Industrialization

Konstantin Savitsky painted repair work on a railway in the 1870s: men on the ballast, a line that has to be kept. Later canvas of labour on iron, not a budget speech. Use it for the tracks Alexander II had begun to multiply, then return to the minister who made industry a state programme. The last article left Alexander III appointing a finance minister in 1892. This page is that minister’s decade. Count Sergey Yulyevich Witte, born 29 June 1849, 17 June Old Style, at Tiflis, died 13 March 1915, 28 February Old Style, at Petrograd. He was minister of finance from 1892 to 1903 and, later, the first constitutional prime minister of the empire in 1905–06. This title takes the finance years. The premiership belongs to 1905, two articles on.

Far-reaching plans for the economic development of the Russian Empire formed the kernel of Witte’s policy. He aimed at removing the unfavourable conditions which hamper the economic development of the country and at kindling a healthy spirit of enterprise — the wording of his first budget to the emperor, 1893, as Britannica’s life records it. Using the full power of the state, he unfolded a vast range of activity. A rapid growth of railways had already come in the 1870s. In the same decade the exploitation of petroleum began at Baku in Azerbaijan. There was also progress in the textile and sugar industries. Only in the 1890s did the demand for iron and steel, created by the railway programme and by military needs in general, begin to be satisfied on a large scale within Russia.

By the end of the century there was a massive metallurgical industry in Ukraine, based on the iron ore of Krivoy Rog and the coal of the Donets Basin. The iron industry of the Urals, which lost a large part of its labour force when the serfs became free to leave, lagged far behind. Poland was also an important metallurgical centre. Textiles were concentrated in the central provinces of Moscow and Vladimir; by the end of the century they were drawing much of their raw cotton from the newly conquered lands of Central Asia. Baku was booming, especially as a supplier of petroleum to the Moscow region. St Petersburg had begun to develop important engineering and electrical industries. Witte was able to put Russia on the gold standard in 1897 and to encourage foreign investors. French and Belgian capital was invested mainly in the southern metallurgical industry, British in petroleum, and German in electricity.

A later photograph of Witte. Use it as the face of the finance ministry, then return to 1897. A stiff coat is not a gold rouble. It is the man who wanted the rouble to look like other people’s money.

The government’s economic policy was motivated by the desire for national and military power. This required the growth of industry, and great efforts were made to encourage it. Agriculture was regarded mainly as a source of revenue to pay for industry and the armed forces. Exports of grain made possible imports of raw materials, and taxes paid by peasants filled the state’s coffers. The redemption payments were a heavy charge on the peasants’ resources, though a gradual fall in the value of money appreciably reduced that burden with the passage of years. Consumption taxes, especially on sugar, tobacco, matches, and oil, affected the peasants, as did import duties. In 1894 the government introduced a liquor monopoly that drew enormous revenues from the peasants, to whom vodka was a principal solace in a hard life. The techniques and tools of agriculture remained extremely primitive. Virtually nothing was done to instruct peasants in modern methods.

Russian industrial progress took place under private capitalism, but it differed from classical Western capitalism in that the motivation of Russian industrial growth was political and military, and the driving force was government policy. Russian and foreign capitalists provided the resources and the organizing skill, and they were richly rewarded. The richness of their rewards accounted for a second difference: Russian businessmen were completely satisfied with the political system as it was. Whereas English and French capitalists had material and ideological reasons to fight against absolute monarchs, Russian businessmen accepted the principle and the practice of autocracy. High protective tariffs and very high prices paid for government purchases from the metallurgical industry were the umbrella. The state was the customer that mattered.

The emancipation of the serfs had helped capitalist development, though this began rather slowly. Witte’s decade is the acceleration. Nominally, while still tsesarevich, Nicholas had supervised the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway; that supervision is a fact of the next emperor’s life, not a second railway history here. Name the line as part of the 1890s programme. Do not invent a kilometre count for it beyond what these pages give for the father’s 14,000 miles of track by 1881. The iron of Krivoy Rog and the coal of the Donets are the southern fact. Baku’s oil is the Caspian fact. Gold in 1897 is the financial fact. Foreign capital’s national division is the diplomatic fact. Together they are why the next title must be cities and workers, not another portrait of a tsar.

Keep land commandants out of this page except as the village order that still collected. Keep Bloody Sunday out of it. Keep 1864’s zemstvo statute out of it. Industrialization here is Witte 1892–1903, a budget sentence of 1893, rails and oil already begun, Ukrainian steel in the 1890s, textiles on Central Asian cotton, gold, French-Belgian-British-German money, grain exports, a liquor monopoly, and businessmen who liked the autocracy. Readers who want eleven-and-a-half-hour days will find them under Cities and workers. Readers who want a war with Japan will find it under Nicholas II. This article’s last job is to hand them an empire that had furnaces and still treated the field as a tax.

The rouble learned to look like gold. The village remained a treasury for rails and guns.

Alexander II had multiplied miles of track from hundreds to thousands. Witte tried to make those miles a system that could feed a war industry. The Urals, old and serf-based, lagged when labour could leave. The south, new and capital-based, did not. That contrast is Britannica’s geography, not a travel sketch. Do not invent a blast-furnace temperature. Do not invent a French banker’s name beyond the national origin of the capital. The division of investment is already precise enough. Put the photograph of Witte on the finance years. Put Savitsky’s ballast on the labour that kept the father’s rails usable. Put Baku’s fire on the petroleum the British money wanted.

Do not invent Witte’s childhood. The life’s dates and offices are enough. Do not write the October Manifesto here. Do not write Portsmouth here. Those are 1905. This title stops when the furnaces exist and the gold rouble exists and the village has paid. The urban poor who arrived to tend the furnaces are the next sentence. They were unskilled, badly paid, overworked, and miserably housed. That sentence belongs to the next page as an opening, not as a theft. This page should remain policy, metal, oil, and coin.

The previous title’s narodnost was a slogan of one people. This title’s industry was a programme of one state. The businessmen did not need a constitution. The peasants paid consumption taxes and a vodka monopoly. The redemption burden eased as money lost value, which is not the same as a kind treasury. Virtually nothing was done to instruct peasants in modern methods. That neglect is why overpopulation and poor tools sit in the economic pages as the other half of the 1890s. This article chose the half that made cities. The next article must choose the people who lived in them.

A photochrome of an oil gush fire at Bibiheybat, near Baku. Later colour on a well, not a share certificate and not Savitsky’s ballast that opened this page. Use it for the petroleum boom, then put it aside. Flame over a derrick is not the gold standard. It is what British capital, in Britannica’s division of foreign money, came for, as French and Belgian capital came for southern steel and German capital for electricity.

Stop this page before inspectorates and strikes. The next title is cities and workers. Industrialization here is Witte, 1893’s enterprise, Ukrainian steel, Donets coal, Baku oil, Moscow textiles, a gold rouble, foreign money, grain as payment, vodka as revenue. Savitsky’s sleepers are the line. Witte’s photograph is the office. Bibiheybat is the well. Alexander III had wanted one language. His finance minister wanted one convertible coin. Both served a state that still would not be tied. The people who would have to be housed beside the furnaces have another title, and another set of hours. The Urals, old and serf-based, lagged when labour could leave. The south, new and capital-based, did not. That geography is already the sources’ map, and it belongs at the close as the reason a working class would appear first in some cities and not others.

Peter had built yards to win a sea. This decade built mills to win a place among powers that had already industrialised. The motivation, the sources say, was political and military. The driving force was government policy. That is why a chapter called Russia changes must include a finance minister beside a tsar-liberator. The serfs had been unbound as persons. Capital was bound to the treasury’s needs. The next workers would discover that freedom to leave a village was not the same as power in a mill. That discovery is 1885 and 1896 and 1903, and it is not this page’s last paragraph. This page ends in gold and oil, honestly sourced, with no invented speech to the State Bank.