Russia under the Old regime

218

try of native origin.* The great surge of Russian industrial productioi in the 1890s, which attained a pace unmatched either before or since, vas not so much the outgrowth of Russia's own, internal economic devebp-ment, as the result of the transplantation of western money, technobgy and above all, management.! Russian capitalists - rich landowners md merchants alike - were too ignorant of the techniques of modern investment to be able to initiate the kind of financial operations which vere required; and in any event, they preferred to place their money in the securities of the imperial government, in the safety of which they iad unbounded faitih, than to take a chance on industrial ventures. Cnly after foreigners had borne the brunt of the risk did native capital fow into heavy industry. Hence, on the eve of the Revolution a thirc of Russia's industrial investment and a half of the bank capital of her major banks were of foreign provenance.22

The political outlook of these self-made people was influenced Vy a simple economic fact, namely high tariffs. Fledgling Russian industries would not have been able to survive English or German competiion without the aid of tariff measures, which became increasingly stringent as the nineteenth century drew to a close.

Hence, the timidity and conservatism of the Russian moneyed clas in economic activities was duplicated by its political behaviour. Its iwn sympathies were certainly monarchist and nationalist, but it prefered not to expose itself. It stood aside when the great conflict betweenthe intelligentsia and government got under way in the middle of the nne-teenth century. In 1905, a group of leading businessmen attempted to form their own political party, but it never got off the ground and nost of them ended up in the ranks of the conservative Octobrists. The lirst Duma (1906) had among its deputies two industrialists and twenty-bur merchants - 5-8 per cent of the total membership; surely a pitiful slare

* The railway boom, in which Russian capital did participate in a major way, who not directed by high government officials or generals, was promoted largely by Jews or naturaized Germans. t It is noteworthy that in the historical evolution of Russian industry, native resources lave always proved inadequate to the task of making the transition to more advanced methds of production. Having learned in the seventeenth century the basic techniques of manufaiture and mining with disciplined human labour, Russians used them for two centuries. The next phase, heavy industry operated by steam and electric power, was introduced agaii by westerners in the 1880-90S. It has served as the basis of the Soviet economy which intil recently kept on developing the foundations of mechanized industry of the first generatioi but has shown no ability to make the leap into automated methods of production distinguining the post-Second World War economy of the west. Here again, in the 1960S-70S, the Rusian government has been forced to rely on foreign capital and foreign technology, paying for loth, as it had done throughout its history, with raw materials. This accounts for the ironic situition that half a century after the Revolution one of whose goals was to liberate Russia from 'colciiaT economic dependence, the Soviet government once again invites foreign capital and gants concessions to foreign enterprises.