That's true. Russia (by this I mean all the Russian Empire, including Poland, Ukraine, what is now Kazakhstan, etc.) in 1910 was not a modern (by 1910 European standards) capitalist country. It was a medieval, feudal society -- literally, until serfdom was abolished in the 1860s, before which about half the population were slaves. Average life expectancy was 29.
--- On Thu, 8/27/09, dredmond at efn.org <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
>
> But Russia in 1917 was where Britain was in, oh, 1585 or
> so. Seriously: in
> 1917 Russia was 90% rural peasants, illiterate,
> superstitious, etc. Then
> consider that Russia had to deal with two appallingly
> violent world wars
> and the ruinous expenditures of a Cold War.
>
> A truly fair comparison isn't really with Britain, but with
> Britain's
> South Asian colonies, and in that light, Russia starts to
> look pretty
> good. One of the things about contemporary Russia which
> nobody but us, um,
> Cheburashka-niki know about is that Russia today has
> incredibly high
> educational levels given its per capita GDP, both in terms
> of scientists
> per capita and high school math scores.
>
> -- DRR
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>