Several comments in no particular order:
1. Literacy (lack of it) had been seen as huge problem long pre-WWI and government developed detailed program to implement compulsory schooling for youths by 1920 and roll out massive network of adult education centers. Sounds familiar? Well, it should have, because Commies used it almost to a T under nickname "LikBez" (Liquidation of Illiteracy). For sure, they declared it their own (on the side note, a lot of early Commie steps was just implementation of plans drawn by technocrats in Czarist Russia). On a flip side, there's no guarantee that Russian Empire will go ahead with this plan. They wrote a lot of good plans they did not implement.
2. It is kinda sorta tough to compare pace of development in Empire and USSR, as a lot of Soviet production was not market-driven (arms, heavy mining and industrial equipment for arms production, that sort of things). Pre-war Empire went along classic industrialization road (from textiles and foodstuffs to heavy industry), well beaten by England, France and Germany before it. USSR implemented forced industrialization with unimaginably heavy tilt toward heavy iindustry (pun intended).
3. Industrialized Russia will lack entry-level managers most severely. Would you look at population dynamics, you would find that Russia lost a lot of high-level achievers (industry captains, academics, university professors) to emigration, but gained a lot of entry-level managers by lifting ethnicity-based restrictions (Pale, percentages in universities and such). Empire would keep economic "colonels", "generals" and "marshals" IATL but will lack "leutenants".
4. Comparison between Russia, Argentina and Canada is pretty interesting. One should keep in mind that Argentina and Canada were viewed as equals in the beginning of the 20th century, so Russia can really follow one of those 2 routes...