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Oh I'm not dissing your book, that was just their general argument which I was summarizing.
I think Russia was a successful autocracy. They faced a much more challenging geography than the Western Europeans, the area they got to take over was not the fertile Americas with endless rivers but cold and infertile Siberia. They didn't get any of the good Atlantic ports. They mostly faced the strongest non-European powers like the Ottomans, Persians, Chinese and Japanese rather than rich and easy-to-conquer foes. That they then managed to industrialize at similar rates to the West is impressive given that they started off with a poorer, less literate country. I think this shows that autocracies can develop at similar speeds to democratic countries over relatively fixed territories even in worse circumstances.
Even if Witte did get kicked out by Nicholas, surely that's a personal failure of a specific leader rather than a systemic failure. Tsar Alexander appointed him in the first place! Stolypin was appointed Prime Minister and Interior Minister by Nicholas. It seems to me that much of the damage to Russia was caused by bad luck in that they faced a stronger autocracy in Germany and a coterie of anarchists and Bolsheviks who were dead set on killing anyone who wanted to improve the country. RIP Stolypin.
No, I mentioned the book as it seems decent, but apparently is not granular enough. Your paper is a good signal for me to update.
Gregory classified Ru pattern of growth as a typical "fast start" of emerging economies, mostly extensive. And this makes sense because, as you noted, Ru didn't have much fertile soil beyond Black Earth Region, access to maritime trade beyond Baltic; but a vast space in the East to colonize, reaping low hanging fruits. China wasn't powerful at the moment, being abused by Europeans and Japanese alike. But the article clearly shows intensive growth, that's important.
Russia is a good instance of autocracy treatment group, in a natural experiment of European powers. Causality is elusive, though, as ever. Was Russia (and Japan) successful due to autocrats yielding to liberal reforms, import of European institutions and technologies; or due to restraining them? Public opinion blamed failures on entrenchment of conservative elites, backed by the tzar. But opinion is usually biased against status-quo, and the state still was a major investor in industry and education.
Speaking of counter(factuals), if an autocrat could be pressured by the public into popular reforms (like Alexander II or Nicholas II), like parliamentary Britain or France were pressured by strikes into welfare programs, what is so special about autocracy? On the other hand, if the same nominal autocracy gives raise to Stalin's industrialization, Brezhnevian stagnation and Chinese rapid growth, doesn't it imply that economic policy might be more predictive of performance, than power vertical?
Good thread. RIP Stolypin.
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