Industrialization in Russia and Japan
AP World History
Setting the Stage
What is Russia’s role in the greater global context?
– Intellectuals and politicians remain absorbed in fascination of the west
Political freedom, educational and scientific advances, cultural styles
Romanticism hits home in Russia with its combination of folklore and nationalism
Russian music composers begin to explore this idiom, and contribute to the wider musical scene
Setting the Stage
Alexander I: Supported conservative ideologies at the Congress of Vienna.
Setting the Stage
Nicholas I: 1825 Decembrist uprising by western-oriented army officers.
– Nicholas becomes more repressive
– Russia avoids the wave of revolutions which swept through Europe during the 1830s and 1848
Setting the Stage
Russia falls behind the west industrially.
1854-1856 Crimean War: fought on the Black Sea. Western forces damaged the Russian armies entrenched positions.
1855: Alexander II is convinced that it is time for change!
Reform under Alexander II
For two decades, Russia engages in reform, based on Western standards.
1861: Emancipation of the serfs-serfs got a piece of land they used to work.
– Creates a large labor force
– Zemstvoes: local political councils regulating roads, schools, and other regional policies.
Literacy increases
Increased Women’s rights
Industrialization
Trans-Siberian Railroad: connected European Russia with the Pacific.
Stimulated iron and coal industries.
– Export of grain to the West.
– Factories began to spring up throughout Russia.
Russian (radical) Reformers
Intelligentsia: Russian term for articulate intellectuals as a class.
– Wanted political freedom and deep social reform.
– Wanted a different society than that in the west (which they saw as materialistic)
Anarchists: desired an abolition to all forms of government.
– Heated opposition to tsarist autocracy
By the 1880’s…
Russia’s railroad network had quintupled since 1860
Modern Factories were in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Influx of foreign interests under Count Sergei Witte, Minister of Finance from 1892-1903.
– High tariffs to support Russian industry
– Encourage western investors
The good, the bad, and well, that’s it
The Good
By 1900, Russia surges to #4 in the world in steel production
Second only to the US in petroleum production and refining
The Bad
Russian factories were huge, but not up to western technical standards
Labor force was not highly skilled
Backwards agricultural production system
Largely illiterate peasant class which lacks capital
Lack of middle-class
Reformers
By the 1870’s Alexander II is pulling back on reforms.
– Censorship, dissidents arrested, etc.
Alexander II is assassinated by a terrorist bomb in 1881
– Successors continue industrialization, but continue political repression as well.
– Persecution of the Jewish minority.
Pogroms: mass executions of Jews
Reformers
Socialism: Marxist doctrine spreads from the West to Russia
– Lenin claimed that a proletariat was developing worldwide due to the spread of international capitalism, in advance
of growing industrialization.
– Bolsheviks: group of Russian Marxists, who formed the majority party.
Unrest
Working class unrest grows in the cities, aided by the undercurrents of socialism being pushed by the intelligentsia.
Russian workers radicalize much more than western counterparts
– Unions, strikes
– Become interested in the “equality” and “freedom” of Bolshevism
Russian government under Alexander III from 1881-1894 remained stubbornly opposed to compromise
Nicholas II
Emperor from 1894-1918
The Last Imperial Emperor of Russia
Bad fortune was predicted by mystics after the Khadynka Tragedy during his coronation in 1896
Revolution!!
Russo-Japanese War: 1904, Japan wins because Russia can’t mobilize quickly.
Unleashes massive protest
– Brutal repression was not well received, so reform follows.
Creation of a national parliament, the DUMA
Revolution!
Stolypin Reforms:
– Peasants gain greater freedom
– Peasants can buy and sell land.
– Kulaks: wealthy peasant farmers who owned land and used hired labor
Nicholas II was unable to keep his promises of reform.
– Unable to surrender the autocratic tradition
Looking Ahead!
Russia heads into WWI as an unstable nation on the brink of industrialization, and plenty of social pressure at home.
– It must fight in WWI to preserve diplomatic ties
– It must continue to protect its little “Slavic Brothers”
– But, the homefront is riddled with problems…
– This will lead to one of the greatest (as in most influential) revolutions the world has ever seen!
Japan…Setting the Stage
Tokugawa Shogunate: Strict isolationism in Japan.
– Feudal society between emperor, shogun, daimyo, and samurai
Ban on western books was repealed in 1720
Schools of Dutch studies throughout Japan around 1850
Japan
1853: American Commodore Matthew Perry arrives insisting that America gain the right to trade with Japan.
– 1854: He returns and gains that right, and gains extraterritoriality
Japan
Bureaucrats saw no other possibility than to open Japan
– Daimyo oppose this, as do many samurai.
– They appeal to the emperor (long a religious and ceremonial figure), rather than the shogun
– Samurai are split on their support…some want change, others stress conservatism
Meiji Restoration
1866: Japanese Civil War-Samurai forces defeat Shogunate forces and declare Mutsuhito, or Meiji (Enlightened One)
the new emperor.
1868: Meiji Restoration-A profound period of change in Japan that will guide Japan to becoming a world power into the
20th century
The Meiji State
Abolishes feudalism
– Daimyo are replaced by nationally appointed prefects (district administrators)
Political power was centralized
Emperor and advisors enact economic and social change, quickly
Japan
Samurai travel to the West and US to learn about economic and political reform.
1873-1876: Meiji Ministers enact true social revolution
– 1876: Samurai class is abolished.
Constitution in 1889 establishes the Diet, or Parliamentary body
– Could advise government, but not control it
The New Government
Modeled after the Germans
Emperor commanded the military directly and directly named his ministers
– Western style clothing
– Diet could pass laws, upon agreement of both houses, and pass budgets
Japanese government thus includes centralized Imperial Rule, combined with limited representative bodies copied
from the West
– Japan incorporated business leaders into its governing structure, while Russia defended its traditional social elite
Japanese Industrial Revolution
Create the conditions necessary for industrialization…
– New government banks funded growing trade and provide capital for industry
– State-built railroads spread
– Steamships connect the islands
Guilds and internal road tariffs are abolished…create a national market
Land Reform
Japanese Industrial Revolution
Ministry of Industry (1870)
– Maintained supervision of foreign advisories
– Set overall economic policy
– Copied established western practices, but adaptation made it suitable for Japan
Zaibatsu: Huge new industrial combines formed as a result of accumulation of capital.
Issues in Japanese Industrialization
Dependence on imports of Western equipment and raw materials.
Massive population growth
– Supply of low-cost labor fuels class tensions
Education improves
– Universal education system
– Essential traditional moral education stressing loyalty to the Imperial House, love of country, filial piety, respect for
superiors, faith in friends, charity towards inferiors, and respect for oneself.
Copied Western Fashion, hygiene, calendar, but not Christianity
Japanese/Western Differences
Position of Western Women offended the Japanese
– Maintain inferiority of Women in the home
Standards of Japanese courtesy conflict with the West
Shintoism gains followers throughout this period
Japanese New Imperialism
Japan engages in imperialism at the turn of the 20th century
– Needs natural resources
– Gives displaced samurai a way to exercise military talents
Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)
– Treaty of Shimonoseki: April 17, 1895
– China was forced to acknowledge the complete independence of Korea; to cede the island of Taiwan, the P’enghu
Islands, and the Liaodong Peninsula in northeastern China to Japan and pay a large indemnity.
– Concerned that the treaty would destabilize the colonial balance of power in East Asia, Russia, France, and
Germany then forced a revision of the Treaty of Shimonoseki under which Japan had to renounce its claim to
Liaodong.
Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
Russia’s growing strength in East Asia due to the construction of Trans-Siberian Railway threatened Japanese
interests in Manchuria
Japanese win handily by 1905
Japanese take on Korea as protectorate in 1905 and annex Korea in 1910
Friction in Japanese Society
Clash between traditional standards and the young, who were more interested in western standards.
Japan’s parliament often clashed with the Emperor’s ministers
– Dissolve Diet, then re-elect
– Assassinations
The Antidote to Cultural Insecurity
National loyalty and devotion to the Emperor
Nationalism was built on traditions of superiority, cohesion, and deference to rulers.
Justified sacrifice and struggle as part of the national mission to preserve independence and dignity in the world