Achievements and failures of the russian economy during the First world war

Abstract

This article argues that the First World War did not in itself create insurmountable objective preconditions for revolution. In 1914–1916 the Russian economy succeeded in reorganizing itself and mobilizing to meet the state’s military needs. Industrial output within the empire’s territory (excluding Poland and Finland) increased by 22 percent in between 1914 4 and 1916, while labor productivity rose by 8 percent. Agricultural yields declined between 1914 4 and 1916, with yields in 1916 lower than those of 1909–1913 by 19 percent, but this reduced productivity was attributable to weather, not to the war. Furthermore, despite this 19-percent decline in yields, the domestic demand for grain at the national level was entirely met thanks to the prohibition in 1914 of alcohol distillation and grain export, two activities that in 1909–1913 had consumed 24 percent of the net grain harvest. From 1914 to 1916 livestock numbers rose by 29 percent. The rail transportation system successfully handled increased freight loads. In 1916, 52 percent more freight was transported than in 1914, and passenger traffic grew by 30 percent; freight trains’ scheduled speed over the entire rail network rose from 14 to 16 versts per hour. The economy’s ability to adapt satisfactorily to wartime conditions was the product of Russia’s successful modernization in the prewar period. The overthrow of the monarchy changed the economic situation radically, and after the October coup conditions worsened at catastrophic speed. It was the revolution that initially spawned the general institutional crisis, which resulted in the paralysis or hampering of the functioning of public and private institutions, industrial enterprises, transport, communal services, courts, and law enforcement, and then in an all-encompassing economic crisis. Revolutionary parasitism — as one may designate the endless demonstrations, parades, rallies, marches, and the like—which under new circumstances had acquired the importance of prestigious revolutionary activity and was remunerated as if it were productive work, served only to intensify the crisis and seemed like ‘fiddling while Rome burned’. Refs 56.