topic 7.1 empires an industry 1750 to 1870 the Russian Empire broadly speaking the narratives for the next few videos follow a theme I mentioned recently specifically this is the notion that the extent to which global states were willing or able to westernize largely determine their importance and success in the emerging global economy and society with the advent of industrialization in Britain this narrative evolved so further so for the next few videos we will explore the attempts of the three major land empires we've already introduced the Russians the Ottomans and the Chinese to adopt to industrialization so we'll begin with Russia when we last left Russia it was headed down a course of westernization set forth by Peter the Great and then later Catherine the Great under Peter the new capital city of st. Petersburg had been built as a window to the west Peter had revolutionized the military and built up the Russian Navy under Catherine an impressive canal system had been built linking the distant edges of the Russian Empire through economy and trade you should also remember that Catherine had signed an important trade agreement with Great Britain further incorporating Russia into the Western economy both rulers had made significant advances to the Empire's education system but neither had done much to alleviate the condition of the serfs who you should remember were those long-suffering peasants who were bound to the land they were born on without any hope of improvement or address if they were abused and so despite these efforts at industrialization the Russian Empire remained distinct in a number of ways meaning that the manner in which Russia industrialized though broadly similar to the path followed by England in Western Europe differed in some important ways firstly in England and elsewhere in Europe industrialization was driven largely by the private sector merchants and businessmen looking to increase their profits by investing in innovative technologies because of this industrialization in the West was only indirectly influenced by the government but this was not the case in Russia as we will soon see rather much like the westernizing reforms of Peter and Catherine in the 18th century industrialization occurred in Russia from the top down and was overseen by a number of reform minded czars secondly as I mentioned although previous czars had attempted to modernize and westernized Russia during the 18th century they had done little or nothing to alter the condition of the serfs who were by the census of 1857 nearly 38% of the population some 23 point 1 million people consequently although much of the Russian nobility were effectively westernized by earlier reforms the Russian peasantry and serfs remained steeped in traditional Russian culture unsurprisingly that created a cultural divide between the upper and lower classes which became difficult to surmount and resulted in tensions as the upper class moved toward industrialization while the lower classes felt increasingly alienated and oppressed by this movement finally well Europe and especially England was characterized by its relatively small geographical size Russia was enormous with far greater resources and a larger population and these two realities would have their own impact on the Empire's economic future although many countries in the West were rapidly moving toward industrialization by the early 19th century Russia lagged behind even as it continued to develop important trade relationships with European nations grain in particular became Russia's largest export to Europe but the revenue that flowed into the Empire as a result of this connection with the West was not reinvested or turned toward innovation or even reinvested in the economy rather it simply served to line the pockets of aristocrats and powerful landowners now that dynamic was not the result of a lack of interest by the Russian government who was as aware as ever of the rapid advancement of the web the government in fact often proposed industrial projects and offered incentives for investment in those projects but they were rarely embraced since they threatened the financial interests of conservative landowners who were perfectly contented with the way things were there was some heavy industry developed during this period mining steel production that sort of thing but this was small when compared to what Russia's Imperial rivals in Britain France and Germany were doing it would take an embarrassing military defeat in the Crimean War to fully expose the implications of Russia's lack of industrialization now the Crimean War which was essentially a conflict between Russia and the Allied forces of Britain France and the Ottoman Empire lasted from 1853 until 1856 the reasons for the war are complex but to way oversimplify it they essentially involved Russia's continued desire to expand into Ottoman territory and the conviction of the French and the British that that expansion would continue to upset the balance of power in Europe leading them to form an alliance with the Ottomans to stop the Russians the war was significant as the first instance in which modern technology and industrial production were used in warfare it was also a complete medical and tactical disaster especially for Russia Russian factories such as they were proved unable to produce sufficient amounts of weapons munitions or machinery compounding matters what new military technology Russia did possessed was mostly imported from the West and the empire small railway system proved inadequate to transport men or equipment efficiently so the process of industrialization in Russia truly began under the tsar alexander ii who imposed a series of liberalizing and westernizing reforms now alexander came to the throne in the midst of the disastrous Crimean War and Alexander became convinced and he was right that the war had revealed just how backward the Russian Empire was in comparison to the rest of Europe following in the footsteps of earlier reformers like Peter and Catherine Xander did a number of different things he set up local elected judges to promote local self-government he imposed universal military service ended some of the privileges of the nobility promoted university education and laid railroad tracks across Russia beginning in the 1870s the most important reform though came in 1861 with the liberation of the serfs under the so called emancipation edict more than 23 million Russian serfs became full citizens of the Empire and could own land and operate businesses this was not just a social reform it was also intended to release them from the land and the control of conservative landowners who thus far had been holding back industrialization Alexander and his advisors anticipated that a large portion of freed serfs will become a mobile labor force able to relocate to areas where industrial workers were needed they also believed that given greater freedom these peasants would develop more efficient and productive ways of farming and so one of the anticipated outcomes of the 1861 edict was the emergence of a successful independent peasant class but while the emancipation did release millions of peasants from their land many peasants chose to live in traditional ways instead of purchasing land independently or moving to the cities to work in factories they chose to own land communally preventing the full impact that was anticipated by the Emancipation edict from being felt now despite all of the reforms he initiated in 1881 alexander ii was assassinated by radical revolutionaries who sought to completely overthrow the tsar Dome after Alexander's death his son who I apologized is also named Alexander this is Alexander the third proved to be more socially conservative and just generally autocratic than his father and this was probably due in no small part to the fact that Alexander the third was present when his father was assassinated and this maid understandably a pretty deep impression on him but for all of his conservative tendencies Alexander the third was still interested in strengthening Russia through greater industrialization and this project really began to pick up steam by the 1890s new agricultural techniques were introduced to the peasants and they did increase the production of food and they made Russia the largest producer of grain in the world by the end of the 19th century thousands of miles of railroads built beginning in the reign of alexander ii now under the reign of Alexander the third linked to the Russian economy together as never before identifying a need for capital investment in order to further industrial growth the government also made it easier for foreign parties to invest in Russian industrial ventures so they weren't waiting on the sort of conservative minded Russian aristocrats to do this anymore now they were opening Russia up inviting foreign parties to come in and invest their money not only were existing barriers removed but incentives were offered to foreign individuals and companies to invest in industrial and manufacturing sectors by the late 1890s the Russian economy was visibly industrializing and increasingly controlled by foreign investors large amounts of foreign capital mostly from France and Britain funded new plants and factories in Saint Petersburg Moscow Kiev and other cities and by 1900 around half of Russia's Heavy Industries were foreign owned during this period the Russian Empire also became the world's fourth largest producer of steel and its second largest source of petroleum the new railway system allowed transport into remote parts of the Empire which allowed construction and operation of factories mines dams and other projects there under Alexander the 3rd Russia's industrial economy had progressed more than one decade than it had in the previous century now clearly state participation in the economy was key to Russia's successful industrialization of Act which as I mentioned earlier set Russia apart from the West but for all its advances the economic transformation of Russia also delivered some unforeseen consequences some of which would become very problematic for the government the radical alteration of the Russian economy in the years between 1861 and 1900 created fiery social change for one thing as we see in a lot of other places Russia's population growth was explosive and you can see this more I think in Russia than just about anywhere else in the world because the Russia's population doubled in the period between 1850 and 1900 although in contrast to what you see in the West that population does remain chiefly rural meaning they're not living in cities well into the 20th century like in Britain a growing middle class of businessmen and professionals sought a greater role in Russian political life but unlike in Britain this new middle class had no real outlet for their political ambitions since there was no real representative component to the Russian government also unlike in Britain there was not much private industry and the middle class was far more dependent on the Russian state for contracts and jobs than the middle class in Britain or really anywhere else in Western Europe really was now the reason why that is significant is that it made this new middle class reluctant to take a more radical political stance because they were very much dependent on the Russian government and adding to that reluctance was this great fear of a new working class this new population which have been created to work in factories and which grew increasingly radical in the closing years of the 19th century just like in Britain and elsewhere millions in Russia flocked to the cities in search of work although again these millions only made up a small percentage of the total Russian population still though by 1897 over 70% of the residents of Moscow and st. Petersburg were recent migrants from rural areas the rapid growth of city's led to poor living conditions similar to those that we saw for workers in major European cities like London in time this group formed a new rising social class which quickly radicalized far more than we ever saw in Britain or really the rest of Western Europe Russian laborers were faced with the same harsh working and living conditions but unlike in England where we saw that there was a least of outlet for this frustration Russian workers were denied any legal outlet like unions for their grievances so Russia's economic reforms met and even exceeded national goals but they also gave rise to a new working class that was exploited poorly treated and clustered together in large numbers and therefore very susceptible to revolutionary ideas in this context a small but growing number of educated Russians found in Marxist socialism a way of understanding the changes that they witnessed daily socialism gave them hope for the future in the form of a radical upheaval of workers which fundamentally changed the dynamics in Russian society by 1898 denied any opportunity to participate in the government this small group had formed the illegal Russian social democratic Labor Party which became involved in workers education union organizing and eventually revolutionary action but peaceful efforts did little to alter the state of things in Russia and by the early 20th century the strains of rapid change and the state unwillingness or inability to respond quickly enough resulted in a spontaneous insurrection in 1905 so the thing to know about the Russian Revolution of 1905 is that it wasn't an organized planned thing it just sort of happened in late 1904 following defeat in a naval war with Japan workers at an Artillery plant in st. Petersburg went on strike when threatened with the loss of jobs due to the end of the war sympathy strikes in other parts of the city soon raised the numbers of strikers to 150,000 workers in 380 two different factories and soon they had shut down the entire city by January 21st of 1905 the city had no electricity and newspaper distribution was entirely halted all public areas were declared closed as striking workers took over the city the following day Sunday January the 22nd protesters attempted to bring a petition to the czar at his palace and for reasons unknown guards opened fired into the crowd killing somewhere between 200 and a thousand demonstrators the event became known as Bloody Sunday and is considered by most scholars as a start of the true revolution the events in st. Petersburg especially Bloody Sunday outraged many in the rest of the Empire and more demonstration and violence soon followed in Moscow and elsewhere thousands of workers in Russian cities elected to cease work as a show of solidarity with their murdered comrades in st. Petersburg within a month an estimated 800,000 industrial workers were striking across Russia around half of these were in st. Petersburg alone these strikes required coordination and leadership most of which came from factory committees or influential individuals but as the revolution dragged on into the summer of 1905 there were increasingly calls for a Council of delegates to be put together to represent the interests of all industrial workers this body which would be called the Saint Petersburg Soviet was formed in October of 1905 it contained about 500 delegates elected by some 200,000 workers and almost a hundred different factories the reason that I mentioned this Soviet is that it defined the political factions and parties that would play a key role in the big Russian Revolution the one that breaks out in 1917 by mid 1905 the revolutionary fervor across Russia had reached such a fever pitch that the overthrow of the Tsar seemed more likely than not but unlike the later revolution the 1905 revolution was spontaneous it was uncoordinated and it lacked a single guiding movement or objective instead it was a series of rebellions launched by several unconnected groups in classes each with their own set of grievances we know that in addition to the workers who are at the heart of the revolution peasants ethnic minorities soldiers and university students also participated furthermore though the heart of the 1905 revolution was in the cities where it started the spirit of rebellion spread across the Empire to include mutinies and remote naval bases peasant uprisings around the Empire and worker unrest in as far-flung a place as Siberia but the Tsar managed to survive mostly because these revolutionary forces lacked organization cohesion and a common objective and so by the end of 1905 the revolution had been brutally repressed more than 14,000 people were executed and some 75,000 were in prison for their part in the uprising however the outcomes of the Revolution were significant in order to regain control the Czar and his government had been forced make and promised more substantial reforms than they had ever before contemplated for the first time they granted a constitution legalized trade unions and political parties and even permitted the election of a National Assembly called the Duma censorship laws eased as well giving all Russians an outlet for their frustrations and complaints in the print media despite this disruption Industrial Development also continued so that by 1914 Russia ranked fifth in the world in terms of overall industrial output but we also know that in the first half of that year some 1.25 million workers about 40% of Russia's total workforce would again go on strike and this event would prompt the withdrawal of Russia from World War one and then launched the Russian Revolution so overall the Czar's efforts at political reform which were granted reluctantly and often not very effectively implemented weren't enough to tame the radicalism of the working class or prevent revolution from breaking out a decade later representatives of all social classes even the upper classes were so frustrated by the government's intransigence that many believe that another revolution was just inevitable various revolutionary groups many of them socialists published pamphlets and newspapers and organized trade unions they spread their message among workers and peasants and created links among workers from different factories they also would furnish leaders to act when the next revolutionary moment arrived