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Russian Economic Nationalism during the First World War: Moscow Merchants and Commercial Diasporas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Eric Lohr
Eric Lohr*
Affiliation:
American University, Washington DC, U.S.A. [email protected]
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Extract

While accounts of the end of the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires have often stressed the rise of Turkish and German nationalisms, narratives of the Romanov collapse have generally not portrayed Russian nationalism as a key factor. In fact, scholars have either stressed the weaknesses of Russian national identity in the populace or the generally pragmatic approach of the government, which, as Hans Rogger classically phrased it, “opposed all autonomous expressions of nationalism, including the Russian.” In essence, many have argued, the regime was too conservative to embrace Russian nationalism, and it most often “subordinated all forms of the concept of nationalism to the categories of dynasty and empire.”

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Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 2003 , pp. 471 - 484
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Copyright © 2003 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. Aviel Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia and the Middle East, 1914–1923 (London and New York: Routledge, 2001); Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. 2, Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Z. A. B. Zeman, The Break-up of the Habsburg Empire, 1914–1918: A Study in National and Social Revolution (London: Oxford University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

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9. For one of the most radical critiques of Ol's methodology and accuracy, see Fred Carstensen, “Foreign Participation in Russian Economic Life: Notes on British Enterprise, 1865–1914,” in Gregory Guroff and Fred Carstensen, eds, Entrepreneurship in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 142–146. Carstensen claims that if one takes gold flows into account, then the net influx of capital may have been much more modest than Ol's figures suggest. Even so, he doesn't refute that “foreign enterprise—capital, technique and personnel—did play a special role during the burst of activity in the 1890s.” For a sketch of the polemics and political activities of Ol', see P. V. Ol', Foreign Capital in Russia (New York: Garland, 1983), i-xxxv.Google Scholar

10. B. Ischchanian, Die ausländischen Elemente in der russischen Volkswirtschaft (Berlin: Franz Siemenroth, 1913). Ischchanian's figures were based on surveys in the 1890s. The absolute numbers of foreigners in these positions had risen by 1914, but the relative share of foreigners had fallen substantially.Google Scholar

11. Thomas C. Owen, Russian Corporate Capitalism from Peter the Great to Perestroika (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 187. Based on the average of the percentage of founders in 1896–1900 and managers in 1905.Google Scholar

12. Owen, Russian Corporate Capitalism, p. 187.Google Scholar

13. Owen, Russian Corporate Capitalism, p. 188. Data from a 1903 survey of managers in smaller but more numerous unincorporated enterprises reveal a similar pattern, indicating that 9% of 16,400 such managers were foreigners. Steven Charles Ellis, “Management in the Industrialization of Russia, 1861–1917” (Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 1980), pp. 175, 185–198; cited in Owen, Russian Corporate Capitalism, p. 72.Google Scholar

14. John Armstrong, “Mobilized and Proletarian Diasporas,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 70, 1976, pp. 393–396, 398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Resat Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy—The Nineteenth Century (Albany: State University of New York, 1988), pp. 105–116; Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, eds, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1982), esp. pp. 261–338; Sevket Pamuk, The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820–1913: Trade, Investment, and Production (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire. Google Scholar

16. V. L. Stepanov, N. Kh. Bunge: Sud'ba reformatora (Moscow: Rosspen, 1998); Theodore von Laue, Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963); Ruth Amende Roosa, Russian Industrialists in an Era of Revolution: The Association of Industry and Trade, 1906–1917, ed. Thomas C. Owen (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997); T. H. Von Laue, “A Secret Memorandum of Sergei Witte on the Industrialization of Imperial Russia,” Journal of Modern History, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1954, pp. 60–74.Google Scholar

17. Ischchanian, Die ausländischen Elemente, esp. pp. 290–291; Anders Henriksson, “Nationalism, Assimilation and Identity in Late Imperial Russia: The St. Petersburg Germans, 1906–1914,” Russian Review, July 1993, pp. 341–353. Several studies of foreign entrepreneurs in late imperial Russia show a strong pattern of “nativization” of managerial and technical personnel, both through the naturalization and assimilation of foreigners and through the training and promotion of Russians within the firms. Vol'fgang Sartor concludes that the Vogau family, entering the fourth generation by 1914, had become assmilated into imperial Russian life. Vol'fgang Sartor, “Torgovyi dom ‘Shpis': Dokumental'noe nasledie dinastii nemetskikh predprinimatelei v Rossii (1846–1915 gg.),” Otechestvennaia istoriia, Vol. 2, 1997, pp. 174–183. Erik Amburger found that his ancestors, who controlled a number of firms, assimilated slowly, but this assimilation was well underway by the eve of the war. Erik Amburger, Deutsche in Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschft Russlands: Die Familie Amburger in St. Petersburg 1770–1920 (Wiesbaden, Germany: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), pp. 178–185. All four of McKay's case studies show extensive transfer of managerial authority to Russian personnel. McKay, Pioneers for Profit. See also: A. A. Fursenko, “Mozhno li schitat’ kompaniiu nobelia russkim kontsernom?” in Issledovaniia po sotsial'no-politicheskoi istorii Rossii, Akademiia nauk SSSR Institut istorii SSSR, Leningradskoe otdelenie, Trudy, Vol. 12 (Leningrad: Nauka, 1971), pp. 352–361; Carstensen, “Foreign Participation,” pp. 140–158.Google Scholar

18. For the pre-war history of these groupings, see Muriel Joffe, “Regional Rivalry and Economic Nationalism: The Central Industrial Region Industrialists’ Strategy for the Development of the Russian Economy, 1880s-1914,” Russian History/Histoire Russe, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1984, pp. 389–421; Alfred Rieber, Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Imperial Russia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); Thomas C. Owen, “Impediments to a Bourgeois Consciousness in Russia, 1880–1905: The Estate Structure, Ethnic Diversity, and Economic Regionalism,” in Edith W. Clowes, Samuel D. Kassow, and James L. West, eds, Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 75–92.Google Scholar

19. Thomas Owen has given economic nationalism in general, and the role of the Moscow merchants in particular, a good deal of attention. His current project on a biography of Fedor Chizhov promises to further develop scholarship on this topic. In particular, see his: Capitalism and Politics in Russia: A Social History of the Moscow Merchants, 1855–1905 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); The Corporation under Russian Law, 1800–1917: A Study in Tsarist Economic Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); “The Russian Industrial Society and Tsarist Economic Policy, 1867–1905,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 45, No. 3, 1985, pp. 587–606.Google Scholar

20. Ruth Amende Roosa, “Russian Industrialists during World War I: The Interaction of Economics and Politics” in Gregory Guroff and Fred V. Carstensen, eds, Entrepreneurship in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 160, 172.Google Scholar

21. James L. West, “The Moscow Progressists: Russian Industrialists in Liberal Politics, 1905–1914” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1975); Owen, Russian Corporate Capitalism, pp. 126–138.Google Scholar

22. S. O. Zagorsky, State Control of Industry in Russia during the War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928), pp. 34–37; Boris E. Nolde, Russia in the Economic War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928), p. 142.Google Scholar

23. Roosa, “Russian Industrialists,” pp. 162–163, 184.Google Scholar

24. Louis H. Siegelbaum, The Politics of Industrial Mobilization in Russia, 1914–1917 (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1983), esp. pp. 9, 21–23, 40–64. For discussion of the long-run goals of building up the Russian economy, see the journal of the Moscow WIC, Proizvoditel'nyi sily Rossii. Google Scholar

25. See Promyshlennaia Rossiia, a journal that included articles by many of Russia's leading liberal and moderate conservative economists and political figures on themes relating to the promotion of an economically independent Russia. See also: I. Kh. Ozerov, Na novyi put'! K ekonomicheskomu osvobozhdeniiu Rossii (Moscow: Tip. A. I. Mamontova, 1915); Zadachi, programma i deiatel'nosti Torgovo-promyshlennogo otdela Obshchestva 1914 goda v 1915 godu (St Petersburg: Rassvet, 1916); Doklad: Kommissii po vyiasneniiu mer bor'by s germanskim i avstro-vengerskim vliianiem v oblasti torgovli i promyshlennosti. Oktiabr’ 1914-aprel’ 1915 (Moscow, 1915).Google Scholar

26. Germanskiia i avstriiskiia firmy v Moskve na 1914 god. Ukazatel’ avstro-vengerskikh i germanskikh promyshlenno-torgovykh i torgovykh firm v Moskve, a ravno i tekh russkikh firm, v sostave koikh imeiutsia avstriiskie i germanskie poddannye, po dannym Moskovskikh kupecheskoi i remeslennoi uprave na 1914 g. Posviashchaetsia vsem korennym russkim silam goroda Moskvy (Moscow: “Russkaia pechatnia” [arend. S. K. Popov, izd. Moskovskogo otdela vserossiiskogo natsional'nogo soiuza], 1915); RGIAgM (Rossiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv gor. Moskvy), f. 3, op. 4, d. 4355 (Records of the Moscow Merchant Society); “Boikot nemtskikh tovarov,” Golos Moskvy, 13 September 1914, p. 5; RGIA, f. 23, op. 7, d. 761, 1. 57 ff. (Activities of the Moscow Merchant Society in the Struggle with German Dominance).Google Scholar

27. GARF, f. 102, Osobyi otdel, op. 245, d. 246, pt. 1, 11. 51–54ob.Google Scholar

28. GARF, f. 58, op. 5, d. 399, 11. 6, 28, 38, 83–84; GARF, f. 102, Osobyi otdel, op. 245, d. 247, 11. 1–3, 12, 13, 61, 132; GARF, f. 102, op. 245, d. 247. For a strong argument against the Soviet historiographical line that workers played little part in the Moscow riots, see Iu. I. Kirianov, “Maiskie besporiadki 1915 g. v Moskve,” Voprosy istorii, Vol. 12, 1994, pp. 137–150.Google Scholar

29. Russian National Library (RNB), Otdel rukopisei, f. 261, kor. 20, d. 6, 11. 94–100 (Memoir of N. P. Kharlamov).Google Scholar

30. Otchet Soveta o deiatel'nosti ‘Obshchestva 1914 goda’ za 1915 god (St Petersburg: Rassvet, 1916); Zadachi, programma i deiatel'nosti Torgovo-promyshlennogo otdela obshchestva 1914 goda v 1915 godu (St Petersburg: Rassvet, 1916); RGIA, f. 1483, op. 1, d. 14, 1. 30 (Society of 1914 to F. F. Trepov, 4 June 1916). The Society for the Economic Rebirth of Russia had similar origins and stated goals, but focused more specifically on economic issues and studies of a more academic nature. RGIA, f. 733, op. 196, d. 982, 11. 2–20.Google Scholar

31. GARF, f. 102, op. 73, d. 235, 1. 13.Google Scholar

32. See, for example, Obshchestvo 1914 goda, Otkrytoe pis'mo Soveta Obshchestva g.g. chlenam Gosudarstvennoi dumy 15 iiunia 1916 god (St Petersburg, n.d. [1916]; Otchet Soveta o deiatel'nosti “Obshchestva 1914 goda” za 1915 god (St Petersburg: Rassvet, 1916).Google Scholar

33. For example, one local chapter devoted an entire meeting to the discussion of a local church's purchase of candles from an ethnic German supplier. Otchet Soveta, pp. 3-4. Google Scholar

34. Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Obzor deiatel'nosti komissii i otdelov 4th Duma, 4th Session (St Petersburg, 1915); 4th Duma, 5th Session (St Petersburg, 1917).Google Scholar

35. Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Stenograficheskie otchety, 3 August 1915.Google Scholar

36. RGIA, f. 1483, op. 1, d. 29, 11. 1–4.Google Scholar

37. Nolde, Russia in the Economic War, pp. 71–115.Google Scholar

38. M. Suborin, “Iz nedavniago proshlago: Beseda s ministrem vnutrennikh del A. N. Khvostovym,” Byloe, July 1917, p. 62; A. N. Khvostov, “Pis'mo k izdateliu,” Novoe vremia, 30 May 1915, p. 2; RGIA, f. 1483, op. 1, d. 29,11. 12ob-15.Google Scholar

39. Good surveys of the wartime laws can be found in V. S. Diakin, “Pervaia mirovaia voina i meropriiatiia po likvidatsii tak nazyvaemogo nemtskogo zasil'ia,” in A. L. Sidorov, ed., Pervaia mirovaia voina, 1914–1918 (Moscow: Nauka, 1968), pp. 227–238; Nolde, Russia in the Economic War, pp. 71–115.Google Scholar

40. RNB, Otdel rukopisei, f. 261, kor. 20, d. 6, 1. 94.Google Scholar

41. “Likvidatsiia nepriiatel'skogo vladeniia russkimi aktsiamy,” Promyshlennost’ i torgovlia, 4 February 1917, p. 105.Google Scholar

42. RNB, Otdel rukopisei, f. 261, kor. 20, d. 6, 11. 94–102; David Rempel, “The Expropriation of the German Colonists in South Russia during the Great War,” Journal of Modern History, March 1932, p. 64; Karl Lindeman, Prekrashchenie zemlevladeniia i zemlepol'-zovaniia poselian sobstvennikov: Ukazy 2 fevralia i 13 dekabria 1915 goda i 10, 15 iulia i 19 avgusta 1916 goda i ikh vliianie na ekonomicheskoe sostoiania iiuzhnoi Rossii (Moscow, 1917), pp. 42, 80.Google Scholar

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44. The records of the committee are in RGIA, f. 1483 Osobyi komitet po bor'be s nemetskim zasil'em, op. 1, d. 1–33. See also Sidorov, “Bor'ba s nemetskim.”Google Scholar

45. RGIA, f. 23, op. 28, d. 3178, 11. 35–40ob (Protocol of the chairman and members of the temporary administrations and liquidation committees in St Petersburg, 15 November 1915); RGIA, f. 1483, op. 1, d. 10, 11. 69–70 (Memo of the Special Committee for Fight Against German Dominance, February 1917).Google Scholar

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47. RGIA, f. 23, op. 28, d. 3178, 11. 1–2ob.Google Scholar

48. This was of course true of the pre-war period as well, the most obvious example being the Russian National Party, which arose among the Russian minorities of the imperial southwest, but had a strong influence in all imperial politics. See Robert Edelman, Gentry Politics on the Eve of the Russian Revolution: The Nationalist Party, 1907–1917 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980).Google Scholar

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50. Smith, “Citizenship and the Russian Nation,” p. 322; Sanborn, “The Mobilization,” p. 289.Google Scholar