Even less did the commercial class aspire to independence. In the West
of Europe mercantilism answered in an equal measure the needs of an
expanding state and of a vigorous middle class, the latter being no less
ardent in the pursuit of gain than the former in the pursuit of
conquest. In Russia, on the other hand, when Peter the Great wanted
manufacturing, he had to introduce it by government action. Hence,
Russian mercantilism was predominantly a state mercantilism. Even where
Peter succeeded in enlisting private initiative by subsidies, instead of
building up a class of independent manufacturers, he merely created
industrial parasites and bureaucrats without initiative of their own,
who forever kept looking to the government.
Coming to more recent times, we find that the modern Russian factory
system likewise owes its origin to governmental initiative, namely, to
the government's railway-building policy. The government built the
railways for strategic and fiscal reasons but incidentally created a
unified internal market which made mass-production of articles of common
consumption profitable for the first time.
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