Why was Russia so backwards? They had 300 years to catch up to western Europe and still haven't today. Meanwhile Japan did it in 100 years and South Korea in 50.

>>17912181 (OP)
>. Meanwhile Japan did it in 100 years
More like 30 years.

>>17912181 (OP)
>Meanwhile Japan did it in 100 years and South Korea in 50.
???? Japan modernized so rapidly from the 1870s to the turn of the century that they were able to fight toe to toe with a western power and win. In that same time period, Korea was still a backwater vassal state that Japan was able to easily annex as part of their burgeoning empire.

Because the West got rich pillaging the global south which is why Russia now has their support. Enjoy being a footnote in history books within a decade or two.

>>17912193
>India superpower by 2030 you bloody bastard bich

>>17912186
>>17912189
I was being generous to Russia and accounting for the fact Japanese GDP per capita only caught up to Europe around 1970, which is the centennial of the Meiji restoration. But sure.

>>17912199
At least it is not devolving like Europe or the United States are. But sure keep resting on your already worn out laurels that will do you a lot of good. Even more for the children you are not having.

>>17912181 (OP)
Unironically, conservatives/aristocrats and serfdom.

During the 19th century, the western countries like Britain, France, USA were experiencing massive economic growth thanks to the Industrial Revolution and capitalism. Agricultural revolution meant you needed less workers to produce even more food, and these excess workers can then move to cities for factory jobs, and ideally build a middle class market for these goods. Thus, you get an advanced and rather self-sustaining economy. Less famine, thanks to better agriculture tech, and people are happier because they aren't living like literal peasants in shacks.

But Russia had a much more entrenched aristocracy and serfdom. Russian intelligentsia knew that serfdom and modern capitalist markets couldn't coexist. You needed cities, but you can't have that when 50% of your population are serfs who can't leave the noble estates. The Russian nobles for their part, refused a temporary disruption to their way of life and pretty much resisted the abolition of serfdom for as long as they could. And when it finally came, they did everything in their power to make the transition as difficult as possible, that serfs stayed de facto serfs.

Part of the proposals for abolition of serfdom was to take noble estates and redistributed them to the newly freed serfs. These serfs can work the land, build wealth, and jump start a middle class. Serfs who failed to do well could move to the cities as part of the factory class since they'd lose the farm. But nobles resisted this, and the vast majority of serfs got nothing. So they were free, but without land, they became renters. Nobles were also hesitant to invest in western tech because, again, they didn't want to invest. They had an abundance of cheap labor via de facto serfs. Why invest?

The short-term reactionary ideology of the Russian elite held them back a lot.

It's because of the autocratic regime of the Tsars, and their reliance on serfdom.

>>17912189
stop killing whales takeshi

>>17912181 (OP)
>Korea did faster than Japan
uh oh you should not say that the axis fanboys will get you

>>17912346
>axis fanboys
you'd think they would seethe at japan for attacking USA instead of USSR in 1941 lol

>>17912181 (OP)
>>17912346
South Korea is a shithole but still better than Russia

>>17912181 (OP)
Because "Russia" doesn't really exist, it's just the Muscovite parasite changing colors like a chameleon as he continues to suck everything dry.

>>17912522
>it's just the Muscovite parasite changing colors like a chameleon as he continues to suck everything dry.
The third Rome, indeed.

>>17912181 (OP)
Russia is a beautiful country but it has one crippling problem. It's full of Russians.

>>17912181 (OP)
imperial russia was a colonial contry, comparison with raj or kongo is more fair

>>17912181 (OP)
That pic is funny, the Russia feared developing railroad system in occupied polish parts because they thought germans could use it one day to invade them.

>>17912181 (OP)
why are butthurt belters so obsessed with muh gdp? these people would sell their own whore mother if it meant line go up

>>17912346
can't compete with sk's robust brothel industry indeed

>>17914191
It's the only metric they surpass Russia on, courtesy of the EU.

>>17914159
fair enough, but why did they fear developing railroad in the rest of the empire?

>>17914213
well it's hard to surpass russia in aids, divorces, abortions or crime

>>17914213
it's deeply pathetic, they larp as nationalists while gleefully bending the knee to liberal brussels because the only thing they care about is material prosperity. so many east euros are ignoble soulless bugmen, it's like I'm looking at an empty husk of what a human being is supposed to be

>>17914250
You'll be there soon, anon, just keep importing migrants.

>>17914263
you sound salty we're importing all third worlders except you desu

>>17914287
>we're importing third worlders at the behest of people that hate us to own the russians >:)
not him but how can you say something this sad and not feel ashamed

>>17912181 (OP)
Capitalism.

>>17912215
>heh at least its not devolving into a shithole like Europe and America, its always been a shithole
Amazing.

>>17912243
>>17912271
Russia failed to industrialized for the simple fact that they live in a frozen wasteland a thousand miles away from any semblance of civilization. Imagine blaming the lack of industrialization in Mongolia on the khanate.

>>17914365
>they live in a frozen wasteland a thousand miles away from any semblance of civilization.
Pro tip: they dont.

>>17914365
>they live in a frozen wasteland a thousand miles away from any semblance of civilization.
Pro tip: they dont.

>>17912193
>Because the West got rich pillaging the global south which is why Russia now has their support.
Current Russian economic model is pillaging for oil and gas global South of Siberia they conquered.

>>17914469
Wow this population density chart of 2010 in which there are only two high population zones really proves that Russia was a hustling and bustling city full of commerce and trade. Oh but of course, they also had lots of oil too, which would have been very useful industrializing once they industrialized enough to actually extract it after having industrialized.

>>17914550
>once they industrialized enough to actually extract it after having industrialized.
You don't need to be industrialized to extract oil see Guilf Oil States.

>>17912181 (OP)
Imperial Russia, Soviet Russia, and the current Russian Federation all consistently chose political security over economic development when the two objectives clashed. all states are concerned with security but Russia has been and still is consistently paranoid and insecure about its borders, this is in part because Russian governments tend to think in terms of expansionism and so views the actions of other states in the same way and in part Russian territory is both very vulnerable to land invasions and so vast and sparsely populated that is hard to defend

a main driver for Russian economy weakness has been a consistent pattern of discouraging the independent economic development of Russian territories outside of the ethnic Russian heartland, successive Russian governments despite having radically different ideologies have generally preferred to keep the far regions more economically integrated to Moscow than to neighboring regions and especially to the countries that border Russia and often have brotherly ethnic groups. keeping infrastructure at a bare minimum (and always leading back to Moscow), parachuting in Moscow approved leadership, forcibly moving ethnic groups around, controlling free movement inside the country and investing heavily in internal political policing, all of these are massive drains on domestic economic development. you can see modern flare ups of these problems now with the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin is trying to push concepts like technological sovereignty because being cut off from European markets has shown that Russia struggles to repair their damaged oil facilities, replace aircraft tires, and without access to Western financial transaction services their own domestic banking sector is increasingly reliant on Chinese ones because they have no competitive domestic alternatives (in addition to cars, cell phones, farming equipment, etc)

>>17914759
>but Russia has been and still is consistently paranoid and insecure about its borders,
Gee, I wonder why this is the case, considering that the country historically had been consistently under the threat from the bordering steppes and has also been subjected to mass -scale invasions by westoid powers every 100 years ever since the 17th century. The mystery of the millennium, indeed

>>17914903
how many times has Russia been invaded vs how many times has Russia invaded another state

even now the same retarded paranoia is driving Russia flagellating itself in its quixotic invasion of Ukraine, like Ukraine the corrupt shithole was about to invade Russia (or Georgia or Moldova). even the rhetoric about NATO becomes incoherent when you realize that NATO was falling apart from irrelevance before the invasion and it is now stronger than it has been in decades and has even expanded to include former neutral states. the US is too dysfunctional to even govern themselves and were never going to use NATO to try to invade a fucking nuclear power, especially after the debacles in the Middle East

>>17915070
>how many times
The question is not about "how many times", but about the scale and sheer amount of destruction caused by these invasions. The last time westoid power invaded Russia, it cost millions of lives and billions dollars of material damage.
>when you realize that NATO was falling apart from irrelevance
Why should I consider your speculations? NATO is an extremely aggressive alliance, if its bosses ever feels their grip is weakening they'll simply bomb the hell out of random country. Everyone in Russia saw what happened to Yugoslavia and the Serbs in particular and saw their own reflection in them.

>>17912193
The *global south* is a convenient myth used to push communism in nominally white countries, Hector

>>17915215
>The question is not about "how many times", but about the scale and sheer amount of destruction caused by these invasions ... NATO is an extremely aggressive alliance
NTA and I can understand a deeply rooted psychology in Russia about this stemming from a history of invasions, but the idea that NATO is some modern-day equivalent of the Axis Powers is not based on any objective analysis of the situation beyond Russia's borders.

It makes sense to Russia's leaders and enough people there. But that arises from an inner Russian psychology and sense of insecurity, and some instinctive urges to regard the outside world as evil and menacing, which justifies increasing the power of the military and police, because they don't know how else to run things. It's essentially an internal Russian mental make-up, and they don't know how else to run Russia themselves except as a dictatorship, and they need to give themselves something which sounds like a good reason to have one, so it's convenient to believe, although it's not necessarily insincere. Also, it ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy anyways, because Russia's belligerence is scary, and results in NATO becoming more unified and spending more on the military, which Russian elites then point to and say "see, NATO is aggressive," which justifies them continuing to run Russia the way they do. The only way they know how. To do otherwise is too complicated.

>>17912181 (OP)
The Industrial Revolution began in England and spread across the English speaking world first. Then it spread to places that were French speaking and German speaking because they lived in proximity to England. Spain, Italy and Russia were all farther away from England and so industrialized much slower. Even then Spain and Italy are much smaller than Russia so for the same length of rail laid in each country the benefits are going to larger in a smaller country because the rail links a higher percentage of the population together. Russia is huge, so a huge amount of rail needs to be laid to actually link the whole country together. That all requires iron mines and coal plants, more industries that have to be created and organized using the latest English technology and methods.

Meanwhile a random English guy could go over to America and start a company from scratch.

>>17914299
easily because i see right through your little narrative

>>17914903
>historically had been consistently under the threat from the bordering steppes
russia is >the steppes

>>17912181 (OP)
Dude, Russia is like 200 times the size of Japan and barely borders any seas. That makes transport much more expensive. There is a reason Britain industrialized the fastest. Water is important as hell.

>>17915294
The ‘nato bad’ thing is a pretty common refrain though with both the far left, and the global south primarily because Russia is, if anything, rather good at propaganda. The idea that Russia was ever under threat from NATO is comical when you consider the extent of their nuclear arsenal. Rather, NATO prevents Russia from employing coercive violence (one of their only methods of diplomatic engagement) on NATO member states. To an expansionist empire like Russia? That feels aggressive despite it not being so. You’re right though that they also use it as a justification for continued misrule and wars of expansion.