Russia & Japan: Industrialization Outside the West AP World History

Similarities  Maintained economic and political independence during the West’s century of power  Prior experience of imitation  Knew that learning from outsiders could be profitable and need not destroy their native cultures  Improved their political effectiveness during the 17 th & 18 centuries  Used the state to sponsor changes (in the West change was initiated by private businesses)

Similarities  Expansionist  Literacy increases  Not much reform or industrialization the first half of 19 th century  Tensions between traditionalists and reformist intellectuals  Extensive railroad network created  New parliaments created  Imitated West but retained identity  Centralized authoritarian states

Similarities  Pre World War I Russia and Japan were NOT equal to the West  Rise contributed to the growing sense of competition between established western powers

Russia  Process of industrialization undercut social stability  Tsarist empire improved political effectiveness  Prior experience of imitating Byzantium  Alliances after 1815  Decembrist Uprising (1825)  Loss in Crimean War ( ) convinces leaders to reform (socially and militarily)  Emancipation of the serfs (1861)

Russia  Lacked a middle class  Low technical standards in factories  Lacked a highly trained labor force  Business people were not assertive in challenging aristocratic power  Rise of intelligentsia (like Lenin)  Workers were more radical than in the west

Russia  Expansionist (Black Sea, East Asia, Balkans(?)  Duma (parliament)  Rich in natural resources  Russo-Japanese War (1905)

Japan  Process of industrialization maintained greater social cohesion  Tokugawa shogunate improved political effectiveness  Prior experience of imitating China (religion, written language, etc)  Shogunate weakens  Japan becomes more secular

Japan  Rejection of Chinese medicine and culture  Commodore Perry uses military pressure to force trade (1853)  Period of isolation ends  New emperor proclaimed (1868) Meiji Restoration  Political changes went deeper than in Russia  Abolished feudalism (1871)

Japan  Samurai issues  Modernized army, navy, government banks, etc.  Land reform motivated production, new fertilizers, & new equipment  Centralized imperial rule  Expansionist & imperialist (Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan) – fueled economic needs, growing industrial and military strength, and population pressure  Rise of the ziabatsu  Japanese government maintained closer supervision of industrialization than Russia

Japan  Incorporated business leaders into its governing structure  Resource poor  Industrialization changed Japan more profoundly than Russia  Universal education system introduced  Government initiative dominated manufacturing (transportation and military)  Economic growth and careful government policy allowed Japan to avoid western domination  Labor organization was repressed

Japan  Diet (parliament)  Sino-Japanese War ( )  Western haircuts, hygiene, calendar, & metric system  Nationalism was built on traditions of superiority, cohesion, deference to rulers, and tensions from rapid change  Nationalism helped them avoid a revolution  Leaders encouraged national loyalty and devotion to the emperor  Japan’s surge promoted a fear in the West of a new yellow peril