Russia & Japan:
Industrialization
Outside the West
Chapter 27
Pg. 614-632
Defying the Odds

Russia & Japan as
exceptions:


Heritage of selective
borrowing
Industrialized w/o offending
traditionalists through full
westernization
Russia
“Reform???
&
Advance???”
Responses to Liberal Ideas

Increasingly conservative to prevent Western
revolutionary ideas


1762-1796: Catherine the Great
1801-1825: Alexander I
• Key voice at Congress of Vienna for church & monarch power

1825: Decembrist Uprising
• Western educated military officers (supported by intellectuals)
pushed for liberal reforms

1825-1855: Nicholas I
• Repressed opponents; controlled schools & newspapers
Impacts of Growing
Conservatism

Stagnant economy & growing gap w/ West




Serf labor
Exports = grain
Only ↑ production from ↑ territory & obligations
Focus on expansion & military

Central Asia & Ottoman lands to south

Crimean War (1854-1856)
• Russia v. Ottomans for Crimea & Balkans
• Russia defeated by Ottoman allies – industrialized Britain
Crimean War = Turning Point

Embarrassment & inferiority sparked reform

Economic growth for military strength
1.
Emancipation of Serfs (1861)
2.
Industrialization (1880-)
Reform#1: End Serfdom
Advances:
 Freed serfs given land



Local political councils
formed
Basic education & literacy
rates rose
Women gained new
access to jobs
Limitations:
 Redemption payments
required
 Tsarist control & nobility
maintained
 Population growth &
discontent
Reform#2: Industrialization




Advances:
State-sponsored
Rapid industrialization
through foreign investment
Focused on mining &
metal-working; 4th in world
steel production
Freed serfs provided
growing urban labor force
Limitations:
 Small middle-class, lacked
middle-class initiative
 50% of factories foreign
owned
 Advance result of size &
mineral wealth rather than
tech
 Agriculture remained
backward
railroads – 1870s
- spur iron & coal production
Impacts of Limited Reforms
 Social


unrest grew
Famine, attacks on minorities (pogroms)
Intelligentsia called for fuller political rights &
freedoms of schools/press
• Increasingly radical – birth of Bolsheviks & Lenin
 Lost

Russo-Japanese War in 1905
aided revolution of 1905
• Created monarchy limited by parliament (Duma)
• Autocracy gradually returned as Duma stripped of
power
Revolution of 1905
“The people believe in thee.
“Suddenly the company of
They have made up their
Cossacks galloped rapidly
minds to gather at the Winter
towards us with drawn
Palace tomorrow at 2 pm to
swords. So, then, it was to
lay their needs before thee.
be a massacre after all!
Do not fear anything. Stand
…the soldiers drove their
tomorrow before us and
horses, striking on both
accept our humblest
sides… men, women and
petition..”
children dropping to the earth
like logs of wood, while
--from Father Georgi Gapon,
moans, curses and shouts
leader of the Assembly of
filled the air.”
Russian workers
--from Father Georgi Gapon,
The Story of My Life
Timeline






1762-1796: Reign of Catherine the Great
1825: Decembrist Uprising
1825-1855: Nicholas I & growing repression
 1854 = Crimean War
1861: Serfs emancipated
1881-1905:
 Industrialization (Trans-Siberian Railroad)
 Growing repression
 1905 = Russo-Japanese War
1905: Revolution