used because they were asked to take part in government and not once did they aspire to an independent position in the Russian body politic.  Another and perhaps even more striking instance we find a century and a half later.  Catherine the Great voluntarily turned over the local administration to the nobles and to that end decreed that the nobility organize themselves into provincial associations.  But so little did the nobility care for political power and active class prerogative that, in spite of the broadest possible charters, the associations of nobles were never more than social organizations in the conventional sense of the word.

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.  But, even after Russian capitalism was thus enabled to stand on its own feet, it did not unlearn the habit of leaning on the government for advancement rather than relying on its own efforts.  On its part the autocratic government was loath to let industry alone.  The government generously dispensed to the capitalists tariff protection and bounties in the form of profitable orders, but insisted on keeping industry under its thumb.  And though they might chafe, still the capitalists never neglected to make the best of the situation.  For instance, when the sugar producers found themselves running into a hole from cut-throat competition, they appealed to the Minister of Finances, who immediately created a government-enforced “trust” and assured them huge dividends.  Since business success was assured by keeping on the proper footing with a generous government rather than by relying on one’s own vigor, it stands to reason that, generally speaking, the capitalists and especially the larger capitalists, could develop only into a class of industrial courtiers.  And when at last the autocracy fell, the courtiers were not to be turned overnight into stubborn champions of the rights of their class amid the turmoil of a revolution.  To be sure, Russia had entered the capitalistic stage as her Marxians had predicted, but nevertheless her capitalists were found to be lacking the indomitable will to power which makes a ruling class.