GOVT-040 Lecture Notes - Narodniks, Utopian Socialism, Crimean War
Document Summary
It was the last place marx would have expected social revolution to take place because russia in 1917 was very rural and he said it"d happen in very urban countries. Middle of 19th century (feudalism)- russia could not modernize and build up the military and was relatively backward, others were industrializing but russian was not; tsar rule but the weak state, labor repressive agriculture. Backwardness becomes a huge problem beginning with the crimean war cause they are crushed due to a huge military gap which scares the elite. This harbored enhanced peasant solidarity and autonomy which is great cause it facilitates collective action. State led industrialization - russia experiences rapid economic growth but the reforms came a bit late so the state was never able to tax the elite, so remains an agrarian bureaucracy. Tsars and elites were very concerned about the backwarness.
