Entrepreneurship and the Russian Textile Industry: From Peter the Great to Catherine the Great

Abstract

E arly in his reign, Peter the Great emphasized the development of linen and woolen cloth as an industry that he wished to stimulate in Russia. Previously, a large number of small producers of fine linen and woolen goods, many of them peasants, earned their living in textiles. But these peasant manufacturers and small craftspeople did not make either the kind or the quantity of goods that Peter desired. Moreover, they lacked both the technical knowledge and the capital to serve the military goals that the tsar set before the country. For Peter, implementing and expanding technical skills became a top priority, and he used the full power of the government to bring about the desired results. This study will focus on the textile entrepreneurs who responded to the economic conditions created by Peter I. It will seek to identify these people, the social groups from which they came, and the economic conditions under which they operated between the reigns of Peter I and Catherine II. Peter I wanted to encourage a new category of merchants, not the old elite, but a middle group of townspeople who would be more vigorous, display greater initiative, and seek a wider geographical base in the countryside than the traditional merchant aristocracy. In doing so, Peter cultivated a new group of merchant-manufacturers; yet their activities and values would lead to social conflict, an outcome the tsar neither desired nor anticipated. This social confrontation between the manufacturers and the small producers has attracted much attention from both Western and Soviet historians. Generally, Western historians have emphasized the social structure and the different groups, especially the merchants and craftspeople, who expanded economic activities, while Soviet historians have concentrated on the emergence of capitalism and the social conflicts that accompanied it. In his path-breaking study of the Russian economy in