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Tsarist Debts and Tsarist Foreign Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Extract

The sheer size of the Russian foreign debt in 1917 has profoundly affected our view of the influence of foreign capital on tsarist diplomacy. It has been argued by both Western and Soviet historians that Russian foreign relations were in good part influenced by, or even determined by, Russia’s debtor status to France and—to a lesser degree—to Great Britain. Thus a Western historian argued recently that in the last years of tsarist rule “foreign credit became a tool of power politics and a limitation on Russian sovereignty in general. … Between 1887 and 1917 Russian policy was tied to French policy, inasmuch as French investments were controlled, to a large extent, by the French Government.” Recently published Soviet works, while revising Stalin’s judgment that Russia was economically a semicolony of Western capital, continue to assert that the “financial-economic dependence on the capital, continue to assert that the “financial-economic dependence on the Entente countries pushed tsarist Russia into a military alliance with them.”

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1968

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References

1 Von Laue, Theodore H., “The State and the Economy,” in Black, Cyril E., ed., The Transformation of Russian Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), pp. 212, 220.Google Scholar

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3 L. Ia. Eventov, Inostrannye kapitaly v russkoi promyshlennosti (Moscow and Leningrad, 1931)’ p. 25.

4 For a comparison of the 1868 and the 1891 tariffs that shows the extremely protectionist nature of the latter, see Alexander, Gerschenkron, “The Rate of Industrial Growth in Russia Since 1885,” Journal of Economic History, Supplement : The Tasks of Economic History , VII (1947), 147 Google Scholar; Pokrovsky, V. I., ed., Sbornik svedenii po istorii i statistike vneshnei torgovli Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1902), p. xxxiii.Google Scholar

5 There is considerable documentation of this interesting phase of Russian industrialization. Gindin, I. F., “Ob osnovakh ekonomicheskoi politiki tsarskogo pravitel'stva v kontse XlX-nachale XX v. Materialy po istorii SSSR, Vol. VI : Dokumenty po istorii monopolisticheskogo kapitalizma v Rossii (Moscow, 1959), pp. 157–222 Google Scholar; the first document in this collection has been published in Von Laue, T. H., “A Secret Memorandum by Serge Witte on the Industrialization of Imperial Russia,” Journal of Modern History , XXVI (Mar. 1954)” 6074.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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7 Inostrannye kapitaly v Rossii (Petrograd, 1922), and Inostrannye kapitaly v narodnom khoziaistve dovoennoi Rossii (Leningrad, 1925). References will be to the 1922 work. A summary in English of Ol's findings is contained in Leonard J. Lewery, Foreign Capital Investments in Russian Industries and Commerce (Washington, D.C., 1923); a publication of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce.

8 01, Inostrannye kapitaly, pp. 14, 19; Akhundov, Monopolisticheskii kapital, p. 62; Tsukernik, A. L., “Iz istorii monopolizatsii zheleznogo rynka v Rossii,” Istoricheskii zapiski , XLII (1953), 201 Google Scholar; Crisp, Olga, “French Investment in Russian Joint-Stock Companies, 1894-1914,” Business History , No. 2 (June 1960), pp. 7590 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Some Problems of French Investment in Russian Joint-Stock Companies, 1894-1914,” Slavonic and East European Review, XXXV, No. 84 (Dec. 1956), 223-40.

9 Crisp, “French Investment,” p. 90.

10 Akhundov, Monopolisticheskii kapital, p. 62; Eventov, Inostrannye kapitaly, pp. 28, 96; Ol, Inostrannye kapitaly, pp. 292-93; M. la. Gefter, “Iz istorii proniknoveniia inostrannogo kapitala v gornuiu promyshlennost’ Urala i Sibiri,” Doklady i soobshcheniia instituta istorii AN SSSR, III (Moscow, 1954), 137-38.

11 Levin, I. I., Germanskie kapitaly v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1914)Google Scholar; Ziv, V. S., Inostrannye kapitaly v russkikh aktsionernykh predpriiatiiakh, Vol. I : Germanskie kapitaly (Petrograd, 1915)Google Scholar; Eventov, Inostrannye kapitaly, pp. 27, 96; Ol, Inostrannye kapitaly, pp. 99, 292-93.

12 Rondo E. Cameron, France and the Economic Development of Europe, 1800-1914 (Princeton, 1961), p. 495; Eventov, Inostrannye kapitaly, p. 96.

13 Richard B., Fisher, “American Investments in Pre-Soviet Russia,” American Slavic and East European Review , VIII, No. 2 (Apr. 1949), 90105 Google Scholar; Eventov, Inostrannye kapitaly, p. 29; Lebedev, V. V., Russko-Amerikanskie ekonomicheskie otnosheniia, IQOO-IQIJ (Moscow, 1964).Google Scholar

14 Vainshtein, Albert L., Narodnoe bogatstvo i narodnokhoziaistvennoe nakoplenie predrevoliutsionnoi Rossii (Moscow, 1960), p. 436.Google Scholar

15 Khromov, P. A., Ocherki ekonomiki Rossii perioda monopolisticheskogo kapitalizma (Moscow, i960), p. 146.Google Scholar

16 Vainshtein, Narodnoe bogatstvo, p. 438.

17 Iu. V. Gote, “Publichnye zaimy dovoennoi Rossii,” Vestnik finansov, No. 5-6, 1926, p. 118.

18 Vainshtein, Narodnoe bogatstvo, pp. 444-45.

19 Pogrebinsky, Gosudarstvenno-monopolisticheskii kapitalizm, p. 31; A. M. Solovieva, “K voprosu o roli finansovogo kapitala v zheleznodorozhnom stroitel'stve Rossii nakanune pervoi mirovoi voiny,” Istoricheskie zapiski, LV (1956), 189.

20 Gefter, “Izistorii …, “ pp. 145-46; B. B., Grave, “Byla li tsarskaia Rossiia polukoloniei?,” Voprosy istorii , No. 6, 1956, pp. 6374 Google Scholar; Liashchenko, Istoriia, pp. 385-86, 391-92; Sidorov, A. L., ed., Ob osobennostiakh imperializma v Rossii (Moscow, 1963), pp. 250313 Google Scholar; Tarnovsky, K. N., Sovetskaia istoriografiia rossiiskogo imperializma (Moscow, 1964)Google Scholar, passim; Khromov, Ocherki, p. 472.

21 Alexandre Krimmer, Socie'te's de capitaux en Russie imperiale et en Russie soviStique (Tunis, 1934), p. 143; Crisp, articles cited in Business History and the Slavonic and East European Review.

22 Cameron, France and the Economic Development of Europe, p. 489.

23 A. L. Sidorov, Finansovoe polozhenie Rossii v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny (1914-1917) (Moscow, 1960), p. 38, n. 74; Alexander M. Michelson, Paul N. Apostol, and Michael W. Bernatzky, Russian Public Finance During the War (New Haven, 1928), p. 238. These figures are from Ministerstvo finansov, 1904-1913. The growth of the internal money market is also suggested by the yearly averages of the discount rate cited by A. Finn-Enotaevsky, Kapitalizm v Rossii (Moscow, 1925), p. 295. In the years 1910-13 this rate had fallen considerably from the high watermark of 1906 and was only slightly higher than that obtained in Berlin during these years.

24 Pasvolsky, Leo and Moulton, Harold G., Russian Debts and Russian Reconstruction (New York, 1924), pp. 27, 32 Google Scholar; Michelson, Apostol, and Bernatzky, Russian Public Finance, P 351; Bovykin, V. I., Iz istorii vozniknoveniia pervoi mirovoi voiny (Moscow, 1961), p. 6465.Google Scholar

25 Miller, Margaret S., The Economic Development of Russia, 1905-1914 (2nd ed.; London, 1967), p. 45.Google Scholar

26 A discussion of this problem will be found in “Die Werte des deutschen Aussenhandels und die Vergleichbarkeit der deutschen Handelsnachweise mit Fremden,” Germany, Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt, Vierteljahrshefte zur Statistik des deutschen Reichs, XII (Berlin, 1903), Pt. Ill, 178-93; Liashchenko, P. I., Zernovoe khoziaistvo i khlebotorgovye otnosheniia Rossii i Germanii v sviazi s tamozhennym oblozheniem (Petrograd, 1915), p. 150 Google Scholar; L. N., Iasnopolsky, “Znachenie russko-germanskogo torgovogo dogovora,” Khoziaistvo , VII (Oct. 24, 1913), 1512 Google Scholar; Sovet s“ezda predstavitelei promyshlennosti i torgovli, Petersburg, , Peresmotr torgovogo dogovora s Germaniei (St. Petersburg, 1914), pp. 1112.Google Scholar

27 E. A. Preobrazhensky, ed., Russkie finansy i evropeiskaia birzha v 1904-1906 gg. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1926), No. 34. This documentary collection is usually incorrectly attributed to B. A. Romanov.

28 Ibid., No. 53.

29 Ibid., No. 74. On French reactions to Russian credit operations in Berlin see Nos. 35 and 52.

30 “Rossiia i Alzhezirasskaia konferentsiia,” Krasnyi arkhiv, XLI-XLII (1930), 58.

31 On Witte's attitude see Preobrazhensky, Russkie finansy, No. 173. For Witte's correspondence with Bülow and Mendelsohn-Bartholdy and the German discussions concerning participation in the loan of 1906 see the following files from the unpublished documents of the German Foreign Office Archives (designation in parenthesis is that assigned the microfilm of this file in the University of California, Berkeley, filming project) : Russland 71, “Russische Finanze,” Vol. 45 (UC I 273/624-677), passim, and Russland 71, seer., “Russische Finanze,” Vol. 1 (UC I 99/302-387), passim.

32 “K peregovoram Kokovtsova o zaime v 1905-1906 gg.,” Krasnyi arkhiv, X (1925), 32; Ren6 Girault, “Sur quelques aspects financiers de l'AUiance franco-russe,” Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, VIII (Jan.-Mar. 1961), 73.

33 “Rossiia i Alzhezirasskaia konferentsiia,” Krasnyi arkhiv, XLI-XLII (1930), 10.

34 This can be seen by comparing the relevant figures from the 1909 and 1915 editions of the Statisticheskii ezhegodnik Rossii (St. Petersburg and Petrograd, 1909 and 1915); Obzor vneshnei torgovli Rossii ipij (Petrograd, 1914), Pt. 1.

35 Miller, Economic Development, p. 65; Arthur, Raffalovich, ed., Russia : Its Trade and Commerce (London, 1918), pp. 310–17 Google Scholar; Geoffrey, Drage, Russian Affairs (London, 1904), p. 249 Google Scholar; Francois, Denjean, La Commerce russe et la resolution (Paris, 1920), p. 2229.Google Scholar

36 There is a vast and fascinating literature that discussed the forthcoming (1917) renewal of the 1904 trade agreement with Germany. Much of the discussion was based on a recognition of the need to diversify Russian exports in order to avoid relying too much on the German market. See, for instance, Materialy k peresmotru torgovogo dogovora s Germaniei (6 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1912-14); K., Sobolev, ed., K voprosu o torgovom dogovore s Germaniei (Kharkov, 1913)Google Scholar; Goldshtein, I. M., Nemetskoe igo i osvoboditel'naia voina (Moscow, 1915)Google Scholar; Monastyrev, V, “Rossiia—Koloniia Germanii,” Voennyi sbornik , No. 9, 1914, pp. 95108.Google Scholar