Russia & Japan
Industrialization Outside the West
Russia Before Reform
• Prevent contagion of the French
Revolution
• Concerns about defense
• Support for renewed isolationism
• System of serfdom
• Censorship of liberal or radical
political views
Decembrist Uprising (1825)
• Revolt of
Westernoriented army
officers
• Result: Tsar
Nicholas I
tightened
control
Stagnant Society
• Agricultural
society based on
serf labor
• Did not
industrialize like
the West
• Increased exports
by tightening labor
NOT improving
technologies
Crimean War (1854-56)
Causes:
• Religion
• Balance
of
Power
Crimean War- Results
• Western forces won… because of their industrial
advantage!
• Ships to send masses of supplies
• Superior artillery & weapons
Tsar Nicholas II Reacts
• Reform is essential
• Not to copy West but to allow for
sufficient economic growth to
compete MILITARILY
• First priority- end serfdom
• Only way to develop a mobile labor
force needed to industrialize
Emancipation of Serfs (1861)
• Serfs gain freedom and land… and
redemption payments
Results of Emancipation
• Large labor force
• No revolution in
agricultural
production
• Peasant uprisings
become common
• Population
explosion
By 1861, Russia was
a society in the
midst of rapid
change where
reform did not go
far enough to
satisfy key protest
groups
Alexander II’s Reforms
• New law codes
• Focus on local
government
• More people in
politics
• Military
improvements
• Educational
expansion
Move Toward Industrialization
State support is VITAL
because there is no preexisting middle class or
available capital
Trans-Siberia RR
• Crowning achievement
• RR boom directly stimulated export of grain west
and opened Siberia to development
Industrialization Begins But…
• Factories not up to Western standards
• Workers not trained
• Agriculture remained backward
• Military not disciplined or efficient
• No large, self-confident middle class
• Business people and professionals lacked
numbers and tradition to assert
themselves
2 Calls for Revolutionary Change
Business &
Professional People
• Began to seek a
fuller political
voice and new
rights
• Argued for liberal
reforms
• Not very
aggressive
Intelligentsia
• Impatient with
Russia’s slow
development and
visible reactions to
political activity
• Become
increasingly active
Russian Intelligentsia
• 1st example of a kind of intellectual radicalism
capable of motivating terrorism
• Wanted political freedom and social reform while
maintaining a Russian culture different from the
West
Anarchists
• Seek to abolish all
formal government
• Failure to win
peasant support led
many to violent
methods
• Formation of the first
terrorist movement
of the modern world
Alexander II Pulls Back
Reforms
• Tightening political
meetings
• Increasing censorship
of newspapers
• Arresting political
dissidents
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
(AKA Lenin)
• Marxist leader
• Insisted on
importance of
disciplined
revolutionary cells
• Don’t need a
middle class for
revolution
• Motivates the
Bolsheviks
Russo-Japanese War (1904)
• Japan worried about Russia’s expansion
• Loss unleashed massive protests in Russia
and launched the Russian Revolution of 1905
Revolution of 1905
• Duma & Stolyph Reforms
• Reform package quickly became unglued
• Workers’ rights withdrawn (causing more
riots)
• Duma progressively stripped of power
• Nicholas II could not surrender the
tradition of autocratic rule
• Police repression resumed
Conclusion
Revolutionaries were quelled
and satisfied with the Russian
Constitution of 1906
But nothing could prevent the
later 1917 revolution that
would finally topple the Tsar’s
regime
Japan in the Early 19th Century
• Final decades of the
shogunate
• Financial problems
• More secularism
• Education expansion
• Technological
limitations
• Rural riots
The Challenge to Isolation
• U.S. forces Japan
to open for trade
• European nations
secure equal rights
• Shogunate
reluctant, others
in favor
• Disorder resulted
with defeat of
shogunate
• Meiji
Meiji State
• Abolished feudalism
• Expanded state power
• Samurai officials sent West to study
economies, technologies, politics
• Samurai class abolished
• Reformed army quickly triumphed
• During 1880s political construction complete
• New system gave power to an oligarchy of
wealthy businessmen and former nobles
Japan’s Industrial Revolution
• Success in managing foreign influences
• But, Japan before WWI was still behind the
West
Social & Diplomatic Effects
• Massive population increase
• Supplied cheap labor
• Strained resources & stability
• Universal education
• Science
• Technology
• Loyalty to the nation
• Emphasis on traditional values
• Family instability
• Birth rate dropped
• Divorce rate rose
Foreign Policy
• By 1880s, Japan joined the imperialist
nations
• Need for raw materials
• Change gave displaced samurai a role
& provided nationalist stimulation for
the populace
• Proved military & diplomatic power
Strain of Modernization
• Cost of success
• Poor living standards
• Arguments over Westernization
• Political issues
• Rise of Japanese nationalism
• Built on traditions of superiority and cohesion,
deference to rulers, and tensions from change
• Strength was a main factor in preventing
revolutions occurring in other industrializing
nations
Russia, Japan, & the World
• Western fears of a “yellow peril”