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Soviet Union [USSR] THE TRANSFORMATION OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were
difficult for Russia. Not only did technology and industry continue
to develop more rapidly in the West but also new, dynamic,
competitive great powers appeared on the world scene: Otto von
Bismarck's united Germany, the post-Civil War United States, and
Meiji Restoration Japan. Although it was an expanding regional
giant in Central Asia straddling the borders of the Ottoman,
Iranian, British Indian, and Chinese empires, Russia could not
generate enough capital to undergo rapid industrial development or
to compete with advanced countries on a commercial basis. Russia's
fundamental dilemma was that either it could attempt to accelerate
domestic development and risk upheaval at home or it could progress
slowly and risk becoming an economic colony of the more advanced
world. The transformation of the economic and social structure of
Russia was accompanied by political ferment, particularly among the
intelligentsia, and also by impressive developments in literature,
music, the fine arts, and the natural sciences.
Data as of May 1989
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