endemic throughout Europe, but most virulent in
Russia. Liberal and progressive European opinion
was shocked and offended by the tsarist regime’s
treatment of the Jews.
It is difficult to look objectively at the history
of Russia during the period of the last tsar’s rule,
1894 to 1917, knowing what followed. Was the
development of Russia in the reign of Nicholas II
a kind of blind alley bound to lead to collapse and
revolution and the triumph of the Bolsheviks, or
was it already on the road to reform and change
before the outbreak of the First World War? An
affirmative answer to the question of fundamen-
tal change can most confidently be given when
industrialisation is considered. Rapid acceleration
in the growth of the Russian economy began
some forty years later than in the US. Growth was
uneven during the period 1890 to 1914, rapid in
the 1890s when it more than doubled, was
checked by a serious depression during the early
years of the twentieth century, then from 1910
onwards resumed rapid expansion until the war.
Not before 1928 would the Soviet Union again
reach that level of production and so recover from
war, revolution and civil war. Industrialisation was
purposefully promoted by the state and master-
minded in the 1890s by Sergei Witte, the minis-
ter of finance. He recognised that to maintain
its status as a great power, Russia must break
with past traditions and catch up with its rapidly
industrialising European neighbours. A protective
tariff (1891), a stable currency linked to gold, and
high interest rates attracted massive foreign
capital, especially from France, and encouraged
capital formation in Russia. The expansion of rail-
ways had a widespread and stimulating effect on
industrial growth. Besides the small workshops,
which in 1915 still employed two-thirds of all
those employed in industry, there had also devel-
oped large-scale and modern industry. The statis-
tics set out in the table below give some
indication of Russian economic growth.
It must also be remembered that population
growth was very rapid during these years so that
the increase calculated per head of population was
much less impressive. But because Russia was so
large, its total production ranked it in world terms
by 1913 the fifth industrial power after the US,
Germany, Great Britain and France.
In 1913, in comparison with the US, Russia
still lagged far behind. It was also behind
Germany and Britain, but Russian output became
comparable to that of France and Austria-
Hungary in a number of leading industries. With
a population four times as large as that of France,
Russia only achieved roughly the same total
industrial production. All these figures on the one
hand show Russia’s great progress since 1890
compared with earlier decades, while on the other
hand they reveal that in comparison with the US,
Germany and Britain, it remained backward and
the gap was still wide.
Even in 1914 Russian society remained over-
whelmingly rural. Precise classification is extre-
mely difficult as many workers in factories retained
their ties with their village and returned seasonally
at harvest time. But not less than 50 per cent of
the population were peasants, or muzhiki, who led
a hard life, close to subsistence and dependent on
weather and harvests. Religion was their solace
but was less a reasoned Christianity than ritual and
superstition. More than half the peasantry were
illiterate. Oppressed, the muzhikisymbolised the
Russian masses revering the tsar as father and42 SOCIAL CHANGE AND NATIONAL RIVALRY IN EUROPE, 1900–14
Russian production (annual averages)
1880–4 1900–4 1910–13Raw-cotton consumption (thousand metric tons) 127.6 (1879–84) 281.2 (1895–1904) 388.5 (1905–13)
Pig-iron output (thousand metric tons) 477.0 2,773.0 3,870.0
Steel output (million metric tons) 0.25 2.35 4.20
Oil output (thousand metric tons) 764.0 10,794.0 10,625.0
Coal and lignite output (million metric tons) 3.7 17.3 30.2
Railways (kilometres) 22,865 (1880) 52,234 (1900) 70,156 (1913)