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Stephen Morgan's avatar

Your discussion of pre-Soviet Russia reminds me a bit of a too common view that modern economic growth was very slow in China before 1949. The modern section was small, but the growth between the two world wars was very impressive as was some of the structural change. If it has not been for Japan’s invasion - a difficult counter factual to test - I have argued China might well have emerged as a major economy from the 1950s. In my 2021 book The Chinese Economy I reproduce the table on comparative growth of industrial output in Cn, Japan, India and USSR/Russia 1912-2008 from Brandt et in the O’Rourke & Williamson 2017 The Spread of Modern Industry to the Global Periphery Since 1871. It might be of interest if you have not seen it.

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Michael Pettis's avatar

Charles Arthur Conant was one of the leading American economists in the 1890-1910 period, and in his important, and very interesting, 1900 book, "The United States in the Orient", he writes that Russia had one of the most vibrant and best-managed economies in the world, and was likely to be the only serious challenger to the US. What's interesting is he doesn't posit this as a contrarian view but rather as if it is obvious and accepted by other economists. Especially under Sergei Witte, who was Minister of Finance in the 1890s (and later, briefly, Prime Minister), Russia was considered an economic powerhouse.

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