Society and Economy in Moscow

Abstract

Moscow’s social and economic structure changed with unprecedented rapidity during the civil war. The privations of war, economic collapse and Bolshevik policies combined to undermine the urban economy and previous social relationships. The population declined and the working class was weakened, but at the same time a centralised and bureaucratically administered economy and society emerged. No longer the capital since Peter the Great had built the new city of St Petersburg on the banks of the Neva in the North as a ‘window on the West’, Moscow had nevertheless remained the religious and cultural centre of Russia. While St Petersburg became the hub of the Tsarist bureaucracy, Moscow represented a more traditional and insular heritage.¹ Both cities underwent extensive industrialisation in the nineteenth century, but while in Petersburg foreign capital dominated as massive metal plants were built, Moscow saw greater native investment in smaller plants, primarily in the textile industry. Following the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, Moscow’s population grew rapidly and nearly tripled in size to reach just over a million in 1897.² In the first years of the twentieth century the growth rate of the population was the fastest of any city in the world, and by 1917 it had peaked at over two million (see Table 2.1). In 1913 the city contained 6.5 per cent of Russia’s 25 million urban dwellers, who themselves represented only 18 per cent of the empire’s total population of 137 million.³ The urban expansion took place with a minimum of regard for health and safety as factories seized strategic points on the rail or river networks and threw up ramshackle accommodation for their workers.