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Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK. And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based. But they had quite a few

by mantas 9y ago

Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK. And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based. But they had quite a few smart people. The only lacking thing was push from the government to industrialize. Let alone they were far from catching up with the West by the time WW2 started or at any other point in their history. It’s impressive in the same way that holocaust is impressive.

realusername 9y ago
> And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based That's quite an understatement, the Russian empire did not do any industrial revolution at all, it was a mostly undeveloped agricultural wasteland. > Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK. But none of them succeeded to the extent of the Soviet Union at that time. One of the main argument of the communists at that time was actually to point out the failures of capitalism in Asia as why capitalism would never work. At that time the industrialisation receipe did not work for a lot of countries and plenty of people believed the industrialisation of the West could not be reproduced, and especially not with capitalism. Everything is obvious in hindsight, it's how history work, you would create your own country now, it would not take that much time to industrialise it with modern techniques. The Soviets managed to take one of the least developed agricultural country of Europe (comparatively worse that current African countries) and transform it into a global superpower while other countries failed to even industrialise, this isn't a small feat at all.
- mantas 9y ago
  > That's quite an understatement, the Russian empire did not do any industrial revolution at all, it was a mostly undeveloped agricultural wasteland. They did have factories. In fact, factories in Petrograd were one of the hotbeds of revolutionary mind. Railroad in more densely populated areas. Electric power plants did exist here and there. St Petersburg or Moscow were rather similar to cities of similar size in the West. Countryside was just too sparsely populated to do anything with it. > But none of them succeeded to the extent of the Soviet Union at that time Succeeded by what measure? GDP? Satisfaction of citizens? Soviet Union had abnormally large amount of people working in agriculture all the way till the fall. Consumer industry never even came close to West. Sure, if you focus on military alone and put oppressive state apparatus behind it, with a lot of natural resources, you can have a damn sweet army. But the rest will crumble. And it did. > transform it into a global superpower Russia was already a super power. Purely by sheer size and manpower. They had some great minds in science in arts as well. The 19th century super powers fell in first half of 20th century thanks to the raise of national identities and human rights. Making vast colonies too expensive to maintain in all sorts of ways. This gave birth to 2 superpowers that ruled the world in 2nd half of 20th century. USA avoided the fall because they were built on freedom and humanity (to certain extent, obviously) to begin with. USSR just avoided all of that thanks to totalitarian regime.

by mantas 9y ago

realusername 9y ago

> And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based That's quite an understatement, the Russian empire did not do any industrial revolution at all, it was a mostly undeveloped agricultural wasteland. > Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK. But none of them succeeded to the extent of the Soviet Union at that time. One of the main argument of the communists at that time was actually to point out the failures of capitalism in Asia as why capitalism would never work. At that time the industrialisation receipe did not work for a lot of countries and plenty of people believed the industrialisation of the West could not be reproduced, and especially not with capitalism. Everything is obvious in hindsight, it's how history work, you would create your own country now, it would not take that much time to industrialise it with modern techniques. The Soviets managed to take one of the least developed agricultural country of Europe (comparatively worse that current African countries) and transform it into a global superpower while other countries failed to even industrialise, this isn't a small feat at all.

mantas 9y ago
> That's quite an understatement, the Russian empire did not do any industrial revolution at all, it was a mostly undeveloped agricultural wasteland. They did have factories. In fact, factories in Petrograd were one of the hotbeds of revolutionary mind. Railroad in more densely populated areas. Electric power plants did exist here and there. St Petersburg or Moscow were rather similar to cities of similar size in the West. Countryside was just too sparsely populated to do anything with it. > But none of them succeeded to the extent of the Soviet Union at that time Succeeded by what measure? GDP? Satisfaction of citizens? Soviet Union had abnormally large amount of people working in agriculture all the way till the fall. Consumer industry never even came close to West. Sure, if you focus on military alone and put oppressive state apparatus behind it, with a lot of natural resources, you can have a damn sweet army. But the rest will crumble. And it did. > transform it into a global superpower Russia was already a super power. Purely by sheer size and manpower. They had some great minds in science in arts as well. The 19th century super powers fell in first half of 20th century thanks to the raise of national identities and human rights. Making vast colonies too expensive to maintain in all sorts of ways. This gave birth to 2 superpowers that ruled the world in 2nd half of 20th century. USA avoided the fall because they were built on freedom and humanity (to certain extent, obviously) to begin with. USSR just avoided all of that thanks to totalitarian regime.