1900s, too.

the origins lie much earlier, just as the destruction of the foundation of the USSR did not begin in the 80s, but as a result of the consequences of the Second World War and the Twentieth Congress, so the collapse of the Republic of Ingushetia began, in fact, with the reforms of Peter the Great and Catherine the 2nd reign, and the actions of Witte and Nikolashka simply put an end to

[Reklastik]

let's draw parallels with him today and think

- thinking by analogies is disastrous.

[Luminman]

Witte left memoirs behind him. And quite interesting. Of course, not everything needs to be believed, but you can understand the spirit of the era ...

[Eug]

Hmm... an article with a subtle allusion to the recent increase in the Central Bank's discount rate?

[Grossvater]

Poor owl! All and sundry pull her to the globe, her paws are cracking.
And the redemption payments for land, absorbing 90% of the income of the average peasant economy, does this mean nothing?
And the "Law on Cook's Children" tightly blocking the possibility of education by peasants (for a minute, 90% of the country's population"?
And what about feudal-serf remnants, such as officially permitted corporal punishment for the same peasants (seemingly canceled in 1904)?
And what about the actually legalized scuffle in the army?
And, in the end, the boorish antics of the "Crowned Family", like the refusal of Prince Tsushima to say hello to the ship's mechanics on Retvizan, or the refusal of Nikolashka himself to take his own ambassador in Stockholm on board the yacht?
Does this mean total bullshit?
And of course, with brilliance beloved war.

[Katya_Ivanova]

Quote: Grossvater

And the "Law on Cook's Children" tightly blocking the possibility of education by peasants (for a minute, 90% of the country's population"?

And who in the country, after the revolution, conducted the Educational Bez, if everyone was illiterate? Maybe this is also another Bolshevik propaganda?

[Katya_Ivanova]

By the way, the USSR collapsed precisely because it began to retrain combine operators at Moscow State University.

[saigon]

The union collapsed not at all from the fact that education was given to people, dependence is not visible.
The hunchbacked blood of the libirasts and the shitcrats was shed in fear, and now, in fact, it has been shed and is shedding blood in the seas. This is the one about the role of the individual in history.

[Dima68]

The USSR collapsed due to the inability of the communist elite to transfer power and assets by inheritance. The first generation of Bolsheviks were fanatics and idealists, the second were front-line soldiers, and the third were grabbers and corrupt officials.

[Alekseev]

The ruble must be backed by all property, that is, gold, and currency, and all goods and services.
In other words, exports are only for rubles. If not? Buy on the stock exchange or sell something for rubles.
Then there will be no speculative jumps in the exchange rate and inflation is normal.

[Vasilenko Vladimir]

Quote: Alekseev

Then there will be no speculative jumps in the exchange rate and inflation is normal.

this is essentially a revolution in the economy and the overthrow of the power of financiers, they will never agree to this

[AndreyKam_Z]

After reading the article, I remembered a joke
"It means that a crow is sitting with a piece of cheese in its beak on a tree (everything is as it should be - according to Krylov's fable).
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a fox with a bat runs up and how it will give (obscene language) to the crow.
Crow one way, cheese the other. The fox picks up the cheese and runs away.
The crow, recovering his senses, gets up and says: WELL, NO FUCK (mat) YOURSELF REDUCED THE FABLE ...
The author needs to sit down for the General History of Humanity, fit in a couple of pages, the students will be grateful.

[Million]

A book will appear soon: "Elvira Nabiulina is the locomotive of the Russian revolution! The upper classes cannot, but the lower classes do not want to!"))))

[Scientist]

Everything according to Zhvanetsky: "from some swindle and silence to full coverage of a major issue, but only from one side."

[dump22]

What to do?
The monetary reform of 1897 (or rather, a group of laws from May 8, 1895) had been prepared since 1885, even under the former sovereign.

You need to look, but what happened before 1895?
There were paper banknotes, silver rubles and gold rubles (imperial).
The main monetary unit was the silver ruble, but in reality it was a rare coin.
In addition to a full-fledged silver ruble, there was also a small change silver coin (20, 15, 10 and 5 kopecks), which contained silver less than its face value.
Banknotes were not exchanged for silver and gold, and the state could print them without restriction (which it often did). And so there were different rates of exchange of paper money for silver and gold. Basically, everything was guided by the course of the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange. Annual rate changes of 25% were common. To maintain the course, the government made market interventions on the stock exchange.

That is, when making settlements, the parties first agreed on how they would pay - in paper, silver or gold! And still checked with the current rate.

[the same doctor]

the Bolsheviks were hirelings of the then globalists and therefore always praised Witte and the yoke of the golden ruble. However, an incorrect assessment of Witte's reforms leads to an incorrect assessment of the financial policy of Kudrin and Nabiulina.
.
Witte put the Russian economy on a starvation ration, forced industrialists to take out loans from Western banks and give the lion's share of their profits to the West in the form of interest on these loans. Attracting investments due to the stability of the gold ruble was a hundred times less than these losses. Western industrialists and financiers built factories with our hands, from our resources and for our money.

[_KM_]

If the Bolsheviks were mercenaries, how did it happen that under them the country actively developed and opposed the whole world?

[the same doctor]

So after all, first the NEP, and then Stalinist revisionism about the construction of socialism in a single country ... The Bolsheviks were mercenaries, so Stalin repressed them so that they would not interfere. Well, Khrushchev returned to the origins of Marxism. The country collapsed, albeit not immediately.

[_KM_]

Stalin was also a Bolshevik, and many of his followers were too. Another thing is the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trotsky and representatives of the same nationality.

[the same doctor]

From the point of view of Marxism, Stalin was an opportunist and a revisionist. True Marxists are Trotsky, Lenin, Khrushchev. True Marxism is Russia as a colony of the world revolutionary movement.
.
However, now it’s no better, Nabiulina, like Witte, betrayed our country and is pursuing a financial policy in the interests of world capital. Horseradish is not sweeter than radish.

[Cartographer]

Sound familiar?
This led to the fact that workers began to demand higher salaries from employers. Employers satisfied the requests of their workers, but included the costs in the cost of the final products manufactured at the enterprises. Inflation thus only accelerated.
But that's not all. Not all enterprises could raise the price of their products. Consequently, the salaries of workers in such cases also did not increase.

As a result, protest sentiments began to grow among the latter.
Well forgotten old though