“Give the state twenty years of internal and external peace,
Citations (1)
- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers whole source · open book
“Give the state twenty years of internal and external peace,” boasted Stolypin in 1909, “and you will not recognize Russia.” That may have been true, even if Germany’s strength was also likely to increase over the same period. Yet according to the data produced by Professors Doran and Parsons (see Chart 1), the “relative power” of Russia in these decades was just rising from its low point after 1894 whereas Germany’s was close to its peak.152 And while that may be too schematized a presentation to most readers, it had indeed been true (as mentioned previously) that Russia’s power and influence had declined throughout much of the nineteenth century in rough proportion to her increasing economic backwardness.
chapter: The Position of the Powers, 1885–1914