The Lena Goldfields Massacre

Pyotr Stolypin was appointed in 1906 by Nicholas the second as prime minister. He served as leader at the third Duma and aimed to counter unrest by undertaking reforms that could vastly improve life for the peasants in Russia. His most prominent accomplishments were in farming change. He made it possible for ex-serfs to buy themselves out of the peasant commune and for small strips to be consolidated into capitalist farms, aided by loans from the Peasant Land Bank. About two million households took advantage of these arrangements before 1916 , many moving into the less populated Siberia and Central Asia. His agricultural reform successfully alternated the revolutionary beliefs of some of the peasants by passing a law to finally end redemption

There was very little medical care and standards of education were very low. Even though Stolypin stopped the peasant uprisings, by setting up field court-martial and executing 1144 in 1 year, this caused the protesters to meet terror with terror. Trade unions were also banned and the police cracked down on protests. The tsar, wanted no political concessions all what he did was accepting to the duma. He closed 1000 newspapers and forced 600 trade unions to close so this angered the society even though it restored order. In 1912 The Lena Goldfields Massacre took place where the police shot unarmed strikers who were asking for high wages and this shook Russian society and rekindled the revolutionary and workers' movements after the 1905 revolution.

In conclusion Stolypin was a supporter of the Tsarist autocratic system and his appointment as chairman of the council of ministers marked an era of repression and reform in an attempt to save tsardom not to end it. The positive outcome of Stolypin's era was introducing reforms in agriculture by increasing the production and making the kulaks prosperous. Working relations with the duma had developed even if some historians argue that most of the increase was the result of a series of naturally good harvests rather than Stolypin's

In his time Russia was rich in raw materials but lacked the factories and railways and required to produce and export manufactured goods. Building this would require huge sums of money, but Russia did not have the funds for this investments. The majority of Russian peasants did not have complete freedom of movement; which limited the migration of workers to towns and cities to swell the workforce needed for new manufacturing industries. Russia had a very small business class, as wealthy nobles were not interested in industry, dismissing it as