Why did the Russian Empire break down halfway and not complete its "economic miracle"? Why did not Russia, despite its enormous potential, become a leading superpower at the beginning of the 20th century?
The most interesting thing is that the leading thinkers of that era, regardless of ideological and political views, saw the sad end of the Russian Empire. The expectation of an impending catastrophe has become the leading mood of the Russian intelligentsia since the 1870s. F. Dostoevsky, N. Chernyshevsky, K. Leontiev, V. Soloviev, Alexander III and G. Plekhanov agreed on one thing: the empire had come to its end.
The reforms of Alexander II brought a “mine” under the Russian Empire, causing an imbalance in development. The active development of capitalist relations took place in a semi-feudal, peasant-agrarian country. Industrialization, the rapid construction of railways, which linked the country into one whole and for the first time created a single market for Russia, entailed the rapid development of metallurgy, mechanical engineering, the coal industry, construction and banking. They gave a powerful impetus to the development of wholesale and retail trade. The financial system and education developed. Young Russian capitalism needed personnel.
However, this explosive growth led to another powerful tearing of the fabric of society - the first was the creation of a world of noble "Europeans", Westernized intelligentsia and the rest of the population. Inside Russia, two more Russias appeared: “Young Russia” - a country of railways, industry, banks and higher education; second Russia - agrarian, peasant, poor and illiterate peasant communities, medieval outskirts in the south of the empire (Caucasus, Central Asia). Thus, by the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian statics, the centuries-old immutability of the countryside, came into sharp contradiction with the capitalist dynamics. In the political sphere, this was expressed in the confrontation between the liberal intelligentsia and the emerging liberal-democratic, social-democratic movements and parties with tsarism (autocracy). The liberal, pro-Western intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie wanted to live "as in the West" - in a parliamentary republic or a constitutional monarchy.
The tsarist government tried in vain to unite the "two Russias" and eventually lost control over the situation. Thus, the traditional Russian way of life was oriented towards the peasant community. And capitalist relations demanded its destruction in order to free the reserves of the labor force, free from the shackles of the community. Also, the development of capitalism led to the emergence of a stratum of the urban bourgeoisie, which wanted to throw off the "shackles of tsarism." The political representatives of the bourgeoisie - democrats, believed that for the further development of the country, a more effective and efficient government was required. Fortunately, the higher bureaucracy and the royal family in the person of the grand dukes themselves gave reasons for discontent, participating in the machinations to steal government money.
As a result, at the beginning of the 20th century, the connectivity of the Russian Empire was finally destroyed. She lost her unity. Society began to split into hostile parts (we can see similar processes in the modern RF). There were no longer two "peoples" - the noble "Europeans" and the people proper, as before, but much more. The Russian aristocracy and feudal lords of the national outskirts were living out their days, the estate of the nobility and the peasant community quickly collapsed (two poles appeared in it - wealthy owners, kulaks who "fit into the market" and the mass of poor people, farm laborers), a bourgeoisie appeared, and the working class grew rapidly. There were traditional folk, including the Old Believers, the radical raznochin, the intelligentsia, the bourgeois-capitalist, the foreign (Jewish, Polish, Finnish, etc.) worlds. And each "world" had claims to the autocracy. In particular, the Old Believers have hated the Romanov regime since the split. In turn, the Romanovs for a very long time adhered to a repressive policy towards the Old Believers.
By the beginning of the First Revolution, ties within each "world" were stronger than with other parts of the imperial society. The interests of individual "world-peoples" were placed above the general imperial interests and opposed to them. Splitting, breaking ties began and, as a result, the chaos and unrest of 1917-1920. Therefore, one should not believe in the myth of the "damned atheist Bolsheviks" who destroyed the prosperous and abundant Russian Empire. The unity of the empire perished under the kings. The Bolsheviks, however, were only an insignificant part of the revolutionary camp before the February-March coup organized by the Westernized Februaryists.
Another deep cause of the death of the Russian Empire was energy (spirit). The Romanov Empire was deprived of the energy of Holy (Light) Russia - feeding the divine, religious, energy flow from Heaven (God). It was faith (Orthodoxy - "the glory of rule, truth", continuing the traditions of the ancient pagan faith of the Rus) was the most powerful capacitor and generator that collected and generated the highest social energy necessary for the development of the state. This energy made it possible to perform a miracle, to change history at one moment, to withstand the most difficult test, to win the most brutal war. An example is the empire of Stalin (social justice, however, as the basis of the Russian faith), when Soviet Russia performed three miracles at once - it recovered after the catastrophe of 1917 and made a qualitative leap in development; withstood the blow of the Hitlerite European Union and won the Great War; was able to quickly recover from the worst war in its history and continue to move towards the stars.
If power is nourished by living faith, it receives a powerful source in development, in solving civilizational and national problems. The Romanovs, following the path of westernizing Russia, trying to make it a part of Europe, chopped down the roots of Orthodoxy, crushed it, took control and turned it into a "state", part of the state apparatus. Nikon and Alexei Mikhailovich caused a split by the church reform. The Old Believers became the real spiritual heirs of Sergius of Radonezh and his disciples. They were terrorized and repressed. Nikonianism replaced the essence with the form. Orthodoxy has become "official", formal. Under Peter the Great, who destroyed the institution of the patriarchate, the church finally became part of the state apparatus. A gradual loss of faith by the people begins, a decline in the authority of the clergy. The people are beginning to despise the priests. Official Nikonian Orthodoxy is shrinking, degenerating, becoming an appearance. The blown up and plundered temples, murdered priests, with complete indifference of the people, will become a tragic result.
Thus, the Russia of the Romanovs was deprived of the energy supply of Light Russia (the world of rule). Faith has become a formality. Living faith died under the Romanovs! It survived only among the Old Believers, who created their own separate Russia.
Another way of energizing is energetic vampirism. The West, the Western project, lives on its basis. Constant expansion, seizure and plunder of other people's territories. Murder of other civilizations, cultures, peoples and tribes. Hence such a love of Western cinema in all sorts of vampire ghouls. This is the essence of the Western world - it is a vampire world that sucks "blood" - the energy and resources of other countries and peoples. The West kills the victim, takes her energy. Without vampirism, parasitism, the Western world cannot exist, it quickly degrades and begins to die. Hence the need for constant expansion, expansion and aggression.
The Western powers created huge colonial empires. Later they became part of a semi-colonial system, when countries and peoples formally gained independence, but in reality remained dependent on the West in the fields of culture and education, science and technology, economics and finance. The colonies, their merciless robbery, blood and sweat of tens of millions of people allowed the leading Western powers to create initial capital and carry out the industrial revolution and industrialization. A capitalist system was created, where there is a core world, a metropolis that flourishes and develops at the expense of the colonial and semi-colonial periphery.
The Russian Empire also expanded, but did not plunder the outskirts, did not enslave the less developed nationalities and tribes. Russia had no colonies. It was the Russian land that was expanding. The Russians mastered new territories and carried with them a higher spiritual and material culture. Moreover, the empire developed the outskirts at the expense of the resources and energy of the Russian people. The Russians bore all the hardships of building and preserving the empire - they fought, created, paid taxes. They helped other peoples to develop. In particular, the Russians created the Finnish statehood.
Thus, the Russian Empire had no colonies. but Petersburg gradually turned its own people into a colony. The Russia of the Romanovs followed the western path. The Western elite robbed not only the colonies, but also subjected their own peoples to cruel exploitation. This system existed both under feudalism and under capitalism. Suffice it to recall the "white slaves" of the British Empire - the Scots, Irish, Poles, etc., who were brought to America together with the blacks.
The Romanovs divided the people into two parts - the masters and the tax-paying, enslaved population. Russians were enslaved. Serfdom, finally formalized by the Cathedral Code of 1649, became more and more rigid and inert with each decade. The bulk of the country's population fell into the position of slaves, who had to maintain with their sweat and blood, property, maintain the comfortable position of the noble gentlemen, and at the same time build and maintain an empire. The elite in the Russian Empire isolated themselves from their people. In Russia, there appeared noblemen - "Europeans", for whom the native language was German, French and English. Receiving income from estates, they preferred to live in Petersburg, Berlin, Rome, Paris and London. Previously, the social elite of Russia-Russia was part of the people, with one language, culture and way of life. She fulfilled the task of protecting Russia, the nobles shed blood for the country and the people, in exchange they received a high status, land and peasants for feeding. The Romanovs perverted this system. If Peter the Great forced the nobles to be the best, educated, serve in the army, in the navy and in the state apparatus, then after him the landowners got the opportunity to be social parasites.
As a result, a primitive energy scheme was formed. Power, the social elite took energy and resources from the people. The people lived in hopeless poverty. The village has remained in the past, the Middle Ages. The nobility was given the opportunity to develop, receive education, live in civilized conditions. At the same time, the culture had the advantage of being European.
This predatory, "vampire" system (internal colonialism) continued to work even after the abolition of serfdom. Parasitism on the people was preserved. The reforms of Alexander II did not change the essence of the empire's life. The peasants in reality remained dependent, paid redemption payments for their land and continued to feed the landlords. They needed to lease land from landlords, who retained most of the estates. At the same time, the peasants were massively ruined and became farm laborers, workers, that is, they now fell into dependence on the nascent bourgeois class, the capitalists. It is clear that the zemstvo and judicial reforms, measures to develop education and health care, cities and villages have somewhat improved the situation. And cultural take-off - the golden and silver age of Russian culture, brightened up the situation.
The hope for salvation appeared during the reign of Alexander III. It became obvious that we have no "partners" in the West, that the only allies of Russia are the army and the navy. That the previous attempts of St. Petersburg to "fit into Europe" are senseless and dangerous. Our culture began to flow rapidly. She began to search for the deep foundations of Holy Russia, the moral sources of the people. Great Russian writers, artists and composers laid the foundations of the nationwide Russian culture. The most prominent figures of Russian culture have ceased to be Western Europeans in spirit, they have become real Russians. At the same time, they knew European culture very well - history, languages and art. However, even this breakthrough could not radically change the situation, give Russia the Romanovs creative energy to complete the process of transformation into a superpower, create their own Russian project of globalization.
Thus, the source of energy in the empire remained the same - the sucking of energy and resources from the people. Parasitism on the people was preserved. True, the nobility quickly disintegrated, eroded, but a bourgeoisie appeared, which also exploited the people, but already within the framework of the capitalist system. An active stratum of raznochinny, liberal intelligentsia also appeared, which began to "rock the boat", drawing the people into turmoil. It became the basis for the formation of a group of political terrorists, professional revolutionaries, the "fifth column" and launched the process of destruction of the empire. Therefore, the catastrophe of 1917 was quite natural.
The "energy reserve" of the people by the First World War was exhausted. The soldiers, former peasants, no longer wanted to die for "the faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland," as in the days of Suvorov and Kutuzov. The lack of energy supply caused stagnation and then the collapse of the Russian Empire. Moreover, a reserve of "black energy" of destruction (numerous problems and contradictions in society) has accumulated, which exploded in 1917.
