Russian economy in the 19th century

I don't think Russia had a level of advancement comparable to France or Britain. The fact is that she was a massive nation, with massive potential, which needed massive investment to reach the potential.

Her railway system was large, but relative to the sheer size of the country she was well behind most contemporary European major powers. As I said though, she certainly had potential to exploit her industries in steel and oil. Not to mention the agricultural potential which she could have reached. However, Stalinist brutality deserves credit for the massive boost to agricultural productivity. Inspite of an early drop thanks to kulak persecutions and reorganisation, Stalin reformed agriculture into communes which ultimately were more productive. Under the Tsarist aristocracy there was no chance of such a radical reform in Russia's agricultural sector.

With regard to industry, Tsarist Russia was progressing at an impressive rate, dwarfing most of her European neighbours. Her urban population was growing (though Stalin's measures accelerated that growth), her industry was booming and her shabby workers' rights standards were not really much different from those experienced under Stalin. In the end the industrial boom of Russia was destroyed in the force of WWI, the Russian state being both too politically weak and too industrially underprepared to sustain the war. Had she enjoyed another 10 years of growth with the Russian duma being steadily given more power, it is quite feasible that her boom would have continued and allowed her to become a major industrial and military power via evolution rather than revolution.


Edited by Constantine XI

There is a joke (which is true btw) among historians that of all of the European countries in the 19th century, only Russia and England were spared the revolutions of 1848 and subsequent unrest of the bourgeoisie class, because England was already ahead of the rest of Europe in terms of its middle class and liberal economy, while Russia had none...

Yes, the high increase was because of the low base.But if Russia had keep to advance so quikly it will soon cach the other european countries.Even von Moltke said in front of the Prussian gen. staff that if that continues the military and industrial power of the russians will be so great that he wouldnt know what to do.

And Russia had only 3 mil. factory wokers (1,75% of population).64% of the export were agrocultural products and 11% wooden.With these kind of stock russia payed for the american agrocultural equipment and german machineries and ofcourse the intersts for the dept.

And even that the agrocultural production had increased with 2% yearly it can not met the demands of the population wich had increased with 1,5%