The mainsprings of Russia by Maurice Baring
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"The mainsprings of Russia" by Maurice Baring is a cultural and political study written in the early 20th century. It explains the principal forces driving Russian life—above all the peasantry, the nobility, and the government machine—to help general readers replace clichés with informed understanding. Blending brisk historical framing with firsthand observation, it aims to correct Western misreadings and kindle a sympathetic, clear-eyed interest in Russia. The opening of this study begins with
a dedication to H. G. Wells and a preface stating a plain goal: to answer the average traveler’s questions about how Russians live and are governed, briefly and intelligibly, while omitting vast topics like industry, the army, and the Jewish question. A first “retrospect” sketches Russia’s flat geography and colonizing spread; the rise of the Slavs; the Mongol yoke; Russia’s role as Europe’s buffer; Peter the Great’s service state and bureaucracy; Catherine’s Westernizing; the blow to Napoleon; and how serfdom arose from fiscal needs and ended with emancipation. The next section portrays the peasant’s landholding (communal strips versus post‑1905 individual tenure), the political tilt of reforms under Stolypin, and the peasant’s character—deeply religious yet guided by practical common sense—illustrated with vivid anecdotes and a defense of his cautious, economically rational farming choices. The work then explains the “nobility” as a vast service class rather than a true aristocracy, tracing it from boyars and temporary land grants through Peter’s rank system to Catherine’s local roles, emancipation’s reshaping of landownership, and the Zemstvos’ lead in the 1905 push for representation. Finally, it outlines the shift from unlimited autocracy toward a limited one after the 1905 manifesto and the 1906 fundamental laws, establishing a Duma while leaving the Emperor extensive powers, including veto, appointments, dissolution, and emergency ukases. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Baring, Maurice, 1874-1945 |
|---|---|
| LoC No. | 14030978 |
| Title | The mainsprings of Russia |
| Original Publication | London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1914. |
| Credits | Richard Tonsing, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | DK: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Russia, Former Soviet Republics, Poland |
| Subject | Russia |
| Subject | Russia -- Politics and government -- 1894-1917 |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 77805 |
| Release Date | Jan 29, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 351 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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