On Mar 7, 2010, at 8:29 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
> I may be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that the Romanovs had
> instituted a literacy program in the Russian Empire (not "Russia",
> dammit) circa 1900 and the Russian Empire actually had one of
> Europe's fastest-growing economies pre-WWI.
Not sure what to make of your Great Russian chauvinism here, but according to Maddison, Russia's economy grew an average of 0.9% a year between 1870 and 1913, less than half the rate of the U.S., Germany, or the UK. Its per capita GDP was 58% of the Western European average in 1820, 49% in 1870, and 40% in 1913.
Doug