Features of the Russian modernization: the beginning of the 20th century. Russian history

Modernization of Russia in the early twentieth century covered all spheres of society. Somewhere, it flowed with less success, and somewhere with more. Its potential was enormous. Prime Minister Stolypin is known for several cruise expressions. One of them affected the development of the country's economy. Once in the Duma, Pyotr Arkadevich said that the country needed twenty years of peaceful life to become the world leader in most indicators. Unfortunately, the war that began in 1914 destroyed these prospects.

Mastering Siberia

Important prerequisites for Russian modernization were the massive outflow of the active population to the east, to undeveloped Siberian lands. The state supported these people (mostly peasants). This process was also facilitated by the new Siberian Railway. The resettlement movement suffered greatly during the Russo-Japanese War, when the country was not up to the peaceful development of the economy. However, after the conflict ended, migration resumed with renewed vigor.

The peculiarities of Russian modernization (the beginning of the 20th century) were the successful agrarian reform of Stolypin and Krivoshein, thanks to which industrious peasants could acquire their own efficient economy, which they had dreamed of since the end of serfdom.

The resettlers received state subsidies, which could amount to 400 rubles (the size depended on the size of the farm). The peasants moved in special wagons, which were prepared in order to transport the owner's belongings. In the new villages and villages, grain storage facilities, shopping benches and other vital infrastructure were organized. New farms differed from old ones using modified tools. Harvest on such sites was richer and better. The Siberian agrarians created the breadbasket of the country. Extra grain was sold for sale abroad.

Agrarian innovations

The peculiarities of Russian modernization (the beginning of the 20th century) in the village were also in the birth of an organized cooperative movement. Even the most powerful business manager was hard at home in a new place alone. Therefore, cooperatives were created. Neighbors helped each other in case of problems. New orders were much more effective than archaic communities.

For the period from 1906 to 1914, to Siberia, according to various estimates, about 3 million 700 thousand people moved. Two-thirds of them eventually remained in their new homeland. The Siberian Railway, which in the first years of its operation was unprofitable, began to bring a constant income due to the demand. On the eve of the First World War, 50 million poods of bread and 5 million poods of butter were supplied from the eastern regions of the country. The agricultural lands of Western Siberia were swamped and undeveloped, so the government annually issued funds for land reclamation. In the effective interaction of active citizens and the state, features of Russian modernization (the beginning of the 20th century) were included.

Russia in 1913

The peak of the development of the Russian economy came in 1913 (this was the last peaceful year of the tsarist state). Therefore, it is for this period that they are referred to as the heyday of the economy under the monarchy.

The increase in the standard of living and the possibility of self-realization affected the demographic situation. On the eve of the war the population of the empire was almost 173 million people. Peasant families with a dozen children were the norm.

The national income of the country increased to 7% of the world level. Ahead were only the USA, Germany, and also Great Britain. According to the rate of economic growth (also 7% per year), Russia was the first in the world.

However, Russia was inferior to Western leaders in such an important figure as labor productivity. It was 5 times lower. The peculiarities of Russian modernization (the beginning of the 20th century) were the accelerated growth rate, which meant that many spheres simply could not keep pace with such a step.

Development of railways

As well as in the end of XIX century, the network of railways grew. In 1906 a branch was opened from Orenburg to Tashkent. This made it possible to facilitate the transportation of high-quality Uzbek cotton to European markets, which made a significant profit for entrepreneurs and the state in the form of taxes to the treasury. Even during the first two years of the war, they managed to build a road along the Kola Peninsula. She walked to Murmansk. It was a strategically important ice-free port on the northern borders of the country. Through him, the supply of resources continued.

The locomotives, invented by Russian engineers in the 1910s, were not inferior to American or European analogues. What is modernization? What are the features of Russian modernization? This, of course, is the constant growth of freight traffic. Each year they increased by 8%. Modernization led to the fact that the first electrified section of the railway appeared in Petrograd. However, an early revolution and civil war drove the country back. Many successes of the tsarist economy were forgotten or specially erased from the mass consciousness by the efforts of Soviet censors.

Communication Scope

All periods of Russian modernization, which took place before the 20th century, did not lead to such rapid growth and development in all spheres of life. This is clearly seen from the progress in the communications services sector. At the industrial enterprises, in state institutions, newspapers, in the mail, etc., new devices appeared. In 1910, around 200 million telegrams were sent across the country. The number of mailings reached two billion.

What is modernization? What are the features of Russian modernization? It had to meet the demands of society. In the sphere of communications, the country has faced its key feature - a huge territory. Because of the large area, Russia could not fully provide itself with everything necessary for quick and easy communication between people. A case in point is the war with Japan, when the regiments for weeks reached the front in the Far East, which had the most unfortunate consequences.

Such were the numerous features of Russian modernization. The table shows its key differences.

Sectors of the economy

The domestic peculiarities of industrial modernization consisted of a nine per cent increase in most spheres of the national economy. Over the last five years of the peaceful life of the empire, the number of enterprises of different plans has grown by one third.

Here are some more indicators. From 1893 to 1913 iron and steel smelting increased 13 times, coal mining 4 times, processing of Central Asian cotton 7 times, etc. The most important and promising sectors of the economy were formed. It was the textile, timber, food and metallurgical industries. These spheres brought the greatest profit.

In Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, alcohol was produced most of all in the food industry (consumed only in the domestic market), sugar and flour (exported).

Development of regions

In the European part of Russia there were more than 90% of the country's enterprises. The main was the central region, which included the Moscow, Yaroslavl, Tver, Kostroma and Nizhny Novgorod provinces. Also rapidly developed and Siberia. In 1914, the development of the important Kuznetsk coal basin began in Tomsk province.

Due to economic growth, a new region was formed. It was the Altai province, in which Novosibirsk developed rapidly, on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Monopolies and trade

By the beginning of the war, there were about two hundred large monopolies in the country. They took place in such industries as banking and large-scale industry.

Foreign and domestic trade attracted two million people. The main partners of Russia in the international market were England and Germany. It is noteworthy that food was exported from the country. At the same time, even in spite of the Baku oil field, the country lacked fuel due to the sharp growth of industry and its needs.

The famous French economist E. Thierry considered on the eve of the war that if not for the revolution, by the middle of the 20th century Russia would have been a world economic leader. In the last years of the monarchy, it has become a developed agrarian-industrial country.