es in Switzerland and Paris had
become acquainted with the social-democratic and labour movements in
Western Europe, and they believed that the strategy and tactics employed
in these movements might be adopted in Russia. How far they have
succeeded in carrying out this policy I shall relate presently; but
before entering on this subject, I must explain how the application
of such a policy had been rendered possible by changes in the economic
conditions. Russia had begun to create rapidly a great manufacturing
industry and an industrial proletariat. This will form the subject of
the next chapter.

CHAPTER XXXVI

INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS AND THE PROLETARIAT

Russia till Lately a Peasant Empire--Early Efforts to Introduce Arts and
Crafts--Peter the Great and His Successors--Manufacturing Industry
Long Remains an Exotic--The Cotton Industry--The Reforms of Alexander
II.--Protectionists and Free Trade--Progress under High Tariffs--M.
Witte's Policy--How Capital Was Obtained--Increase of Exports--Foreign
Firms Cross the Customs Frontier--Rapid Development of Iron Industry--A
Commercial Crisis--M. Witte's Position Undermined by Agrarians and
Doctrinaires--M. Plehve a Formidable Opponent--His Apprehensions of
Revolution--Fall of M. Witte--The Industrial Proletariat.

Fifty years ago Russia was still essentially a peasant empire, living by
agriculture of a primitive type, and supplying her other wants chiefly
by home industries, as was the custom in Western Europe during the
Middle Ages.

For many generations her rulers had been trying to transplant into their
wide dominions the art and crafts of the West, but they had formidable
difficulties to contend with, and their success was not nearly as great
as they desired. We know that as far back as the fourteenth century
there were cloth-workers in Moscow, for we read in the chronicles that
the workshops of these artisans were sacked when the town was stormed
by the Tartars. Workers in metal had also appeared in some of the larger
towns by that time, but they do not seem to have risen much above the
level of ordinary blacksmiths. They were destined, however, to make more
rapid progress than other classes of artisans, because the old Tsars of
Muscovy, like other semi-barbarous potentates, admired and envied the
industries of more civilised countries mainly from the military point
of view. What they wanted most was a plentiful supply of good arms
wherewith to defend themselve