Summary Question on the Industrialisation of Russia from the Textbook

How Far Was Russia a Modern Industrial Economy by 1914

A great deal of evidence can be found to support the view that by the outbreak of war in 1914, Russia was a modern industrial power. Stemming from the reforms of finance ministers Vyshnegradsky and Witte in the 1890s, Russia was by this time the world’s fifth largest industrial power; achieving an annual industrial growth of 8.5% PA. In particular, she was the second in the world in terms of oil production, the fourth largest producer of coal, pig iron and steel and the fourth largest in gold mining.

Despite this, however, Russia was in many ways still a predominantly agricultural society. In 1914, despite the move towards industrialization, some 4/5ths of the population were still peasants working in agriculture. Moreover, despite several attempts to reform the system, most recently Stolypin’s agrarian reforms of the previous decade, agricultural production had not been modernised and, indeed, many peasants continued to practice strip farming.

In this way, then, while Russia was at this time a major industrial power in Europe at the world, it was still fundamentally not only an agricultural economy, but an agricultural society that only showed limited signs of modernizing.