About Russia, which we have lost

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In a chorus of sobbing about "the Russia we lost in 1917," someone heard a sob from the TV screen that "the flourishing tsarist Russia produced a third more bread than the United States, Canada and Argentina combined, and fed half of the world with this bread."

I was immediately filled with national pride and anxious to know the details of such an agricultural miracle. He reached into the bookcase and took out a family heirloom: Gikman and Marks. General Geographic and Statistical Pocket Atlas. 2nd edition, revised and enlarged. St. Petersburg, 1903. Allowed by the censorship.

Opened page 50 - Annual production of cereals and potatoes. For some reason, in millions of hectoliters, but you can still compare countries.

Unfortunately, there are no data for Argentina and Canada, but the USA and Russia are here.

So…

Wheat and barley. Russia - 152, USA - 195. Hm … Where is this third, by which we were more? A! That's it: rye! USA - 10, Russia - 260. Total USA - 295, Russia - 402. Exactly one third more. Know ours!

What's this? … Oats … USA - 290, Russia - 215. Total USA - 585, Russia - 617 …

And then there's corn! USA - 758, Russia - 7. In total, therefore, the USA - 1253, Russia - 634. N-yes … And also Argentina and Canada …

However, corn can be dismissed as "Khrushchev's voluntarism," and oats are not considered bread in our country. Then the USA - 295, Russia - 402, Argentina and Canada - we will pretend that they do not exist, and we will include corn and oats in the category of "communist propaganda." Then you can be proud of the tsarist agricultural complex.

But I decided to get even more proud and looked at the section on population.

Russia - 129,007,000, of which 9,000,000 in large cities. About small towns not mentioned … Total in the countryside and in small towns - about 120,000,000.

USA - 75,887,000, of which in large cities - 13,496,000, in small and "in the countryside" - 62,391,000. Canada - respectively 5.000.000, 757.000 and 4.243.000, Argentina - 4.569.000, 1.096.000 and 3.473.000. In total, therefore, all three countries "in the countryside" and in small towns - 70,000,000.

It turns out that if we also take into account small towns, then in the agriculture of Russia there were twice as many people working as in those three countries combined. And they produced most of all by one third, and even then if we take only some items of the full grain balance, and not the entire balance.

Ay-ya-yay! … "True, only truth and only one truth! But not all" - here you, citizens, and "Russia, which we have lost"!

But who were those "half the world" that Russia was "feeding"?

Let's take, say, the total grain production in the country in these very damn hectoliters and divide by the population. What do we get?

Russia - 4.91. USA - 16.5. Germany - 5.29. France - 7.17. Austria-Hungary - 5.5. Romania - as much as 8.16. Ah, finally! Great Britain - 2.74. But she has a dominion - the same Canada with its grain, and even the same grain Australia.

So who the hell were those "half the world" that Russia was "feeding"? In this situation, feeding someone else meant lowering your own consumption below all those you feed. And after that, they still poke us in the eyes with the help that the USSR provided to its allies.

However, I resisted the final fall into nihilism, saying to myself: after all, there were also the famous Stolypin reforms after that, and it cannot be falsely asserted that they boiled down to only one "Stolypin tie"!

I got hold of the statistical reference book "Russia, 1913" (St. Petersburg, 1995, a strictly democratic edition with data only from reference books of tsarist Russia, permitted by the censorship).

For a start - population data. Russia - 174.009.000. USA - 98.800.000, Canada - 8.080.000, Argentina - 7.200.000. At the same time, the rural population in Russia is 85% (147.908.000), in the USA - 58.5% (57.798.000). For Argentina and Canada, the percentage is not indicated, but it can be conditionally accepted for Canada - as for the United States (it will turn out to be 4.727.000), and for Argentina - as for Italy (it will be 5.299.000). The total in these three countries taken together in the countryside is 67,824,000, that is, 2.18 times less than in Russia.

But what about grain harvesting? This time it is indicated in millions of poods. It is difficult to compare it with 1903, but countries can again be compared with each other.

Wheat. Russia - 1.667.526. USA - 1.267.342, Canada - 384.690, Argentina - 218.559, only three countries - 2.470.590.

And we have them again - rye!

Russia - 1.426.119. USA - 64.117, Canada - 3.562, Argentina - 0. So them! In total, then Russia was 3.093.645, and they were 2.538.269. We surpassed them by 1/5!

And barley them more, barley! In Russia 758.122, and they have 300.592 for three. In total, therefore, Russia is 3.851.767, and they are in chorus - 2.838.767. Again we surpassed them by one third! Especially if you "forget" corn, where Russia is 129.575 against their 4.225.560.

So the announcer is not lying - there is one third of the excess! But only a third of this is still the same after the famous reforms of Stolypin, as before them, and with the same twice superior forces.

And the production of four main breads per capita in poods in 1913: Russia - 20.85, USA - 46.98, Canada - 51.28, Argentina - 85.42. So be proud of the tsarist agricultural complex here … As O. Bender used to say - "It's sad, girls!"

Well, what other Russia have we lost? What did Gikman and Marx write there?

Page 33 - Military expenses. For one soldier a year in rubles.

Russia - 369. Austria-Hungary - 425, Germany - 537, France - 595, Great Britain - 1067 …

Page 40 - Government expenditures as a percentage of the budget. What is there for education? Russia - 3 percent. Germany - 6, France - 8.

Page 47 - School and Learning.

Primary school pupils per 1000 inhabitants.

Russia - 21, the worst in Europe. Leader - Great Britain - 176. France - 144, Germany - 158.

For one secondary school of residents …

Russia - 103.638. Worse only in Bulgaria. Leader - Italy - 21.621. France - 35.566, Germany - 49.460.

Residents per university …

Russia is again the worst of all: 10.615.900. Great Britain - 597.573, France - 601.843, Germany - 2.376.363.

And what are the results from this? For 1000 recruits illiterate: Germany - 1.1, France - 49, and Russia - 617. Only in Serbia is worse - 793.

After all, this is necessary, WHAT kind of Russia we, thank God, have lost!

They can, of course, say that 1903 is not 1913. But something is not visible in the second reference book of information about the "great leap forward" in education in Russia during the specified period.

Indeed, the number of primary educational institutions increased from 1903 to 1913 from 64,216 to 77,819 - 1.21 times, while the population grew 1.35 times. True, the number of secondary educational institutions has grown 1.8 times, but this means that there are 1,800 of them instead of 1,000 - and this is by 174 million inhabitants. During this time, there were no new universities at all. So, in comparison with 1903, the picture in public education has practically not changed.

Yes, a lot of interesting things can be learned from old reference books about Russia "which we lost in 1917". And the more you learn, the less you want to cry about her. And the better you understand what we are really losing today.