quickly I became interested in the functioning of the army as an institution, and especially in the Russian economy at war. In the sixties, historians were interested in ‘modernization and so, disastrously, were English and Scottish local authorities and architects, who tore apart our Victorian cities in order to create what they hoped would be little Chicagos. The American, Walt Rostow, had produced the fashionable optimistic American book of the decade when he published his book about industrial ‘take-off saying that places became modern when they were able to save ten per cent of their national incomes, and as an undergraduate at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, taught by the legendary Neil McKendrick, I had become aware of the importance of industrial revolutions in general. There was a Russian equivalent, of a lurid kind.
Moving into the history of Russia, I had inevitably become involvedin the business of Stalin’s alleged modernization of a backward country. After all, he defeated the Germans, whereas the last Tsar had been defeated by them. In the early days of working on The Easten Front , I had come under the influence of E. H. Carr, the historian of the Bolshevik Revolution, and he had no time at all for Tsarist Russia, a backward place, he said, filled with feckless peasants. Stalin imposed Five Year Plans, dragooned the peasants into industry, starving or imprisoning millions of them in the process. ‘Was Stalin necessary?’ was a question that, in those days, historians seriously asked. Carr clearly thought so.
How backward was Tsarist Russia in 1914? There could be no better test of this than the First World War itself—as Orwell said, war is a try-your-strength machine, and only muscles get the jack-pot. Early on, on the basis of Tsarist generals’ memoirs, or even just of Stalinist economic histories, I had picked up the standard version, that the Russian economy was too feeble to produce war-material in adequate quantities. This view of things was quite widespread, and it had been taken up by both Lloyd George and Churchill, who wanted to divert British troops from the charnel-house of the western front into more promising campaigns elsewhere to help the Russians.
In fact, when I reached the Hoover Institution, I discovered accounts there of what had really happened as to the supply of war-material, and it was not what I had expected at all. The wherewithal for a proper war-economy was in fact there, and, by September 1915, war-goods were being produced in quantities that were at least respectable. In the mean time, there had been what I now recognize as a very Russian story-of mistrust, of the wrong people in charge, of bizarre rivalries, of paralyzing secretiveness. Especially, the bureaucrats did not trust the industrialists, and supposed that, given state money, they would just make a mess of things and levant with the proceeds. Then, when matters did improve, artillerists did not co-operate with each other or with the infantry. Of course, in terms of the figures for the condition of the Russian economy in 1914, we have known, now, for generations that, in the years before 1914, it was booming. That, in my opinion, was really what made the German government ready for war in 1914: if it had waited until 1917, then Russia would indeed have been too strong to be overthrown by a German army that also had France to deal with. Converting the new industrial strength into a war-effort was very difficult, but the industrial strength was there. E. H. Carr did not like this, and I escaped from his influence, which was not in any event a benign one.
The ‘backwardness’ had less to do with economic power than withits utilization, and, here, the nature of the Tsarist military organization was of the greatest importance. William Fuller’s Civil-Military Conflict in Imperial Russia 1881–1914 (Princeton 1985) covers this in much greater detail than I could command, and bears out much of what my
Moving into the history of Russia, I had inevitably become involvedin the business of Stalin’s alleged modernization of a backward country. After all, he defeated the Germans, whereas the last Tsar had been defeated by them. In the early days of working on The Easten Front , I had come under the influence of E. H. Carr, the historian of the Bolshevik Revolution, and he had no time at all for Tsarist Russia, a backward place, he said, filled with feckless peasants. Stalin imposed Five Year Plans, dragooned the peasants into industry, starving or imprisoning millions of them in the process. ‘Was Stalin necessary?’ was a question that, in those days, historians seriously asked. Carr clearly thought so.
How backward was Tsarist Russia in 1914? There could be no better test of this than the First World War itself—as Orwell said, war is a try-your-strength machine, and only muscles get the jack-pot. Early on, on the basis of Tsarist generals’ memoirs, or even just of Stalinist economic histories, I had picked up the standard version, that the Russian economy was too feeble to produce war-material in adequate quantities. This view of things was quite widespread, and it had been taken up by both Lloyd George and Churchill, who wanted to divert British troops from the charnel-house of the western front into more promising campaigns elsewhere to help the Russians.
In fact, when I reached the Hoover Institution, I discovered accounts there of what had really happened as to the supply of war-material, and it was not what I had expected at all. The wherewithal for a proper war-economy was in fact there, and, by September 1915, war-goods were being produced in quantities that were at least respectable. In the mean time, there had been what I now recognize as a very Russian story-of mistrust, of the wrong people in charge, of bizarre rivalries, of paralyzing secretiveness. Especially, the bureaucrats did not trust the industrialists, and supposed that, given state money, they would just make a mess of things and levant with the proceeds. Then, when matters did improve, artillerists did not co-operate with each other or with the infantry. Of course, in terms of the figures for the condition of the Russian economy in 1914, we have known, now, for generations that, in the years before 1914, it was booming. That, in my opinion, was really what made the German government ready for war in 1914: if it had waited until 1917, then Russia would indeed have been too strong to be overthrown by a German army that also had France to deal with. Converting the new industrial strength into a war-effort was very difficult, but the industrial strength was there. E. H. Carr did not like this, and I escaped from his influence, which was not in any event a benign one.
The ‘backwardness’ had less to do with economic power than withits utilization, and, here, the nature of the Tsarist military organization was of the greatest importance. William Fuller’s Civil-Military Conflict in Imperial Russia 1881–1914 (Princeton 1985) covers this in much greater detail than I could command, and bears out much of what my
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